Chapter 131: 129 Another Peasant Uprising

Before Zhao Han he had acted respectful, even saying he would consider the question of joining the rebels. But the moment Wang Tiaoding returned to the city, he immediately went to pay a visit to the Prefect, trying to discuss how to put Zhao Han to death!

Wang Tiaoding said the moment they met: "Prefect, yesterday I went to see the rebel Zhao."

Yang Zhaosheng was slightly surprised, yet managed to stay calm, and only said: "Oh, I see."

"This rebel cannot be wiped out by force," Wang Tiaoding stated his view. "Conciliation and amnesty are even more impossible. We can only devise a plan to lure him in and kill him!"

Yang Zhaosheng asked: "What did you see in the rebel lair?"

"The rebel multitudes are of one heart, their aspirations lofty. The common people live in peace and contentment, just like a paradise beyond the world," Wang Tiaoding finished, then sighed with emotion. "The rebel leader Zhao speaks of seeking the governance of the Three Dynasties."

Yang Zhaosheng shook his head and laughed: "It seems he is a fine sort of rebel, too."

Wang Tiaoding frowned and said: "Has the Prefect never thought of suppressing the rebels? Within a year or two, the rebel Zhao may well seize and occupy the entire Ji'an Prefecture!"

Yang Zhaosheng sighed: "The rebel Zhao emptied the prefectural treasury completely and stirred up such a massive military disaster, yet His Majesty still does not reduce or remit the land tax, only tacitly permitting Ji'an Prefecture to press for collection. Luling County is half occupied, and Anfu County and Taihe County have also suffered from roving rebels. This year's summer and autumn grain taxes will likely be hard to collect. What heart do I have for suppressing rebels? If I press for collection again this year, I'm afraid I can forget about any promotion for the rest of my life."

"Your Excellency thinks only of promotion, and not of suppressing rebels for the country?" Wang Tiaoding said angrily.

"And what of grain? Without grain, how do we raise troops to suppress the rebels?" Yang Zhaosheng retorted.

Wang Tiaoding said: "This rebel cannot be opposed by force. We must think of a way to lure him in and kill him!"

Yang Zhaosheng laughed: "Then you go ahead and think of a way to lure him in and kill him. The urgent task at hand is to collect the summer grain, and your Luling County likely won't be able to collect much of it."

When the conversation sours, half a sentence is too much. The two parted on bad terms.

After Wang Tiaoding left the prefectural yamen, Yang Zhaosheng sighed: "It's good to be young. I was young once, too."

Yang Zhaosheng was in fact very capable, but he had experienced too much darkness and had long since had his edges worn smooth by reality. Now, he sought only to be an official in peace and stability, and incidentally to scrape together some silver to support his family.

He rather envied his classmate and close friend Wu Rousi, who in Henan had satisfyingly wiped out the White Lotus sect and even killed two great White Lotus bandit chiefs. But Jiangxi was not like Henan; the gentry were not so obedient, and this rebel Zhao did not seem as easy to deal with as the White Lotus sect!

Yang Zhaosheng was filled with the lethargy of decline. He lacked the boldness to do any real work, retaining only the bottom line of dying to repay his sovereign.

Historically, when captured by the Qing army, he chose death before dishonor. Beyond that, he accomplished nothing whatsoever.

Coming out from the Prefect's yamen, Wang Tiaoding then summoned the rural gentry of Luling County.

He recounted the matter of the peasant association in detail, and told those gentry: "The rebel Zhao's peasant association will likely spread to the entire county. If you gentlemen forcefully suppress your tenant farmers, you may provoke a tenant uprising. It would be better to voluntarily reduce rents and interest, showing kindness to your tenants. In this way, you can dilute the rebel Zhao's influence."

"Magistrate, last year we subsidized Governor Xie's campaign against the rebels, and our grain stores are already low. How can we still reduce rents and interest?"

"Exactly. The tenants are having a hard time, but are we landlords having an easy time? The court adds levies year after year, and the localities impose their own apportionments. If we reduce rents and interest for the tenants on top of that, life will be unlivable from now on."

"Since the rebel Zhao has chosen to rule with the river as the border, presumably he won't make any big moves in the short term."

"..."

The rebels were right under their noses, yet these gentry were still hemming and hawing, deluding themselves that Zhao Han would be content with half a county.

