Chapter 168: Border Garrison

Chongzhen would issue an edict to Sun Chuanting, making Pingliang Prefecture a key site for military farmland, guiding the starving refugees of western Shaanxi toward the Hetao region, and minimizing as much as possible the number of refugees surging southward. Because it was the roving refugees who were the most terrifying; once they settled down and had something to eat, they would believe the court had not abandoned them; with hope in their hearts, they would not conceive thoughts of rebellion.

As long as the measures and personnel appointments were sound, coupled with strict oversight, Pingliang Prefecture and Xi'an Prefecture—one to the east and one to the west—would in the future become the most densely populated grain-producing heartlands of the Shaanxi region. Chongzhen would dispatch large numbers of the Embroidered Uniform Guard there, and the court would also arrange for Censors to conduct inspection tours and supervision.

This process would require roughly three years or more, during which time the court would also need to provide appropriate supplies.

The Hetao region bordered Ningxia Garrison to the north and adjoined the Tumed Mongol tribe to the west. In the future, once there was enough grain and the enormous losses from long-distance transport by the court were eliminated, the border troops would be able to launch offensives against the surrounding Mongol tribes.

Cao Bianjiao was the best candidate among the generals to command operations in this area.

Given his elusive and unpredictable style of command, if he were given a cavalry force of over ten thousand men, he would become a nightmare for the Mongol tribes.

In his memorial, Sun Chuanting made a self-criticism regarding Tuo Yangkun's surrender and subsequent rebellion, and expressed dissatisfaction with certain generals' arrogance and unruliness, with his words implicitly pointing at Hong Chengchou for being overly accommodating and indulgent toward those proud and unruly soldiers.

He believed that although the main cause of Tuo Yangkun's rebellion was the extortion and intimidation by Xu Zhong and Liu Yingjie, the two men had long served under the command of the Governor-General of the Five Provinces—had Governor Hong not been lax in his usual discipline, those two would not have dared to take other excessive actions.

After all, Tuo Yangkun and Zhang Wenyao had both surrendered and had already become government troops—what kind of general openly extorts money from his own comrades?

Chongzhen expressed understanding of Sun Chuanting's complaints. But men like Xu Zhong were not the mainstream among government troops; in this period, most generals still did not dare to take overly excessive actions.

Since his own transmigration, the helpless situation in the original history—where the court was overly dependent on border generals—had been completely transformed.

The military force in his hands now could be considered relatively formidable.

Sun Chuanting's fifteen thousand Shaanxi troops, Lu Xiangsheng's six thousand Tianxiong troops, six thousand Sichuan troops, and Huang Degong's five thousand men, Sun Yingyuan's twenty thousand Yongwei Camp troops, the thirty thousand Capital Camps troops currently undergoing training, and Qin Liangyu's White Pole troops—these were all loyal, obedient elite forces.

The finest weapons and armor produced by the Ordnance Directorate were supplied on a priority basis to these few armies; these were the reliance for future campaigns against the disobedient.

This force of nearly one hundred thousand men was sufficient to intimidate any border general who wished to build up personal power through military strength.

Not to mention Cao Wenzhao and his nephew's seven thousand men, and Yang Guozhu and Hu Dawei's Xuan-Da border troops. Should any incident arise, these were all trustworthy military commanders proven by their actions in history.

The only relatively difficult one to control was the Guanning army.

But the current situation was already vastly different from the original history. The Liaodong army had not committed any excessive actions; they merely kept reaching out to the court for money—grain they did not lack.

Zu Kuan and Li Chongjin's forces, serving under Lu Xiangsheng's command, had not shown the slightest disobedience to Lu Xiangsheng's orders, and the historical phenomenon of defying orders had not appeared.

This had much to do with the string of victories and their own minimal losses.

Wu Sangui and Zu Dale under Hong Chengchou's command had also never spoken of returning to Liaodong; at least on the surface, they remained obedient.

Sufficient rewards were the most important means—when you're holding someone's silver, how can you have the face to be disobedient? People of the past valued benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom; they would not, like later generations, pick up the bowl to eat meat and then put down the chopsticks to curse the cook. Such behavior would invite ridicule; it was the act of a pure petty person.

In the later generations that had lost all sense of honor and shame, anyone with money was your real father; people acted with no scruples whatsoever, and anyone could be betrayed.

Not believing in ghosts or gods, not revering heaven or earth, having no faith—rites collapsed and music was destroyed.

