Chapter 30

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With silver in hand, Zhou Shixiang could finally set his mind at ease for the time being.

No longer fearing that Ge Wu and the others would clamor again for sacking the city, and still mindful of the matter of conscripting able-bodied men into the army, he dragged Song Xianggong, that counterfeit prefect, off to hear the minor clerks report on the city's census.

The man in charge of the population count was Lu Changyuan, a scholar originally from Dong'an County. He had earned his xiucai degree in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, which made him quite senior among the clerks and copyists.

In the fifth year of Shunzhi, after Xu An'guo, the Southern Ming Regional Commander garrisoning Luoding, surrendered to the Qing, the Southern Ming officials of Dong'an and Xining counties refused to surrender with him.

Xu An'guo then let his troops loose to slaughter the cities, plunging both counties into utter devastation.

Among the inhabitants were those who hanged themselves from beams, threw themselves into wells, threw themselves into rivers, their faces smeared with blood, limbs severed, those hacked but not yet dead with hands and feet still twitching.

Flesh and bone lay scattered in heaps; of every ten houses, nine stood empty. All had become ruins.

Lu Changyuan happened to be visiting friends in the prefectural seat at the time, and so was fortunate enough to escape the calamity. Witnessing the horror of his hometown, terror struck deep into his heart.

Cowed by the butcher's blade, he no longer harbored any thought of the distinction between Chinese and barbarian. He took the lead in complying with the head-shaving order and was taken as a trusted man by the then Qing prefect of Luoding.

From then on he busied himself in the prefectural yamen. Though he held no title of registrar, he performed the registrar's duties in fact.

The registrar was the assistant to the County Magistrate, in charge of a county's taxes, grain, and household registers.

The Luoding prefectural yamen was built within Luoding city. The city had no attached county seat, and after years of ****, the yamen had changed hands repeatedly.

Its official structure was incomplete in every respect, and now it did not even have a chief official.

Lu Changyuan, by virtue of his xiucai degree from the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, therefore became the head of the clerks and copyists, still in charge of the city's population, taxes, and grain. Everyone looked to him as their leader.

Whether the Ming army came or the Qing army came, large and small matters were mainly handled by Lu Changyuan, who met, negotiated, and arranged them. The prefectural officials appointed by the Ming and Qing in succession all trusted and relied on him.

That morning, after leading a group of clerks and copyists to pay respects to the newly arrived prefect, Lu Changyuan had tactfully taken his men off to arrange the matters needed for the new official's residence.

He handled these matters with practiced ease, having done them at least three or four times over the past few years, so he carried them out without the slightest awkwardness or error.

While leading his men in the census, Lu Changyuan and the clerks discovered that there did not seem to be any Ming army in the city at all — only a band of men carrying swords and spears. Listening to the way those men talked, they were plainly bandits. What Great Ming royal army was this!

Some clerks muttered privately that if the city really had been taken by bandits, perhaps they should quickly send someone to Deqing to ask the Qing army for help.

Others said they might as well join forces with the great households, each contributing men to drive these bandits out together. Still others said they should simply go to Gaozhou and invite the real Ming army to come take over, lest Luoding be ravaged by this gang of bandits.

Lu Changyuan, however, scorned to say a single word about these men's ideas. Bandits or soldiers, the fact was the city was now in their hands.

Did this lot really think they could resist? They truly had no measure of their own weight.

Could those hired hands and laborers possibly be a match for these men with swords? If these men were easy to beat, then Battalion Commander Kong would not be dead!

No matter who had come, if they said they were the Ming army, then they would treat them as the Ming army. Whatever they wanted, they would cooperate as much as possible.

No one strikes a smiling face. Since they were tactful to this degree, surely these men would not have the nerve to start killing and shouting.

As for sending to Deqing for reinforcements — don't even mention it. Deqing was over a hundred li away. Could a round trip be done in a few days? By the time Deqing's troops arrived, these bandits would long have fled. Who would there be left to catch!

The Ming army, even less to be provoked. If they really brought the Ming army here, would the Qing army not come and fight?

