Chapter 114: Grain Persuasion

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After the city gates closed, apart from the soldiers pacing back and forth on the streets and atop the walls, not a single person could be seen in Gaoyao.

All of Gaoyao's residents had been ordered to stay in their homes and not go out, and this prohibition applied to everyone regardless of status.

The only ones exempt from the ban were the county yamen's petty clerks and runners, who were required to cooperate unconditionally with the Taiping Camp — otherwise, the consequences would be severe.

Gaoyao had far more degree-holding scholars than the remote and impoverished Luoding, so the number of gentry and great households was several times greater than in Luoding.

These families were all fat sheep in Zhou Shixiang's eyes; the money and grain in their hands might even exceed what had been seized from the county yamen. In dealing with such gentry and great households, the Taiping Camp already had a precedent.

Of the several great households in Luoding back then, apart from Lin Wanfu, who had been made Keeper of the Taiping Camp's public treasury, the rest had long since been reduced to ashes.

Their former heads of household were now forcibly settled in the rear camp, where Song Xianggong had assigned men to keep them under watch. Whether they were even still alive at this point, even Zhou Shixiang did not know.

Ever since the decision was made to strengthen themselves by the roving-bandit method of coercion, Song Xianggong had stopped remonstrating with Zhou Shixiang over his treatment of the gentry. Instead, he spared no effort in carrying out the policies Zhou Shixiang had laid down.

He understood better than anyone that from the day the Taiping Camp raised its banner, the gentry class — whether loyal to Ming or to Qing — were the enemies of the Taiping Camp, because the existence of these people was the most direct threat to the camp's growth.

Only by eliminating these gentry could the Taiping Camp obtain the manpower, money, and grain it desperately needed.

Eliminating the gentry class could be said to be entirely the method of roving bandits rising in revolt. If this went on, it would surely lose the people's hearts, for in the present world, whether Ming or Qing, both went to great lengths to win over the gentry class.

The Taiping Camp was doing the exact opposite. On a small scale it might still work, but once it grew into a real power, it would become the enemy of all under heaven.

Li Chuang's recent example was a warning not far off, and one could not help but be cautious.

Zhou Shixiang naturally knew Song Xianggong's worries, and he also knew what the consequences would be of making enemies of all the gentry under heaven. Therefore he had not let the Taiping Camp openly and loudly destroy the gentry.

Since marching south, he had kept the methods as mild as possible. The specific approach was this: in places that had to be coerced, the gentry and great households were uprooted completely; in places that did not need to be coerced, the main method was "grain persuasion."

As for the pretext, it was naturally either appealing to their sense of righteousness or punishing Han traitors.

In Ming-held territory, there was no need to say more; as for those gentry in Qing-held territory, slapping the label of Han traitor on them was absolutely inescapable, and absolutely never wrong.

Gaoyao was the first county seat the Taiping Camp had taken since marching south from Luoding.

The money and grain in the homes of the gentry and great households was clearly far more than what had been found in the great households of the villages and towns they had encountered in recent days.

With the fat sheep now right under his nose, how could Zhou Shixiang not make a move?

Very soon, squads of soldiers were dispatched, and under the guidance of those local petty clerks and runners, they knocked door to door on the gates of the gentry and great households, beginning the work of "grain persuasion."

The pitch-black night sky, the pitch-black clothes, the gleaming blades — not a single member of the gentry dared resist.

Faced with the Taiping Camp's demands for money and grain, amounts astonishing yet still not enough to ruin them completely, the household heads, after a silence, all chose to agree. They had no choice but to agree.

They knew full well that the moment they said no, those wolf-and-tiger soldiers outside would charge in and slaughter their entire families to the last person.

Even those households with guards, hired hands, and household retainers did not dare move. During the daytime fighting in the city, they had lain flat on their courtyard walls and watched it all clearly.

Even the invincible banner troops had been slaughtered to the last man by these black-clad soldiers — what good would pointing to these few guards and retainers do? If they truly made a move, extermination of the whole family would be right before their eyes.

The demands the other side now made were a bit much, but not beyond what they could produce. Well, well — circumstances were stronger than men, the knife handles were in the other side's hands, so give it and be done with it.

"Grain persuasion" was bound to make a commotion, but when the common folk saw that the Taiping Camp's black-clad soldiers went only to the great households, however frightened they were, their hearts settled a little.

During the day they had already been robbed once by the Green Standard and the banner troops, and now there was truly nothing left in their homes. If these black-clothed men also came to rob them, they feared they would have nothing left to give but their lives.

Because of the disgraceful business Chen Mo and his men had done in Xinxing, Zhou Shixiang now placed great importance on military discipline. The officers had all been given reminders, so during the grain persuasion no one dared harass the common folk.

Yet the officers leading the squads also knew in their hearts that nothing of value could be squeezed from those poor households. The soldiers understood even better — being of poor stock themselves, putting themselves in others' shoes, they could not bring themselves to do it.

So they were especially supportive of the Thousand-Household Commander's orders.

The grain persuasion was carried out in batches, and the city had been divided into several districts.

Shao Jiugong, Tie Yi, Qin Zhisheng, and Jiang He each took charge of one area, while the Ge Zheng brothers were responsible for guarding the city gates, and the remaining units rested in rotation.

The rest areas were at the county yamen and the Green Standard garrison, both of which were now empty, just right for the soldiers to rest.

Li Fuguo and the 280 captured Green Standard soldiers had been disarmed and locked up in batches — some in the main prison, the rest at the Green Standard garrison.

Although these men had fought against the Han Banners today, Zhou Shixiang still did not feel easy about holding them all together in one place.

As soon as it was light, Zhou Shixiang would distribute them in batches to reinforce the various squads, while also recruiting able-bodied volunteers from the city to join the army, and in addition carrying out a major reorganization of the entire camp.

Reorganizing the vanguard camp once more was something Zhou Shixiang had decided on two days earlier. What prompted this decision was that as the vanguard camp's strength kept expanding, the military structure originally set up in Luoding was no longer suitable.

In Luoding, because the Taiping Camp had few troops, Zhou Shixiang had set the organization at ten men to a file, five files to a squad, with junior banner officers serving as file leaders and chief banner officers as squad leaders. The hundred-household level had not been filled.

Only Zhao Sihai, who was in charge of the public treasury, and Tie Yi, who led the miners, had been appointed probationary hundred-household commanders because they commanded larger numbers of men. Everyone else was at chief banner officer or below.

One chief banner officer led only one squad of troops, and one squad was only 50 men. Now the vanguard camp, including the prisoners, had reached nearly 2,000 men.

Excluding the 300 men of the engineer camp under Tie Yi, the remaining personnel at 50 men per squad meant there would have to be more than 30 chief banner officers and over 150 junior banner officers.

These chief banner officers were independent of one another, obeying no one but Zhou Shixiang, and for Zhou Shixiang alone to issue orders and assignments to so many chief banner officers was extremely difficult.

The situation in battle changed in an instant, and Zhou Shixiang could not attend to everything at once. The military structure had to be adjusted, or it would be impossible to cope with the increasingly large-scale battles to come.

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