Simply brainwashing could not solve the problem; people were all realistic. You could talk eloquently for half a day, but it was less effective than giving each person ten taels of silver.

To naively think of using the ideals and beliefs of later generations to maintain an army's unity and loyalty—that kind of thinking was far too childish.

At this time, the concepts of nation and ethnicity had not yet formed, and there was no notion of the destruction of one's country. If the Great Ming fell, one simply changed to another court; if the emperor died, replacing him with another was not impossible either.

Had the Manchu Qing not engaged in that nonsense of "keep your head, lose your hair," the resistance in the Jiangnan region would not have been so fierce.

Moreover, in an era where the illiteracy rate was over ninety percent, what isms and beliefs could you preach to the soldiers—would they even understand?

Say what you will, real gold and silver were the most practical; could beliefs and ideals be exchanged for silver and grain?

Whoever gives pay and provisions, you work for them—the vast majority of soldiers thought this way.

Joining the army and fighting was not to listen to you tell stories; it was to earn money to support the family and fill their stomachs.

What did nation, ethnicity, future, and destiny have to do with swinging a blade at someone?

If brainwashing worked, then just send people directly into the roving bandits' ranks to brainwash them.

Go try lecturing the likes of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong about the greater good of nation and ethnicity—he'll show you whether your neck or his blade is harder.

Go try talking about ideals with the Liaodong warlords—they'll throw you into a fire as a madman and burn you to death.

Zhang Wenyao's troops, selected for enlistment, and the followers of the northwestern roving bandits together numbered another ten thousand or so; the military pay and provisions, weapons, and armor for these people all had to be distributed and supplied in a timely manner. Only when supplies were in place could the doubts in their hearts be dispelled.

Sun Chuanting's idea in his memorial about dividing forces for operations demonstrated his extraordinary insight.

One should pursue the fleeing foe with the remaining valor.

Only after the scattered bands of roving bandits were thoroughly eliminated would merchants dare to come out and do business, and only then could the common people safely tend their fields and survive.

Without commerce, there is no vitality.

Without the driving force of commercial activity, wanting the people's lives to get better and better would be a fool's dream.

Can a person live by only eating?

Needles and thread, oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar, cloth, shoes, and hats—all needed someone to transport and sell them.

What merchant would still travel long distances to peddle these goods now? Did they not value their lives?

These were all necessities for the common people, the most basic supplies for daily life. Only after complete safety was achieved would the circulation of these goods occur.

And Sun Chuanting's act of personally leading troops on a long march to Ningxia Garrison filled Chongzhen with admiration. Because this was precisely a step in his own plan—he had not expected Sun Chuanting to have thought of it and to be implementing it.

Although what he did not know was that Sun Chuanting, unwilling to follow behind Hong Chengchou and take his orders, had carved out a different path to earn merit elsewhere.

The reason famous men became famous was precisely because they possessed extraordinary vision and ability, always displaying their uniqueness in certain places. "Under a great reputation, there is no hollow man"—that was the principle.

He himself had merely transmigrated into the body of an emperor and possessed more knowledge and broader horizons than the ancients; in terms of intelligence, he was far behind.

Ningxia Garrison was a potential source of instability.

This was a place the court had neglected for many years.

In the past twenty years, the court's attention had been focused on Liaodong and the roving bandits; it had long lost interest in Ningxia Garrison, which defended against the Mongol tribes.

The various Mongol tribes had been in decline for many years and could no longer pose much of a threat to the Great Ming. Those border troops who had guarded the frontiers for generations had become as useless as chicken ribs.

But the border troops of Ningxia Garrison were an exceedingly formidable lot.

In history, it was the Manchu Qing's Gansu-Shaanxi Green Standard Army that suppressed the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories, and most of those elite soldiers came from Ningxia Garrison and Yansui Garrison.

Sun Chuanting had certainly realized this, which was why he went in the capacity of a high-ranking frontier minister to resolve the problem.

Restraining generals with his status, suppressing the border troops with overwhelming force, eliminating the unstable elements within the army, and then supplementing this with ample military pay and provisions, winning over the hearts of soldiers and people alike, and forging a battle-ready force—this should have been Sun Chuanting's plan.

Now all that remained was to wait for Hong Chengchou's battle report. Over twenty thousand elite troops dealing with Li Zicheng, whose wings had not yet grown full, should be well within their capability.

The key was not to let that future supreme leader of the rebel forces escape with his life—he was famously a cockroach that could not be killed.

