Chapter 1427 The rise of feudal towns
Qin Lang read the letter from the Luoyang governors, taking notes with a pencil while reading it.
The pencil is not lead, but graphite mined from the graphite mine, and wood is added to make a pencil that is convenient for writing. One of the special products of Song Dynasty.
The night is dead.
The glass lantern on the desk is bright and smoke-free.
Qin Lang put down the pen in his hand and fell into deep thought.
The Luoyang court is very stable, and the Tang Dynasty is also very prosperous. There is a feeling of brocade-like flowers cooking with fire. However, the officials in charge of the court, such as Laiji, Pei Xingjian, and Shangguanyi, have also discovered some of the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty. There are still many hidden worries.
The Tang Dynasty inherited from the Northern Dynasty, so there was Hu Feng, who had a very strong desire for expansion. From the founding of the country to the present, although it has only been for more than forty years, there have been five emperors, and the pace of conquest has never stopped.
Northeast conquered Liaodong and North Korea, seized the old land of Yanshan North Xiqi, and even set up the Bohai, Heishui, and Xianbei Sandu Protectorates in the more distant Baishan Heishui, as well as border towns and garrisons.
Southwest also took control of central Guizhou and Yunnan, crossed the Red River, conquered Yongchang Lishui, and Pyuyue and southern Tibet.
To the northwest, the Zhenguan Dynasty conquered Dangxiang and the Qiangs of the Western Mountains, wiped out Tuyuhun, wiped out Tubo, and took Supi and Xiangxiong into their ranks. The remote Western Regions grew from scratch, not only restored the Han Dynasty Anxi Old Frontier, going deeper into the Hezhong area.
These are all made by generations of Tang soldiers with swords and blood in the past fifty years.
Although a covenant agreement has just been reached with Dashi, and there is a temporary truce, but the direction of the Western Regions will still be the most important place for Datang to use foreign troops in the future, and even now it is still encircling and suppressing the Western Turkic tribes. The rebellious Sogdian problem.
It also has to guard against the Tocharians and big cannibals that may make a comeback at any time, and even the Turkic Khazars.
Whether it's Cheng Chumo or Laiji, these chief executives who are in charge of the central civil and military affairs all have a consensus that in the future the Western Regions will have to garrison heavy troops.
Even because the Western Regions are too far away, the chief generals of the Western Regions have to be given higher powers, not only limited to military command, but also have the right to monitor money and food. It has been two months since the hall is thousands of miles away.
And if the powers of affairs are different, and the front lines constrain each other, let alone try to do things.
The previous system of punctual governor's mansion and wartime battalion general manager's mansion has become increasingly outdated and unable to cope with the new situation in the Western Regions. In the future, the Western Regions will need a permanent presence of heavy troops, and even use troops against the Western Turkic tribes and Sogdian countries in the middle of the river. It is also normalized.
And the formation of the Western Expeditionary Battalion by the traditional military system has become increasingly unable to keep up with the situation. It turns out that most of the frontier troops in the Northwest Court in Anxi were deployed from the Central Plains in the past. The disadvantage of this is that the government The soldiers have to be changed every one or two years, which will weaken the combat effectiveness of the frontline troops.
Even because of the war, the imperial court often extended the service period of the government soldiers on the border, which made the soldiers stay on the border all year round.
There is an urgent need to change these old systems that do not conform to the new situation.
Back then, Qin Lang proposed changing the Fubing system very early on. The reason was that under the new two-tax system, the Fubing system was no longer in line with the development of the new era, especially when the land equalization system had been abolished. re-existed.
Qin Lang suggested at the beginning that the government military system should be replaced by the recruitment system, supplemented by compulsory military service, and the new Datang army should be composed of Han professional recruits and foreign conscripts.
In the era of the Fubing system, Datang had a large number of Fubing, there were more than 600,000 at the beginning of Zhenguan, and it is as high as more than 800,000 today, and these Fubing are basically concentrated in Guanzhong and Henan. , Guanzhong government soldiers accounted for 60% of the world's government soldiers, and now Guanzhong government soldiers accounted for 30% of the world's government soldiers, Henan government soldiers accounted for 40%, the two regions accounted for 70%, Hedong and Hebei each accounted for 10%, and the rest 10% of all regions.
Although the combat effectiveness of the Guanlong government soldiers is strong, the deployment of the military government is too concentrated in the Guanzhong and Henan areas, which brings new problems. At the beginning of Wude and Zhenguan, what they were facing was the need for a war of unification of the world. It is appropriate for the military government to be concentrated in the core Guanlong Central Plains area.
But now the core area of the Central Plains is far away from war. What really needs to be stationed is the frontier land, North Korea, Liaodong, Saibei Hetao, Longyou Qinghai, Western Tianshan, and the newly conquered Pyuyue and southern Tibet.
Laiji and others hope to change the system.
Proposed the most important one, that is, the government soldiers moved to the border, and the world town border.
Deploy a large number of Zhechong Mansions to the border areas, and then directly use the Zhechong Mansion soldiers from the border areas to take turns guarding the frontiers. It is no longer necessary to always deploy soldiers from the Central Plains to guard the borders. Frontier soldiers are more familiar with the frontier.
Moreover, the original capital governor's system in various places is combined with the military system of the new government. At that time, the soldiers will be unified, and the generals will know the soldiers, and the soldiers will know the generals. military.
