Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 131: Organizing the Guards (Seventh update, 1500 subscriptions plus additional updates!)
The chief minister of the cabinet, Ma Wensheng, and the minister of the Ministry of Personnel, Wang Shu, were busy preparing to implement the grand plan.

Emperor Zhengde Zhu Houzhao had already begun preparing to train a strong army of his own.

Of course, in terms of the system, all the armies of the Ming Dynasty, regardless of their strength, nominally belong to Zhu Houzhao's army, and only Emperor Zhu Houzhao has the supreme command over the army.

After all, the Ming Dynasty was a monarchical and highly centralized dynasty. Since the monarch was autocratic, it meant that the army was legally under the command of the emperor alone.

This is also one of the reasons why Zhu Houzhao was able to always take a high-profile approach and severely crack down on the upright civil servants.

But in fact, it is quite complicated to whom the Ming army belongs.

The main military system of the Ming Dynasty was the military farming system of the garrisons, and the source of soldiers was mainly hereditary military households under the household registration system.

Before the implementation of the conscription system, most military households were actually farmers, tenants of the officers in the garrisons, and were not considered soldiers at all!
However, the soldiers who truly possessed combat effectiveness were all servants and private slaves of the officers, and only obeyed the officers' own orders, because their salaries and supplies were all provided by the officers privately. However, on the surface they were still soldiers of the court.

Many times, these officers were military landlords or even a kind of miniature warlords, while the military households were their tenants and the servants were their guards. They, their servants and tenants formed the military system of the Ming Dynasty.

So, strictly speaking, apart from the regiment and the imperial guards, Zhu Houzhao did not have his own army.

But there is no doubt that the combat effectiveness of the regiment and the imperial guards was very weak. After all, the world had been peaceful for a long time, and the status of military men was low. These officers and soldiers who truly belonged to Zhu Houzhao had long lost their fighting spirit under the double oppression of civil officials and eunuchs.

Zhu Houzhao had no way to change the Wei Suo system at the moment. After all, if he abolished the Wei Suo system now, it would mean that he would deprive all military officers in the world of the privilege of legally enslaving military households, which would arouse resistance from all military landlords in the world.

Therefore, now, if Zhu Houzhao wanted to train a strong army of his own, the only thing he could do was to reorganize the training regiments and imperial guards.

In the 18th year of the Hongzhi reign, Zhu Houzhao took advantage of the opportunity that the rice salary of the Tuanying and the Imperial Guards was in arrears to pay them the rice salary and thus won over the morale of the Tuanying and the Imperial Guards. It was also because of this that he was able to rely on this army to reorganize the Jinyiwei and successfully exterminate Wang Yue, Liu Jian, Li Dongyang, Xie Qian and other rebels.

But now, the combat effectiveness of this army has not been improved, and there are even many redundant personnel. Many of the officers of this army are dukes and nobles who are just waiting to die. Many of them can no longer draw a bow or ride a horse, especially the younger generation.

If Zhu Houzhao wanted to reorganize the army, the first thing he had to do was to cut down on redundant personnel, especially the grassroots officers and soldiers.

However, the most difficult part of eliminating redundant personnel is not the elimination, but the issue of their resettlement after the elimination. After all, these officers and soldiers also have to support their families. Zhu Houzhao can prevent them from serving in the army, but he cannot let them lose hope of survival.

For this purpose, Zhu Houzhao specially summoned Xu Jin, the Grand Secretary of Wuying Palace and Minister of War, to discuss the matter. According to Xu Jin's suggestion, it would be best to distribute land to these laid-off officers and soldiers, let them become civilians, become real self-cultivating farmers, pay taxes and serve!
But the problem is how much unowned land there is to be divided in the world. Before the land is surveyed, the Ministry of Revenue has no idea based on the fish scale book and the yellow book that have not been revised for many years.

Zhu Houzhao thought that since it was impossible to turn these redundant military personnel into self-cultivating farmers in the future, it would be better to turn them into workers. It was better than letting them become refugees or slaves. It would be better to organize them into his own team of workers and let these redundant personnel create their own value through labor through engineering construction.

Therefore, Zhu Houzhao simply did not lay off these redundant personnel and decided to organize them into engineering corps.

Of course, the engineers here are not exactly the same as those in later generations, at least they do not have the technical skills of those in later generations. The engineers that Zhu Houzhao is going to organize now are mostly just workers engaged in engineering construction.

