Why do some people think that the court in the early Qing Dynasty was capable of paying enough salaries to the surrendered Ming army? I can't find the source of this claim. But I can always see people talking about this in the comment area of some video articles about the military history of the Ming Dynasty. In fact, if most of the Ming army could not get paid, then after they surrendered to the Qing court, they would not have enough military pay and food, which is beyond doubt, because in the qing report, this kind of record is easy to pick up.
Qing army.
The example of the Sichuan Qing Army, we have cited many times before, here is not much to say, let's first say that the Guangdong Qing Army "Zi Liang Fan Town will be through the control of each soldier, there is a lack of three or two months of no rice to send, the crowd of people, when cut the call." Coupled with the drought this year, the tide field may only be half-ripe, the plateau granules have no harvest, and there is a division that is poor in urging, so although it is difficult to make a profit in the end, although it is supervised by daily affairs. The "two domains" here refer to the two Qing troops of Geng Jimao and Shang Kexi, the Qing army of Gengbu is 2500 liaodong old department plus 7500 new troops, shangbu qing army is 2300 liaodong old department plus 7700 new troops, the total number is 20,000 people, more than 20,000 Qing troops can not receive rice in two or three months.
There is also the Guangxi Qing army "with soldiers' salaries, since October of the eighth year, there have been nine months in the tenth, the subjects have been exhausted, all difficulties, the masses of the abdomen, how to be the giant of the ring" That is to say, the Guangxi Qing army has not been paid for a year and a half since October of the eighth year of Shunzhi.
Shunzhi Emperor.
In the ninth year of Shunzhi, the Huguang Qing Army "Under the system of Chu Province, the officers and soldiers and the officers and soldiers of the Southern King (Kong Youde) and the Duke of Xushun (Shen Yongzhong) were required to pay 1.51 million taels of silver for the years, and in addition to the miscellaneous items and other silver in the province, 815,720 silver was retained, and the salaries of the soldiers were not enough to cover 694,302 silver" was also needed in all parts of Huguang.
The Sichuan Qing Army will not say much. In general, the treatment of these Ming troops who surrendered after entering the customs will not be much better than before they shaved their heads, not only lack of food and pay, but also the superiors such as Zhang Guozhu, who is guarding The Clouds, "do you mean that the imperial soldiers should be unkind, but the rate is rude, so that the Thousand General Kings of the base camp will hate them with small anger and flee from thieves, and they will not be able to report it", so on the whole, how much better can the treatment of the Qing army be better than that of the Ming army? At this time, the treatment of the Ming army was actually better, Sun Ke hoped that Li Dingguo's Yungui Ming Army, that is, there was no shortage of grain and equipment, it was "full of soldiers and horses", of course, Zheng Chenggong's department may be a little worse, Zheng Chenggong repeatedly clashed with non-Qing armed forces such as Hao Shangjiu, it was because of the problem of grain and wages, but he also had ways to solve it, such as exchanging trade for the money and grain needed to resist the Qing, and even some important materials, even the thirteen anti-Qing armed forces in the most severe conditions were "recruiting exile, opening up the land and reducing rents."
Where did the grain and silver needed by the Qing army come from? That must have come from taxes, but what about the finances of the Qing government after entering the customs? In the ninth year of Shunzhi alone, the Annual Revenue of the Qing Government was 14 million taels of silver, while the expenditure of silver was as high as 15.7 million taels, basically the annual income was not enough, the Qing court's finances were basically unable to make ends meet every year, and the fields and population controlled were far lower than those in the Wanli years.
In the seventh year of Shunzhi, the Qing court household department played "Now about the eleven provinces of Beizhi, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Zhejiang, Jiangnan, Shaanxi, Huguang, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong." The original amount of Ding Silver 31,645,668 is strange. The silver of the inner extermination is 6,394,200. There are 8,371,696,200 silver deposits. The silver of the temples of each ministry was 2,076,8620. The minister had 14,800,800,800,884 taels of silver. Eleven years of 11,518,420,000 silver were allocated to the soldiers of each province and town. The Silver of the Ministry of The Liberation Ministry is 3,285,4820. It is also necessary to find Shaanxi, Guangdong, Huguang and other places, and the salary of soldiers and silver is 1.8 million taels. And the prince Wen Wu Manchu Han officers and soldiers paid 1.9 million one thousand one hundred and twenty-two zero. The amount of silver is not enough to 415,620", "The more than 30 million taels collected in various places, in addition to the silver retained in the localities, there are also military salaries in various places, as well as the salaries of officials and nobles, and there is also a shortage of more than 415,600 taels.
Officials of the early Qing Dynasty.
Judging from the above data, the finances of the Qing Dynasty were really miserable, so it was normal that they could not give enough money and military food.
Without being able to get food and grain, the Green Battalion of the Han Army in the Qing Dynasty fled and surrendered to the enemy day by day, and it was impossible to achieve anything "shaved head and strengthened combat effectiveness", and they were loyal to the Qing court without seeing it. Therefore, when the Southern Ming army counterattacked, Qing officials and generals in various places often begged the Qing court to send a more effective Eight Banner Army to coordinate the battle, and Shang Kexi once said that the local Qing army in Guangdong was "a wandering generation, not a war-fighting generation."
Some of these people should have been Li Chengdong's old department, Shang Kexi captured Guangzhou in 1650, Li Chengdong's old general, Du Yonghe, the governor of Southern Ming and Liangguang, and Li Mingzhong, fled to Qiongzhou, and soon, Du Yonghe, Zhang Yue, and others surrendered again, and Li Mingzhong refused to surrender and was killed. When Li Dingguo invaded Guangdong in 1654, under the intimidation of the Ming dynasty army, Zhang Yue fell to the Ming Dynasty again, and secretly communicated with Li Dingguo in the Battle of Qingtou Camp in Shicheng, Gaozhou, resulting in almost all the troops sent by Geng and Shang Erwang to be wiped out, so Shang Kexi's concern was justified, these people really did not deserve the trust of the Qing court, the main force of the Qing court in Guannei, in addition to the original Manchurian Eight Banners, was the old Ming army that surrendered to the Qing in Liaodong Province, and most of these people actually entered the Han army banner.