Chapter 655: Fief

In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, mid‑May.

Every year in the fifth month of the lunar calendar, it was roughly the season for harvesting summer grain across the Great Ming. In the Ming fiscal system, the land tax was divided into summer tax and autumn grain — the summer tax was due no later than the eighth month, and the autumn grain no later than the second month of the following year. Yet this year the Great Ming was still plagued by famine everywhere. Even in Huzhoufu in Jiangnan, locust plagues raged fiercely; the people stripped tree bark, wood shavings, chaff and husks to eat, or dug white clay from the mountains for food, calling it Guanyin Powder.

In Wu County under Suzhoufu, the price of rice soared to three taels and three mace of silver per shi, and wheat to two taels and two mace per shi. Half the houses in the city and countryside stood empty and collapsed, and corpses lay piled against one another.

From the Longqing reign all the way to the final years of Chongzhen, the silver flowing in from overseas reached as high as several hundred million taels, yet the Jiangnan region suffered frequent famines — a strange phenomenon. The main reason was that in places like Suzhou and Hangzhou, famed for the saying “When Suzhou and Hangzhou yield a harvest, all under heaven is fed,” the crops in the fields had been replaced by raw silk, raw cotton, and the like.

A Ming writer once noted: “In Suzhou, in former days those who abandoned the root pursuit were still few; now those who leave farming and change their trade to industry and commerce are three times as many as before. In former days there were originally no idle hands; now those who leave farming to live as idle hands seeking food are another two or three out of ten. Broadly speaking, out of every ten common people, six or seven have already left farming.”…

The lure of commerce made the local people switch one after another to cash crops, relying on selling raw silk, cotton yarn, cotton cloth and the like to buy grain. In an era when transport was relatively backward, buying grain across regions could very easily trigger a food crisis. Especially when natural disasters caused grain shortages, even the wealthy Jiangnan region suffered extremely severe blows.

In Zhu Yuanzhang’s time, the price of one shi of rice was two mace and five fen of silver, equivalent to two hundred and fifty wen of copper cash. By the mid‑Ming it rose to five mace, a price that held for about a hundred years, and only rose to seven mace in the final years of Wanli. Before the first year of Tianqi, the price of rice in the Great Ming, unless a catastrophic disaster struck, never exceeded one tael per shi.

From the twelfth year of Chongzhen onward, in places like Suzhou and Hangzhou, the price of rice hovered between two and three taels. By ancient standards, if one tael of silver could buy two or three shi of rice, that was a time of great peace and plenty; one tael buying one shi of rice was a normal year, slightly tight. Once one shi of rice exceeded one tael of silver, famine often ensued.

So this price of rice was something even the common people of Jiangnan could not bear. Over those years, large numbers starved to death, and many grand mansions were sold off cheaply with no one even asking. In the Jiangnan region, the more flourishing the commerce, the more desolate the market appeared — it seemed utterly bizarre.

In Xuanfu Garrison, the summer grain likewise began to be harvested. Across the whole Xuanfu Garrison, the original officially recorded military farmlands amounted to about forty‑seven thousand‑odd qing. However, not counting the newly reclaimed lands at the new garrison villages after reaching the garrison city, the land under Wang Dou’s name amounted to over two million‑odd mu. Apart from over four hundred thousand mu that were fields in Baoanzhou, the rest were mostly military farmlands.

Of course, although various measures were adopted, the enthusiasm of the garrison settlers in farming the military farmlands was clearly not as high as when the land was allocated to each household. Moreover, the several hundred thousand famine refugees brought back from the twelfth year of Chongzhen had also been living inside and outside the Eastern Route for many years and had developed a strong sense of identification with the Shogunate. Therefore, starting this year, all these military farmlands would be distributed entirely to the settlers of the old garrison villages, and they would all become registered Han subjects.

As things stood now for Wang Dou, there was no longer any threat beyond the frontier, or very little threat. He also could not be bothered to contend with the officials, officers, gentry and scholars inside the garrison over those tiny scraps of land. So his plan was to attract military households and civilian households without land from Xuanda or Shanxi, or refugees and the like, to open up land and establish garrison villages in places beyond the frontier such as Shacheng, Xinghe, Yinning, Dongyangliu, and the Haliutu River.

