The Soldier of the Red Mansion

Chapter 377 Unreliable

Of the 55,000 soldiers in the Datong army, less than half had families.

In the past, local people would not marry their daughters to militiamen who came from the mainland to serve in the military. Even so, there were more than 160,000 soldiers and their families.

A true military town.

The total population of Datong is less than 300,000.

There are now more than 26,000 herding households and nearly 170,000 people outside the pass.

The combined population inside and outside the Great Wall is 450,000 to 460,000.

The population figures outside the pass were more accurate, while those inside were mainly based on predictions, because the official records held by the government were inaccurate.

If the 160,000 people are not military personnel, but rather non-agricultural workers engaged in various industries, then this figure is not bad; in some respects, it is even quite good.

Unfortunately not.

Therefore, Datong's population structure is very unfavorable to economic development.

But Wang Xin could not change it.

It's called the Nine Border Garrisons because its original purpose wasn't economic development, but rather military. The places where economic development was the main focus were inland, in the Jiangnan region. That's why the military strength in the southeast was weak, which gave the Japanese pirates the opportunity to run rampant.

There is always a way out.

Every advantage has its disadvantages.

Every great disadvantage has its great advantage.

The Hetao region has repeatedly become a major threat to the Central Plains, which must be due to its unique advantages.

If it can be utilized, it can also become an asset.

Unknowingly.

Spring passes and winter comes.

Honeycomb briquettes became popular in Datong City. No one knows who invented them. They were made of four parts yellow clay and six parts coal ash, pressed into honeycomb briquettes using wooden molds. They were durable and could be used for cooking and also provide hot water at any time.

The fire opening of a coal stove can be large or small, and two or three honeycomb briquettes can last a day.

Is Datong lacking yellow clay or coal mines?

What's lacking is money.

Nowadays, even the militiamen have spare money to buy wine every month, not to mention the large number of soldiers with families, who earn a total of two taels of silver per month, which makes many people envious.

They are the main buyers of honeycomb briquettes.

Many new adobe houses were built outside Datong City. I don't know when it started, but it became popular for newly built houses to have chimneys for burning coal, which made the houses very warm in winter.

Every morning.

The drivers of donkey carts, loaded with honeycomb briquettes, headed to the streets and alleys.

"Coal seller." A woman at the door didn't come out, but waved from behind the curtain. She was only wearing a thin outer garment, through which you could see her pink undergarments.

The driver, while driving the cart, not only gave way to pedestrians but also kept a keen eye on everything around him.

Before the woman finished speaking, the driver skillfully shook the reins, and the donkey seemed to understand, walking accurately toward the woman. When it was a few steps away, it silently lowered its head and stopped.

The coachman gave a clasped-hands salute.

The crossed-hands salute appeared in the Western Jin Dynasty and was popular during the Tang, Five Dynasties, Liao, Song, Jin, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties.

It is a common greeting among ordinary people in daily life, which can be performed by people of all ages and genders. It is a gesture of respect from those of lower status to those of higher status.

When a woman wants to buy something, the coachman dares not be disrespectful.

After the driver bowed, the woman returned the bow, but her eyes were fixed on the honeycomb briquettes, examining their quality.

Besides the crossed-hands salute, there is also the cupped-hands salute. The latter is used less among common people and is generally used by people of some status or young people with a somewhat flamboyant personality. It is more commonly used among scholars.

The woman returned the gesture with a curtsy.

The curtsy is a term used by later generations; in reality, it was called the Wanfu salute at the time.

The standard Wanfu greeting involves interlocking the fingers of both hands and placing them on the left or right side of the body, sometimes in front of the chest, while slightly squatting down and saying "Wanfu" (meaning "blessings"). However, the woman clearly did not pay much attention to it.

The Wanfu Li (a type of gift) originated in the Song Dynasty and became popular again in the Ming Dynasty.

"Leave fifty yuan," the woman said, oblivious to the problem, her tone threatening. "If it doesn't work, you'll have to take it back."

Don't worry.

