Chapter 197

The concrete measure for turning the private arrangement into an official one was for the Xinhui county yamen to legalize the business of selling people in the city.

Of course, in its wording the yamen was certainly not a trafficker, and Magistrate Liao was certainly not a ** either; rather, they were implementing the military-marriage measure.

The so-called military-marriage measure, in brief, meant that the yamen would step forward to marry the daughters (or women) of commoner households to the Taiping Army as wives, granting these women respectable status and guaranteeing that after marriage they would not be abused or resold.

As for households that had a woman married to the Taiping Army, they would all be taken into the rear camp and enjoy the same treatment as Taiping Army dependents.

Households with no woman married to the Taiping Army would have the yamen coordinate with the rear camp to draw some support from the Taiping Army public treasury for their livelihood; though this would not fill their bellies, it would at least keep them from starving to death.

With the actual increase in rations being quite small, Song Xianggong approved this military-marriage measure. Coming from a scholar's background, how could he bear to see the city of Xinhui filled with the human tragedy of corpses from starvation?

His earlier hard-heartedness had merely been forced by circumstances.

The military-marriage measure, built on the common people's forced and helpless choice, in essence still deprived those "married-off" women of their happiness, yet for the present it was the best measure available.

Song Xianggong put it plainly: even if the Taiping Army did not starve these people to death, once the Qing army broke through the city, these people would likewise end up dead—or worse than dead. Had there ever been any shortage of men violating men and women in the Qing camps?

For those women ravaged beneath countless beasts, death was the only happiness they most desired. Compared with that, military marriage could be called a life in paradise.

I cannot give these people true happiness, nor can I guarantee their lives; I can only give them a life that is not quite so wretched.

Zhou Shixiang consoled himself in this way.

After the news of military marriage was posted and announced through the yamen's public notice, the silent city of Xinhui at once grew lively.

Every day in the five great camps of the front camp, off-duty soldiers ran gleefully to the yamen to register, then under the guidance of those temporary runners went off to choose their wives.

Zhou Shixiang interfered little in rear-camp affairs, but he kept the front camp under tight control.

To prevent any unseemly incidents, Zhou Shixiang issued a strict order forbidding any officer or soldier already married from taking part in the buying of wives; any violation, once discovered, would be severely punished without leniency.

To prevent soldiers from growing so overjoyed at getting a wife that they neglected their duties, thereby weakening the city's defense and letting the Qing army slip through a gap, Zhou Shixiang also drew up regulations and set down rules.

The first priority was to ensure that the number of soldiers on wall duty would not decrease because of this.

For the rest, following earlier measures, off-duty officers and soldiers could meet their families once every three days and stay half a day; apart from that they had to remain in camp at all times, with severe punishment for violators.

To make those parents forced to "marry off their daughters" less heartbroken, Zhou Shixiang had Liao Ruixiang handle the military-marriage affairs as decently as possible, and Song Xianggong also drew some red cloth from the public treasury to make the military-marriage ceremonies as lively and festive as possible.

The officers and soldiers willing to take wives also went one by one to the yamen to pay their marriage fees—called fees, but in truth bride-price.

Although the Taiping Army operated a public-treasury system, soldiers with merit in battle received rewards, some paid in silver, some in grain, cloth, and the like.

Thus these marrying soldiers all had savings of some amount, and even those without money could borrow from their comrades. In this way, those Xinhui commoners who were to become fathers- and mothers-in-law naturally received their sons-in-law's bride-price and tokens of respect.

The yamen dared not skim anything here and passed it all on faithfully. The bride-price was not much, uniformly five taels of silver.

Although silver was now utterly useless in the city, once the commoners became Taiping Army dependents they had their own grain supply, and the son-in-law in the army also received subsidies, so the urgent need for grain was not so pressing.

Thus, knowing full well that these five taels of silver were useless, the "fathers- and mothers-in-law" still forced smiles and accepted their sons-in-law's filial offerings.

Following all the customary procedures for marrying off a daughter among the common folk, the yamen stepped forward to draw up marriage contracts for these new brides and their husbands' families. The guarantee in black and white set many commoners' minds at ease.

There were no sedan chairs in the city—even if there had been, the Taiping Army would long since have taken them for firewood—so at the military weddings the brides could only walk.

Zhou Shixiang attended only the first military-marriage ceremony once; he did not appear at the other several, all of which were presided over by Song Xianggong and Liao Ruixiang. Ge Zheng, Zhao Sihai, and the others also attended twice.

Commoners with no daughters, amid their envy, had many who turned their thoughts to their own wives. For a time divorce papers flew everywhere, and women who had been other men's wives became Taiping Army wives in the blink of an eye.

This made Zhou Shixiang sigh deeply, yet he could not bring himself to despise those men who sold their wives. There was no help for it—a whole family had to eat.

The grain issued by the Taiping Army barely kept them hanging on to life. What about the little ones who needed to grow?

What about the old folk faint with hunger?

As to what treatment the families of these divorced women would enjoy after the women joined the Taiping Army, Zhou Shixiang and Song Xianggong argued again.

In the end Zhou Shixiang gave way and agreed with Song Xianggong's opinion not to grant these commoners the treatment of Taiping Army dependents, but to double the bride-price, and instead of silver to allot food one-third more than the rations previously distributed.

There was no help for it: if they were all taken into the Taiping Army rear camp, the grain to be allotted would be several times what it had been.

How could Song Xianggong, who was constantly calculating how much grain remained and how much longer it could last, ever agree to that?

One could not but admire the resilience of Han women. The divorced women did not wail to heaven or even wash their faces in tears.

Before leaving home they only clung to their children, kissing them again and again, repeatedly exhorting their husbands to be sure to raise the little ones well.

After reaching their new "husbands' homes," they could not bear to eat the food their new husbands gave them, and only hid the food away when their new men were not looking, then found an excuse—even if only the excuse of relieving themselves—to slip out and hand the food to their long-waiting "former husbands."

At this, the "new husbands" for the most part made no great fuss; most turned a blind eye, and some even took the initiative to tell the women to take food back.

Of course, a small number of "new husbands" were greatly displeased by this behavior of eating from one's own and helping outsiders, and beat or cursed the women.

The matter occurred in the rear camp, but the parties involved were from the front camp, so in the end it fell to Zhou Shixiang to handle.

Zhou Shixiang's way of handling it was simple: he gathered the men involved together, did not scold them, and only asked about their origins—what their lives had been like at home, and what it was like when they could not eat their fill.

After this round of questioning, the soldiers who had beaten and cursed the women naturally felt ashamed. They were all of bitter origin, had all nearly starved to death at home, and their own parents had tried every means just to let them eat one more mouthful.

Putting themselves in others' place, how could they harden their hearts to beat and curse those wretched women?

Barely two days after the problem of the Xinhui commoners' means of survival was resolved, Qi Hao brought back bad news—Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo had fallen out.