Message from @(JUMP) 璟熙帝
Discord ID: 692280120626380800
you can make culture from that
but not outside of it
@Narmer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_Ming_dynasty#Guard_battalion_system
"Officers were known to seize the lands of military colonies and convert them into their private estates, and subsequently force their troops into becoming their serfs. Other officers accepted bribes from soldiers to be exempted from military drill, and used other troops as menial labour. Corruption was so lucrative that the sons of merchants were known to bribe officials for appointments as army officers so as to exhort bribes from soldiers in exchange for drill exemption, or to register their own servants as soldiers so as to embezzle their rations.
**Ming Army:** "After the decline of the guard battalion system, the Ming army came to rely more upon mercenaries to improve efficiency and lighten local military burdens."
**Also Ming Army:** "As the social status of soldiers was not high, mercenaries usually came from the desperate underclass of society such as amnestied bandits or vagabonds. The quality of these troops was highly diverse, depending on their regional origins. Peasant militia were generally regarded as more reliable than full-time soldiers, who were described as useless. Commanders refrained from training or reforming the mercenary armies for fear of provoking riots, and Ming generals started to fight personally on the front lines with handpicked battalions of elite bodyguards rather than attempt to control the hordes of unreliable mercenaries."
@Narmer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_Era#Warlord_profiles
"Zhang Zongchang, known as the "Dogmeat General" because of his love for the gambling game of that name, was described as having "the physique of an elephant, the brain of a pig and the temperament of a tiger". Writer Lin Yutang called Zhang "the most colorful, legendary, medieval, and unashamed ruler of modern China". Former Emperor Puyi remembered Zhang as "a universally detested monster" whose ugly, bloated face was "tinged with the livid hue induced by heavy opium smoking". A brutal man, Zhang was notorious for his hobby of smashing in the heads of prisoners with his sword, which he called "smashing melons". He loved to boast about the size of his penis, which become part of his legend. He was widely believed to be the most well endowed man in China, nicknamed "General Eighty-Six" as his penis when erect was said to measure up to a pile of 86 Mexican silver dollars. His harem consisted of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian and two French women. He gave them numbers, as he could not remember their names, and then usually forgot the numbers."
@Narmer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period#List_of_states
"A total of 148 states are mentioned in the chronicles for this period."
Brazil is still my favorite movie but now for the wrong reasons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle#Pournelle%27s_iron_law_of_bureaucracy
"...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions."
