Meishan Su family, Su Yun is the most virtuous

Chapter 283 The road to military reform is full of difficulties!

When Su Yun said this, all the generals looked at each other in surprise.

Is this request reasonable and legal?
This is naturally both reasonable and legal.

Su Yun was not only the governor of Fuyan Road, but also a Hanlin academician of the imperial court. The key point was that he was a peerless military genius who had crawled out of a sea of ​​blood and corpses. His authority was even greater than that of Zhong Yan before him, so no one dared to oppose him face to face.

But they all stopped talking.

Su Yun asked, "If you have any difficulties, tell us. If you don't tell us, there are no difficulties. If there are no difficulties, we must execute them. If we cannot execute them, we will be subject to military law. You can do whatever you want."

Many generals knew that Qi Keyong had been following Su Yun for a while, and quickly signaled him to tell Su Yun. Qi Keyong had no choice but to bite the bullet and said, "General Su, you don't know, this matter is very difficult to handle. There are too many difficulties and obstacles. The interests involved are intertwined. It is impossible to sort them out one by one!"

Su Yun smiled when he heard this and said, "Just tell me one by one. As long as you can raise the problem, I will naturally find a way to solve it."

Qi Keyong sighed and said, "Emperor Su must think that the serious shortage of troops in our border army is probably because our generals are sucking the blood of the soldiers and eating empty salaries.

Did we actually suck the blood of soldiers and collect empty salaries? To be honest, we did a lot. But let me tell you this, 40% of empty salaries, plus the withheld food and wages, account for about 80% of the food and wages allocated by the court to the army. Where did it all go in the end?

I don't know about other places, but as for our Fuyan Army, 20% was withheld by the Privy Council, 20% was taken away by the Three Yamen, 10% was withheld by us high-level generals, and 10% was in the hands of middle and low-level officers. Originally, 40% would be left in the hands of the soldiers, but after the Yuanfeng Reform, the Ministry of War regained some power and they also took 20%!
So you ask us to recruit the full quota of soldiers, which is simply impossible. We can do without this 10% of empty salaries, but we cannot support this 10% of empty salaries.

Oh, even if you want to get back the 10% that was withheld from the lower-level officers, there is no way to support it, because the bulk of it has been embezzled by the Privy Council, the Three Yamen, and the Ministry of War. "

Su Yun frowned immediately. He actually knew about the affairs of the Privy Council and the Ministry of War. The Yuanfeng Reform took place not long ago. He had been in Bian Jing before that, so naturally he had heard some about it.

Due to the chaos of the Five Dynasties, the power of the Ministry of War had long been taken away by the Privy Council. During the Yuanfeng Reform, Zhao Xu pushed for the return of various powers to the three provinces and six ministries.

Therefore, the Ministry of War did take back some of its jurisdictional power during the Yuanfeng Reform. Some people proposed to abolish the Privy Council and return all power to the Ministry of War.

However, Zhao Xu's attitude on this point was very clear: "Our ancestors did not give the military power to the Ministry of War, so they appointed officials to lead it and maintain control. How can it be abolished?"

However, even so, the Ministry of War still took back the authority and responsibility for grand ceremonies and court guards, military examinations, irregular troops (militia, garrison troops, local troops, and foreign troops), as well as official titles and inheritances of the four barbarians, and paramilitary and logistical supplies such as carriages, horses, and weapons.

Su Yun had anticipated the complexity of the matter, but after listening to Qi Keyong's description, he still felt that it was indeed difficult to overcome.

Let’s first look at these groups that took away the benefits. None of them is easy to mess with. Well, the easiest ones to mess with are the high-ranking military officials in front of us. The reason why they are easy to mess with is because they are the people closest to Su Yun.

They are closest to Su Yun and can borrow the most power from Su Yun, but they are also controlled by Su Yun. If Su Yun wants them to hand over their interests, they usually find it difficult to resist, especially since Su Yun may be a most powerful governor.

But apart from Qi Keyong and others, the rest are not easy to deal with.

There is no need to say much about the Privy Council, which can be said to be the most magical department in the Song Dynasty.

This department was initially established to seize power from the Ministry of War, but later it directly suppressed the Ministry of War and became the sole holder of military power.

Responsible for military affairs, military defense, border defense, military affairs, issuing secret orders, and assisting in state governance;

Recruiting, examining, transferring, garrisoning, rewarding and punishing the guards, internal and external imperial soldiers, promoting and removing soldiers from the military register, and dispatching envoys to issue demotions and replacements;

Officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, military selected officers, generals, road supervisors, and border inspectors and above are appointed.

During the Five Dynasties period, the power of the Privy Council expanded unprecedentedly, and its chief executives were almost the highest officials of the time. The Ministry of War was directly suppressed by it and could not even raise its head.

During the Song Dynasty, the court intended to divide up military power, so in the early days, the Privy Council was still very powerful. It could usually share the power of civil and military affairs with the Secretariat, and they were the two major pillars of the court's political power.

Even when a war broke out, the emperor would discuss it alone with the Privy Council, and the Secretariat would not be involved.

Therefore, in the early years of the Song Dynasty, the status of the Privy Council was still higher than that of the Secretariat.

