Chapter 714 Besieged on four sides
Chapter 714 Besieged on all sides
Yuan Xiaoju and Dugutuo hurried to the Prince Tang's palace.
The Prince of Tang's Mansion was not Li Yuan's residence, but Li Yuan's real power institution. It integrated military and political power and was more centralized than Xiao Xia's Prince of Jin's Mansion. Xiao Xia's Prince of Jin's Mansion was only a decision-making body for major events, a military command body, and an intelligence agency, but various government executive agencies were under the charge of the Jiangnan Dao General Administration Office.
The Tang Palace combined the Jin Palace and the General Administration Palace into one, while the imperial court was just a decoration without any power at all.
Li Yuan received the two heads of the families in the Guest Hall. In fact, the Guanlong nobles also had some complaints about Li Yuan. After Li Yuan captured Guanzhong, he rewarded the people according to their merits. A large number of official positions in the court were held by the children of Guanlong nobles, including the five prime ministers in the Political Affairs Hall, four of whom were Guanlong nobles.
But soon, the Guanlong nobles found out that they had been fooled. The court, which was filled with children of Guanlong nobles, did not have any power at all. The prime minister and the council were just empty titles, while the Tang Palace, which had real power, had few children of Guanlong nobles. Basically, they were children of prestigious families. Dugu Zuan and Yuan Hongsi both resigned from the positions of prime minister and the council to express their dissatisfaction with Li Yuan.
Of course, Li Yuan also gave an explanation that this was only temporary. After he ascended the throne and established a new dynasty, he would merge the imperial court and the Tang Palace into one. At that time, he would ensure that the Guanlong nobles would have no less than two seats as prime minister in the Council of State. This barely appeased the Guanlong nobles.
Li Yuan originally planned to establish a new dynasty with half of the Sui Dynasty after taking over Bashu. However, the current situation is not only not getting closer to the new dynasty plan, but is rapidly retreating. He only took a small part of Bashu, lost Longyou, and even Hedong. How can he establish a new dynasty with only Guanzhong and Guannei?
Li Yuan is now in big trouble. His 300,000 troops are almost unable to hold on. Soldiers are not willing to fight for you just because they have enough food to eat. They need not only food, but also military salaries, or something else, such as land.
The military salary system is very, very important. It directly determines whether you are a regular army or a bandit. The reason why the separatist forces in various places are almost all a mob and can be easily wiped out is that they are essentially bandits. Without military salaries, they can only ensure that the soldiers have enough food, and then rely on the expectation of making a fortune by looting to maintain their survival. Once this expectation is shattered, the morale of the army will collapse.
Peasant uprisings in all dynasties could not get the support of wealthy families. They had no taxes to maintain their armies, so they could only rely on looting and slaughter. This was the real reason why every war would lead to the loss of lives. There is no need to glorify these peasant uprisings. Huang Chao’s army was the most typical example. The wealthy families were their source of wealth, and the common people were their military rations.
Therefore, in every peasant uprising at the end of a dynasty, the landlord class always won in the end. This is the reason: the landlord class had sufficient financial and material resources to ensure the operation of the army.
Zhu Yuanzhang's success was a special case because his opponents were foreigners and he received widespread support from the Han nationality. Zhu Yuanzhang was essentially a national hero, not a leader of a peasant uprising.
In order to accomplish great things, one must first have a complete military salary system. For example, the Xiaoxia army initially paid military salaries. Soldiers received three strings of cash per month, which was a monthly salary for a waiter in a restaurant in a large county town. Soldiers could get free food, lodging and clothing, and one month's salary was their net profit. Therefore, they could barely recruit soldiers from Jianghuai, Jingxiang and other places, but could not recruit soldiers from the relatively wealthy Jiangnan area at all.
But even so, Xiao Xia did not dare to recruit more troops, and maintained the number of troops at around 100,000 all year round. The pressure was too great. One hundred thousand troops would require 300,000 strings of cash a month, and 3.6 million strings of cash a year. This forced Xiao Xia to find ways to make money, such as implementing salt tax, suppressing Shanyue warlords, looting Goguryeo, and so on.
