Chapter 342: Cutting Off the Financial Route

Huang Taiji was quite satisfied with the military formation Kong Youde had arrayed. Though he did not know how it would fare in actual combat, on the surface it looked impressive and well-ordered.

Afterward, Kong Youde and Shi Tingzhu demonstrated their artillery. They set up targets, and several dozen accompanying red-barbarian cannons and grand general cannons opened fire in succession, the sound shaking heaven and earth. Huang Taiji imagined Wang Dou's formation crumbling into rout under the bombardment of his own cannons, and his mind could not help wandering in fascination.

After the review, Huang Taiji ordered rewards bestowed upon the Han Eight Banner troops. Kong Youde, Shi Tingzhu, Shang Kexi, Geng Zhongming, and others all received carved-saddle fine horses and one hundred taels of silver. Each niru janggin and jalan janggin under the various banners received horses and silver. Every soldier was rewarded with two bolts of blue cloth, and the artillerymen who test-fired the cannons and the craftsmen who made the gunpowder received an extra two bolts each. Voices of praise surged like the tide from every man.

After returning to Shengjing, Huang Taiji summoned a man and said slowly, "How goes Wang Dou in the Ming realm?"

The man knelt on the ground and said, "In reply to Your Majesty, detailed reports have come from the intelligence operatives in Xuanzhen. Wang Dou has already gone to Yongning to assume his post. His land reclamation and settlement, his bandit suppression and land distribution — the stir is considerable."

Huang Taiji narrowed his eyes. "And Bao'an Prefecture — his critical military workshops, his vital troop-training grounds, his grain storage depots — have they been thoroughly scouted?"

The man said, "In Bao'an Prefecture, Wang Dou strictly enforces the baojia system, and his pass defenses are extremely tight. He uses the street populace to vigorously purge rebels and eliminate spies. The inhabitants of that region have always been hostile to the Great Qing, making reconnaissance extremely difficult."

Huang Taiji gave a snort. "You barbarian slaves need not be sparing with coin and silk. The silver that must be spent to pave the way should be spent. Collect the court gazettes, spy out the secrets of that circuit, or seek military posts. Use heavy bribes to win over those in Xuanzhen and the Eastern Circuit whose hearts incline toward our Great Qing, so that at the critical moment they may rise up and collaborate from within, to the effect of what Zeng Yougong and Liu Boqiang achieved."

"Every single move Wang Dou makes — the truth of his strength or weakness, the number of his forces, the state of his courage or timidity — I want to know it all!"

In the seventh month of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, the Eastern Circuit of Xuanfu Garrison fell into an eerie silence.

Not long after Wang Dou issued his proclamation of "Do not say you were not forewarned," the Eastern Circuit ran red with rivers of blood in the blink of an eye. Some bandit strongholds that had entrenched themselves for a hundred years were reduced to ashes. The bandit scourge that the troops of every city had repeatedly encircled and suppressed for years vanished like smoke.

From now on, when common folk went out, would they no longer encounter bandits? Given the battle strength of the Shunxiang Army, the Mongol Tatars beyond the frontier surely lacked the courage to invade as well. Had the Eastern Circuit thus become peaceful?

Happiness had come too quickly; the common folk needed time to adjust. The officials, officers, and gentry also fell silent. Having no bandits was a good thing, but whether Wang Dou's instant pacification of the region was good or bad for them — they needed time to observe.

Only the Military Defense Circuit Intendant Ma Guokui openly expressed praise for Wang Dou: "With the State-Pacifying General guarding the Eastern Circuit, it is a blessing for the people, a blessing for the court!"

By the seventh month, the summer grain tax in the Eastern Circuit was about to be levied and transported again. The government offices pressed for payment harshly. In the entire Eastern Circuit, perhaps only Bao'an Prefecture had the capacity to pay the summer tax in full. The taxes grew heavier and heavier, and with the officials' insatiable greed and extortion, in times past this season was the peak moment when common folk sold their children and their families were ruined and destroyed.

But unlike before, the common folk of the Eastern Circuit now had a new place to go — the new garrison farms established by the State-Pacifying General. His Majesty had exempted the new garrison farms from taxes for three years. Not to mention the joy of the batch after batch of new military households about to be resettled, even the original military and civilian households of the various cities were fleeing en masse, secretly escaping into each newly established garrison farm.

To the original officers and gentry of the Eastern Circuit, this move of Wang Dou's was a strategy of pulling the firewood from under the cauldron.

In the late Ming, from the civil and military officials of the hundred offices, the feudal princes and eunuchs above, down to the Provincial Graduates and Licentiates below, there was none who did not possess vast tracts of land and mines, none who did not open shops and establishments. To them, evading state taxes was the fashion, north and south alike, all crows under heaven equally black.

