Chapter 306: 305 vacancies
“Do you have smart people under your command?”
Now that he knows the location of the prison car and the official officer, Wei Guangde must settle the matter as soon as possible and arrange for people to handle it. .
As for the final result, he no longer cares, let it be fate.
Originally, it was okay to write a letter and ask Ma Fang to do it, but Wei Guangde also wanted to meet Ma Fang. After all, he had to win over a deputy commander, and it would not work without using more methods.
In the past, maybe Wei Guangde could just treat Ma Fang as an ordinary military general, but Ma Fang's promotion from staff general to deputy chief soldier was not his fault. I heard that it was the palace's intention, and Ma Fang fell into the eyes of Emperor Jiajing.
It’s so easy to come to Xuanfu, meet Ma Fang, and inquire about information about Mongolia in the north. You can achieve multiple things with one stone, so why not do it.
As for asking if Ma Fang has any smarter people under him, he naturally plans to let Ma Fang's people do the job of administering the medicine.
"What do you mean, sir?"
Of course Ma Fang didn't know Wei Guangde's plan and asked a little surprised.
"That's it."
Wei Guangde told Ma Fang about the delaying means he had prepared before. "After all, he is a loyal minister and a righteous man. He knows that if he doesn't save him, he will always feel sad." "An."
"My lord is kind and righteous."
Ma Fang clasped his fists and complimented.
In fact, Wei Guangde decided to put on a show to express his attitude to Ma Fang. Wei Guangde was willing to take action and try his best to save loyal ministers and righteous people.
This is true for strangers, but it's even more different for people within your own circle.
However, Wei Guangde's show ended here. He still carried the imperial order to inspect Ji Town, so naturally he could not stay in Xuan Mansion for a long time.
Wei Guangde called Zhang Ji and handed the medicine he had prepared before to Ma Fang, "You also know that I still have the emperor's life in me, so I can't stay here for a long time. You can find two smart people. Yes, find a way to let Shen Xiang take this medicine. He will be weak for three days, but there will be no fear of his life. He will gradually get better after that. This is the only thing I can do."
After listening to Wei Guangde. If so, Ma Fang was still hesitant.
For the prisoner being escorted, life or death is not important. Even if he is dead, he will report to the local government where he died to verify his identity and stamp the official seal. Even if he has proof, to the person being escorted, he is nothing but the prisoner himself. Damn it, damn it.
When the time comes, he gives Shen Xiang the medicine, what will happen if the officials continue on their way regardless?
Wouldn’t that mean killing people directly on the road?
Thinking of this, Ma Fang couldn't help but said: "What if the official doesn't care about the life or death of the person and continues on his way?"
"Then just leave it to fate. You can never stop him."
Interception execution Being an official on a mission is actually the same as rebelling. Naturally, Wei Guangde would not let Ma Fang do such a thing. "Those official officials did not embarrass Shen Xiang all the way. I think the people who came to his hometown also gave him enough support. There is no limit to what he can do." That’s it.”
Seeing that Ma Fang was still worried, Wei Guangde smiled and said, "Life and death are determined by fate, and wealth is in heaven. If Shen Xiang was not destined to die, he would not die here. If we don't stop him, he will not survive if he is sent to Baoan Prefecture. In two days.
It will be even worse, just like his two brothers were killed with human sticks."
Wei Guangde's words reached Ma Fang's ears, which naturally made him worried. Subtract quite a bit.
In prison, there are many ways to kill him, and they will be as miserable as possible.
To put it bluntly, death outside may be much luckier than death in prison.
Thinking of this, Ma Fang no longer hesitated, clasped his hands and said: "Don't worry, sir, I'll leave this matter to the general. It will be done well. I'll send someone there tonight."
Wei Guangde has already said it before. , he had to rush back to Jizhen to inspect the border town. He had no reason to stay here in Xuanfu, even if it sounded like he was going to Xuanfu under the secret order of Emperor Jiajing.
As for secret edicts, it doesn't matter that their military generals followed the edicts, but it is open to question whether the civilian officials followed the edicts, because the secret edicts meant that there was a high probability that they were official edicts and were issued without going through the cabinet and the Sixth Section.
Arrange the guards to search in the direction of Baoan Prefecture, looking for the dispatched guards. After resting for a while, they will leave Xuanfu and return to Jizhen along the original road.
Wei Guangde didn’t know what he was doing. What would Emperor Jiajing think of him if he found out about it, but he just wanted to be clear about it.
Anyway, according to Wei Guangde's plan, doing this in Ma Fang's place would be beneficial without any harm.
For more than a year, Wei Guangde also paid attention to collecting information from border towns. He knew that there were not many generals in Xuanda who seemed to be able to win the war, and Ma Fang was one of them.
At least among the several good news reported in the newspaper, Ma Fang's battle report accounted for as many as three, accounting for almost half.
