From ancient times to **, the squadron has long had the phenomenon of falsely reporting the number of troops in order to eat "empty salary" (sometimes falsely reporting losses; After the Manchu Qing Dynasty established its government, it simply allowed the green camp to eat empty salaries legally; And illegal excess salary, in fact, no one cares).
In the Ming Dynasty, there was also a situation of empty salaries and false numbers. There are in peacetime, and there are also in wartime.
The war against the Qing Dynasty at the end of the Ming Dynasty lasted for 25 years from 1619 to 1644. During this period, how much was the "empty pay rate" of the Ming army? There are many reports on the number of troops of various kinds, so let's select a few representative periods to analyze them.
The first is the eve of the war. In 1600, Hukedu reported to the incident: the Liao army should have 94,000 people according to the establishment, but it was actually only 40,000. According to the report, the "empty rate rate" is 58%.
After the start of the war against the Qing Dynasty, did the "empty pay rate" improve? Not really. A great scandal in 1625 is proof of this. At this time, the Ming court set the number of soldiers in Liao at 140,000. After eliminating redundant personnel, it was compressed to 120,000. August 1625 reported 1170,000 people.
But it didn't take long for it to suddenly report that there were only 30,000 people outside the gate and only 2 inside the gate80,000 people. The total is only 580,000 people.
This incident shocked the imperial court, and asked if there were so many people suddenly missing, what was the loss? Looking it up, the combat losses were only 400 dead. Is this weird? Nearly 60,000 people went to **?
Toss and toss. The last report was the result of a long flight (obviously not long ago there was 11How did 70,000 people become the result of a long-term flight? ）…Then the matter was settled.
Pushing the empty pay rate to battle losses and flight was actually a common practice at the time. That's what a lot of reports say. The Ming court household department kept complaining, scolding the number of soldiers and horses."Do not take care of each other”。It is absurd that such sophistry reports are still taken seriously. Refute the rumors).
5.80,000 is not necessarily a real number. Because at the same time, there was a report to the household department: "Today, it is enough to pay 50,000 people", and there are 8,000 fewer people - whether there are really 50,000 people is also doubtful. Let's take 50,000 people as the benchmark, coincidentally, the "empty salary rate" is still 58%.
In this incident, the interesting thing is that the emperor seems very indifferent, and even puts on a calm appearance. Far less active than courtiers in demanding investigations. Because he also knows that this is a common practice, and he can't find out the truth. And the courtiers make a fuss about this kind of thing, which is nothing more than to make the officialdom opponent show some foreign appearance).
So after Yuan Chonghuan took over the Liao army, did the situation improve?
As mentioned before, Yuan Chonghuan falsely reported the number of horses and cavalry, which was famous at that time, and there were many relevant official reports.
In the era of Yuan Chonghuan and after Yuan Chonghuan's death, Wu Xiang (Wu Sangui's father), who fought in Liaodong for a long time, told Chongzhen in February 1644 about the number of soldiers of the Ming army against the Qing Dynasty:
There are 80,000 people in the register, but in fact there are only 30,000, and only 3,000 of them are elite families.
If Wu Xiang's figure is true, then by 1644, after Yuan Chonghuan took over the Qing War, the "empty pay rate" was 62 percent – higher, or at least not lower. Wu Xiang also particularly emphasized that this was not unique to the Qing combat units, but was true for all units. He said that this was a last resort, otherwise he would not be able to feed the army ......
Wu Xiang told the truth: the "empty pay rate" has nothing to do with losses and flights, but there are really not so many soldiers at all. As for the so-called inability to feed the army without false reports, this is probably partly the reason. However, the biggest reason is that bureaucrats at all levels, including Wu Xiang himself, have taken advantage of empty salaries.
It is also through Wu Xiang's words that we can understand how valuable the various "rumor-refuting" reports are ......
To sum up, throughout the war against the Qing Dynasty, the "empty pay rate" of the Ming army is very likely to always be around 60%.
And don't get me wrong, during the 25-year war, most of the generals who paid empty salaries were really not traitors, and there were many people who killed themselves ......But no matter how loyal and brave you are, you have to eat empty salary. That was the reality at the time.
Therefore, the number of soldiers of the Ming army is good, and the number of losses is ......Don't take it too seriously. The element of misrepresentation is too big.
Perhaps, as Wu Xiang said, there are really so many soldiers on the books, and they have already won the ......