Truly, they would not shed tears until they saw the coffin!

Wang Tiaoding saw the gentry off, then collapsed into his chair, feeling utterly weary at heart.

He had not hired a private secretary, so he summoned a civil clerk to discuss matters.

The clerk said: "Magistrate, permit me to explain. Those landlords are afraid. If the rebel Zhao could truly be wiped out, the entire county's gentry would eagerly donate money and grain. But can the Magistrate truly wipe out that rebel Zhao?"

"I cannot, at least not for the time being," Wang Tiaoding shook his head.

The clerk added: "Since no one can suppress the rebel Zhao, those gentry dare not act rashly. They fear angering the rebel Zhao and losing their lives and property! The Magistrate cannot do it, nor can the Prefect. At the very least, the Governor must bring a great army here. Only when the gentry of this county see hope will they act."

Wang Tiaoding asked: "But I didn't ask them to donate grain to suppress the rebels. I only asked them to reduce rents and interest, to show kindness to their tenants."

The clerk laughed: "They can have their land divided with the rebel Zhao's knife at their throats, but they will absolutely never voluntarily reduce rents and interest. It's like a dog with meat in its mouth — how could it spit the meat out on its own? Someone must beat it with a club, beat it until it hurts, before it will spit the meat out."

"All shortsighted fools!" Wang Tiaoding said contemptuously.

The clerk shook his head: "What the Magistrate can figure out, how could the rural gentry not know? They are not stupid. But they cannot open this breach. If they reduce rents and interest this year, should they do it next year too? Reduce rents and interest forever after? Won't the tenants then push for more? If the tenants are spoiled, I'm afraid in the future they won't even be able to collect any rent at all!"

It is just like capitalists. If giving workers a single wage increase could completely solve the problem of strikes, they would actually be very willing to do so.

What are capitalists afraid of?

They are afraid that after one increase, there will be a second, a third, and the workers will never be satisfied. So they refuse to give even one increase, preferring to spend even more money on suppression, resolutely refusing to open the breach of wage increases!

A deadlock, with no solution.

Wang Tiaoding thought of the paradise beyond the world on the rebel Zhao's side, then thought of the Prefect and the gentry on his own side, and then thought of the faces of those officials in the Bureau of Appointments. A sudden impulse to join the rebels surged up within him.

Calm down, calm down. He absolutely must not join the rebels!

The gentry did not move, nor did the peasant association, but the tenant farmers did.

The tenant farmers on the eastern bank of the Lu River, seeing the bountiful summer harvest on the western bank, were each and every one dying of envy.

The tenants secretly contacted each other and elected a representative, who came to Yongyang Town under the pretext of taking his wife back to her parents' home.

"What is your name?" Zhao Han asked.

"This commoner is Luo Xian. I also studied for a few years. In earlier years I had six mu of land, but now I have fallen to become a tenant farmer," Luo Xian knelt on the ground and kowtowed. "This year the spring drought was severe, and when we harvested the wheat we ran into rain. My neighbors all had poor harvests, and are still being pressed for rent by the landlords. Mr. Zhao, the tenants on the eastern bank all long for you to come over. They all want to live good days like those on the western bank."

Zhao Han asked with a smile: "Does everyone think this way?"

Luo Xian said: "As long as Mr. Zhao goes to the eastern bank to divide the land, this commoner's very life is yours. Even if government troops come, this commoner will take up a carrying pole and fight the officials to the death!"

The people's hearts can be put to use.

Zhao Han said: "I have an agreement with the officials, and we have already set the Lu River as the border for governance. A man cannot go back on his word. For the time being, I still cannot divide land for you. However, I can send the propaganda corps and the peasant association to help you organize your own peasant associations. You cannot look to me for everything; you yourselves must also stand up. When famine years come, you must force the landlords to reduce rents. And as for usurious loans and high-interest lending, the interest is too high and unreasonable. You can refuse to acknowledge any of the money and grain you have borrowed!"

A few days later, Chen Maosheng personally led the propaganda officers across the river, accompanied by a few soldiers and peasant association core members.

In the villages and towns on the eastern bank of the Lu River, peasant associations were swiftly formed. Not to mention the tenants who eagerly joined, many owner-farmers also took part.

It was not that they refused to pay rent to the landlords entirely, only that the summer grain harvest had been poor this year. The tenants would first keep enough grain for their own mouths, and only send the remainder to the landlords. Moreover, all the high-interest loans they had previously taken out were now completely repudiated!

