Chapter 1722: Silence

Almost counting the days, the twenty-second year of Kaibao arrived.

The past two years were, without doubt, the most turbulent and chaotic two years since the Great Han entered the Kaibao era.

Major cases, political tides, factional strife, war, rebellion... all kinds of things, one after another, rising and falling in endless succession — even the magnificent Kaibao Northern Expedition was not so "rich in spectacle" as to leave one dazzled and bewildered.

This was nearly a great eruption of the accumulated ills of more than thirty years since the Great Han's founding, a thorough release, and also a microcosm of some deep contradictions under decades of governance.

Of course, for the Great Han, this was merely a slight itch on the body of a giant, just a small episode, a small diversion in this glorious age. The empire's grand momentum was already established; there might be twists and turns, or minor shifts in small-scale trends, but the grand tide was hard to change.

The passing of an entire winter caused the Great Han populace's attention to the northwestern rebellion to plummet. Even the citizens of the Eastern Capital, who loved discussing politics most, were drawn to fresher, more interesting matters. Even those storytellers with propagandistic leanings, who repeatedly denounced the rebels and sang the court's praises, found it dull.

Even Guannei, which had once been so clamorous, had grown somewhat quiet. Under the court's harsh blockade policy, three months' time had thoroughly constructed a solid blockade line around the periphery of Yulin, locking the rebel army firmly within Yulin's borders.

At the beginning of winter, some news could still come out of Yulin — whether truth or rumor, there was always some stir that could be known. Guannei Circuit, especially the northern regions near Yulin, was also full of disturbances, with unstable popular sentiment and situations arising constantly. Of course, under the suppression of the "awakened" bureaucrats and the Wude Office, calm was quickly restored.

Throughout the winter, with the court's full support, Prince Zhao Liu Fang deployed troops and dispatched generals around Yulin, while the external passages along Yulin's periphery were strictly sealed. Every pass and fortress was reinforced with troops and grain, defended to the death. Moreover, apart from a few main logistical supply routes, all other roads were completely locked down — even mountain trails were not spared, destroyed with large quantities of gunpowder. Accompanied by the rising and falling sounds of explosions, Yulin's external passages (mainly toward Guannei) were all severed.

As for along the Yellow River, every ferry crossing was garrisoned with soldiers, and several thousand cavalry patrolled back and forth. To put it dramatically, even a winter bird would find it hard to cross.

Of course, achieving a complete blockade was not entirely realistic, but large-scale rebel sorties were effectively restricted. At the rebellion's outset, the rebels could still dispatch their followers to act as roving bandits, spreading chaos and confusion. These people were also Liu Fang's first targets for elimination, and he quickly achieved results. After the Yulin blockade line was implemented, the possibility of rebels slipping out to stir up chaos in the northwest was suppressed to the minimum.

Perhaps small bands of rebels might secretly slip southward, but setting aside the difficulties involved, even if they managed to sneak through, how to operate within Guannei and stir up rebellion would no longer be easy.

The entire Guannei Circuit was placed under martial restrictions by level, especially the four prefectures of Huan, Qing, Jin, and Yan near Yulin, where the intensity of the restrictions was nearly equivalent to military administration, and enforcement was unprecedented.

All civilian activities were suppressed, and civilian population movement was prohibited. All farmers, herders, and fishermen, except those conscripted by the authorities with issued documentation, could only stay peacefully in their villages. Villages were organized into mutual surveillance units, and even for the New Year, visiting relatives and friends was not permitted.

As for any outsiders or those with suspicious movements, rewards were offered for reporting them. Government runners patrolled and inspected constantly; those who did not conform to regulations were arrested on the spot. If one was identified and judged to be suspected of being a rebel, then one could only eat prison food — and even eating prison food was fortunate. Being thrown into penal labor camps or even beheaded was not at all unusual. The harsh penalties of chaotic times once again appeared in the northwest.

The results were naturally remarkable. Although it was unavoidable that innocents were implicated, if one took the government's prohibitions seriously and obediently stayed put, nothing would happen naturally. At the same time, it genuinely allowed various local governments to uncover some rebels hiding among the populace, arresting them to claim merit from the court.

Especially those refugees fleeing south — a mixed bag — indeed had many rebels mixed in. The concerns of these local officials were not entirely without reason. Under the heavy pressure from Prince Zhao and the court, they had to take on the task of aiding the distressed. Over the course of one winter, from Huan-Qing to Jin-Yan, they received more than forty thousand refugees, among whom over a thousand were arrested.

In the latter half of the winter of the twenty-first year of Kaibao, the entire Guannei presented a state of solemn stillness. Civilian movement and activities greatly decreased. Except for Chang'an and the various prefectural cities, even merchants were not easily permitted to pass; even if they could, they needed a trade permit stamped with the circuit government's seal issued by the authorities.

The past scene of merchants and travelers weaving like threads and crowds flowing like tides no longer existed. The merchant caravans traveling the official roads were either military transport convoys or wealthy merchants with background and connections.