In order to sell the honeycomb briquettes on his cart as quickly as possible, the driver spoke sweet words while working swiftly.

In no time at all, a whole board was neatly stacked on the wooden board.

With hemp ropes tied to both sides of the board, he slipped it around his neck, his belly protruding, and the driver, carrying fifty honeycomb briquettes, quickly went to the place the woman pointed out, placing them next to the original honeycomb briquettes.

The woman did not pay, and the driver did not accept the money either, so the matter was recorded in the books.

We'll collect them all when we get the whole number.

After the driver left and the door was closed again, the woman washed herself up, replaced the nearly burnt-out honeycomb briquettes in the coal stove with new ones, and then used the hot water from the copper kettle on the coal stove to wash her clothes.

Finally, I made a pot of wontons and cooked them. I worked quickly and efficiently, finishing everything in less than half an hour. By then, it was already broad daylight.

Sunlight streamed through the window.

The naked man in bed on the kang (heated brick bed) had just gotten up with two equally naked children.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu"

The man made faces as he put on his clothes, making the two children giggle. The woman laughed and complained, "Hurry up and put on your clothes, or you'll catch a cold."

"Then you'll catch a cold."

The man said with dissatisfaction, "Our son is very strong."

Despite saying it, he stopped teasing the child.

After helping the children wash their faces and rinse their mouths, the family sat down at the table. The woman carried a large pot of wontons, and all the bowls and chopsticks were ready. The two children wolfed down their food, which made the man smile.

“This time it’s our turn to go out and sweep the border, and we won’t be able to go back for another two or three months. Why don’t we bring your mother here?” the man said as he ate.

The woman knew this and felt uneasy.

"Be careful."

The man didn't care and said, "What are the barbarians? Some people used to say that one Han is worth five barbarians. We are much more powerful than the ancients. One Han is worth ten barbarians."

"Keep bragging." The woman rolled her eyes.

In previous years, who wasn't worried about the nomadic tribes invading the pass?

I still remember when I was a child, my parents often spoke of their fear of the Hu people, but I never expected things to change so quickly.

"There are definitely casualties." The man spoke frankly, admitting, "Soldiers eat rations, this is what we eat. Life is so good now, besides, do you think I can just quit whenever I want?"

The woman fell silent.

The whole family depends on the military pay from their father to make a living. Although they are worried, that is the reality.

The man asked, "I told you to bring your mother here, why didn't you say anything?"

"It's easy to take it in, but what if things change back later?" The woman said calmly. "We should save more money at home."

Back then, their family was in dire straits. When they went to their elder brother's house to borrow grain, not only were they refused, but they were also scolded and turned away. The woman refused to visit them.

"With General Jie around, how could things change?"

The man retorted once, but then fell silent.

He was afraid too.

I'm tired of living a hard life.

There was a time when my wife almost went into the business of selling half-closed doors.

At that time, I wished I were dead.

That's so pathetic.

But what can you do even if you're unwilling to accept it?

The man dared not even imagine what it felt like, and wished he had never experienced it; it was a humiliation for him.

"gone."

After finishing his meal, he patted his two sons on the head, gave them some instructions, and went out to the barracks. He put on a thick sheepskin coat, hung a large knife at his waist, and quickly disappeared around the street corner.

Datong is a military city.

One by one, the soldiers assembled, and Zhao Yong stood ready with his sword drawn.

The three generals of Datong.

Zhao Yong, Tang Ping, and Zhou Wen.

Zhou Wen was a figurehead; Liu Tong was the actual commander of the Western Army.

The three generals took turns leading their teams out of the pass to sweep through the enemy lines.

It serves both as a training exercise and as a means to protect peace and stability in the border regions, allowing herders to graze their livestock with peace of mind and merchants to conduct business with confidence. Each group performs its duties, and these are regular military operations that last for two months at a time.

Zhao Yong led the team this time.

"Woooooo~"

barracks.

A line of buglers sounded their horns.