It was not until a large number of refugees arrived that Xiao Xia was able to recruit soldiers at a low cost. He had to resort to deception, for example, paying veteran soldiers three strings of cash per month and new recruits one string of cash per month. The new recruits would certainly be dissatisfied, so Xiao Xia implemented a soldier grade system, with new recruits being third-class soldiers and veteran soldiers being first-class soldiers because they had served in the army for a long time, giving the new recruits hope.
However, as the territory of Jiangnan Road continued to expand, Jiangnan West Road, Jinghu Road, Huaixi Road and Shandong Peninsula were successively incorporated into the territory, and the land in his hands increased greatly. Xiao Xia began to use land to exchange for salary. All soldiers would only be given a wartime allowance of one string of money per month in wartime, and then the salary would be paid in half an acre of land per month. The land obtained was all permanent farmland. If they were injured and discharged, they would be given 30 acres of land as a one-time pension. If they were unfortunately killed in battle, they would be given 50 acres of land as a one-time pension.
After years of hard work, Xiao Xia finally formed a complete military salary system.
Li Yuan started his army too recently. When he ruled Taiyuan Prefecture, it was the Guanlong nobles who provided money and food to support his 30,000 troops. Once Li Yuan started his army, the money and food needed to recruit troops and the large amount of expenses in the early stage were all provided by the Guanlong nobles. But once Li Yuan settled down, he had to pay the military salaries himself. No family could afford the salaries of 300,000 troops. Li Yuan adopted the method of the late Xiaoxia period, using land to pay salaries. The land was also recorded first, and then redeemed in one lump sum after the establishment of the dynasty. However, soldiers were not fools. Even if they recorded the accounts, they had to have land as collateral. Li Yuan used the land of Hedong Road as collateral because 60% of his soldiers were from Hedong.
Now that Hedong Road had been occupied by Li Mi and the salary collateral had disappeared, Li Yuan was in big trouble. He was extremely anxious and could only ask the two big men, Dugu Tuo and Yuan Xiaoju, to discuss countermeasures.
Li Yuan invited Yuan Xiaoju and Dugutuo to the VIP Hall. Li Yuan asked the soldiers to serve tea and sighed, "The situation is not favorable to me now. The two heads of the family should know it, right?"
"Your Highness, are you talking about the affairs of Hedong?" Yuan Xiaoju asked indifferently.
Li Yuan shook his head. "Not only in Hedong, but also in Longyou. We have a slight advantage in Longyou. Two days ago, Shimin led his army to defeat Zong Luohou's 10,000 troops and recaptured Didao County. But it will take at least two to three years to completely wipe out Xue Ju."
"Hedong should be more important now!" Dugu Tuo reminded.
Li Yuan nodded, "It is true that Hedong is more important, but the problem is that we are seriously short of troops now. I want to recruit troops, but the finances are tight at the moment."
Yuan Xiaoju and Dugutuo looked at each other, and they suddenly realized that Li Yuan wanted them to come because he wanted money and food.
If Li Yuan was doing well and invincible, there would be no problem in paying money. But the current situation requires them to pay money, and both Yuan Xiaoju and Dugutuo are a little reluctant.
Yuan Xiaoju pondered for a moment and said, "Excuse me for being frank, Your Highness currently has 300,000 troops, which is second only to Dou Jiande and even more than the Prince of Jin. It is already very difficult for Your Highness to maintain such a large army. If you want to increase the number of troops, Your Highness must first consider your own financial capacity."
Dugu Tuo said bluntly, "What Patriarch Yuan said is absolutely right. I also think that the problem now is not whether the troops are sufficient or not, but that the troops are too scattered and used irrationally. First of all, we should make some choices and withdraw the troops from places where they are not needed."
Li Yuan sighed and said, "I would like to do so, but where can I withdraw the troops? Once the troops in Shangluo County are withdrawn, the Jin King's army will attack from Wuguan. The troops in Xiaoguan cannot be withdrawn either, as the Turkic army may attack from Xiaoguan at any time. Not to mention Tongguan, which is the throat of the eastern defense. It can only be strengthened, not weakened. So, where can I withdraw the troops?"
Yuan Xiaoju said coldly: "Why don't you withdraw the troops from Bashu?"
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[I took my mother to see a doctor this morning, so I’m asking for a day off from all the readers. There will be no updates at noon, but I’ll update as normal in the afternoon! ]
(End of this chapter)