It could be said that these people possessed ninety percent of the state's wealth. To protect their wealth, they invented all manner of theories. The extreme form was the "empty monarch" and "the monarch as harm" theories of Gu Yanwu and others in the late Ming. Although Wang Dou expressed admiration for their righteous resistance against the Qing, he could not agree with their theoretical ideas.

Do not say this was the sprouting of ancient Chinese democratic thought. Their subtext was that the emperor should step aside and the realm be managed by the scholar-officials — an inevitability when the scholar-official class developed to its apex.

True, according to the institutions of the Great Ming, it could develop to the point of an "empty monarch," with the emperor serving only as a spiritual leader. From the mid-Ming onward, imperial power had been extremely weakened, and the Great Ming's institutions were already not far removed from an "empty monarch."

Only, there was one problem here. The army and the government always needed expenditures. Yet the civil and military bureaucrats, the scholar, military, and merchant classes who possessed ninety percent of the state's wealth were unwilling to pay taxes. What was to be done? Of course, the burden could only be pressed upon the ordinary freeholding peasants.

To rely on their mere ten percent of the state's wealth to meet the entire country's enormous expenditures — in Wang Dou's view, such a state would only perish all the faster.

Especially under the circumstances of the late Ming, where the rich were tax-exempt and the poor paid the taxes, it was a vicious cycle. Originally, the various regions had large populations. Although refugees filled the land, whether in Xuanfu Garrison or other military garrisons and prefectures and counties, the tenant farmers and military households who tilled the land for the various officers and gentry were always numerous. They could sit securely on their fishing platforms.

However, once Wang Dou's new garrison farms appeared, the soldiers commandeered for service by the various officers, the tenant farmers under the names of the various gentry — they had their own eyes, their own minds, and knew which side was more advantageous to them. Compared to a life of tenant farming where one toiled to exhaustion and could barely, or even could not, fill one's belly, the three-year tax exemption of the new garrison farms, and the future distribution of land and fields, held far too great an allure for them.

When Wang Dou established garrison farms one after another in Bao'an Guard City, Huailai, Yanqing, and other places, there was a steady trickle of officers' and gentry's tenant farmers and military households from various places fleeing into them. At first they paid it no mind. As the seventh month approached, this large-scale flight reached its peak. Only then did the various officers and gentry begin to panic.

Even if one possessed vast amounts of land, if there was no one to till it, what difference was there from wasteland?

This move of Wang Dou's...

Jinghu Fort was the Baihe Fort of later-era Yongning, located twenty li northwest of Yongning City, with Mount Yin to the north and facing rivers on the east, west, and south. It covered twenty li of frontier, with thirty-one frontier garrison farms and eight beacon towers.

Not far beyond the fort lay the various Mongol tribes beyond the frontier. If enemies from beyond the frontier entered the Eastern Circuit, there were two routes they could take from here, making it quite a strategic point. Therefore, in the twenty-ninth year of Jiajing, an earthen fort was built to guard it, and in the first year of Longqing it was faced with brick. It measured two li and fifty-three paces in circumference and three zhang and two chi in height. Initially a Defense Commander was appointed, later changed to a Garrison Commander.

The Garrison Commander of Jinghu Fort at this time was Song Jiaxuan. In his residence within the fort, a large group of officers had secretly gathered today. There were Yanqing Department Garrison Commander Chen Enchong, Huailai Garrison Commander Huang Changyi, Zhousigou Fort Defense Commander Chen Qinluan, Heihanling Fort Defense Commander Ding Fangming, Liubin Fort Defense Commander Guo Cairong, and others.

Inside the room, everyone had been brooding for a long while. Huailai Garrison Commander Huang Changyi sighed, "I had thought we would need to spend money to curry favor, but I never imagined the State-Pacifying General would employ such a strategy of pulling the firewood from under the cauldron."

Yanqing Department Garrison Commander Chen Enchong's face was dark and gloomy. He said, "These past two months, the tenant farmers and military households under my name have fled in great numbers. I can see the fields going to waste before my eyes. In the past, we could still find some refugees to till the land. Now, the refugees entering the Eastern Circuit all have their eyes fixed on the various garrison farms and are utterly unwilling to come and rent land."

Huang Changyi said with a bitter face, "Same for me. I watched helplessly as they fled into the various garrison farms. Who would have the guts of a bear or a leopard to charge into those places and seize people? All that land we've occupied — it seems it's all useless now."

"There is another matter."

Jinghu Fort Garrison Commander Song Jiaxuan said in a muffled voice, "I've heard rumors that the State-Pacifying General is going to verify the troops under each officer. Only for each soldier present will one soldier's pay be issued, and the old and weak will not even be counted. In the future, falsely claiming pay and commandeering soldiers for personal service will no longer work."

Huang Changyi was startled. "Garrison Commander Song, is what you say true?"

Song Jiaxuan said, "I have indeed heard rumors. But looking at what Wang Dou has done in Bao'an Prefecture, it is not surprising."

