Chapter 2034: The Final Journey 3

After the banquet at the Yellow Crane Tower, the old Emperor lingered in Jiangxia for two more days. One day was spent observing this great commercial hub of central China, where routes converged from all directions and boats lay bow to stern—the unprecedentedly prosperous commercial scene matched the old Emperor's expectations, even exceeding them somewhat.

One day was spent observing the people's condition: half a day in the city's fish market, getting covered in fishy smell, and half a day at the goods passage, standing alongside the gate clerks and tax collectors, watching them inspect goods and collect taxes, silently experiencing the development of Jiangxia as a city and feeling the rhythm of its operation.

This had never been a great city, yet now it had been transformed beyond recognition, accommodating a hundred thousand people—how had this been achieved! Given the current productive capacity of Great Han society, the cost of supplying every great city was enormous. Jiangxia had no policy advantages, and both upper and lower levels had to consider costs—how had it broken through difficulty after difficulty to develop step by step to its present state?

Upon careful study, the fundamental reason might still be the advancement of productive forces. Over the past few decades, the court had done no small amount of work on people's livelihoods and achieved considerable results. The construction of direct roads went without saying—the roads connecting all the major and medium cities in every direction were one of the guarantees of the Great Han's efficient operation.

In matters of food and clothing, the court had been especially painstaking: continuous improvement of grain seeds, refinement of composting techniques, large-scale manufacture of production tools, large-scale use of draft animals, large-scale introduction and cultivation of Champa rice, plundering of overseas resources, and so on—all of these greatly raised the Great Han's basic material level.

As for cotton, from introduction, cultivation, development, and improvement, it had gradually expanded into a great industry concerning the national economy and people's livelihood. Besides investing money, grain, manpower, and land, the court had also spent decades escorting and protecting it, waiting for it to mature.

And the vigorous promotion of cotton spinning and weaving technology, with generous rewards, had been remarkably effective. From south to north, all sorts of spinning machines that should not have appeared in this era sprang up. The old Emperor did not understand this field, but he only needed to know that these tools had greatly increased the production efficiency of cotton yarn and cotton cloth.

The two cotton farmers that Lu Duoxun had first brought back from the Western Regions had already developed into two great cotton families in the Great Han. Those who improved cotton-spinning tools and techniques had also become cotton-spinning aristocrats—all rewards for their pioneering, heaven-and-earth-splitting contributions to this industry.

Zhou Renjun, who had presented the improved spinning technology from Danzhou, had enjoyed particularly smooth official advancement, rising steadily through the ranks. He was now the Administration Commissioner of Hedong Circuit—and as for what Hedong was, no further explanation was needed.

These were all "Productive Force Advancement Awards" issued by the old Emperor.

Nationwide, great efforts were made on water conservancy, encouraging all circuits and prefectures to adapt to local conditions, building reservoirs and dredging canals. In the Yellow River–Huai River region, repair and maintenance work was still being carried out intermittently, while desilting, sand removal, and tree planting to reinforce embankments were annual "required courses."

In every county, agricultural offices dedicated to farming and animal husbandry production techniques were established, and agricultural officials were stationed in townships to guide production. Whether the concrete results were good or not was aside—these were all evidence of the court taking action.

Also breaking historical precedent, the imperial examinations established agricultural and industrial subjects, fundamentally changing the political status of both fields, so that "scholar, farmer, artisan, merchant" was no longer merely nominal.

Only, whether one came from a farming or artisan background, or studied agricultural and industrial knowledge and techniques, once one became an official one basically left one's original class behind and drifted further and further away—one could not truly be lumped together with ordinary farmers and artisans. After all, since ancient times in the Central Kingdom, there had been only two kinds of people: the powerful and everyone else.

But nominal progress was still progress. Some things, regardless of the actual facts, required the surface work to be done thoroughly and vigorously publicized. Being able to implement something into the institutional system itself carried positive significance.

In short, the Great Han court had racked its brains and exhausted its ingenuity in raising productive forces, greatly enriching the Great Han's material foundation.

Without all this, relying solely on a relaxed business environment and the circulation of goods, the Great Han's urban development reaching its current state would have been nothing but a fool's dream.

For Ezhou, or rather Jiangxia, it had also caught up with a well-governed era. The country as a whole was in an upward, vigorous trajectory, and with favorable geography and popular support, such a great city on the Yangtze had risen.

Of course, Jiangxia was not all truth, goodness, and beauty—falsehood, evil, and ugliness were also abundant. The more brilliant the sunlight, the deeper the shadows; prosperity was often the breeding ground of vice. The old Emperor had neither the energy nor the inclination to understand the deeper situation, but what he could see was that the ordinary scholars and common people of Jiangxia were living busy and tense lives.

