Chapter 3449 3451 [Operation on the clan]
But the army is the foundation of the country. If you mess with the army, there will be backlash at any time.
Either the generals simply rebel, or they support the invaders to respect themselves, or they flee to foreign countries... By then, the country will be shaken, which is no joke.
Therefore, Xiang Nan did not rush for success. Instead, he continued to recruit new soldiers in the name of insufficient combat power of the Ming army.
At the same time, a military preparation school was established in the capital to recruit students who were interested in the country and receive training in strategic tactics, musket shooting, artillery drills, capture and combat, marching and formation, cavalry and infantry, and separate attacks. In order to cultivate new types of generals, they can replace those old-fashioned generals in the future.
In order to ensure the quality of teaching, Xiang Nan not only writes teaching materials personally, but also teaches classes in person.
In this regard, many students are still willing to sign up. Just like the martial arts examination, thousands of students take part in it every year, preparing to take the path of military commanders.
Hence, the Armed Forces School does not have to worry about not having enough students to sign up, and there are even a lot of them.
Xiang Nan also specially raised the threshold for this purpose. To register for the military preparation school, one must not only be physically strong, but also be literate in writing. The most important thing is that he must be a son of a good family.
People like gangsters and scoundrels may appear to be brave and fierce, but in fact they are the most cowardly people on the battlefield. The children of good families usually look harmless to humans and animals, but they are the masters who are willing to risk their lives on the battlefield.
When Qi Jiguang recruited the Qi family army, he chose miners from Wuzhou. He also came to the conclusion, "The children of miners are the first-class soldiers, and the children of farmers are the second-class. It's not that you don't recruit city people when you are in a hurry, you don't have the courage to charge into battle, and you are the first to be sneaky and sneaky."
…
At the same time, Xiang Nan resolutely attacked the clan in order to raise the food and wages needed for the new army.
The clan system of the Ming Dynasty was very strange.
Zhu Yuanzhang treated his descendants favorably and set generous salary standards. In the ninth year of Hongwu, Prince Lumi was stipulated to have an annual income of 50,000 shi and 25,000 guan, which was later reduced.
In order to allow the royal family to fully enjoy happiness, Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that the royal family did not have to engage in any profession. All consumption needs of every descendant of the royal family are borne by the court.
This kind of meticulous "care" is unique in all dynasties, so much so that people in the Ming Dynasty couldn't help but sigh, "The kindness of my relatives in the dynasty can be said to be all-consuming, and it is far more generous than the previous generations."
In this context, the royal family launched a fierce reproductive competition. For example, Wang Guang of Qingcheng had more than a hundred sons and countless daughters.
Therefore, in the early Ming Dynasty, there were only a few dozen members of the clan. Now, the number of clans has exceeded 100,000.
With the rapid increase in the population of the clan, the total amount of salary and salary received by the clan was huge, and the total amount allocated by Lumi far exceeded the annual grain provided to the capital by various parts of the imperial court. The imperial court also bore a heavy burden.
Furthermore, these clans enjoy the privileges of Sifa and are not bound by ordinary laws and are not under the control of local officials. Princes and ministers must bow down and pay homage when they see them. Moreover, the clan does not need to pay taxes, and can even collect taxes, fish classes, and salt shops at the local level.
Therefore, each clan is a powerful person, even like a local emperor. There are many people who dominate the local area, do whatever they want, and even raise troops to rebel.
For example, in the ninth year of Zhengde, King Ning Zhu Chenhao raised 100,000 troops to rebel. But within fifty days, he was wiped out by Wang Yangming, a great man of his generation.
Xiang Nan is now going to take action against these clans.
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Xiang Nan first asked his trusted ministers to ask for the cancellation of various privileges of the clan, and then handed it over to the ministers for discussion.
The ministers generally support the abolition of clan privileges.
The reason is very simple. The ministers and the clan are two types of people with opposite interests. The clan enjoys privileges and is superior to the officials. The officials have long been unhappy with them.
Moreover, the expenses of the clan accounted for a large part of the national treasury expenses, which had long become an unbearable burden for the court.
The more they occupied, the less the ministers would get, so the ministers were eager to reduce the vassal.
Since Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, ministers have been suggesting that the treatment and privileges of vassal kings and clans should be reduced.
Just cutting down the feudal vassal has never been an easy task.
Zhu Yunwen originally planned to reduce the vassal status, but he was too hasty and forced all the vassal kings to rebel.
Ming Chengzu Zhu Di relied on his military exploits to successfully cut down the vassal kings in a series of ways after he ascended the throne.
For example, reducing its military power and governance power. From then on, the vassal king could not participate in leading troops in wars, let alone local management. Move the border vassals to the interior to prevent their development and growth, etc.
Ming Renzong Zhu Gaochi and Ming Xuanzong Zhu Zhanji later also imposed restrictions on vassal kings, but most of them restricted their access to military and administrative power, and often did not impose restrictions on their financial privileges.
Even in order to appease the vassal king and the clan, they even gave preferential treatment in terms of financial power.
Now that Xiang Nan wants to cut down the feudal vassal, the ministers naturally support him.
After winning the support of the ministers, Xiang Nan immediately issued an edict to cancel all the privileges of the clan.
It is no longer supported by the state, but is still subject to laws. It is also controlled by the local government and has to pay taxes. Dukes, princes and ministers do not need to bow down and salute the clan members who have not been ennobled or ennobled.
…
As soon as the decree was issued, all the clan members panicked.
First of all, they had no livelihood skills and relied entirely on the imperial court for support. Now once the imperial court withdraws their support, they will have no way to survive and can only live on the fiefdom passed down by their ancestors.
No matter how much the ancestors' fiefdoms were, it was still far from enough. After all, these clans are more fertile than each other, and it is common for a clan to have more than a dozen or even dozens of children. Therefore, after four generations, there can be as many as a thousand descendants.
Even if the fiefdom amounts to thousands of hectares, after equal distribution, one person will only be able to get a maximum of ten acres. Although it sounds like a lot, these people are used to enjoying it. How could they possibly be able to feed them with more than a hundred acres of farmland?
Just like the bannermen of the Qing Dynasty, they relied on their hard-core crops, so they were idle, eating, drinking and having fun, without any skills to make a living.
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, they were left with nothing to gain. After eating all the family property, they went begging, pulling carts, and even Fujin and Gege went to Bada Hutong to make a living...
Secondly, these clans relied on their privileges to bully men and dominate women and take advantage of them. Even if local officials knew about it, they could only turn a blind eye.
Now that Sifa's privileges have been revoked, they will be repaid for the evil they did before. When the time comes, not only will he have to worry about his survival, but he will also have to worry about being imprisoned.
And as the saying goes, a proud cat is as fierce as a tiger, and a down-and-out phoenix is worse than a chicken. These people had privileges before, so the local officials ignored them and humiliated them arbitrarily.
Now that the local officials have become their parent officials, they will definitely take revenge. At that time, they will really be fooled by shrimps in shallow water.
Therefore, without exception, these clan members were like mourning for their heirs, or they would beg Xiang Nan to take back his life, or they would go to the ancestral temple or the ancestral temple to cry at the grave to create public opinion, or they would directly make a rebellion... It could be said that they were in chaos for a while.
(End of this chapter)