Chapter 428: Zhou’s Hodgepodge of Systems
Zhu Yuanzhang's military household system was too clever. Being a military household not only requires paying taxes, but also labor service. More importantly, there is no food or salary, and you have to go to war. More importantly, there is no room for advancement for military households. They are military households for life and will be military households for generations.
The benefits are all taken away by the court, and the military households live worse than farmers. So don't blame the military households for escaping and being rotten.
Richard is ready to reform the Fubing system. Fubing will be allocated 200 acres of farmland, and they don't have to pay taxes or perform labor service. They are not under the jurisdiction of the local prefectures and counties, but under the jurisdiction of the Zhechongfu.
The farmland allocated by Fubing is not allowed to be traded or monopolized. Fubing needs to serve in the military. The age requirement is between 20 and 45 years old. If they are over 45 years old, they must retire and then replace their sons to continue serving in the military.
Richard specially divided some areas to accommodate Fubing.
If a Fubing dies in battle, his sons or brothers will also come to serve in the military.
Richard set up the Fubing to have 200 mu of good farmland. In addition to the good farmland, he would also allocate 10 mu of mulberry forest or pasture according to the area where he was located. So that they could graze horses, raise cattle or weave cloth.
In addition, the Fubing did not have to perform labor service or pay taxes. The annual income could allow the family to live a good life, and they also had enough time to hone their martial arts.
Under such a Fubing system, each Fubing household could specifically support two soldiers to hone their martial arts. Although the Fubing did not have military pay, they would receive rewards after going on the expedition. And there was no upper limit for Fubing. If they made contributions, they could get official positions and be promoted.
Jinyang and Xinzhou were located in the basin, with a lot of land for farming and war horses. Richard set up Zhechongfu here. Jinyang and Xinzhou each set up four Zhechongfu, each with one thousand households, which added up to eight thousand Fubing households.
All these Fubing were experienced soldiers, and everyone had weapons and armor. According to the farmland allocated to them by Richard, they could basically raise horses.
Such well-trained soldiers are stronger than many regular armies.
You should know that the armor rate in ancient wars was not high. In regular armies, the armor rate directly affected the combat effectiveness of an army.
The armor rate in the Tang Dynasty was only 60%, while the armor rate of the soldiers was at least 80% to 90%, and there were even a large number of cavalry. The combat effectiveness of these armies was completely unmatched by the Liao army.
Eight thousand soldiers were enough to make this place rest assured. Next, Richard also established the system of soldiers in Youzhou. Among the sixteen states of Yanyun, there was more arable land here. At the same time, because of the problem of Khitan, Richard set up sixteen Zhechongfu in Youzhou.
The sixteen Zhechongfu added up to 16,000 soldiers, and then set up sixteen Zhechongfu in Hebei. Next, sixteen Zhechongfu were set up in Guanzhong and Hedong respectively.
Next, Longxi and Hexi will also set up Zhechongfu.
As for the military system of Zhou, Richard planned to use both the recruitment system and the fubing system. The recruitment system was for the imperial guards, while the fubing system was mostly for the frontier troops. Every battle was conducted by drawing a part of the imperial guards and adding some fubing.
Too many fubing system settings would affect the tax revenue of the court, so Richard did not set up five or six hundred Zhechongfu like the Tang Dynasty. Richard expected to set up three to four hundred Zhechongfu.
The number of fubing would be between 300,000 and 400,000. At the same time, the central government would train 300,000 imperial guards. 200,000 of these imperial guards would guard various places, 100,000 would guard Luoyang, and these imperial guards would be rotated every year.
The fubing system and the recruitment system were combined to ensure the military power of Zhou. At the same time, Richard and Guo Rong agreed to set up the Privy Council to manage the army of the world.
And the Privy Council and the civil officials were separated, and they would not be managed by civil officials. Richard knew too well the disadvantages of civil officials managing military generals. As long as civil officials were allowed to intervene in the army, it would not take decades for the entire army to be completely abolished.
The civil officials did not want the generals to have too much power, and they did not want the emperor to control a strong army. In the eyes of those civil officials, maintaining such a strong army would allow the emperor to truly have the power of the emperor.
Just like in the Ming Dynasty, why did Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di have great power? The four major cases that Zhu Yuanzhang started involved tens of thousands of people, and the heads of people were rolling, and no one dared to resist his will.
In addition to Zhu Yuanzhang being the founding monarch and having great prestige, on the other hand, he controlled a powerful army, and Zhu Di was the same. After Ming Baozong, when the powerful army of the Ming Dynasty was abolished, the power of the emperor began to be compressed step by step.
This was the case in the Ming Dynasty, not to mention that it is still the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.
Although the saying that the emperor is strong in soldiers and horses sounds treasonous, it actually speaks of the true power of the emperor.
Guo Rong does not want his descendants' imperial power to be continuously weakened.
The Privy Council was established as the management and decision-making level of the army, and the officials in it can only be military personnel. In addition to the Privy Council, the court also set up a Council of Political Affairs.
The Council of Political Affairs established seven ministers, who were equivalent to prime ministers. All prime ministers were appointed as ministers of the Secretariat and Minister of State. Among the seven prime ministers, one was the first prime minister, and the other six were second prime ministers.
Richard and Guo Rong designed this to weaken the power of the prime minister and divide it. And each of the seven prime ministers took turns for one day. If there were major events, the seven people would need to discuss and submit them to the emperor for approval.
It was equivalent to the emperor holding the decision-making power.
At the same time, the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Personnel, the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Punishment, the Taifu Ling, the Shaofu Ling, the Supervisory Council, the Metropolitan Procuratorate and the Tongzhengsi were established.
The Ministry of Works is in charge of local projects and water conservancy facilities, the Ministry of Personnel is in charge of the promotion of officials below the fifth rank, and officials above the fifth rank are decided by the emperor. The Ministry of Rites is responsible for the imperial examinations and sacrifices, the Ministry of Punishments is in charge of criminal law, the Taifu Ling is in charge of taxation, and the Shaofu Ling is the emperor's inner treasury.
The Privy Council is responsible for the deployment of the army, and is responsible for weapon manufacturing together with the Ministry of Works. The Supervisory Council is responsible for supervising officials who violate laws and disciplines, and also has the responsibility to impeach officials. The Supervisory Council is also responsible for supervising officials and supervising the Supervisory Council, which is equivalent to the Jinyiwei and is directly responsible to the emperor.
In addition, Richard also came up with a secret memorial system. Officials above the seventh rank, if they discover major events, can submit secret memorials to the emperor. Secret memorials do not go through the Political Affairs Hall, but directly go through the Tongzhengsi, and then the Tongzhengsi sends them to the emperor's inner study.
In fact, the entire system combines the advantages of several dynasties to form a hodgepodge. How this system works needs to be run for a while to see.
If there are any problems, they can make adjustments in time. Anyway, it is the early days of the founding of the country, and the system is not perfect, so we just need to keep improving it. Richard and Guo Rong now have enough time to try and make mistakes.