If it really came to fighting, they would inevitably have to slaughter the city again to show off their might. Then the ones who died would be their own relatives and friends, and perhaps their own heads could not be kept either.

Why do such a foolish thing as lifting a rock only to drop it on one's own foot!

Those who want to stay alive should obediently do as they are told and not entertain any schemes! In these chaotic times, it is not enough just to have a quick mind!

Once Lu Changyuan set the tone, few of his subordinates really wanted to cross men with swords anyway. They promptly dispersed and went about their own business.

After everyone had gone, Lu Changyuan called over the shop assistant from his own medicine shop and whispered a few words to him. The assistant was briefly startled, then quietly left.

Hearing that Prefect Song had summoned him, Lu Changyuan hurriedly set aside what he was doing and brought several of the main men in charge to the prefectural yamen.

"Greetings, Lord Song!"

Lu Changyuan led the men in a bow to Song Xianggong, but did not kneel. Song Xianggong did not mind. These men all held xiucai degrees and were not required to kneel before officials. Besides, he himself was a counterfeit prefect — why quibble over such things?

"You may dispense with the formalities."

After signaling that they need not stand on ceremony, Song Xianggong glanced at Zhou Shixiang, then asked Lu Changyuan, "What is the city's current population? Has it been counted?"

"Reporting to Your Lordship, the city's population has been counted and entered in the registers.

Please review them." Lu Changyuan stepped forward holding two yellow registers and presented them to Song Xianggong.

"The one below is last year's yellow register.

I ask Your Lordship to review it as well."

The yellow register was the Ming dynasty household register. Organized by household, it recorded in detail native place, name, age, able-bodied males and dependents, fields and property, and assets, with household status determined by occupation.

The Manchu Qing's rule over Luoding was not stable, so over the years they had continued to use the Ming yellow registers for the population count.

Song Xianggong took the two yellow registers, looked at the top one himself, and handed the bottom one to Zhou Shixiang.

After reading the total population figure in the yellow register, Song Xianggong was astonished and blurted out, "Only a little over three thousand people left in the city?"

"A little over three thousand?"

Zhou Shixiang was also startled to hear that number. He quickly looked again at the yellow register in his hand and asked Lu Changyuan with a look of surprise, "This also says the city had more than eight thousand able-bodied males and dependents last year.

How is it that only a little over three thousand remain now?"

The yellow register was a Ming institution, but the counting of able-bodied males and dependents was a Qing institution.

"Males" referred to men between sixteen and sixty; "dependents" referred to women.

The rest were not counted as able-bodied males or dependents. The poll tax and corvée labor levied by the government were all based on the able-bodied males and dependents recorded in the registers.

According to last year's yellow register, which recorded more than eight thousand able-bodied males and dependents, Luoding city should have had a total population of no less than ten thousand.

Yet now only a little over three thousand remained — a difference of more than threefold, and in the space of just one year. This could not but astonish Zhou Shixiang and Song Xianggong.

Lu Changyuan sighed and said, "To answer the two lords: Luoding has seen war year after year. Many of the common people have died in the fighting.

The fields within our borders lie mostly abandoned, with no one to till them, yet the army's levies are imposed as usual. So the people, seeking to survive, have mostly fled elsewhere.

That is why so few remain in the city."

A clerk beside him chimed in, "If you count only able-bodied males and dependents, I fear the number is not even two thousand."

Not even two thousand able-bodied males and dependents?

Zhou Shixiang's heart turned cold at this. If that were truly the case, then Luoding's available manpower was far too little.

He feared he could not even conscript a full five hundred able-bodied men. And he could not strip the city of all its men — otherwise the old, the weak, the women, and the children would have no way to survive.

"What about grain?"

"The prefectural yamen has had no chief official for months, and the storehouses have no grain reserves at all.

When the Qing army was here, all the levies were forced upon us to carry out. But the people are suffering; what household has surplus grain?

We could only barely cope. Fortunately, the Great Ming royal army has recovered Luoding.

Otherwise, who knows how much longer our Luoding people would have been ravaged by the Qing army."