At the same time, the peasant association led the owner-farmers in tax resistance. They would pay according to the normal Single Whip tax, and resolutely refused to acknowledge the miscellaneous levies and surcharges imposed by the local authorities.

At this point, even small landlords were willing to join the peasant association!

Many small landlords were unwilling to commend their land, for once they commended it they would have to become someone else's tenant, and thus they became the main force paying taxes to the government. They joined the peasant association purely to resist taxes, because the local miscellaneous levies and surcharges had already exceeded the court's regular taxes.

From this perspective, small landlords also possessed a fighting spirit, and were also a main force in Zhao Han's rebellion. The prerequisite was that their families had no juren, for a juren could evade a great many miscellaneous apportionments and corvée labor duties.

"They've rebelled, they've all rebelled!"

A certain Master Hu could not hold back. He dared not attack the propaganda corps, but he dared to strike at his own tenant farmers.

The man sent his son with household slaves, going directly to the tenants' doors to collect rent by force, and actually beat one tenant farmer severely.

Under Chen Maosheng's direction, over six hundred peasant association members stormed the Hu family compound, seizing Master Hu and several of his sons. Then they held a grievance-airing assembly, followed by a public trial.

Zhao Han had originally intended to proceed step by step — first develop the peasant associations, then train grassroots officials, gradually encroaching on the whole of Luling County.

But it could not be contained!

Like an old house catching fire, it burned fierce and violent.

After the grievance-airing assembly and the public trial, the propaganda corps suddenly lost control of the peasant association.

The peasants, having found organization through the peasant association, rapidly united and killed several major landlords in succession. Then tenant farmers who had not joined the peasant association also rose up on their own to exterminate landlords.

After killing the landlords, they went to ask Chen Maosheng to oversee the distribution of land.

Reduce rents and interest?

Heh, with only a river between them, when life on the west bank was so good, why shouldn't the east bank just divide the land directly?

Chen Maosheng rushed back to Yongyang Town at top speed: "Regional Commander, I have handled affairs poorly and could not control the peasant association. Please discipline me!"

"It is not your fault. I failed to consider things thoroughly and underestimated the peasants' initiative," Zhao Han said. "Draw some more propaganda officers and get the peasants' emotions under control. I will have Zuo Xiaoliang cross the river personally and send plenty of peasant association backbone members to immediately organize the land distribution work. I will also have Jiang Dashan and Huang Yao each lead five hundred soldiers to back you up and keep order. Remember, use the opportunity of land distribution to consolidate the peasant associations in every village and town. The newly established peasant associations must be obedient and must not act against orders again!"

A chain reaction appeared once more. While Chen Maosheng and Zuo Xiaoliang were still distributing land, the peasant movement had already spread spontaneously. Northward it propagated to the border of Luling County, eastward to the outskirts of the prefectural seat, southward to the edge of the great mountains.

Four-fifths of Luling County had effectively become Zhao Han's territory.

The major landlords were terrified. Having previously refused to reduce rents and interest, they now came of their own accord to submit to Zhao Han, hoping only to preserve their lives and keep their money, grain, and a small amount of land.

Over the past year and more, many of the grassroots officials Zhao Han had trained and promoted were dispatched to newly acquired territory, and a shortage of officials at all levels appeared once again.

Promotion came extremely fast, and the officials were full of drive.

Thoughts of corruption faded; they thought only of continuing to expand territory and rising further in rank. Most of them were child students or schoolboys, a minority were xiucai — men who could never have become officials before, but who now saw the possibility of becoming high officials.

Countless lower-class literate men began following Zhao Han in rebellion with absolute devotion — their eagerness to rebel even surpassing Zhao Han's own.

County Magistrate Wang Tiaoding gave up entirely. In the blink of an eye, only one-fifth of his jurisdiction remained.

Or rather, not even one-fifth, because the area around Tianhe Town had been seized by Fei Yinggong's bandit gang. The surviving major landlords frantically begged the County Magistrate to suppress the bandits, but Wang Tiaoding could not be bothered even to see those wretches.

At this rate, Zhao Han could occupy the entire county this year, leaving only the prefectural seat to the officials.

The enterprise was flourishing, and Zhao Han was about to get married as well.

(End of Chapter)