But the old Emperor would not let his sympathy overflow. In his current worldview, people were divided into three classes and nine grades. In this life, everyone had their place. Since one was an ordinary person, one must keep to an ordinary person's station and bear an ordinary person's toil—this was part of the whole society's operation.

As a lower-class person, if one only thought of obtaining the treatment of the upper class, that was not only unrealistic but also prone to breeding problems and affecting social stability. Being able to preserve for the lower class a sliver of possibility to rise into the upper class through hard struggle was already the greatest fairness.

Only, this was an area where the court currently did not do well. After all, the powerful and noble wished nothing more than to scrape every benefit into their own plates—how could they be willing to leave room for the lower class? Of course, this belonged to the contradiction between the ruling class and the ruled class.

Having observed Jiangxia's market scene, the old Emperor concluded his inspection here. As for the rural conditions he had always been concerned about, he did not find time to go see them. In any case, they should be better than Luoshan County—after all, relying on the Yangtze, fish and grain were abundant.

The next stop was naturally the circuit seat, Jiangling. Having come to the Jinghu North Circuit, one ought to visit the capital, and with Fan Zhigu's personal invitation, not going would not only look bad but could easily trigger an unnecessary political storm, affecting Fan Zhigu's prestige and bringing trouble to his governance of Hubei.

Never mind that Ezhou had developed well in recent years, its rising momentum as if it had grown wings—if one ranked the prefectures of Jinghu North Circuit, the first place still belonged to Jiangling Prefecture, with Ezhou a distant second, followed by Yuezhou, then Xiangzhou. The rest were not worth discussing.

And Jiangling Prefecture, in fact, had never worried that Ezhou could threaten its position. For one simple reason: Ezhou was tucked away in the east of Hubei Circuit. As long as the court did not adjust the administrative divisions of Hubei Circuit's prefectures, no matter how well Ezhou developed, it could hardly assume the function of a circuit capital.

After three days in Ezhou, the party set out for Jiangling Prefecture.

The journey south from Luoyang had been entirely by carriage and horse, and the old Emperor was probably tired of it, so this time heading west to Jiangling he chose to travel by boat. There was no dragon boat to ride, and ordinary river boats or pleasure boats were not reassuring. To ensure the safety of the imperial carriage, a main warship was selected from the Yangtze River Fleet as the Emperor's vessel, and a detachment of the river fleet was dispatched to escort him upstream.

At Ezhou, a river defense fleet was also permanently stationed, not large in scale—with a complement of just over two thousand and some fifty-odd vessels of various sizes. The only large warship was a thousand-liao vessel, which served as the old Emperor's vessel for the westward journey.

Before departure, the old Emperor personally reviewed the Ezhou river fleet—quite different from before. This was the first time since setting out on this tour that he had reviewed and addressed a local army, completely out of keeping with his usual style.

Jiangling was about three hundred li from Jiangxia by land, but the water route was longer, winding and twisting. Going upstream, powered by oars and sails, pushing hard, one could cover only forty or fifty li a day. With stops along the way to look around, it still took over half a month before reaching Jiangling—arriving just in time to spend the Mid-Autumn Festival there.

The situation upon arrival was the same as the procedure in Ezhou: a welcome ceremony, a meeting and address at the government offices, receiving scholar-official and commoner representatives, and that night a gathering at Taibai Tower in Jiangling city, where ruler and subjects, officials and people, all returned home satisfied.

However, unlike the warmth and gentleness shown in Ezhou, at Jiangling the old Emperor bared his fangs. The very next day, officers and men of the Wude Office moved out to purge the two main river fleets under Hubei Circuit. The target was clear, the action swift, and to ensure complete success and suppress any possible disturbance, Inner Palace soldiers also cooperated, boarding ships to make arrests.

No one could have imagined that the night before, there had been singing and dancing, ruler and subjects in full revelry, and then when night ended and dawn broke—thunder and lightning. There was basically no resistance. In fact, even without the Inner Palace soldiers' cooperation, those bearing imperial edicts to make arrests could not have met with resistance—the common people's awe of the old Emperor was deepest precisely among the middle classes.

Thus, half of the middle and senior officers of the Jinghu North Circuit river fleet were seized in this operation, almost the whole lot in one sweep. Making such a great commotion naturally had a just cause. Leaving aside the minor details, the single charge of participating in smuggling was already a capital crime!

With economic development and the circulation of goods, the wealth flowing through the Yangtze, that golden waterway, was enough to shake people's hearts. Over the past thirty-odd years, smuggling on the river had been rampant and severe—so severe that the river fleet responsible for patrols, public security, and bandit suppression had become involved in it.

Taking bribes, writing authorization slips, turning a blind eye—these were even minor matters. Using fleet warships as smuggling vessels was not just a violation of civil law but also of military law—absolutely intolerable.