Being able to gather such a capable general under his command, Wei Guangde felt very accomplished, but it was a pity for Yu Dayou.
This guy is so famous that he can't win over him. After all, Lu Bing's thighs are much thicker than his own.
Wei Guangde was still thinking about this on the way back. If he could recruit Yu Long and Qi Hu under his command, he would probably be the most capable commander of the army in this era. If he were put in the game, he would be up for grabs. The world is under heaven.
Ma Fang is good at fighting in the northern border towns, that is, large-scale infantry and cavalry battles. He doesn’t know much about Qi Jiguang. He only knows that he is powerful in fighting Japanese pirates. It is probably similar to special operations. After all, the Mandarin Duck Formation is still very famous in later generations. Yes, it is said that small groups of soldiers cooperate with each other.
The war to suppress the Japanese that Wei Guangde experienced was originally small in scale, but the scale of the Ming army was not small at all.
Even Mr. Wei, who went to Zhejiang to suppress Japanese pirates, said that the Japanese pirates had no concept of battle formations. According to the confessions of the captured Japanese pirates, they all followed the leader to attack and escape, so the Japanese pirates In fact, the method of warfare is to gather in groups according to the size of the Japanese pirate gang leaders. To attack, they will rush out in a swarm, and to escape, they will also run away in a swarm.
Thus, the scene of the war against Japanese pirates that Wei Guangde imagined was that groups of Japanese pirates rushed towards the Ming army. If they broke the Ming army's formation at once, the Japanese would win. If they could not defeat the Japanese pirates, they would run away, because they would lose. .
Then the Ming army would divide into groups to surround the fleeing Japanese pirate teams, large and small, and the scale of the battle would not be very large.
As for Yu Dayou, Wei Guangde naturally knew more. This guy was born on the seaside like Qi Jiguang, but judging from the battle reports from Zhejiang, Qi Jiguang seemed not to be able to command water battles. Previously, the Ming Navy and Japanese pirates All naval battles were commanded by Yu Dayou.
After Yu Dayou was arrested and sent to Beijing, the Jiangsu and Zhejiang navies lost several battles with the Japanese pirates at sea. Since then, they have almost chosen to stay in a few ports and no longer go out to patrol the sea. In fact, the main reason for this is that Wei Guangde thinks that Yu Dayou is really a treasure. He is actually a very powerful general in water and land battles.
It’s just that such a person was actually sent to the capital to retire because of Hu Zongxian’s impeachment.
However, Wei Guangde also felt that Emperor Jiajing may not have really believed Hu Zongxian's words before punishing Yu Dayou. Yu Dayou's life in the capital was only limited in movement, but he did not actually suffer.
Perhaps Emperor Jiajing just wanted to meet Hu Zongxian's request, as long as he could solve the Japanese pirate problem as soon as possible.
If you don’t like Yu Dayou, then I will take him away so that it will not prevent you from suppressing the Japanese.
In fact, both Yu Dayou and Wei Guangde felt that only a powerful naval fleet to intercept the Japanese pirates on the sea was the magic weapon to fight against the Japanese. They pinned their hopes on the Japanese pirates landing on land to fight. I don’t know. How many innocent people must die in vain.
With Yu Dayou taken away, now there is no coastal defense. We can only rely on the soldiers recruited by Tan Lun and Qi Jiguang to fight the Japanese pirates. Wei Guangde is not very optimistic about Hu Zongxian's strategy of suppressing Japanese pirates.
But thinking of Qi Jiguang, Wei Guangde could only shake his head. Now this man is doing well under Hu Zongxian. Unless he overthrows Hu Zongxian, forget it. Even if he overthrows Hu Zongxian, how can Qi Jiguang know who Wei Guangde is?
In today’s court, who is Wei Guangde?
In fact, his current official position is really not good enough.
The main reason why he has some face in the capital is that Emperor Jiajing showed extraordinary appreciation for him, so his colleagues appeared cordial and warm in front of him, but behind the scenes he was envied, jealous, and hated by many people. Woolen cloth.
The group of people hurriedly followed the road they came from and entered Jizhen through the Bohai Sea, and followed Tang Shunzhi's team along the avenue.
When Wei Guangde found Tang Shunzhi, they had just inspected the guard posts in Zunhua and Santun Camp. They were now on their way to Yongping Mansion. There were two more guard posts, Funing Guard and Shanhai Guard, to inspect, and then they were on their way back. On the way, he checked the Kaiping Zhongtun Guards and returned to the capital via Xianghe.
In the next half month, Wei Guangde followed Tang Shunzhi to check the number of soldiers and military households in several guard posts, and checked them with the military registration books. At the same time, as deputy envoy, Wei Guangde also had the responsibility of summarizing the data. .
Fortunately, having received the education of later generations, Wei Guangde is not like many Jinshi in this era. He knows nothing except "what is it". Elementary school mathematics knowledge can cope with these tasks.
