Chapter 92: Pidao Troops
Although Wang An seemed silent, his heart was actually surging with waves.

Although Chongzhen had mentioned long ago that he had some dealings with Yuan Chonghuan on business matters, Wang An never imagined that the two had developed into a close friendship regardless of age difference.

It seems that Wang An was able to convey some of his thoughts to Yuan Chonghuan through Chongzhen.

As a descendant of the Chinese nation from later times, when Wang An first came to the Ming Dynasty, he had thought about using his advantage of knowing history to help the Ming Dynasty change its destiny. However, he was powerless and had no channels to pass on his message.

Now, this channel is right in front of me.

As for whether Yuan Chonghuan would believe what he said, Wang An was not worried.

Even if one is skeptical the first two times, once the other party sees that what one said actually happened, even the most skeptical person will take it seriously.

Thinking of this, Wang An raised his head suddenly and was about to say something when he suddenly reacted.

"Wait, Yuan Dudu is in office?"

Historically, Yuan Chonghuan had to wait until May, when Wang Zhichen, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, stepped down after the Battle of Jinxing, and then he was appointed commander-in-chief of Liaodong in August of the first year of Chongzhen.

But what time is it now? It is only mid-January of the first year of Chongzhen. There is no reason for Yuan Chonghuan to take office in advance at this time!

Looking at Wang An's surprised eyes, Chongzhen smiled guiltily and said, "Ah, yes! Is there anything wrong with this?"

Now it was Wang An's turn to be speechless. Yes, what's wrong with this?
You can't just say that this is not what is recorded in history books, right?
If it were the original Chongzhen, history would only move forward along the established track, and there would be absolutely no reason for it to change.

The speculation that Chongzhen was a "colleague" or that there was a time traveler around him once again came to mind.

It just seems that this time traveler only knows a little about the historical direction, but is not familiar with it.

Otherwise, arrangements should have been made in advance for Mao Wenlong's demand for pay, so that Yuan Chonghuan would not have encountered such difficulties after arriving in Liaodong.

Thinking of this, Wang An decided to help.

Wang An was silent for a moment, then picked up the letter again and said, "In fact, Mao Wenlong's request for salary is easy to deal with. There is only one way to shut him up."

When Chongzhen saw Wang An getting to the point, he immediately widened his eyes and said attentively, "Please teach me, brother!"

Wang An smiled slightly and said, "Didn't Mao Wenlong take advantage of the fact that he was isolated overseas and the court didn't know the situation on the island so he reported the number of people at random?"

"We can just send people to the island and formally count the number of troops in the name of the court. We will pay them the salary in proportion to the number of people counted, and we will never owe him a penny!"

Historically, the number of people reported by Mao Wenlong each time he demanded pay was at least 150,000 or 160,000, and at most over 200,000.

But in fact, in the sixth year of Tianqi, Jiang Yueguang, who was then a Hanlin Academy scholar, went to Korea as a "first-rank official" with Wang Mengyin, who was then a military official. When he came back, he inspected Pi Island on the orders of the emperor. He also wrote a memorial to Tianqi praising Mao Wenlong as a hero.

However, when it comes to the actual number of troops on Pi Island, it is truthfully recorded that there are about 100,000 soldiers and civilians on Pi Island. But it should be noted that this 100,000 refers to the total population of Pi Island, and the actual number of troops is only 20,000 to 30,000.

Jiang Yueguang even said in the "Jiexuan Chronicle": "I read the first paragraph of the memorial about the situation of Liao soldiers, which said that Liao soldiers were Liao people, and there were no more than 20,000 to 30,000 people who could be used. I immediately clapped my hands and said: This is what I have got."

Jiang Yueguang, Shi Kefa and Gao Hongtu were called the Three Sages of Southern China. During the Southern Ming Dynasty, he followed Jin Shenghuan to fight against the Qing Dynasty, and later drowned himself after his defeat. When he was sent as an envoy to Korea, he was also honest and fair. The Koreans even specially built a Huaijie Monument to commemorate him. It can be seen that Jiang Yueguang was an honest and loyal person, and there was no reason for him to deliberately suppress Mao Wenlong.

Moreover, this data was also supported by Wang Tingshi, the Censor of Denglai Road.

In August of the first year of Chongzhen, Wang Tingshi landed on the island to verify the number of troops and gave a specific number: 28,000.

It can be seen that the actual number of troops in Pi Island is indeed only 20,000 to 30,000.

At that time, Wang Tingshi had not yet arrived on the island with the imperial edict to count the troops, and Jiang Yueguang's record of the proficiency of the Pi Island army was only recorded in his personal notes, and was not an official definitive conclusion.

Moreover, from Mao Wenlong's perspective, there were indeed more than 100,000 or 200,000 people on Pi Island, so there was nothing wrong with asking the court for salaries for 200,000 people.

Moreover, although Mao Wenlong asked for a lot, he was never given enough over the years.

According to statistics from Xu Er, the head of the Ministry of Works in the early years of Chongzhen, the actual military pay collected in Dongjiang from the second year of Tianqi to the seventh year of Tianqi totaled 1.05 million taels of silver, and the total amount of rice, beans and other grains was more than 900,000 dan.

Before his death, Mao Wenlong also said: "In the past eight years, I have collected a total of 1.28 million taels in cash and 1.413 million taels in discounted cash. The name does not match the reality."

Compared with the military pay spent in Liaodong, it is less than one-tenth.

So it’s a lot?
Not many actually.

After all, the actual number of troops in Liaodong was only about 50,000 to 60,000. Although Mao Wenlong exaggerated the number of troops, there were at least 28,000 people, right?
However, while Mao Wenlong was jealous of the Liaodong military pay, he automatically ignored one thing.

That is, the imperial court never asked Mao Wenlong to take the trouble to support hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled from the areas occupied by the Later Jin Dynasty.

Some people may say that Mao Wenlong's gathering of refugees was a positive and correct move, both from the perspective of striking at the Later Jin population and from the perspective of national justice.

But the problem is that Mao Wenlong had selfish motives in doing this.

He took in so many refugees, firstly in order to establish farmland on the island; secondly in order to make these people become free laborers, risking their lives to go to the Later Jin-occupied areas to dig ginseng and hunt for deerskin for him, and then use these harvests to exchange for gold, silver, food and other items from merchants.

Even the imperial court advised him to let these refugees return to their country to live, but Mao Wenlong refused!
Mao Wenlong, you have used these refugees as free labor, and it is too much to ask the imperial court for military pay based on this!
After all, no one asked you to accept refugees, so you just accepted them. You refused to let the refugees return to your country, and then turned around and told the court that these were your soldiers and they should be paid.

This is a bit much.

At that time, the actual population of the Eight Banners of the entire Later Jin Dynasty was only about 100,000, excluding the slaves looted from Korea, Mongolia and the Ming Dynasty.

If you, Mao Wenlong, really have an army of 200,000, and the number of your troops is larger than the total population of the enemy, why don’t you just defeat the Jiannu directly and achieve unprecedented feat?

During the apocalypse, I turned a blind eye and was too lazy to argue with you.

After all, you can report the number of troops and agree to the military pay, but you have no say on how much.

(End of this chapter)