ATPnovel Chapter 22: Land Distribution, Labor Gathering, and Formation of Local Standing Armies
Chapter 22: Land Distribution, Labor Gathering, and Formation of Local Standing Armies
Lu Xiang-sheng was due to return to the capital to report on his duties long ago, but a sudden imperial edict at the end of January forced him to remain in Jizhou Town to handle various matters concerning the garrisons north of the capital.
Kiyota's work was completed smoothly long ago.
After the emperor granted permission for the hereditary officers of the Jingbei Garrison to bring their family and property to the capital, the resistance Lu Xiang-sheng faced from the land reclamation campaign suddenly decreased.
To put it bluntly, the fact that the emperor was willing to give these incompetent garrison officers a way out—by not confiscating their property and even providing them with idle official positions and houses in the capital—was already an immense favor.
Few garrison officers would not know when to resist under such conditions.
Even if some local tyrants did try to rebel, they would be no match for Lu Xiang-sheng's army of over ten thousand men.
After making an example of someone, the rest could only give up and obediently cooperate.
The military garrisons in Jizhou Town and the northern border of Shuntian Prefecture were not as numerous as those in Xuanfu Town, totaling less than 15000 hectares.
On the contrary, Yang Guozhu and Hu Dawei, after receiving their full pay and military equipment, led 10,000 of their own troops to work with great enthusiasm in Xuanfu Town, and eventually cleared out nearly 20000 hectares of military farmland.
Based on this calculation, the total area of military farmland in the northern border region of Zhili, from Xuanfu Town to Jizhou Town, is approximately 35000 hectares.
Even after excluding the land that has been abandoned for a long time and cannot be recultivated in a short period of time, the total area of military settlements in the northern border of Zhili that were eventually included in the imperial estates was as much as 34000 hectares.
It can be said that Lu Xiang-sheng's overall planning work over the past month has yielded remarkable results, after all, the imperial estates that were nominally under the emperor's control were only 28000 hectares.
With the arrival of these 35000 hectares of military farmland in the north, Emperor Chongzhen's disposable land holdings increased dramatically, amounting to a considerable sum of silver.
But Lu Xiang-sheng knew in his heart that Emperor Chongzhen's deliberate concessions to the civil officials in court and the postponement of the implementation of the new foreign policy were not merely to pocket these military settlements in the north.
He guessed that the emperor probably wanted to implement effective military settlements in northern Zhili.
He had already implemented this method when he was serving in Xuanfu Town, and the results were indeed very good.
After all, these local officials couldn't touch the lands of the military officers and local gentry. If they wanted to get things done, they naturally had to target the less threatening garrisons.
Even though the military garrisons and settlements have long been encroached upon by nobles and local tyrants, some land can still be squeezed out.
Lu Xiang-sheng used this method to raise funds and resources to build a field army without "disturbing" local forces or nobles.
Therefore, he naturally felt that Emperor Chongzhen wanted to replicate this "stable" approach to effectively solve the problems of defense and provisions in the northern border.
But he was still too conservative in his thinking.
The new edict that Emperor Chongzhen had previously issued to him outlined an even more ambitious strategic defense blueprint for the area north of Beijing.
Emperor Chongzhen did not directly distribute the 34000 hectares of land that could have been used for military settlements to the suffering military households left behind.
Instead, he had Lu Xiang-sheng spread the word about the new policies in the Jizhou Town area to attract the military households who had previously fled to various places to return to the garrison and wait for the land to be distributed.
On one hand, a portion of the land was set aside to commend and reward the outstanding generals and soldiers who emerged from the new army during the previous war against the slaves in southern Ji.
Having learned of Emperor Chongzhen's grand plan, Lu Xiang-sheng dared not delay. He immediately mobilized local officials at all levels to attract the previously exiled military households to return to the garrison and register.
If other policies were publicized, those deserted military households might dismiss them with disdain.
However, the idea of distributing land to individual households, which would allow the elderly and infirm to be resettled, tempted these fleeing military families.
Some of the deserted military households inevitably suspected that there was a trick involved, fearing that the imperial court was deliberately deceiving them to arrest them and bring them back to serve as slaves to the military leaders.
However, the fact that Emperor Chongzhen had previously rewarded the border troops and military households played a crucial role at this moment.
The sons of military households who benefited from this went with court clerks to persuade the deserted military households to return to their posts and register, and also told them that all the military leaders above them had been dismissed.
As a result, the deserted soldiers, whose morale was low, naturally began to tentatively return to their posts one after another.
As the military households who had returned to the capital earlier were indeed settled and provided with porridge by the imperial court, the remaining military households who were still holding on could no longer sit still. They brought their families and came out from the mountains and forests north of the capital to return to the capital and register.
Even so, Lu Xiang-sheng estimated that the final number of military households to be re-registered would not exceed 3, and would be between 2.7 and 2.8.
The population of these military households is unlikely to exceed 12, and there are a large number of elderly and infirm people among them.
In fact, Lu Xiang-sheng's prediction was about right. After the chaos of war and famine, the number of military households in the northern part of Zhili, from Xuanfu Town to Jizhou Town, had been drastically reduced.
Of these, only 25,000 able-bodied men remained, a far cry from the dynasty's peak.
It would be strange if these slave garrison troops scattered along the long border and the corrupt and useless former Jizhou border troops could prevent the Jurchens from entering and breaking through the pass.
However, with the garrisons in the area north of Beijing now abolished, Chongzhen, who was fully capable of settling and arming the 25,000 sons of military households, would not continue to be careless about border defense.
On the eighth day of the second month, Lu Xiang-sheng, who had mobilized a large number of government officials and some local gentry who were trying to curry favor with the imperial court, set up flags and organized troops in various garrisons along the border of Jizhou Town and Shuntian Prefecture.
At this moment, the first batch of military pay and provisions personally allocated by Emperor Chongzhen had been transported to the original Jizhou garrison camp, so Lu Xiang-sheng was full of confidence and began to train the able-bodied men of these garrisons to form a local standing army.
In the Xuanfu Town area, Yang Guozhu was in charge of organizing the army.
These 25,000 able-bodied young men were organized into twelve local units, stationed and deployed along the northern border, and worked with the border troops to guard various passes of the Great Wall.
Each battalion has 2,000 troops. In wartime, three nearby battalions will form a temporary garrison town. At that time, one western garrison town will be under the control of Xuanfu Town, and the two eastern garrison towns will be under the control of Jizhou Town.
During wartime, the garrison towns on the western border of Shuntian Prefecture were directly under the command and dispatch of the New Army.
In this way, the local standing armies stationed along the Great Wall can greatly alleviate the defense pressure on the two major border towns north of Beijing during their off-peak seasons.
In times of war, the two border towns can have a more abundant reserve of troops, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone.
With their families receiving land and no longer being tenants or slaves to the military leader, the standing army soldiers, with greater hope for the future, would be even more determined to defend their new homeland and land.
Of course, as their nominal "owner," Chongzhen would not treat them unfairly.
This winter is the perfect time to provide supplies and mobilize them to build irrigation systems on their new homeland in preparation for spring planting.