To cooperate with the overall situation of suppressing bandits in Yulin, the various local governments in the northwest had no choice but to issue policies restricting commerce and travel, controlling population movement to ensure public security and maintain stability. The one-size-fits-all approach was also often the easiest and most convenient.

However, after so many years, the Great Han's system had long been perfected, and urban management had grown increasingly mature. Therefore, it was not entirely inflexible.

The trade permit was a flexible measure under such circumstances. These cities of the Great Han were, without doubt, basically consumer cities, all requiring massive supplies of rural resources. Even the workshops and factories in the towns needed to procure their raw materials from outside. And the main circulation in this was provided by the large merchants and small peddlers who shuttled between cities and villages.

Therefore, from start to finish, the policies issued by the authorities only restricted commerce, never prohibited it. Winter was the season when various livelihood resources were consumed most heavily. Under such circumstances, if normal production and daily life in the towns could not be guaranteed, that too would cause trouble. If so, it would be putting the cart before the horse, contradicting the original intention of maintaining stability.

The Yulin rebellion, obviously, had severely impacted the livelihoods of officials and commoners in Guannei and even the entire northwest. With the situation as it was, under the government's prohibitions, many merchants went bankrupt, especially those small peddlers with poor risk resistance.

Even the most stable rural areas were affected. To cooperate with suppressing the bandits in Yulin, the government's corvée labor and military conscription orders were scattered in abundance across the vast countryside.

At the same time, it also triggered a wave of returning home. Many people who could not make it in the cities and towns, finding no other way out, basically chose to return to their villages to lie low, waiting for the day the restrictions were lifted.

Danger and opportunity have always gone hand in hand, and this was no exception. In the near-total control across the entire Guannei Circuit, power-money transactions were unavoidable, and a frenzy of wealth was also born.

Ordinary merchants only saw government restrictions — business could not be done, life could not go on. But for those few large merchants, it was a rare opportunity. Smart and capable people, when facing rules and even prohibitions, thought instead of how to profit from the opportunity.

The cities' demand always existed; even the government could not completely forbid it. With this opening, those merchants engaged in transport and trade naturally obtained a huge business opportunity. With competitors plummeting, they could open their gluttonous maws and harvest wealth to their hearts' content.

A single trade permit, in the first two months when it could be transferred, was even bid up to ten thousand strings of cash apiece. In big cities like Chang'an and Fengxiang, without investing several tens of thousands of strings, one simply could not obtain one. Only after the circuit government noticed the chaos did they patch the loophole, prohibiting the transfer of trade permits and requiring registration with real names and real businesses.

Even so, the censor of Guannei Circuit noticed the problems and reported them to the court, stating that the Guannei prohibition policy had been overextended, allowing unscrupulous merchants to profit from the national crisis, causing prices in Guannei to soar and people's livelihoods to be unsettled, and requesting that the court promptly restore order.

At least in the eyes of some discerning people, even if restriction policies were necessary, they need not be implemented across the entire circuit. For example, southern Guannei, far from Yulin, truly had no need. As for parts of Longyou and Hexi, that was even more just joining in the excitement.

However, after discussion in the Hall of State Affairs, such proposals were met with a tacit attitude of acceptance. The reasoning was sound, and the chaos that appeared was also fact. But everything has pros and cons — if one truly differentiated by region, that would pose another enormous test of the organizational and executive capabilities of the various governments in Guannei.

A one-size-fits-all approach might produce drawbacks, but not doing so would give rise to new problems and chaos. As things stood, some merchants from outside Guannei Circuit were already squeezing their heads in, trying to participate in this rare wealth frenzy within Guannei. This world never lacked adventurers and speculators.

However, the censor's remonstrance was not entirely without effect. At least Crown Prince Liu Yang, upon learning of the situation in Guannei, was extremely dissatisfied with those disorders, though for the sake of the overall situation, he had to temporarily endure.

Problems in the northwest kept arising frequently, never fully cleansed. Not only Emperor Liu, but even Liu Yang, known for his benevolence, was deeply disappointed and could barely tolerate it.

In response, he urged the Ministry of Personnel to produce a further set of rectification regulations for northwestern official governance. As for those merchants who profited from the opportunity, preparations should also be made to settle accounts after the autumn harvest. Zhao Kuangyi thoughtfully suggested that official-merchant collusion, power-money transactions, hoarding and cornering the market, and even tax evasion were all perfectly legitimate charges that could be used — no need to rush.

Those who love profiteering always have a ceiling. Those who prey on the common people are often themselves prey under power. When it came to reaping the harvest, the court had done it more than once or twice and was already adept. Only thus was Crown Prince Liu Yang's dissatisfaction somewhat assuaged.

And regardless of how excessive the policy of blockading Yulin was, or what aftereffects it caused, in the matter of suppressing the rebellion, it achieved immediate results.

After entering the twenty-second year of Kaibao, Yulin Circuit seemed to have vanished from the Great Han. Apart from occasional official bulletins issued by the Pacification Commission, there was nothing else — as if it had been forgotten.