Chapter Sixty-Five: Yang Shiqi and Yu Qian, Part Two

Chapter Sixty-Five Yang Shiqi and Yu Qian, Part Two

Yang Shiqi said, “The Son of Heaven is unaware of the many ills festering in the empire. He believes the military strength today is as it was in the times of the Grand Ancestor and the Taizong, yet he does not realize that the collapse of the Guard Battalion system has reached an irreversible point.” He gave a bitter smile and said to Yu Qian, “Do you know how many registered military households from the Guard Battalions have deserted by now?”

Yu Qian was well aware that, ever since the new emperor’s accession, Yang Shiqi’s main political agenda had been to purge the bureaucracy with one hand and the Guard Battalions with the other.

Yang Shiqi’s policies were carried out thoroughly in the civil administration. A large number of incompetent and harmful officials had been removed. Yang Shiqi’s control over the civil officials was quite effective. However, when it came to the military, his influence was limited.

Although the Ministry of War was steadily gaining more power, gradually encroaching upon the authority of the Five Military Command Offices, the veterans of the Campaign of Pacification were not yet all gone. With Zhang Fu still present, he was a formidable backer.

Yang Shiqi could not bypass these men and directly extend his hand into the Guard Battalions.

What, then, were the flaws of the Guard Battalion system?

Foremost was desertion.

The soldiers of the Ming Guard Battalions came from four sources: campaign conscripts, those who surrendered and pledged allegiance, penal exiles, and quota conscripts.

Campaign conscripts were those who followed the Grand Ancestor in his conquests; those who pledged allegiance were once armies of rival princes or surrendered Yuan troops; penal exiles were criminals sentenced to military service.

The first two groups had been present since the founding of the dynasty, and their families had settled with the armies in various locations. As for penal exiles, their numbers each year were not significant.

The true majority of deserters came from the ranks of quota conscripts.

What were quota conscripts?

During the Grand Ancestor’s reign, to make up for the shortfall in troop numbers, he ordered that certain households provide one able-bodied man as a soldier. This was entirely compulsory; the selected individual’s family and neighbors were responsible for outfitting him before he was dispatched to garrison distant borders.

On the surface, this seemed reasonable. Yet it concealed grave problems.

Even during the Grand Ancestor’s time, desertion was a constant issue.

To be sent far from home for decades on end—and if the conscript died, the authorities would return to his home to draft a replacement from among his kin. This pattern repeated for generations.

If governance were upright and the Grand Ancestor’s plans carried out, perhaps it could have worked. But from ancient times, the military has never been a place of kindness. It was inevitable that some would try to flee, and the officers of the Guard Battalions not only failed to prevent desertion, they sometimes facilitated it. After all, when these men absconded, their rations and stipends were pocketed by their superiors.

Yang Shiqi’s most significant reform in the military was the investigation of desertion.

Hearing the tone in Yang Shiqi’s voice, Yu Qian sensed something amiss and asked, “Teacher, how many have deserted?”

Yang Shiqi replied, “One million two hundred thousand and more.”

Yu Qian was taken aback. “Isn’t that more than half?”

At its peak, the Ming military was said to number over three million, though much of that was inflated. By Yu Qian’s estimation, the total strength of the Guard Battalions across the empire amounted to a little over two million. Thus, one million two hundred thousand missing was indeed more than half—an astonishing figure.

Yu Qian quickly realized that “deserters” did not equate exactly to “empty quotas.” Soldiers who had deserted might not have done so all at once.

Yet such a vast number revealed a deeper issue: the combat effectiveness of the Guard Battalion army could no longer be relied upon. With desertion on such a scale, not a single battalion could be free of it. With morale in such a state, how could they be expected to fight?

A chill ran down Yu Qian’s spine. He asked, “Teacher, you were entrusted by the late emperor to assist the young ruler. Will you not address this matter?”

Yang Shiqi smiled wryly, “Address it? How? In the army, officers treat the soldiers like servants and slaves, subjecting them to all manner of abuse. The massive labor projects in Beijing require tens of thousands of men—where do you think these men come from?”

“Mostly from the military households,” Yu Qian replied.

“Shall we not repair the Great Wall? Shall we not build Beijing?”

“Even if I clear out empty quotas, so be it. But if I were to root out all the corruption in the military, do you think the Duke of England, Zhang Fu, would not fight me to the death? Even the Empress Dowager would never permit such a thing.”

