Chapter 11: Opening Camp and Giving Away Knives
When Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang founded the Ming Dynasty, he set career and life plans for his subjects, and established standards for cities, government offices, and halls in prefectures, counties, and garrisons across the country.

Although the rules set by Zhu Yuanzhang were basically not followed after the death of his eldest son Zhu Di, the specifications and styles of the yamen systems and the garrison cities were still passed down according to convention.

The same is true of Ningyuan City, which was built in the third and fourth years of the Tianqi period. The four main gates in the east, west, south and north are connected to the cross street in the middle of the city.

Generally speaking, the more official offices and buildings are all in East Street, such as the Wei Office, the Post Office, the Academy, the garrison office, the martial arts arena, etc. The other areas are all residential areas, and the people who live there for generations are generally the families of officers and soldiers, plus some foreign merchants.

However, because there was an additional military preparatory department in Ningyuan Qiantun and other places, a department office was built on the west street closest to the city center. The department office was responsible for matters such as military farming, education, water conservancy, city wall construction, and salt and horse administration and post management.

In the areas of Ningyuan and Qiantun, Yuan Chonghuan's provincial government was much more powerful than the two guard offices. Yuan Daotai could basically be regarded as the first civil servant under the governor of Liaodong.

Unfortunately, as a military governor, he only had the customs seal (half of a bar seal) and imperial edicts, but no large square seal.

At this moment, thousands of people who heard the news came and crowded the provincial government office into three layers inside and three layers outside. He Kegang led the soldiers of the provincial flag battalion to maintain order and finally prevented the excited people from rushing into the provincial government office.

Because there were no seals and no courtrooms, the provincial government offices only had living rooms for receiving guests, and no lobby for interrogating prisoners as seen in movies and TV dramas.

The general who was in charge of a battalion in Ningyuan City, as well as civil officials such as Yuan Bingxian, Tongpan Jin Qizhuo, and Tongzhi Cheng Weimo, as well as five or six elders who were summoned, were all sitting on both sides of the first hall of the Tao Hall.

The treatment of Li Hao and other heroes who killed the Tartars was a little different. They were given separate chairs and sat opposite the main seat.

When everyone was in place, Yuan Bingxian coughed lightly, and the room immediately became quiet. Then Tongzhi Cheng Weimu, on behalf of Bingxian Daotai, began the routine questioning.

It was Yang Shigong who responded on behalf of Li Hao.

The questions are still about how the Tatars were killed, when and where, who were the witnesses, how they encountered the enemy, what happened to the spoils, and how the Tatar corpses and heads were dealt with.

During this period, the commander of the Wei Office, the judge in charge of money and grain Jin Qizong, the commander of the camp under the Liaodong governor Zuo Fu, a captain transferred from the Beijing camp, and representatives of the people, including the elders, carefully checked the authenticity, teeth and hair of the four heads.

"Of course!" After all the procedures were completed, Yuan Bingxian first set the tone, "Captain Li, according to previous practice, these four heads must be sent to Shanhaiguan, and after the Futai Yamen has re-inspected them, they can be rewarded after reporting to the Ministry of War. But now that we are facing a powerful enemy, I will make an exception and exchange your military merit for it right now. Do you want a promotion or silver?"

The heads of Jurchens are very valuable nowadays, and one can get a reward of twenty taels of silver for each promotion. Li Hao currently needs to quickly expand the number of his servants after being promoted, so he naturally chooses promotion.

"Promote me to level 4, and it would be better if you could assign me some retainers. I'll kill some more Tartars in a couple of days, and then I'll convert all of it into reward silver."

Upon hearing this, Yuan Bingxian praised him, "Good, you have great ambition."

Then he clapped his hands and looked at the commanders in charge of the camp, "According to the rules, the captain is higher than the captain, but lower than the captain. But now the situation is special, I will make Captain Li a captain and promote him a few levels on this basis. Do you have any objections?"

To put it simply, the team leader is the village chief who is in charge of eighty or ninety men. Since civil affairs are also under the jurisdiction of the team leader, his political status is higher than that of the captain who is in charge of seventy or eighty battalion soldiers.

The higher-ranking officials were equivalent to town mayors. The Niulu Ezhen of the Later Jin Dynasty, the head of a Niulu, was in charge of almost the same number of able-bodied men and civilians as the officials of the Ming Dynasty's garrison troops.

In the Guanning system constructed by Sun Chengzong, the number of soldiers in the battalions was established. The Liao salary of four to five million taels collected by the imperial court each year was determined according to this number. Therefore, promoting him was actually snatching the establishment of soldiers in the battalions and the establishment of household servants from various military leaders.

