Ming Dynasty: Ask Zhu Yuanzhang to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 148 The Ming Dynasty’s first navy!
When the news that the Ming Military Academy was recruiting new soldiers spread, the whole Jinling city was in an uproar.

Since the Song Dynasty, there has been a saying among the people that "good men don't serve as soldiers, and good iron is not used to make nails."

Even today, when the Ming Dynasty was just established, the status of military men is still relatively high, but military households are still looked down upon by the world.

There was once a county where someone repeatedly forged Ming Dynasty banknotes. In a rage, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered that all the people in the county be demoted to military households.

In other words, in this era, being transferred from an ordinary citizen to a military household was considered a severe punishment measure.

It is easy to imagine how low the status of soldiers is.

Of course, this only applies to the lowest-level soldiers.

For officers, the logic is completely different.

Military generals who command large armies are undoubtedly objects of awe and envy among the common people.

Even if he is a centurion, or a general flag of a lower level, he is definitely someone that ordinary people cannot afford to offend.

Even for civil officials, the status of military generals and nobles at that time was far higher than theirs.

Only the lowest-ranking soldiers were looked down upon.

In a sense, the military households of the Ming Dynasty during this era had more or less a flavor of slavery.

Each officer at each level was a slave owner of varying sizes.

The lowest-level soldiers were slaves who were driven at will by them.

It is only natural that the people are unwilling to become soldiers.

But the recruits recruited by the Ming Military Academy are different.

In Jinling City and even in the entire Ming Dynasty, who doesn’t know what the Ming Military Academy is!
The Crown Prince personally served as the dean, and even royal relatives such as the Prince of Yan and the Duke of Liang studied there.

Previously, one had to be at least a commander to be qualified to study there.

And now, they are actually recruiting ordinary soldiers to join.

Although it was stated that the students would only be ordinary sergeants or low-ranking officers after graduation, everyone could see that it would not be that simple.

Entering such a school, becoming a student of the Crown Prince, and becoming classmates with Prince of Yan, Duke of Liang and others, your future prospects will definitely be limitless.

What's more, it is clearly written in the recruitment brochure that once admitted, the treatment will be preferential.

Students became soldiers upon admission and enjoyed a monthly salary of two taels of silver. The court also provided free food and lodging during their admission and military service.

This is no small sum of money.

In this era, if you worked as a long-term laborer in a landlord's house for a long time, the salary you could get at the end of the year was only eight taels of silver.

Two taels of silver per month, that is twenty-four taels per year, which is three times what a farmhand earns for a landlord.

Moreover, the food at the Ming Military Academy is definitely much better than the food that the landlords provide to their farmhands.

Not to mention, the farmhands never see any hope of getting ahead in their lives.

You can enter the Ming Military Academy. If you perform well and make great achievements in the future, you will truly be able to turn your life around and sing about your success.

More importantly, there are no restrictions on recruiting sergeants this time.

As long as they are not prisoners, whether they are ordinary people or military households and soldiers, they can all sign up voluntarily.

Once you pass the entrance examination, you will become the first batch of soldier cadets at the Ming Military Academy.

For ordinary people, this is an opportunity to rise to fame overnight.

After the news spread, people who came to register quickly crowded the streets near the entrance of the Ming Military Academy.

Of course, those who reacted the fastest were not ordinary people, but the children of meritorious officials.

Many noble and meritorious officials have many sons.

Not every son can inherit the title.

Generally speaking, except for the eldest son, other sons can only fend for themselves.

Of course, with the protection of their ancestors, they can usually make a good living.

However, how can that compare to studying at the Ming Military Academy?

There is a rumor that the first batch of soldier cadets of the Ming Military Academy will most likely be taught by the Crown Prince himself.

In other words, although they were recruited as soldiers, they were actually trained as officers. As long as they were admitted, they would become the direct disciples of the Crown Prince.

This is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Therefore, no matter how spoiled they were before, most of them were rushed to the Ming Military Academy by their parents to sign up for military service.

In the Ming Military Academy, examiners transferred from various places are organizing the entrance examination in strict accordance with the examination standards set by Zhu Yunhuan.

Generally speaking, it is divided into cultural test and physical test.

That's right!

The Ming Military Academy requires that every student enrolled must have received a certain level of cultural education and be able to read and write.

For later generations, this requirement is very low.

But for this era, it has directly blocked most people.

Fortunately, there are quite a few people who meet the requirements.

Not all scholars will take the path of imperial examinations.

This is because the imperial examination has very high cultural requirements.

Among the people, there are still a large number of people who send their children to school for one or two years.

Let your child learn a few words so that he won’t be blind when he grows up.

This is the wish of many ordinary parents.

It is difficult to train a scholar who can pass the imperial examination, and ordinary families simply cannot afford it.

However, when children are seven or eight years old or in their teens, many ordinary families can still afford to send their children to school for a few years to complete basic enlightenment education.

Even someone like Zhu Yuanzhang, who came from a very poor family, could learn to read and write by becoming a monk in a temple.

Tang He, whose parents died when he was young and whose family lived in poverty, could also recognize words.

This shows that people with a basic level of literacy are widely present among the people.

Of course, it is impossible for such a person to take part in the imperial examination.

Their cultural level is far from enough.