If one considers the rise and fall of the Guard Battalions alongside the fortunes of the hereditary nobles, a pattern emerges. When the Guard Battalions were strong, the power of the nobles was at its peak; when the battalions weakened, the nobles became mere figureheads.

The Ming military was riddled with hereditary positions. Even the posts within the Guard Battalions had become hereditary, almost like noble titles—hereditary captains, hereditary commandants, hereditary commanders—all the way up to the Five Military Command Offices, which could only be held by dukes or marquises. These offices represented hundreds of Guard Battalions.

The nobles were the greatest beneficiaries of this system. Even if Zhang Fu was aware of the underlying corruption, he could not act against it—for no one could be expected to betray their own interests. Should the Ministry of War be allowed to destroy the livelihoods of all their old comrades? Without the support of the subordinates, even the Duke of England would be little more than an ornament in Beijing.

Of course, he also knew that some things could not go too far, and so when Yang Shiqi took the initiative to investigate desertion, Zhang Fu did not object.

Moreover, as the chief among civil officials, Yang Shiqi already wielded near-absolute power among the literati; to seek control of the military as well would arouse even the Empress Dowager’s suspicions, despite her trust in him.

In terms of both sentiment and reason, this was not something Yang Shiqi could do.

Yang Shiqi asked, “You have just come from the south—are you aware of the incident in Cizhou?”

Yu Qian stiffened. “What happened in Cizhou?”

Cizhou, known today as Cixian, now belongs to Hebei Province, but at this time was part of Henan. Yu Qian had traveled to the capital by water, sailing from Henan to the Grand Canal and then northward, so he had not passed through Cizhou.

Yang Shiqi sneered, “There was a bandit named Zhang Puxiang, styling himself the Master of the Seven Buddhas, who led a hundred men to attack the Cizhou battalion. Most astonishing is that he actually succeeded.”

“Later, it was a transport commissioner who mustered men to suppress them.”

“It was a disgraceful spectacle.”

Yu Qian knew well that the ruling dynasty had won the realm with the teachings of the Bright Faith. That faith was little different from the White Lotus or Maitreya sects. Even after the Grand Ancestor had unified the land, uprisings by such groups occurred frequently. The last had been only in the fifth year of the Xuande era.

For this reason, Yu Qian was not overly concerned, nor was Yang Shiqi. The Ming was strong; what could such petty rabble achieve?

Yet the fact that the interior Guard Battalions had decayed to such a state truly alarmed Yu Qian. He quickly said, “It is my fault.”

“How could it be your fault?” Yang Shiqi said. “Though you are the regional inspector for Henan, an inspector is not like the commandery governors or provincial governors of the Former Han. Can you truly control what goes on inside the Guard Battalions?”

In the Ming, local administration was in the hands of three agencies: the Provincial Administration Commission, the Surveillance Commission, and the Military Commission. Inspectors, though they carried central appointments, were akin to imperial commissioners, lacking authority to command both civil and military affairs directly.

Perhaps in later Ming times, as the prestige of civil officials rose and the military’s fell, inspectors gained more military authority—but for now, the old hands of the Five Military Command Offices had not all died out.

All Yu Qian could do was give instructions to the various battalions—he could not root out the deeper corruption within the military.

“That, too, is the Empress Dowager’s intent,” Yang Shiqi said. “His Majesty is still young and naturally full of ambition. Yet there are things I cannot say. Everyone feigns ignorance, but the emperor cannot be truly deceived.”

“I have been in the cabinet for so long that I seldom return even to Jiangxi. I am no longer clear about the state of the provinces. All these matters, you must report to the emperor.” He gave a bitter smile. “Peace in the empire—these words I must still paint with a pleasing veneer. Fortunately, the capital garrisons count several hundred thousand men; even if the local battalions rot, nothing major will erupt for the time being.”

The elite of the Ming army was the capital garrison, which at its peak numbered some eight hundred thousand, all veterans of many campaigns. Though their numbers had since diminished, there were still over three hundred thousand—enough to serve as the empire’s anchor.

In Yang Shiqi’s estimation, even if the Oirat Mongols were strong, in a pitched battle the capital troops could still defeat them; they had done so before. The Battle of Hulan Hushiwun, fought against the Oirats, had taken place barely twenty years earlier.

Yu Qian said, “I understand, Teacher. Please take care of your health—the court cannot do without you.”

How to speak of these matters before the emperor required finesse. Governing a great realm is like cooking delicate fish—if the emperor were to take drastic measures, it might lead to even greater disaster.