Chapter 1597: Andong's Great Development 1

The seventeenth year of Kaibao (979), in the high autumn of the eighth month.

Aolai City sat on the banks of the Yazi River, nearly eight hundred li from Suihua, the seat of the Great Han's Andong Protectorate, and occupied a key position in the Protectorate's water-transport network along the Yazi River basin.

It had originally belonged to the Aolimi tribe, one of the five tribes established by the Khitan Liao in the region. After Liao's control over the northeast collapsed, the tribe raised its own banner and stood independent for a time—but for less than six years. With the Han army's further expansion into the northeast in the thirteenth year of Kaibao, Ma Renyu took the city by force and left troops to garrison it. The Aolimi tribe's brief seizure of the city and self-proclaimed independence became history, obliterated beneath the Han army's spear-points.

Over the past several years, the Andong Protectorate had carried out preliminary sinicization of the territories under its governance, and renaming was one of the most direct policies. Under the direction of the Prince of Qin, Liu Xu, all town names bearing the distinctive marks of local states, tribes, and clans were changed wholesale. The former Aolimi City naturally became today's Aolai City.

Ever since Emperor Liu and his son settled on the century-long plan to develop the northeast, the region had completely turned over a new leaf and entered a brand-new stage. The heavy responsibility of driving this forward fell upon the Prince of Qin, Liu Xu, and two years after journeying far to the northeast, Liu Xu formally began his own undertaking.

In advancing the development of the Andong territories, Liu Xu focused mainly on two tasks, which also meant solving two problems: first, attracting population; second, pacifying public order.

Having been cultivated by Emperor Liu for many years, and through his own efforts as well, Liu Xu was clearly no mediocrity—he saw the problems clearly. The governance outline for the northeast that he submitted to the court was, of course, meant to build achievements, raise his prestige, and accumulate political capital. But to reach those goals, he had to produce tangible results.

And every beginning is hard. In Liu Xu's eyes, the Andong Protectorate's territories lacked two things most: population—population long bathed in royal grace and loyal to the Han—and, second, stability of public order.

Without people, governance was impossible to discuss; without a stable environment, so-called development and exploitation were mere empty talk. Thus, over the past nearly five years, Liu Xu had devoted his main energy to these two matters.

As the region under the Great Han with the highest degree of autonomy, and with the court granting full latitude, Liu Xu also took bold, sweeping action. From the thirteenth to the fifteenth year of Kaibao, in three batches, Liu Xu dispatched over a hundred recruitment officials to all parts of the Great Han, soliciting common folk to go to Andong to pioneer and develop.

Even to this day, in the performance evaluations of local officials, population size remains one of the most important indicators, and officials everywhere tend to be tight-fisted, strictly monitoring and even controlling the movement of the people under their jurisdiction.

When Bian Guidang and Zan Jurun developed the Jinghu South Circuit back in the day, they also attracted commoners on a large scale from other circuits and prefectures, but they met tremendous resistance. After all, the Great Han's population was truly not large then, and officials of the various circuits and prefectures placed even greater emphasis on restriction.

Without people, what would officials govern, and against whom would their authority be exercised? Besides, if you in Hunan want to develop, do we in Hubei and Huaixi not need to develop too?

However, faced with the Andong region's unabashedly large-scale recruitment of people this time, the various circuits and prefectures' governments all tactfully refrained from obstructing—not only to give face to His Highness the Prince of Qin, but also because of directives from the central court, which stemmed from the will of Chancellor Zhao Pu, the Crown Prince Liu Yang, and even Emperor Liu himself.

The policy of settling the frontiers through migration had in fact been consistently upheld by the court; it was only that the methods had softened, no longer hasty, and no longer employing the coercive measures of those years that had ruined tens of thousands of households and bankrupted countless families.

Though the pace had slowed, the policy had not changed—it was just that attracting population to the borderlands was becoming increasingly difficult. In fact, in recent years, most of the population growth along the Great Han's borders came from natural increase and from the assimilation of various barbarian tribes. Additionally, the increasingly active civilian trade brought a certain amount of foot traffic, but this was limited to certain areas, and that population was transient.

Therefore, even with the court's support and no obstruction from local governments, Liu Xu's desire to recruit population from the interior was no simple matter. Also a border region, compared to Shanyang and Monan, Andong was about as remote as it got, with no comparability whatsoever in appeal.