The old army of Bao'an Prefecture had long since been reorganized. Not a single officer could have private soldiers or retainers. For the officers of the Eastern Circuit, their means of amassing wealth for over a hundred years had been embezzling military pay, encroaching on garrison farmlands, accepting bribes, and commandeering soldiers for personal service — these few methods.

For military officers throughout the Great Ming, falsely claiming military pay was routine. The troop roster might list ten thousand men, but the actual number might be only two thousand. The pay for the falsely claimed troops fell into their own pockets. Moreover, they would still deduct from the pay of those two thousand men. Many officers, in order to falsely claim even more pay, would deliberately allow soldiers to desert.

Not to mention encroaching on garrison farmlands. The increasing destruction of the military farm system in the mid-to-late Ming was precisely the result of officers great and small wantonly encroaching on garrison farmlands. They became the great landlords of the locality, and the original military households became their tenant farmers.

The grain tax due from the garrison farms — they placed themselves entirely beyond its reach.

Accepting bribes was even more routine. For lower-ranking officers to be promoted, it depended on the will of their superior officers. To seek promotion, they had to bribe their superiors. The relevant prices varied according to the military post and rank. "Buying leisure" money from soldiers was also a regular source of income for the officers. If a soldier paid some money, he could skip drill and roll call and legitimately go engage in other livelihoods.

Commandeering soldiers goes without saying. The officers used soldiers as laborers to build their residences, manage their garrison farms, and transport their private goods. If one was in charge of some equipment or warehouse, it was an even fatter opportunity for embezzlement and exploitation.

If Wang Dou reorganized the army, it would be tantamount to cutting off all the various officers' sources of wealth. This was taking their very lives.

Song Jiaxuan's expression was ferocious and terrifying. "Not only that, I have also heard that the State-Pacifying General is going to strictly inspect the frontier passes and prohibit the private transport of goods beyond the frontier. When that time comes..."

At this, even Zhousigou Fort Defense Commander Chen Qinluan, Heihanling Fort Defense Commander Ding Fangming, and Liubin Fort Defense Commander Guo Cairong were visibly moved.

Their forts were distributed at key points all along the frontier of the Eastern Circuit. One of their major sources of wealth was accepting bribes from merchants and escorting them out of the border, reaping vast benefits from it, and even personally participating in smuggling and selling. If Wang Dou strictly inspected the frontier passes and prohibited private transport...

Yanqing Department Garrison Commander Chen Enchong laughed darkly and sinisterly. "If it is truly as Garrison Commander Song says, and Wang Dou does this, then he will have cut off the financial routes of countless people. Does he still think he can remain in the Eastern Circuit? Right now, within the borders, which officer, which gentry, which merchant does not transport goods beyond the frontier to earn some money? Even the many great lords within the garrison city..."

He chuckled ominously. "We shall sit and watch the changes. In the future, when Wang Dou is battered and exhausted, we will add another fire..."

Hearing him say this, everyone present immediately felt much relieved, and they all laughed along.

Smuggling to the frontier passes could be said to be a collective malady of all the Nine Frontier Garrisons. The higher the rank and the greater the power of the garrison officers, the more rampant the merchant groups under their command. Smuggling goods and manipulating things from within — nearly all officers and officials engaged in it.

The same was true even for many garrison eunuchs. At the time, the Provincial Governor of Xuanfu Garrison, Shen Ce, and the garrison eunuch Wang Kun, along with their subordinates, all received heavy bribes from the "northern barbarians." "For every man who went out, they were generally given five taels, and thus they would not fire the cannons but let them escape." There was also the eunuch Deng Xizhao stationed in Jizhou, who was impeached for "accepting gifts of enemy camels and horses, in effect colluding with the enemy, and failing to defend the borders."

Within the Eastern Circuit, the former Eastern Circuit Assistant Regional Commander Zhang Guowei, now promoted to Vice Regional Commander, was the original local power. Many of the merchant shops were opened by his family's sons and nephews, and men like Song Jiaxuan were his trusted confidants. If Wang Dou wanted to strictly inspect the frontier passes and prohibit private trade, Zhang Guowei would be the first to refuse.

There was also the Prince Gu's estate within the garrison city, which likewise possessed large amounts of land and shops in the Eastern Circuit.

Under the surging tide of pressure and secret schemes, one feared Wang Dou might not even know how he would die when the time came.

Chen Enchong even said to Song Jiaxuan, "Garrison Commander Song is deeply relied upon by Military Commander Zhang. Should you not move about a bit? I hear that Vice Prefect Guo is quite dissatisfied with Wang Dou's overbearing arrogance..."

He laughed darkly and ominously.

Song Jiaxuan also laughed heartily. "It has been a long time since I have been close with Military Commander Zhang. It is indeed time to pay a proper visit."

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