Daming Military Empire

Chapter 37 Countermeasures
Zhu Cijiong knew that the peasant uprising was the biggest problem in the late Ming Dynasty. Whether it was caused by natural disasters or man-made disasters, the final result was that Li Zicheng invaded the capital and Emperor Chongzhen was forced to commit suicide.He doesn't want to be a king of subjugation, so how to deal with the endless waves of peasant uprisings?
Do you use silver taels for disaster relief?This is obviously unrealistic. In the first year of Chongzheng, only 500 million taels were distributed due to the severe drought in Sichuan and Shaanxi. This is still a drop in the bucket, and it cannot solve the problem of hungry people at all.In the following four provinces, Henan, Shanxi, Sichuan, and Shaanxi, there have been severe droughts year after year, and 1000 million taels a year is not enough!

There is only 3000 million taels of silver left in the national treasury, and there is no need to count on the annual tax at all. The salaries of officials plus the food and salaries of Liaodong will be posted every year!Therefore, it is definitely not feasible to use silver taels for disaster relief. After three years of relief, Ming Dynasty will go bankrupt!

Some people may think that it is enough to just go and suppress, since Daming has plenty of troops.This method is also unrealistic. Ming Dynasty had an army, so as long as he had money, it would not be a problem to recruit 200 million troops.But the key is that there is no money. The annual military expenditure of the 30 troops in Liaodong is 900 million taels. How many troops are needed to suppress bandits in the four provinces?

Each province sends 40 to 200 garrison guards to die, and the rebel army is hundreds of thousands at every turn. Although they are all farmers, the garrison guards are basically farmers who have put down their hoes, but they are equipped with a little bit of equipment.Therefore, if you want to send a guard, a province must send at least [-] troops, and [-] troops will cost [-] million a year. It's better to use silver taels to relieve disasters.

Of course, you can also mobilize the elite frontier army to suppress it. At that time, Zhu Youjian mobilized the elite frontier army. As a result, the peasant uprising was not wiped out, but the Houjin cavalry rushed into the hinterland of Ming Dynasty, fighting on both sides, and both sides collapsed!

There is no money for disaster relief and no money for conscription, so what should we do?

Zhu Cijiong had no choice but to ask people for advice. He directly announced the situation in Shaanxi at the court meeting, and asked all officials to use their brains to write a memorial. He would look for it again to see if there was a good solution. .

The officials of the Ming Dynasty were all from the imperial examinations. They couldn't do anything else. Writing memorials was easy, so Zhu Cijiong received thousands of memorials the next day!
Naturally, there are so many memorials that one person can't read, and Sun Chengzong is not there, so he has to call the other three cabinet ministers and Xin Wang Zhu Youjian to the imperial study room, and everyone will look for them together to see if they can find some useful memorials.

In the end, everyone found it, but the opinions were not unified.

Han Kuang, a scholar of the Hall of Martial Arts and Minister of the Ministry of Officials, prefers to use silver taels for disaster relief. He is looking for memorials in this regard, and Zhu Cijiong naturally disagrees with this method.Just kidding, one or two years is fine, but it will be like this for the next ten years, where did so much money come from.

Daozong, a scholar of Wenyuan Pavilion and Minister of the Ministry of Finance, prefers to mobilize troops to encircle and suppress, so there is no need to consider this either.

The letter king Zhu Youjian is quite strange, he took a fancy to a memorial, which was written by Yang He, the right servant of the former Ministry of War, which probably means that the rise of "thieves" is always due to the extreme famine, and the people are in dire straits. It is advisable to "maintain appeasement, supplemented by pursuit and suppression."

Xu Guangqi was even worse, he didn't even look at a single memorial, because he had his own idea: what he meant was to go all out to produce flintlock guns!why?Because the rebel army had no armor or cavalry, this flintlock gun with a range of 1 paces was invincible in front of those peasants. As long as the ammunition was sufficient, it would only take a quarter of an hour for 10 people to kill [-] people!