This stretch of land, encompassing the areas of later‑day Guyuan County, Kangbao County, Zhangbeixian, Xinghexian and the surrounding belt, contained six to seven million mu of arable land, and likewise seven to eight million mu of pasture and forest land, as well as rich deposits of coal, lead, iron and other minerals of every kind. The room for manoeuvre was enormously vast.

Not to mention that beyond these places, to the north and to the west, there were still boundless expanses of territory. To Wang Dou, land could be said to be inexhaustible — no problem at all.

His plan was, within a few years’ time, to attract five hundred thousand to one million refugees, and in these places densely establish garrison villages and broadly set up military farmlands.

Using horse‑drawn cultivation as the method, they would widely plant naked oats, wheat, flax, sugar beets, cotton and other crops, then open livestock farms to raise chickens, ducks, horses, cattle, mules and sheep, and then use the grain and meat as raw materials to form a series of handicraft industries and industries.

“Agriculture is the foundation of all under heaven. Gold, pearls and jade cannot be eaten when hungry, cannot be worn when cold — none are as good as grain, silk and hemp… When one is cold and needs clothing, one does not wait for light and warm fabrics. When one is hungry and needs food, one does not wait for sweet and savoury delicacies. When hunger and cold reach the body, one casts aside any sense of honour or shame. In human feeling, if one does not eat twice in a day one is hungry; if one does not make clothes for a whole year one is cold…”

At the Shogunate council, Wang Dou emphatically stressed the importance of agriculture and sericulture. A flourishing commerce could not save the Great Ming. No matter how developed the commercial affairs of Jiangnan became, once northern agriculture collapsed, it would still drag the entire country into the tide of destruction.

Furthermore, without an agricultural revolution, there could be no talk of an industrial revolution. Therefore, for Wang Dou, in the coming years the focus would be on developing agriculture and animal husbandry. Apart from military industries and the like, all other trades would be left to take their natural course — neither suppressed nor given focused support.

In order to produce more grain, using the Sanjin Trading Houses as a guide, Wang Dou would also encourage merchants from Xuanda to go beyond the frontier to establish commercial farms. After the Kaizhong system, commercial farming had once flourished greatly; especially the Shanxi merchants, who farmed vigorously across the Nine Frontier Garrisons. People of the time once said that before the Hongzhi reign, the frontier military granaries were full and soldiers’ pay was sufficient, the main reason being the prosperity of commercial farming.

Of course, it had now declined. Wang Dou still decided to encourage it, letting merchants vie to put forth their wealth, recruit people to reclaim land, and farm it. The land farmed would mainly be the merit fields that officers and soldiers had been granted and exchanged.

From the beginning of the year, batch after batch of Jingbian Army officers and soldiers had successively used their merit points to exchange for pasture and forest land, and the amounts were not small. In particular, some high‑ranking officers exchanged for even more. The total for the entire army had already exceeded one million mu. But Wang Dou did not mind, because what was being granted were all lands beyond the frontier — why not be happy about it?

Take later‑day Zhangbeixian for example: a single county’s territory had 1.6 million mu of arable land, 1 million mu of forest land, and 1.6 million mu of grassland. Even given the climate and environment of this time, it could not possibly have that much, yet it was still very considerable. A mere single county could complete the exchange of all the officers’ and soldiers’ merit points.

Even if the officers and soldiers continued to exchange in the future, there would still be inexhaustible land waiting for Wang Dou. Even if the nearby fields proved insufficient, at worst they could just attack and occupy later‑day Inner Mongolia, Outer Mongolia, or even Siberia — how many counties could those places be divided into?

Of course, Wang Dou could not possibly give the officers and soldiers fields and pastures that had already been reclaimed and well managed. He would simply enclose a piece of land, estimate how much top‑grade, middle‑grade and low‑grade reclaimable farmland it contained, how much high‑quality pasture and forest land, and so on, and let them manage it themselves, holding hereditary ownership in perpetuity — similar to the Junkers of Prussia.

Their “fiefs” could enjoy a tax‑exemption period for a certain length of time. Thereafter, a portion of the total managed output would need to be handed over. Overall, the more they earned from their management, the more grain and money the Finance Department collected.

Of course, after exchanging for land, some officers and soldiers would inevitably entertain thoughts of doffing their armour and returning to the fields. Wang Dou did not mind. If for the sake of a mere few hundred mu of land they developed the notion that modest wealth was enough and they should retire and go home, then these people’s achievements would stop right there.