This set of things, in Qin Lang's view, has a strong feeling of guarding the Liao land by the Liao people. In other words, this is the frontier towns that began to appear in the Tang Dynasty after Gao Zongwu, and the official Jiedushi was formed during Tang Xuanzong's time. A system of things.
Essentially, because of the urgent needs of the frontier military offensive and defensive military, the original old system could not keep up with the situation, and a new system was adopted, which may be called patching.
This set of things is of course very practical. For example, if the Zhechong Mansion is deployed to the frontier, no matter whether the current mansion soldiers in the Guanlong Central Plains are moved there, or new mansion soldiers are selected in the border areas in the future, and the border people guard the border areas. It is also their own homeland, of course they are more motivated.
Even if the two take turns guarding the border, they are still on duty nearby. Needless to say, traveling thousands of miles from Henan to the Western Regions will waste a month or two on the road, let alone not adapting to the climate there, unfamiliar with geography, unfamiliar with opponents and enemies, etc. wait.
And to give more power to the border generals, then it will actually be a theater or military region system, which will have a strong command autonomy, and even the military region will have a relatively independent and stable supply of money, money and food. The border town is very necessary.
The Privy Council of the imperial court commanded and mobilized everything, which could not keep up with the rhythm, and if the money, food and equipment of the frontier army were completely allocated and supplied by the imperial court, it would not be able to keep up.
Of course, the frontiers are poor. In today’s situation, the Central Plains is rich. Even if the frontiers have certain financial power, they are still poor. They still need financial support from the imperial court to raise soldiers, but at least the front line must have certain independent command and financial power.
The idea is good. After all, this is to propose a corresponding solution based on the problems that have arisen. It is a headache solution, but this kind of patching measure may cause problems in the future, and they may be able to predict it. , or not expected enough, but it is also a top priority to solve the immediate problems first.
If there are changes like the Six Towns in the Northern Wei Dynasty in the future, it will be a matter of the future. Maybe new solutions can be found in the future?
At the beginning of the founding of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the capital was Pingcheng, which was located in Daibei, so the Rouran on the grassland was the greatest threat to them. For this reason, the Northern Wei Dynasty established several military towns along the line of Yinshan and Yanshan Mountains, including Wuchuan and Huaishuo. strongest. In the beginning, the Northern Wei Dynasty attached great importance to the Six Towns. After all, they were right at the gate of the country, and the Six Towns paid high salaries. The nobles and nobles and even the powerful children of the gentry rushed to the Six Towns.
But later, as the Northern Wei Dynasty moved its capital to Luoyang, the situation gradually improved. The Northern Wei Dynasty gradually ignored or even underestimated the six towns in the north of Saibei. It is also difficult to have a good promotion, and even the supply of money, food and equipment is insufficient, and it was even reduced to a place of exile for criminals.
The proud six towns of the Northern Wei Dynasty became borderlands that everyone hated, so in the end the six towns revolted and overthrew the Northern Wei Dynasty, and the Liuhuan Group and Yuwentai Group that later replaced the Northern Wei Dynasty were also from the Six Towns back then.
Historically, the ten border towns of the Tang Dynasty established by Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty eventually got out of control. Although the rebellious Northeast Fan Yangping Lu Jiedu envoy An Lushan led the Northeast Legion, in fact, was not the strongest among the major legions at that time. Jiannan and Longyou were the strongest, and even the imperial court gave priority to guard against it. Even if it wasn't for the rebellion of the strongest Northeast Army Corps, they still attacked Luoyang and Chang'an with such force.
This is also the result of going from one extreme to another. The Wude Zhenguan Dynasty focused on unifying the world and stabilizing the Central Plains, so the elite of the world were all in Guanlong. By the time of Tang Xuanzong, it had already reached a peak of expansion. In the northeast, it had been fighting in Liaodong and the Korean Peninsula, and even wiped out Baekje and Goguryeo at one point. People took the opportunity to rob the south of the Datong River, and Xi Qi also rebelled for a while.
In Longyou Jiannan, they had to face the joint persecution of Tubo and Nanzhao. In the Western Regions, they had to face the resistance of the Western Turks, compete with Tubo, and even face the invasion of cannibals.
Liaodong Liaoxi, Jiannan Longyou, Hexi Western Regions, these battlefields are too far away, and they are no longer temporary conquests like those in the early days of Zhenguan. Under such circumstances, Datang's military system went to another extreme.
The three major frontier army groups have been formed, and they have been stationed in the border areas for a long time. Instead, the two capitals and the Central Plains area are empty. Although there are forbidden troops in Gyeonggi, the forbidden army has not been in battle for a long time and cannot fight at all. Facing the rebels in Hebei, the Central Plains was defeated by thousands of miles, and the forbidden army in Gyeonggi also lost two capitals in a row.
As a latecomer, Qin Lang now looks at the military system reform they proposed, and he immediately sees the hidden dangers that this reform will face.
This is basically to set up border towns and military envoys, and the border towns will become a group of military forces. In the future, there will inevitably be a situation where strong branches are weak. In war, the training and equipment must be strong, but the Gyeonggi Forbidden Army has little experience in fighting, even if it is well-equipped, it will definitely not be able to beat the frontier army in the future.
It's just the current situation. If the military system is not changed, it will be difficult for the frontier army to maintain and control the stability of the frontier for a long time, let alone continue to expand abroad. If it can be changed, the branches will be strong and the branches will be weak. In the future, the border towns may turn back to the center, and even the vassal towns will be separated.
Disaster!
(end of this chapter)