Zhu Cijiong is depressed. Xu Guangqi’s suggestion is good. It is enough for a province to send [-] musketeers. He can’t afford hundreds of thousands of troops, but tens of thousands of troops can still afford it. But the main problem is this kind of first-generation flintlock. He didn't even intend to mass-produce it!
There is a more advanced new flintlock gun behind it, with a range of 500 meters, and fighting cavalry is like cutting wheat.Like this flintlock gun with a range of 300 meters, it takes 100 meters to penetrate the armor. After hitting it, the Golden Cavalry can deal a wave or two of damage. What use is that?
Now that Xu Guangqi said this, he was a little moved.It’s not good to fight cavalry, but it’s a magic weapon to fight against the rebels. Besides, is Hou Jin still going to attack the city in the end? You can only use infantry to attack the city. This kind of infantry with flintlock guns is also very cruel At worst, the imperial guards will all use new types of flintlock guns, and these old ones will be used by the border guards to defend the city.

Thinking of this, Zhu Cijiong no longer hesitated. He announced on the spot that he would use Xu Guangqi's opinion to produce flintlock guns with all his strength.Of course, the production of flintlock guns also takes time, so Yang He's suggestion is to delay time, which is quite appropriate, and he also adopted it.

The final result of the discussion was to appoint Yang He as the governor of Shaanxi and give him 100 million taels of silver to hold back the rebels in Shaanxi.At the same time, the Ministry of Industry was ordered to produce flintlock guns with all its strength, at least [-] within a year!
There is a saying that the ideal is plump, but the reality is skinny. This method seems to be good, but problems arise as soon as it is implemented.

There was nothing wrong with Yang He. After taking the money, he rushed to Shaanxi to take up his post, and promised firmly that he would definitely appease those peasants.

The problem lies with the Ministry of Industry. They simply can't make so many flintlock guns in a short period of time!
why?The new military factory is about to be completed, and the place is definitely big enough; materials such as pig iron, charcoal, and coal are not in short supply in Ming Dynasty.There is neither a lack of space nor a lack of materials. Why can't so many flintlock guns be made?

The problem is simple: lack of people.

Bi Maokang calculated that a flintlock gun has about 500 large and small parts, among which the barrel, medicine chamber, screws, etc. all need to be machined. In this way, if the annual output is [-] pieces, [-] simple lathes are needed. , twenty simple drilling machines.A machine tool has three shifts a day, with two people in each shift, and nearly [-] machine tool operators alone are needed.

In addition, 500 people are needed for sand casting, about 1000 people are needed for manual processing, and about 100 people are needed for final assembly and debugging. In this way, the new military factory needs to recruit at least 2000 people to ensure an annual output of [-] flintlock guns. .

Someone wants to ask, is Daming still short of people? There are millions of people in the capital alone!

If it is modern, there is no problem, not to mention millions of people, more than 1 people can be found out of 2000 people.But this is the Ming Dynasty, and few people in the Ming Dynasty have studied modern mathematics and physics.If you ask someone to turn on the machine tool and process the parts, you have to read and understand the drawings, how to process even if you don't understand the drawings?

So, not to mention thousands of people, even in the Ministry of Industry, there are less than ten people who can understand the blueprints of flintlock guns!
Zhu Cijiong couldn't be troubled by this problem. If there is no suitable talent, he can cultivate it by himself.He had wanted to promote Western learning for a long time, and this time just happened to be an opportunity. He simply ordered Xu Guangqi to set up four schools in the southeast, northwest, and four sides of the capital. Each school recruited [-] students. Two thousand people will be sent out, and they will be recruited to the military factory and then taught on site. In this way, the staff will be fully staffed in about three months.

It seems that it is not very difficult to start a school, the place is ready-made, when the eunuchs were cleaned up, I don’t know how many mansions and compounds of corrupt officials were sealed up, just a few out are enough; as for this teacher, let Xu Guangqi and Bi Maokang and the others can work hard and do it first.

But is it really so easy to promote Western learning?Zhu Cijiong seemed to be wrong again this time.

(End of this chapter)