Well, the Privy Councilor can even participate in the decision-making of some non-military affairs of the court. Isn’t that amazing?

Although some of the power of the Privy Council has been taken away by the military, the Privy Councilor is still one of the court officials, and his ranking is second only to the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, usually third, which is higher than the Vice-Chancellor.

For such a department, even Zhang Dun, the Vice Minister of State Affairs, might not be able to gain the upper hand if he wanted to argue with it, let alone the General Manager. As for the Ministry of War, it may seem weak now, but no matter how weak it is, it is not something that a local General Manager can provoke. Although the Hanlin Bachelor is noble, if you really go there with this title, they will not pay attention to you.

The three yamen, which have always been powerful, are not to be provoked.

In the early years of the Song Dynasty, whenever the emperor fought against foreign enemies, he would pay special attention to the Privy Council, and its status naturally exceeded that of the Secretariat.

However, as more and more civil servants entered the Privy Council, the professional quality of the Council became lower and lower, and its importance naturally became weaker in the eyes of the emperor.

Especially after the Treaty of Chanyuan, civil officials began to gain control over the Privy Council, and their professional quality was extremely poor, which indirectly led to the Privy Council being at a disadvantage in its confrontation with the Secretariat.

Then the three yamen began to emerge.

The Three Yamen are different from the Privy Council. The Privy Council has gradually become a more civilian-oriented part, while the Three Yamen are more purely military departments. As everyone knows, military departments have always been strong.

It is also worth noting that as time went on, these imperial guards expanded into the "national regular army" that commanded the entire country's military, and was an absolutely powerful department that directly controlled local troops.

Haha, it would be strange if you could get money from such a department.

And as for the last middle-level officers, are they easy to mess with?
In fact, it is not easy to mess with, or even harder to mess with.

If you offend other departments, the worst that can happen is that you won't get your money. But it's different for middle and low-level officers. The Song Dynasty's army is used to being arrogant and domineering. If you really annoy them, they will really mutiny!
Su Yun shook his head. As expected, the problems of the Song Dynasty army had already become irreversible.

The Privy Council, the Three Yamen, the Ministry of War, local generals, the entire system, civil servants...all kinds of problems are intertwined. There will be no problem if you just stay in it honestly, but once you want to push anything, this system that has already become cancerous will fight back!

Wang Anshi did try to reform the army. During the Xining Reform, he came up with a system of appointing generals. To be honest, this system was effective and improved the strength of the Song Dynasty's border troops to a certain extent, but it only solved part of the problem.

The reason why this law of placing generals was accepted was that it did not harm the interests of various classes, and therefore it was implemented.

But if you want to carry out a thorough military reform like Su Yun did, the resistance you will encounter will be too great!

Qi Keyong and others were delighted to see Su Yun lost in thought: It seems that Su Jinglie already knows the difficulties. This is good. It will be a good thing for everyone if we don't make trouble!

Su Yun thought for a while, then asked everyone to go back while he thought about it for a while.

However, Su Yun left Zhang Qie alone.

Su Yun asked, "Uncle, there are only two of us here, so we don't have to be so serious. I know your talent, and my father-in-law has told me about it many times. Can you help me analyze this? Can this military reform be carried out?"

Zhang Yu shook his head upon hearing this and said, "This is more difficult than ascending to heaven!"

Su Yun nodded and said, "Uncle, please tell me in detail."

Zhang Yu said, "Have you ever thought about looking for your father-in-law and asking him to intercede with the Privy Council, the Three Yamen, the Ministry of War and other departments, asking them to show leniency and not to withhold the food and wages for the Fuyan Road, and to pay them in full?"

Su Yun nodded and said, "Is there anything wrong with this?"

Zhang Yu nodded and said, "In the world, the problem is not the lack of food but the imbalance of food. If you get the full amount of food and wages for Fuyan Road, will the other roads feel that there is a problem? When the time comes, they will also want full food and wages. What will you ask the Privy Council to do then?
Therefore, they will not open this loophole, no matter who goes there, even if it is the government, they will not let it go. As for you saying that their actions are illegal?

Haha, the money they embezzled may not have gone into their own pockets. You have to know that the frontline soldiers are short of food and horses, while the imperial guards who are lying down to fatten themselves up have everything they need. The imperial guards in the capital raise tens of thousands of war horses, but they are unwilling to allocate a single horse to the frontier troops. I think you understand the reason for this."

Su Yun took a deep breath and said, "Well, it's a policy of being solid inside and weak outside."

In other words, the imperial court was still on guard against the border troops, using the best troops closely together with the imperial guards in the capital, and deliberately suppressing the border troops for fear that they would have ill intentions.

Zhang Qie said: "So, trying to solve this problem by resorting to upper-level policies is not in the interests of those above, so this path will not work."

Su Yun nodded.

If the upper level doesn't work, then there is no point in taking back the little savings from the high-level, middle-level and low-level generals in the army. Instead, it will easily arouse public anger, so it is better not to take it.

Therefore, this means that the path of relying on the court’s money to carry out military reforms is basically cut off!
(End of this chapter)