And according to internal reports from the Jinghu North Circuit river fleet and the Wude Office's investigations, what the fleet had done went far beyond this! For example, maliciously intercepting merchant ships and privately collecting vessel taxes. If it were only collecting passage fees, that might be tolerable, but there were also many cases of murder for money; worse still, some had raised river bandits, nurturing bandits to enhance their own importance.

Laid out one by one before the old Emperor, these matters caused a violent shock that could well be imagined. How could he suppress his killing intent and not vigorously rectify the Yangtze River Fleet?

The Yangtze River Fleet was the cream of the Great Han's inland river fleets, with deep roots—traceable back to the Gao clan of Nanping, expanding on the foundation of the original Jingnan river fleet. Later, part of the Hunan river fleet and the subsequently rising Jiangnan river fleet were incorporated, and after years of development, the current Yangtze River Fleet was formed. The Yangtze River Fleet, together with the river forces of other water systems, constituted the Great Han's inland river fleet.

As for the inland river fleet, the greatest reform was the delegation of command authority—divided by circuit and by segment, delegated to the command offices of each circuit and prefecture. While maintaining a certain war-fighting capability, they were also responsible for public security, bandit suppression, and anti-smuggling affairs, while the Bureau of Military Affairs directly commanded the navy.

But as it now appeared, the delegation of river fleet authority had become a breeding ground for corruption, making it more convenient and easier for those people to collude with local powers.

The Hubei river fleet being so rampant, so unscrupulous, and so rotten—it was clearly impossible that it was merely collusion between some officers and men. There must be backers above, connections between military and local government, and collusion between inside and outside.

After a shocking operation, half of the Hubei river fleet's officers were taken down, and its combat effectiveness was basically crippled. Carried out simultaneously was a purge of the Jinghu North Circuit government and the Jiangling Prefecture officialdom, focusing on the three major systems of justice, taxation, and supervision—over sixty people were seized in one go. Among them, the highest-ranking were Wei Zhong, Deputy Chief Commander of Jinghu North Circuit and Chief Commander of the Hubei River Fleet, and Fu Zhaoshou, Prefect of Jiangling.

As for the latter's identity, no elaboration was needed—one look at the surname said it all: a relative of the imperial house, Empress Fu's younger brother, the Crown Prince's own maternal uncle. As for the former, his background was somewhat more complicated—the son of Wei Lin, former Chief Commander of the Yangtze River Fleet.

Though not as famous, the Wei clan, like the Sun clan, had originated from the Gao clan of Nanping and was likewise a prominent family of Hubei—the most top-tier rentier class in Jinghu North Circuit.

In the Great Han, they had risen to prominence at almost the same time as the Sun clan. In the early years, whether pacifying Chu, conquering Shu, or later marching east to pacify Jiangnan, Wei Lin could be seen leading the river fleet in battle. In the great enterprise of unifying the realm, Wei Lin had his share of merit, and this also established the Wei clan's position in Jinghu North Circuit. Wei Zhong was now the head of the Wei clan and a high official of the circuit government.

The arrest of these two was, for Hubei's officialdom, a veritable earthquake that caught many off guard. In the thirty-odd years since its establishment, Jinghu North Circuit had experienced the political vicissitudes of the Great Han. Though affected by various struggles, movements, and reforms, on the whole it had passed through them smoothly—never before had there been a great purge like this one.

Many people were at a loss. No one had expected it, but everyone could see that the old Emperor was about to strike hard. Arresting so many people, even throwing his own brother-in-law into prison—this was no joke.

Thus, in fear, many people went to the Administration Commissioner's office, begging Fan Zhigu to come forward and lead them through these hard times, to save Hubei from this sudden officialdom crisis.

In fact, even Fan Zhigu was greatly taken aback by this matter—after all, there had been no sign beforehand, no hint of wind had leaked out, and the night before they had still been celebrating together at Taibai Tower. However, on reflection, this was consistent with the old Emperor's style: when he did not move, he did not move; when he moved, it was like thunder.

After calming down, Fan Zhigu instead felt reassured, not panicking like the average Hubei official. The ills of Hubei were not his fault—he was, after all, an Administration Commissioner who had been in office for less than two years. Having received not the slightest hint beforehand could be seen both as a form of protection for him and as a test.

At the same time, having only just become familiar with Hubei's situation and just begun to touch on some deeper matters, Fan Zhigu weighed things in his heart and reached the conclusion that the old Emperor's thunderous measures to rectify Hubei's officialdom were not necessarily a bad thing for him as Administration Commissioner of Jinghu North Circuit.

In the end, he was an outsider, and of humble origins to boot—fundamentally different from prominent Hubei families like the Suns and Weis. It was hard for them to truly piss in the same pot.