"Tattoo~"

Squads of flags moved out, carrying muskets with musket blades attached, and rows of soldiers advanced in waves like ripples in a sea of ​​flags.

"Xilulu."

The riding team set off.

The artillery, however, did not take any; they only took a hundred or so light small breech-loading cannons.

More than 10,000 troops marched out of Gudianbao, and then Zhao Yong took command in Jining. The various units set off in turn, the furthest reaching the north bank of the Yellow River and the westernmost reaching the Yinshan Mountains, a round trip of four or five thousand li, with some units even covering six or seven thousand li. After the army set off, there were far fewer pedestrians on the streets of Datong.

The Marshal's Mansion, however, was even busier.

At the most difficult juncture, Xue Baochai's 200,000 taels of silver undoubtedly played a crucial role.

This is the effect of having a good teammate.

Even though 200,000 taels was a significant blow to the Xue family's eldest branch, it was not easy for them to come up with so much cash, which further demonstrated Xue Baochai's boldness. In any case, it would have been absolutely impossible for that fool Xue.

Upon returning to Datong, Wang Xin quickly opened six channels.

Shuozhou in Shanxi to the southwest, Guangchang County and Lingqiu County in Shanxi to the southeast, Tiancheng City in Xuanfu to the northeast, Gudian outside the pass north of Datong City, and Tuanshankou in the northwest.

The Western Army of Datong originally had two passes: Tuanshan Pass and Weiyuan Pass.

The reason why Weiyuan Pass was developed in the past was not because Weiyuan Pass had a better terrain than Tuanshan Pass, but because the road out of Tuanshan Pass was the easiest. Therefore, the imperial court built two Great Walls outside Tuanshan Pass.

Historically, this involved people migrating westward and venturing into Guangdong.

Going west through the pass refers to Fugu Pass in Shaanxi, Shahu Pass in Datong, and Zhangjia Pass in Xuanfu.

Kill Tiger Pass is located in Tuanshan.

Tuanshan was called Tuanshan Polubao in the Ming Dynasty, and Shahukou was also called Shahukou in the Ming Dynasty.

Kill Hu Pass was later renamed Kill Tiger Pass during the Qing Dynasty.

in short.

All checkpoints along the route in Datong were abolished, including those set up by the government, and no force or individual was allowed to set up checkpoints privately.

The government, of course, wouldn't allow it.

But Wang Xin didn't care; now was the best time.

Now that he had some money, Zhang Jifu didn't care about himself. He wanted to take advantage of these few years to develop Datong and, by monopolizing the land outside the Great Wall, make Datong a transshipment trading center for both inside and outside the Great Wall, thus laying the foundation for prosperity.

To put it bluntly...

The imperial court is currently preoccupied with its own affairs.

Not only could he see it, but others could too. For example, the Prince of Dongping was eager to make a move. Why did he dare to risk the court's wrath by secretly allying with the barbarians? Wasn't it because he saw the court's current predicament?

The same opportunity, different people make different choices.

The only difference between myself and the Prince of Dongping is their methods of doing things.

His own army of over 50,000 men was paid actual wages, which were higher than the original wages paid by the imperial court. Because prices were high, it was still unfair to the soldiers to pay them according to the old wages paid by the imperial court, even if it was actual wages.

Therefore, their approach was to encourage commerce and obtain the necessary military funding by expanding the total amount of social wealth.

However, people like the Prince of Dongping, from the old era, still used the old methods.

Why did he want to unite with the barbarians?
Because barbarians are cheap.

The approach adopted was to reduce costs.

This was how the Han and Tang dynasties always did it, and it caused endless troubles.

The Ming Dynasty did exactly that. Nurhaci's ancestors were loyal border generals of the Ming Dynasty for generations and were well-liked since the reign of Emperor Yongle.

They were obedient, easy to use, and cheap, which is why the Ming Dynasty agreed to allow this branch of the family to relocate to Jianzhou.

This fishing and hunting tribe acquired more resources than other tribes, had arable land, and was close to Liaodong, making it easy to obtain supplies from the Ming Dynasty. The Jianzhou Jurchens quickly rose to prominence.