When he thought of Yansui Town, a famous name flashed through Chongzhen's mind like lightning.

Zheng Chongjian!

How could he have forgotten this old gentleman?

This fellow townsman of Sun Chuanting was also a remarkably capable man.

In the nearly two years since his transmigration, his mind had been full of Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, Sun Chuanting, and Hong Chengchou—how could he have forgotten this elder?

The Governor of Yansui was quite important; the Yansui border troops posed a direct threat to the roving bandits of northern Shaanxi, but why had he never heard any news of Zheng Chongjian?

No, he had to send someone to Yansui Town at once. The old man was getting on in years—though he had been at Yansui Town for less than three years, the border garrison was a bitter, cold place with extremely harsh conditions, so an imperial physician should be dispatched to check on him.

And military pay and provisions, and weapons—all of these had to be sent as well.

The border troops of Yansui Town needed to be reorganized, and with Zheng Chongjian's ability, there would be no problem.

The rebuilding of the border troops of Ningxia Town and Yansui Town should focus primarily on cavalry.

Apart from the several tens of thousands of cavalry in Liaodong, most of the other commanders under the Great Ming lacked warhorses and cavalry.

Even a brave general like Cao Bianjiao, who loved mobile Mobile Corps Commander warfare, had at most only a thousand cavalry under his command.

These two border towns were close to the Mongols, rich in warhorse resources, and had very many soldiers who knew how to fight on horseback.

As long as military pay and provisions were sufficient, it should not be difficult for each of the two towns to recruit a cavalry force of over ten thousand.

If they wanted to increase the number of cavalry further, were there not still the Mongols beyond the border wall?

The Great Ming of today did not even have the concept of nation or ethnicity, let alone the barbaric, crude, and ignorant Mongol tribes.

Besides, since its founding, the Great Ming had precedents of recruiting Mongols to fight in its armies.

In the early Ming armies there were very many Mongols, and this group of Mongols who joined the Ming army showed no mercy at all when campaigning against their own kinsmen.

This tradition had in fact been preserved all along—it was just that in recent years the court's finances had been straitened, with no surplus expenditure available for recruiting foreign peoples to fight.

Now that he had money, this glorious tradition should be carried forward even more vigorously.

The Jianzhou barbarians' current Mongol banners were basically dominated by the Khorchin Mongol tribe, and they had not yet reached far west to recruit tribes like the Tumed.

In other words, the Jianzhou barbarians had not yet completely conquered the Mongols.

If the bandits could go there, so could he.

The Tumed tribe west of Qinghai was the most ideal source of foreign warriors.

For Mongol tribes so poor they had nothing left but their trousers—never mind silver, as long as there was grain, recruiting several thousand or even ten thousand would pose no problem at all.

As for Zheng Chongjian and the affairs of Yansui Town, having the Ministry of War send people would suffice; all he needed to do was produce the silver, and the grain.

According to Chongzhen's edict, the Grand Secretariat issued directives to all regions, and now the Governors of every province had begun to work on military farmland—something that had never appeared in history before.

In order to completely stabilize the people's hearts, Chongzhen took one million taels of silver from the privy purse and sent it to various regions according to the severity of the disasters.

He could not be a miser; dying like that would feel pathetic. Whether for himself or for the people, he had to be willing to give—no giving, no getting.

With Sun Chuanting's successful experience in Xi'an Prefecture, and with the support of the Emperor's privy purse, large-scale land reclamation and military farming had already gotten underway.

Another Shaanxi must never be allowed to appear. As long as the farming households had fields to till, and the government had grain to support them, then the next year there would be a harvest.

Now he was not short of money; what he lacked was grain. The Zheng family was still continuously shipping rice in by seagoing vessel—this counted as returning kindness for kindness. That the Regional Commander of Fujian could be repaid with such a great return showed that the Zheng family had a fairly good conscience.

Should he perhaps grant Zheng Zhilong a title like earl?

If he really did grant an earldom, the Zheng family should be able to feel the court's true sincerity and deep friendship, right?

On reflection, Chongzhen decided against it. Only military merit could earn a noble title—this principle absolutely could not be moved lightly; the great instruments of state could not be given away casually.

The Zheng Zhilong of history was not an ungrateful bastard. Seeing that the great edifice of the Ming was about to collapse, he had followed the tide of the times and made a wise choice, merely wanting to preserve the Zheng family's wealth and honor. Unfortunately, his wish had not come true—he had run into a ruthless master.

He was a petty man, but not a hypocrite.