In addition, Zhu Houzhao also decided to transfer these engineers into civilian status in the future, allowing them to apply for retirement and engage in other industries, and even allow them to take the imperial examinations and become officials.

After all, although Zhu Houzhao could not immediately abolish the hereditary military system, he could still transfer some military households to civilians, especially the regiments and imperial guards in the capital. However, Zhu Houzhao could not tell the regiments and imperial guards about his idea yet, because he believed that as long as the officers and soldiers of the regiments and imperial guards knew about it, the soldiers among them would definitely want to transfer to civilians. After all, people of this era knew that civilians were freer than military households.

At the beginning, Zhu Houzhao only ordered the merging of the regiment camp and the imperial guards into the Ming Dynasty Imperial Guards!
The main duties of these two armies were to guard the capital and the palace, and merging them into the Imperial Guard naturally integrated the meaning of protecting the emperor and maintaining the stability of the capital, and also facilitated unified training and organization.

Zhu Houzhao initially asked the Minister of War Xu Jin to re-count the actual number of the Ming Dynasty Guards and re-screen them, ultimately selecting only nearly 70,000 elite soldiers.

This number is naturally much smaller than the 100,000 elite soldiers selected by Yu Qian from the three camps during the Jingtai period. But for Zhu Houzhao, if nearly 70,000 elite soldiers could be trained into strong troops, it would not be a small number.

Zhu Houzhao ordered the Ministry of War and the Imperial Stables to reorganize these 70,000 elite soldiers into five divisions.

Each division is still led by a commander-in-chief, and below the division are organized into brigades, regiments, battalions, companies, and squads.

Each division has two brigades, each brigade has three regiments, each regiment has three battalions, each battalion has five companies, each company has ten teams, each team has three squads, and every five people form a squad.

Although this is a modern military organization, it already appeared in the Zhou Dynasty and people in the Ming Dynasty today can understand it.

Organizing the Guards is just the beginning, training the Guards is the top priority.

However, training 70,000 people is not a small project. Even if Zhu Houzhao is a time traveler and has experienced two military trainings, he may be able to train one or two people by copying them, but that does not mean he can directly train 70,000 people.

However, he invited an officer who was good at training 70,000 troops, and this person was the Ningxia guerrilla general Qiu Yue.

In the early Zhengde period, the military officer that impressed Zhu Houzhao the most was Qiu Yue.

In the original history, this person had the record of suppressing the rebellion of Anhua King Zhu Zongqiang in 18 days. Later, he suppressed many rebellions and was finally awarded the title of Xianning Earl. It can be seen that his military ability was very strong.

After all, it was not easy to obtain a title in the Ming Dynasty, especially to obtain a title through military merit. Generally, such people were people with strong military capabilities. Moreover, Qiu Yue was born in a military family and had practical experience in leading troops in border towns. He was undoubtedly the most suitable person for training troops.

It was for this reason that Zhu Houzhao chose to summon Chou Yue to Beijing and prepare to have him train the imperial guards for him.

Qiu Yue's loyalty is naturally credible. After all, in history, when Zhu Zongqiang, the King of Anhua of Ningxia, rebelled, he did not betray the court, let alone the fact that Zhu Zongqiang, the King of Anhua, has not yet rebelled.

However, Qiu Yue has not started training the Guards yet, because the reorganization of the Guards has not yet been completed. In the Ming Dynasty, where a mixture of cold and hot weapons are used, it takes time to rationally allocate arms during the reorganization process.

Qiu Yue is now an instructor at the Imperial University of Peking, and he is training Zhu Houzhao, Wang Yangming, Yan Song and other literati as well as a group of children of nobles.

Thanks to the book friend Qingsong for 10000 book coins and the reward from the helmsman. Thank you to the book friend I heard that the name can only have twelve characters at most. Thank you to the book friend Qianhen100 for 01 starting coins and the reward from 100 for 20171027185303596 starting coins and the reward from the hall master. Thank you to the book friend Yuanfangdeshan for 100 starting coins and the reward from the hall master. Thank you to the book friend Tongrenxiansen for 20000 starting coins and the reward from the hall master. I have to add another chapter, but I owe it now. I am too tired to write it today. The establishment of the Guards here is consistent with the suggestion of a book friend. The purpose is to lay the foundation for the establishment of a field army, which is mainly responsible for external attacks. Another national defense army will be established in the future. Thank you to the book friends for subscribing and supporting!



(End of this chapter)