Even the Monan region, after ten years of Han rule, had its reputation as the "frontier Jiangnan" growing ever louder through word of mouth among merchants from north and south.

More and more people were willing to venture to Monan to make their fortunes—not just because of preferential tax policies, but driven by economic gain. Both official and civilian propaganda hinted at one thing: once you reached the frontier, you could fence off a patch of grassland, herd horses and sheep, and reap ten times the profit of farming.

After all, neither horses nor sheep were hard to sell. Sheep especially—their wool could be used to make clothing and weave blankets, and mutton was the most important and most popular meat on the tables of Great Han commoners. The size of that market was something even the most ignorant peasant could feel.

Moreover, the overall situation in Monan was more stable. Though there was the threat of the Khitan in Mobei, in all these years they had never once been seen raiding southward. Add to that the elite border troops stationed along the frontier, and the formidable Han army was the most reliable guarantee.

And what sort of place was Andong? It lay even beyond Liaodong. In many people's ingrained impression, the Liaodong Circuit was already a bitter, cold place—so Andong was even more of a barren wasteland, a primitive wilderness teeming with beasts and barbarians.

Of course, to a certain extent, that could indeed be said, for even to this day, development in the Andong region was limited to the towns and strongholds established along those few rivers and their immediate surroundings.

And more people had never even heard of Andong. Even those who had were apt to confuse it with Anxi or Annam, thinking they were adjacent regions in the same area.

With little reputation and poor conditions, the Andong Protectorate's recruitment work clearly faced difficulties from the very start.

However, Liu Xu was well prepared, had long had a plan, and was firmly resolved. Because of a shortage of official personnel, he dispatched his own staff, guards, and household servants as well. Of the one million strings of cash the court allocated each year, he took half and devoted it exclusively to recruitment and settlement work. Every commoner registered with the recruitment officials received five strings of cash as a settling-in allowance before setting out.

Of course, this process inevitably saw some swindling and fraud—people who took the money and then backed out. The results were stark: they failed to go to Andong, and they couldn't stay in their home villages either. They were either thrown into penal labor camps, or they fled to other places, or even turned to banditry.

As for policy, it was even more open. Liu Xu was well aware that under ordinary migration terms, it was hard to dispel the people's misgivings, and the allure was limited. Five strings of cash was only the appetizer.

For all those who migrated to Andong, the Protectorate granted land, calculated on a base of at least one hundred mu per person. As long as one registered and confirmed through the land registry officials under the Protectorate, the land belonged to them permanently.

If a family of seven moved their entire household to Andong, then before they even arrived, they could already be called landowners sitting on a thousand mu.

Andong had little of anything else, but it had no shortage of uncultivated land. Besides issuing an additional five strings per person for housing costs, the Protectorate also provided production materials such as draft oxen, grain seed, and hoes for rent. The first ten years were tax-exempt, the second ten years half-taxed, and only after twenty years would the Protectorate begin collecting the court's regular taxes.

Such preferential treatment was unprecedented and enticing. Under these conditions, few remained unmoved. Even if it was barren wasteland, even if it was fraught with danger, people could not resist the lure of profit.

Especially for those with no inheritance rights or only a small share—this was a chance to change their future, with both immediate gains and long-term prospects. Under the migration policy issued by the Andong Protectorate, it was almost like they would be "supported for free" for twenty years.

At the same time, the Andong Protectorate's credibility might not be high, but the Prince of Qin Liu Xu's golden signboard was a different matter. After all, he was the Son of Heaven's eldest son. If even he, of the highest status, had gone to Andong, then what did these common folk have to worry about? The Son of Heaven surely wouldn't send his own flesh and blood to a barren wasteland.

With all sorts of thoughts in mind, many people registered at the recruitment offices, collected their money, packed their bags, and set out on the journey to Andong in pursuit of their dreams.

Of course, Liu Xu didn't accept just anyone. Per his requirements, he needed peasant sons from families of clean background, and they had to be able-bodied young adults. The disabled were not wanted—the guarantee of labor capacity was the most basic requirement.

As for populations like criminals, that was a separate matter. The Andong region also had dedicated penal settlements and a management system for exiled convicts. As for penal labor camps, that distinctive product of the current Great Han, the court had also transferred several units far to Andong to support development and construction.

Even so, after nearly five years of effort, the Andong Protectorate had managed to recruit fewer than 130,000 people in total through its migration program.