The generals were silent. With a powerful enemy at the doorstep, it was still unknown whether they could defend Ningyuan City. It was also hard to say how things would change in the future. However, they did not want to agree to allocate troops to the camp now, so they remained silent.

Man Gui said carelessly, "Let's do as Yuan Bingxian said. This Ningyuan area is under the jurisdiction of us and Bingxian. What else can we do?" Yuan Chonghuan glanced calmly at this fat general who seemed rough on the outside but was actually very scheming. What he asked was whether the generals agreed or not. Once General Man changed his words, the person who made the decision changed.

Fortunately, no one dared to oppose the highest-ranking civil and military officials in the room.

Yuan Chonghuan figured out the generals' intentions and felt that it was too exaggerated to promote the battalion soldiers by four levels. The generals would not give up the battalion soldiers, so he changed his words:
"Hundred Household, Deputy Thousand Household, Thousand Household, Assistant Commander of the Guard, Associate Commander of the Guard, these are four levels of promotion in rank. In addition to the rank, I want to grant you a military position according to the battalion soldiers. I just don't know if Captain Li is willing to transfer to my standard battalion?"

The standard camp is a very magical military system. In the late Ming Dynasty, the governor, the governor-general, the military governor of the nine borders and other civil officials who were in charge of both civil and military affairs all had their own standard camps. If a civil official was reliable, the combat effectiveness of the standard camp under his command was often stronger than that of ordinary camp soldiers. The elite soldiers of the standard camp could be comparable to the servants of the Ming army generals.

The meaning of this statement is very clear. Only when Li Hao is willing to join Yuan Chonghuan's Daobiaoying will he be granted a real military position. Otherwise, even if Li Hao is promoted four levels in name, he will still be the officer in charge of Shahe North Fort. Then, he will use the cumbersome court procedures to shirk the real position and reward.

But this is also human nature. Yuan Chonghuan was a Cantonese. He served as a county magistrate in Fujian for several years and then was parachuted into Liaoxi as a civil servant. If he did not vigorously support his own military forces, how could he hold on to power in the hands of these local generals in Liaoxi?

Zu Dashou, the representative of the Zu family, established a good relationship with Yuan Chonghuan during this period, which enabled the Zu family to quickly rise in the Guanning system. In order to make room for He Kegang, a general of the Zu family and Yuan Chonghuan's confidant, Yuan Bingxian later forced General Man Guiman to leave.

"Li is willing to be driven."

This is exactly what Li Hao wants.

Yuan Chonghuan clapped his hands and laughed, "Great, great, then transfer Captain Li to my Daobiao Camp. He chopped off four slave heads, so Captain Li should be assigned a guerrilla position. However, my Daobiao Camp does not have enough soldiers. Currently, I only have He Kegang, the garrison commander of the Central Army. How about giving Captain Li the title of Qianzong?"

Li Hao thought about it and replied: "Then use the number of soldiers under the command of Qianzong to set up another battalion for me. I am used to commanding soldiers by myself. On the battlefield, I am not willing to follow the orders of others."

There would always be rewards after every major war, so in the late Ming Dynasty, the promotion speed of Ming army officers was quite fast. In order to deal with this situation, the Liaoxi Guanning Army started a small camp system, that is, each camp actually had only 1,300 to 2,500 soldiers, which was a bit short of the full strength of 3,000.

Special battalions such as the Marine Battalion may only have 510 people.

The situation of the Later Jin Dynasty was similar. In order to promote lower-level officers, Huang Taiji even invented the Banniulu system.

"You don't have to open a battalion yourself. It will be hard to deal with the governor." Yuan Chonghuan laughed. "Just let General Li take charge of the troops as a thousand-man battalion. They will only be nominally under the Daobiao Battalion. I will set the number of servants at 60. You can recruit them yourself. The same goes for the battalion soldiers. If you want to transfer some soldiers from Shahe North Fort to serve as battalion soldiers, you can report this to the garrison officer here."

Yuan Chonghuan quickly confirmed Li Hao's military position.

Although he was not given the treatment of being in charge of an entire battalion, in reality it was almost the same, so verbally, Li Hao could also be called a general.

The other generals had no place to complain if they wanted to object, as the Daobiao Camp was directly under the military command.

"The servant said earlier that General Li's weapons were not good enough. I have a sharp boot knife that can easily break armor and blades. I will give it to General Li."

For some reason, Man Gui suddenly spoke, took out a knife from his boots and gave it to Li Hao.

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(End of this chapter)