They're both hunters, so who's better at fighting?

In the course of the attack, for every thousand enemies killed, eight hundred of our own were lost.

However, the Jianzhou Jurchens were able to obtain resources from the Ming Dynasty and cultivate the land to produce more people, allowing them to recover their strength faster than other tribes, which is why they were able to eliminate their opponents one by one.

Therefore, Wang Xin was very dissatisfied with the actions of the Prince of Dongping.

In fact, the Jia family had a deeper relationship with the Prince of Dongping than with the Prince of Beijing. The ancestors of the Jia family and the Prince of Dongping were comrades-in-arms on the battlefield, and the Ning and Rong mansions contained calligraphy by the first Prince of Dongping.

Moreover, the estates of the Rong and Ning families were also located in Liaodongbei Town, which was the fiefdom of the Prince of Dongping.

Daheishan has 20,000 mu of land belonging to Ningguo Prefecture, and Xiaoheishan has 20,000 mu of land belonging to Rongguo Prefecture. Both mountains belong to the two prefectures.

Therefore, in the original text, Old Wutou of Ningguo Mansion brought 2,500 taels of silver and various mountain products back to the mansion. From the description of the journey, it can be seen that it was outside the pass, and there was also the expected 5,000 taels.

The harvest from land outside the Great Wall is far less than that from the interior; it's considered good if one or two bushels of grain can be harvested from one mu of land.

The Jia family's power was not what it used to be, and they could no longer accomplish many things.

The silver tael was not something ordinary people could sell their grain at will; it was controlled by local powerful families. On the market, one tael of silver was worth two shi of grain, but the price for purchasing grain was not that high.

One tael of silver was worth four shi (a unit of dry measure).

Judging from my own experience, I find it so difficult to cope with a lack of money, let alone the Prince of Dongping in Liaodong. Even if the relationship between the Prince and the Jia family's ancestors is deep, he will at most not deduct the Jia family's supplies. So, the silver will be converted in the same way as before.

So, with 20,000 mu of farmland suffering poor harvests due to years of natural disasters, each mu might not even yield a shi (a unit of dry measure). Plus, with the emperor far away and the people under the estate not daring to interfere, in the end, it would just be half of the five thousand taels.

As for the various mountain products, both dead and alive, they all came from the Black Mountain.

It seems that when his son was born, the Prince of Dongping's mansion sent a gift. Because there were too many people sending gifts and he didn't intend to return the favor, he didn't pay much attention to it. He exchanged all the gifts for silver to fund the military expenses.

I've now weathered the toughest part.

The budget began to balance.

Fortunately, the account books showed more than 200,000 taels of silver, but he still owed more than 300,000 taels of silver to various households.

Therefore, he felt unhappy whenever he thought about how the imperial court owed him 420,000 taels of military expenses every year.

Moreover, the Great Zhou Dynasty clearly did not face the threat of the Later Jin Dynasty as it did in the original timeline.

There was no need to spend millions or even tens of millions of taels of silver every year to fill the gaps in Liaodong. The cost was that most soldiers in the Nine Garrisons would not receive their military pay for several years. However, the Great Zhou Dynasty suffered from the same problems with officials as the Great Ming Dynasty.
No matter how much silver passes through their hands, very little remains by the time it reaches the lower levels.

Just like the taxes collected during the Chongzhen reign, which actually far exceeded those during the Tianqi and Wanli reigns.

Emperor Chongzhen was indeed very capable in collecting taxes, far more so than his brother and grandfather, but in the end, the taxes fell into the hands of the soldiers. Otherwise, he would have lamented before his death that all the civil officials were worthy of being killed, but he didn't take the military officials with him.

So when I returned to Datong, the military expenditure in Datong was 1.4 million taels. When I arrived in Datong, there were still 980,000 taels left, but in the end, the soldiers received less than a fraction of that amount.

From these small details, we can glean insights into the state of the Liaodong Military Command.