Wang Dou would not mind their departure. His army’s various systems were already very well‑established. For every officer who left, there were ten waiting to fill the vacancy; for every veteran soldier who left, there were twenty recruits waiting to fill the vacancy. It was just as well if they left — vacating positions was beneficial for new men to join, and the upward and downward mobility was even more conducive to renewing the army’s fresh blood and maintaining its vitality.

Of course, as compensation for having campaigned for the nation, after doffing their armour and returning to the fields, they could live in peace on their own “fiefs,” becoming farm owners, estate owners, men of wealth. After all, Wang Dou had promised all the officers and soldiers that even an ordinary soldier, after retiring, could become a wealthy landlord and enjoy glory, splendour, riches and honour.

On the whole, even after exchanging for land, the majority of officers and soldiers still contentedly remained in the army. The human heart is insatiable — a snake that tries to swallow an elephant. Having a hundred mu of land, they then desired a thousand mu; having a thousand mu, they then desired ten thousand mu.

They even thought: in the future, when they were truly too old to fight and retired then, to own a tract of land the size of a county — all those places being their own — how wonderful a thing would that be?

Of course, although the treatment of the officers and soldiers was generous, merchants and ordinary commoners did not enjoy such good fortune. When they went beyond the frontier, within the safe range of the Shogunate’s power, they were in fact all renting land — after all, it was no easy matter for them to earn merit.

Although they could also privately open up fields and manage pastures in some places beyond the frontier, and Wang Dou could hardly stop them, the countless bandits and brigands on the steppe, and the large and small tribes, also made survival difficult for them.

They were also not under the army’s protection. When trouble arose, if they wanted to request the garrison settlers of nearby villages to send troops, they would need to pay a heavy “troop‑dispatching fee.” As the next best option, renting and farming the officers’ and soldiers’ merit fields became a win‑win matter. The emergence of entities like the Lai Family Estate and the Zheng Family Agricultural Firm was based on precisely this.

On the twentieth day of the fifth month, at the Regional Commander’s residence in Xuanfu Garrison City.

“Grand General, the army reorganization has long been completed, and the training is also good. Shall we go beyond the frontier to kill and raid, or go out to burn the steppe?”

Inside the council hall, Gao Shiyin looked at Wang Dou, his ox‑like eyes wide, itching to have a go, full of eager excitement.

In the planning of Wang Dou and the Staff Department, the Central Army and the four great battalions of cavalry and infantry were to be expanded into five armies, numbering over fifty thousand men, still using the designations Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Black Tortoise, Vermilion Bird and so on. Settlers from each garrison village were drawn to form soldiers of the second‑class battalions, and a portion of the Loyalty Battalion soldiers, having passed tests, were also selected to enter the Jingbian Army.

Now, a very large portion of each army’s first‑class battalions were already equipped with flintlock firelocks, and each army also had one unit experimentally using socket bayonets.

As for burning the steppe, ever since the fourteenth year of the Zhengtong reign, the Great Ming had issued orders that every year in the seventh month, each garrison of the Nine Frontier Garrisons must dispatch government troops to places where the barbarians came and went, three to five hundred li beyond the border, to ride the wind and set fires, burning the wild grasses to deny fodder to the barbarian horses. This was called “burning the steppe.” After the task was done, the troops dispatched and the places burned were to be recorded in a register and submitted.

In past years, Xuanfu Garrison also carried out steppe burning every year, only the burning got closer and closer. From three to five hundred li beyond the border wall in the fourteenth year of Zhengtong, to thirty to fifty li now — it was much the same for every garrison.

Gao Shiyin was a man who could not bear to stay idle, and he was full of keen interest in going beyond the frontier to kill people and set fires.

Gazing at the huge map on the wall and the sand table before him, after a long while Wang Dou said: “It is not merely about burning the steppe. The time has come to completely eliminate the threat on the frontier and attack and seize Guihua City!”

He continued: “But we must still wait a while. When the eighth or ninth month comes, the autumn air is high and crisp, the grass is tall and the horses are fat — then the great army will go forth in full strength, go out properly and seize a good haul, thoroughly settle the various tribes beyond the frontier, and lay a sound environmental foundation for the management of our borderlands.”

He pondered and said: “We must also discuss this with Provincial Governor Zhu. It would be best to submit a memorial and obtain the support of the imperial court.” (To be continued.)