The work that seems very troublesome to others has indeed become extremely simple for Wei Guangde. He does not need to use an abacus like most people here. Wei Guangde can use that thing, but because he is not skilled, he can’t use it. It's not as fast as calculating with a pen.
Other scribes were surprised to see Wei Guangde using Arabic numerals for calculations instead of using abacus or "calculating calculations". In fact, Arabic numerals had already been introduced to China at this time, and it was better than using Chinese characters. Counting is indeed much more convenient, and even compared to calculating, it actually has many advantages.
However, Chinese people have long been accustomed to using abacus or arithmetic chips when calculating, so there are very few people who actually use Arabic numerals. People only know this counting method but few use it.
Especially arithmetic, which can not only perform calculations, but also represent numbers, and is relatively convenient for writing.
When the border patrol team crossed the Xianghe River, Wei Guangde had already checked the numbers submitted by the clerk below. The data was correct, but the actual situation was really shocking.
"Master Tang, is this a true report?"
Wei Guangde was a little hesitant. He finally understood why Yang Bo found someone to lift the lid of Ji Town when he arrived in Ji Town. It was too Scary.
There are no secrets in the capital. Even if Wei Guangde didn't know it at first, he knew it as time went by. When Yang Bo arrived in Jizhen, he went to various guard posts to learn about the situation and passed the news to the capital. His friend Bing Ke reported it to Li Yong. Gently uncovered the tip of the iceberg of the serious shortage of military households in Ji Town.
Wei Guangde and the others were able to liquidate Ji Zhen’s actual wealth this time, but Wei Guangde was a little at a loss after seeing the final number.
The shortage of military soldiers is more than one-third. The reason is that more than half of the military households have fled. In other words, there are 200,000 military households on the register. In fact, there are still less than 100,000 households after inventory. .
For such a large reduction, the past governors of Jizhen and the general military officer have always concealed it, and the purpose is naturally to get free pay.
Think about it, if you report it according to the facts, these shortfalls must be deducted from the military pay. This is nonsense.
However, it has only been a few years since Anda's troops broke through the border defense of Jizhen. It has been eight years, and Jizhen's defense has not improved at all. I don't know how Emperor Jiajing will react when this memorial is posted.
Tang Shunzhi had been in the Ministry of War for many years, so he had naturally heard about the vacancies at the lower levels, but he did not expect that Jizhen, which protects the safety of the capital, had fallen into this state. What about other military towns?
What is the scene like in Xuanfu, Datong and Yansui?
I can’t imagine it anymore, but I have to do this errand.
“If you don’t report the truth, do you still want to deceive the emperor?”
Tang Shunzhi naturally made the distinction clearly, but Wei Guangde probably was just frightened by the numbers that came out, so he lost his bearings for a while.
To say that Ji Zhen is such a big leak, he, the doctor of the Ministry of War, is more responsible. Wei Guangde is just a soy sauce, but in fact it is nothing.
After the memorial was posted, he slapped his ass and went back to the Hanlin Academy. They still had to clean up the mess.
If the soldiers are dissatisfied, it is easy to deal with it. Just call Yu Ding to make up for it, but the military leaders below may not be happy.
Shangren means that they will get a lot of money for less.
As long as you are registered in the army, you will be given some food and salary. If you don't have this person at all, you can eat it all.
As for the issue of military households fleeing, it is difficult to deal with. If civilian households are lured, the place will be in chaos again. Who is willing to become a soldier these days?
Even those families who are so poor that they have no choice but to work hard are only willing to send their children to the military camps, which are recruiting soldiers but not military registration.
If the people know that a large scale of military households are being recruited, the people outside Gyeonggi may start to flee. At least avoid the check and come back. Even if you get a lawsuit, it is better than joining the military.
Tang Shunzhi felt overwhelmed, but he couldn't discuss it with Wei Guangde. After all, it had nothing to do with him. He still had to discuss the matter with the ministry after returning to the capital.
I just briefly discussed the content of the report with Wei Guangde. Naturally, all the data will not be reported. It is too eye-catching. The information left on file is naturally complete. It is just that the report to Emperor Jiajing will use some Spring and Autumn writing skills. The emperor will be fooled without asking. never mind.
When they returned to the capital, Tang Shunzhi and Wei Guangde did not bother to go back to rest. They went directly to the General Affairs Department to submit the patrol report:
The original army in Jizhen was more than 91,000 people. , today there are only more than 57,000 people registered, and more than 33,000 people have fled. Seeing that there are many who are too old and weak to fight. The reason for the escape was due to years of building side walls, transporting rocks and logging up the mountain, heavy labor, and insufficient strength to do so. They borrowed money and lost goods; the generals were corrupt, and the civil servants invaded fishing, so that the soldiers were poor and had to flee.
(End of this chapter)