Although the civil unrest was coming to an end, the imperial court was unreliable.

Who knows when another problem will arise?

Therefore, Wang Xin was always worried that the imperial court would owe him more military rations. He could still find a way to pay the current hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, but if it were hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, he wouldn't be able to raise the money even if he sold himself.

Upon arriving at Zeng Zhi's residence, he asked, "Has this month's pay arrived yet?"

Zeng Zhi shook his head.

Wang Xin was not disappointed as expected. He looked at the people in the room and decided, "Arrange for a reliable person to go to Datong to urge the prefect. There are also several censors. They can't just keep an eye on us and ignore the court."

"It's no use going to them; we need someone from the imperial court."

Zeng Zhi was well aware of the ways of officialdom. “Although Zhang Jifu agreed to the military governor’s request, how difficult is his situation? Unless someone of great influence urges him in front of him, or the military governor urges him in person, he will definitely drag his feet as much as possible.”

"Who are we going to see right now?" Wang Xin said, speechless.

Since he left without saying goodbye, indirectly refusing Lin Ruhai and Jia Zheng, Lin Ruhai was alright, but Jia Zheng had completely disappeared without a trace, as if he wanted to sever ties with him.

Admittedly, I didn't satisfy him, but there's no need to ignore it.

Ultimately, he still retained a scholarly air.

Without their support, he quickly lost his voice in the court. There are gains and losses, and this was not unexpected for Wang Xin.

But we must also face the real difficulties.

Whether Zhang Jifu intentionally or unintentionally delayed himself, given the nature of officialdom, his subordinates would only delay even more.

“Otherwise, I’ll go back to Beijing,” Zeng Zhi suggested.

Wang Xin hesitated.

What use would Zeng Zhi's return to the capital be?

“I’m going to see Lu Zhongheng. He’s a close friend of ours. If we can persuade him to help ease the tension, it will be easier to convince Lord Lin, provided Jia Zheng agrees.” That’s what Zeng Zhi thought.

That is one possible approach.

“I’ll go back,” Zhang Yuncheng said with a smile. “The Marshal’s Mansion can’t do without you. I’m also familiar with the capital and I’m friends with Lu Zhongheng.”

"it is good."

Wang Xin made the decision immediately.

If you have high standards for yourself, you won't get rich even if you become an official.

Many people left disappointed.

If someone wants to get rich, they should go into business. Wang Xin doesn't stop them. But if they hope to get rich by becoming officials, then society is doomed.

In short, there are not many trustworthy civil officials around him now. Zeng Zhi has always been by his side, and Datong cannot do without him now. On the contrary, he himself has nothing to do with military affairs.

The rest is all taken care of; you don't need to worry about it.

Having finalized the arrangements, Zhang Yuncheng packed his belongings and, under the guidance of the military governor's office, set off back to the capital with four or five riders. These days, there were many bandits on the road, and traveling alone was unsafe.

Should we raise tariffs?

Zeng Zhi was also worried; the burden of supporting tens of thousands of soldiers was too heavy.

What's the use of shifting the blame to the imperial court?

Without money to support their families, and with the imperial court far away, they could only direct their anger at the military governor's office.

At that time, the prestige of the military governor's office will be greatly shaken, and he will be unable to command the soldiers.

But with an army of 55,000, 20,000 to 30,000 horses, and more than 10,000 head of livestock, the cost of feeding the people and feeding the horses, as well as maintaining the fortresses, keeping all kinds of military equipment, inspecting the warehouses, and so on, all of these things cost money.
Fortunately, the "Open Market Policy" launched by the military governor's office was successfully implemented. Combined with tariff concessions, it attracted merchants to bring grain from the south, thus stabilizing grain prices in Datong.

Otherwise, based on the original grain prices, let alone breaking even, it would immediately turn into a deficit.

Datong's conditions were destined to be too dependent on the imperial court, and the imperial court was too unreliable. Not only the military governor, but anyone who knew the income and expenditure of the military governor's office was worried.

(End of this chapter)