But they happen to be the main group of people who subscribe to the "Da Ming Daily", and they fully meet the requirements of the Daming Military Academy to recruit cadets.

As for the physical fitness test, the children of nobles originally thought that they would be tested on items such as archery and martial arts.

This is a requirement for many military tests.

But in the end, the Ming Military Academy tested vision, hearing, running and swimming, which shocked many people.

Vision and hearing are good and just need to meet basic requirements.

Running and swimming eliminated quite a few people.

In addition, there is another crucial test, which is the test of courage and bravery.

Lan Yu was the chief examiner for this test.

In the examination room, a student who had just passed multiple previous tests stood under the target.

Lan Yu stood dozens of meters away, drew his bow and arrow, aiming at the students.

Instantly, the student was trembling with fear. Lan Yu frowned slightly, put down his bow and arrow, and said, "Next."

This student is obviously unqualified and there is no need to waste time.

The second student came forward, and he was much calmer than the previous student.

"Snapped!"

An arrow was shot out, and the student was so scared that he quickly lowered his head to avoid it.

Lan Yu shook her head slightly: "Next."

Soon, the third student stepped forward and stood under the target.

Lan Yu drew his bow and the arrow flew out.

"Crack!"

With a slight sound, the arrow shot into the center of the target an inch above the student's head.

The student remained motionless and looked calm as usual.

A smile appeared on Lan Yu's face.

With his archery skills, at this distance, he wouldn't miss the target by even a fraction of a second even with his eyes closed.

But for those who face the arrows directly, it is a different feeling.

They will be nervous and will not be able to help but want to dodge.

Only a person with real courage can be so calm.

Such people are indifferent to life and death.

On the battlefield, no matter what kind of danger we encounter, we will never desert.

They have the courage to fight to the death!
An army composed entirely of such soldiers is truly elite.

"Pass!"

Lan Yu shouted loudly.

Then a new test began.

……

Zhu Yunhuan was inspecting the examination room.

The first batch of students at the Ming Military Academy are extraordinary.

In his plan, these people will become the core backbone of the entire Ming army in the future.

Of course, there will be a second, third, and fourth phase... and recruitment will continue uninterrupted.

As the new army of the Ming Dynasty, it will eventually replace most of the original troops.

Of course, the number of troops would be greatly reduced.

Because after the combat effectiveness is greatly improved, there is no need for so many troops.

The advantage of the military household system established by Zhu Yuanzhang is that soldiers are both soldiers and civilians.

Farming in leisure time and serving in the army in wartime.

They all had land allocated by the court, which was enough to meet their living needs, and the court did not have to pay additional military pay.

This system was able to be established because after the war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, there were large amounts of wasteland and unowned land in the world that could be used as military settlements.

Secondly, there are countless displaced refugees.

Using them as military households would not only meet the needs of the country's military force construction, but would also allow the refugees to grow crops and have enough food to eat.

Kill two birds with one stone!
However, the disadvantages are also obvious.

The focus of the military households’ lives was not on fighting, but on farming.

After all, there was no benefit to them in fighting the war, not even any military pay.

Farming is the real profit.

Over time, the military strength of the garrison naturally became weaker and weaker.

Secondly, the military household system overly strengthened the power of military officers.

Soldiers must obey the orders of their superiors unconditionally.

This is of course not a problem when performing combat missions and is also an inevitable requirement.

But if we return to our daily lives and farming to support our families, there will be big problems.

For hereditary officers such as the general flag and the centurion, since the soldiers must obey my orders, then of course the soldiers have to help me cultivate my family's fields.

After all, even in modern armies of later generations, officers in many countries still often order soldiers to do private work for them.

Not to mention the current Ming Dynasty.

Because of the power of military officers, it is almost impossible for the country to completely ban such things.

Not only that, the grain output from the soldier’s family’s farmland also belongs to me. The soldier’s family’s farmland is my family’s farmland!

Because the state must maintain the prestige of officers and cannot allow soldiers and officers to confront each other.

But without resistance, soldiers will allow officers to manipulate them at will. Over time, they will lose everything and become slaves of their officers.

In fact, this is precisely the root cause of the almost complete collapse of the military household system in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.

In the end, almost all of the soldiers' fields were occupied by officers at all levels.

The military households who lost their land were worse off than slaves, and their only option was to escape.

At the peak period, nearly 80% of the military households escaped.

Most of the 20% who stayed behind were old, weak, sick or disabled.

The military household system eventually became a mere formality.

The garrisons in various places gradually lost their combat effectiveness.

However, at least for now, the military discipline of the Ming Dynasty is still strict, the garrison soldiers are still capable of fighting, and Zhu Yunhuan does not intend to abolish this system anytime soon.

The Weisuo system has its merits, especially for border areas.

The new army will only be built up gradually and implemented slowly.

The first new army, of course, is the navy.

Because the navy is different from the army.

The navy is a highly professional branch of the military and must be staffed by professional soldiers and officers.

The garrison soldiers were clearly not up to the task.

After an inspection, Zhu Yunhuan nodded with satisfaction.

It seems that there are enough people signing up, so there should be no problem in recruiting qualified soldiers.

only.

Who should be the commander of the Ming Dynasty's first navy?
As soon as the thought came to his mind, a tall figure came into view.

"Your Highness, can I enter the Ming Military Academy?"

……

(End of this chapter)