Chapter 209: King Jin went to Quanzhou in person, just to do three things

Zhu Gang’s plan was very clear, which can be summarized as: repairing the plank road in public and marching through Chencang in secret.

However, the ideal is very full and the reality is very skinny.

When Zhu Yuanzhang learned that his third son was going to Quanzhou in person to participate in the suppression of the rebellion, he raised his objection without hesitation.

“Quanzhou is now completely different from what it was in the past. Even before the Ming Dynasty was established, the situation here was extremely complicated.

It is no exaggeration to say that poverty and bad water breed unruly people.

Deng Zhen, son of the Duke of Wei, Feng Cheng, nephew of the Duke of Song, and Chang Mao, son of the Duke of E, are all capable men under your command.

We can just send one of them to lead a part of the Shenji Battalion to Quanzhou. Why do you have to go to the dangerous place yourself?"

Zhu Gang shook his head with a determined look and said, "Ren Junxian, who is preparing to start an uprising next year, is just a group of rabble.

Scabies is not a problem at all.

The reason why I personally went to Quanzhou was mainly to handle three important matters. "

According to Zhu Gang's understanding during this period, the Ming Dynasty established a complete equipment supply mechanism since its independence.

Specifically, all craftsmen were gathered together and included in the corresponding household registration.

These people can only be craftsmen in the future, and they will be craftsmen from generation to generation.

For generations, these craftsmen have only been able to make a living by making weapons and armor.

The imperial court allocated funds to these people to uniformly cast armor, which in theory could indeed ensure the supply rate of armor for the army.

However, due to human factors, the status of craftsmen in the Ming Dynasty had been suppressed to the lowest level in history.

Craftsmen who live in poverty naturally cannot make good armor.

Military officers at military locations cannot directly place orders to these craftsmen.

If you want to update your equipment, you have to report to the court.

After approval by the imperial court, funds will be allocated and weapons orders will be placed to these craftsmen.

If this is done in a period of clean government, there is nothing wrong with it.

However, if the officials were collectively corrupt during this period, the withheld funds would not leave any profit for the craftsmen.

But even if there is no profit, the orders issued by the court must be completed, otherwise it will be a disaster of death.

So how can one ensure that he can make a profit and still complete orders from the court?

The only way out is to make inferior weapons and armor and recover the profits from the raw materials.

Therefore, although there were a huge amount of weapons and equipment in the Ming Dynasty’s warehouses, whether these things could be used was another matter.

In addition, the court's financial situation has been in a depressed state.

The imperial court was increasingly unable to support the huge military expenditures, so it had to reduce orders for weapons and armor again and again.

In order to complete the task, they even had to use old armor in the warehouse as new armor, which caused the quality of the Ming army's equipment to continue to decline.

As the performance of equipment becomes lower and lower, the role it can play becomes dispensable and there is not much effect when soldiers wear it.

This creates a vicious cycle: the armor is of poor quality and no one wears it.

If no one wears it, it has no practical meaning. If it has no practical meaning, poor quality is no longer a problem. If it is recycled, the quality will still be poor.

It was only then that Zhu Gang realized that the failure to increase Ming Dynasty steel production was not largely due to insufficient productivity.

Ultimately, it is the rampant corruption that has triggered a series of chain reactions.

However, Zhu Gang could not expose this matter directly, otherwise, given his father's temper, there would probably be a river of bloodshed again.

Those corrupt officials certainly deserved death, but the craftsmen who were forced to pass off inferior products as good ones would lose more than they gained if they were implicated. After all, if the three major steel mills wanted to operate normally, they would definitely not be able to do so without enough craftsmen.

The solution Zhu Gang came up with after much thought was to take advantage of the opportunity to go to Quanzhou to take away the craftsmen involved.

However, once Zhu Yuanzhang's stubborn temper came up, it was difficult to persuade even the Crown Prince Zhu Biao, except for Empress Ma who was recuperating from her illness.

"No, nothing you say will do!

I remember that you promised Dad that after the three steel mills were built, you would provide armor for tens of thousands of Ming troops every year.

You are not allowed to go anywhere until this is done!"

Just then, Zhu Biao, wearing a dragon robe, walked in from outside the door, dragging his tired body.

"Dad, I think you should listen to the three things that my third brother is going to do in Quanzhou.

If it is a matter of great importance to the country and the people, and if you stop it because of your own personal feelings, it may lead to unimaginable consequences in the future. "

When Zhu Gang saw his elder brother speaking up for him as soon as he came in, he felt more confident.

"Old man, didn't you say before that you were planning to send your son to conquer the Northern Yuan Dynasty?

Among the three things we had to do during this trip to Quanzhou, the most important one was to collect food and fodder.

A full 15-man army is on the march, including more than 7 cavalry. We can’t do without sufficient food and fodder!”

Zhu Yuanzhang frowned, "Quanzhou is not a rich place, it may not be easy to raise food and grass for the army there.

Add to that the civil unrest you mentioned, if we force the people too much, we're worried it will backfire."

Zhu Gang said confidently: "Regarding the matter of raising food and grass, we have already made a comprehensive plan.

The reason for choosing Quanzhou to implement it was mainly to facilitate local conscription.

After all, the Shenshu Camp cannot remain an empty shell forever. The more than 70,000 new soldiers also need to undergo actual combat training before they can be sent to the battlefield. "

Zhu Biao suddenly realized what was going on. "Third brother, are you planning to use the method of removing the firewood from the bottom of the pot and conscript those people who might participate in the civil uprising into the army?"

Before Zhu Gang could even open his mouth to reply, Zhu Yuanzhang said, "The reason why the Song army's combat effectiveness was so poor was mainly because the Xiang army took in too many refugees.

We in the Ming Dynasty practice the Wei Suo system, so there is no need to recruit soldiers in this way."

Faced with his stubborn father, Zhu Gang still insisted on his own ideas.

“Although the hereditary military system can provide a stable supply of manpower for the Ming Dynasty in the long term, this can be considered a major advantage of this system.

However, stability also means that this system itself has an upper limit in terms of human resource supply.

Although the Wei Suo system provided a system in which, after a soldier died, his family would provide a replacement, or other households would be forced to join the army.

But if there are serious casualties in a war, it will be difficult to quickly fill the troop gap locally with these.”

Zhu Gang then pointed out the second flaw of the Wei Suo system.

“The second problem with the Weisuo system is where everyone usually lives.

Since most of the commanders and commanders of local garrisons were hereditary military positions, there was indeed no problem for these officers to live in the garrisons.

But this is not the case for the soldiers below.

In order to prevent deserters, the military households under the Weisuo system were not residents of the county, but residents of nearby counties or even other provinces.

We will not discuss how effective this method is in preventing desertions.

The implementation of this arrangement alone has already caused quite serious negative impacts.”

(End of this chapter)