Chapter 221: Southern Jiangxi Initially Pacified

Huichang county seat.

"Big Brother, surrender."

"Yeah, surrender. If we don't surrender, we can't beat them anyway."

"What sort of man is Heavenly King Zhao? I said long ago we should submit. What use is seizing more land? The moment someone attacks, they parcel it all out."

"Big Brother, say something!"

"…"

Lin Jinshan, harried into confusion by their words, suddenly roared, "Shut up!"

After venting, Lin Jinshan softened his tone and said, "Even if we surrender, we have to haggle over terms and get the future settled clearly. First send a few men to ask that General Zhao the Second whether, if we surrender, we can leave with our silver. We came from Fujian — take the silver back to Fujian, build houses and buy land. That way we won't have toiled for nothing."

"Right, right, give him the county seat, give him the fields — we take the silver and go back to Fujian!" Everyone strongly supported this idea, all longing to return home in glory.

At once they lowered a messenger over the wall in a basket, who ran off to discuss surrender with Fei Ruhe.

Fei Ruhe told the messenger with a cold laugh, "Go back and repeat my exact words: if you want to surrender, surrender at once. How you're dealt with is my business — they have no standing to negotiate terms!"

Had he not had to select five hundred soldiers to train in firearms, dispatch five hundred soldiers to garrison Mei Pass, and also split his forces to enter the mountains and exterminate bandits, Fei Ruhe would have overrun the entire Southern Jiangxi region long ago.

He never took these field soldiers seriously at all — a rabble.

Bandits in Southern Jiangxi were truly numerous, and many were Hakka.

Yongfeng County Magistrate Liu Mianzuo — the one who, on his deathbed, told his clerks to join the rebels — had spent years suppressing bandits in the mountains. The local gazetteer calls them "Min bandits," yet Yongfeng County lies right next to Jishui, separated from Fujian by half of Jiangxi. Where would Min bandits come from for him to suppress?

The so-called Min bandits were actually Hakka who had come from Fujian. Unable to survive in Southern Jiangxi, they simply took to the mountains as bandits, some even drifting as far as the prosperous central Jiangxi region.

This was not a Hakka problem, but a problem unique to Southern Jiangxi.

Before the Hakka migrated in large numbers, most of the bandits Wang Yangming suppressed in Southern Jiangxi were Jiangxi natives. These Jiangxi peasants, unable to survive, farmed in the mountains while moonlighting as bandits, so that every village had people who were bandits, with neighbors helping to cover for one another.

Thus, in the early days of Wang Yangming's bandit-suppression campaigns, the bandits in the mountains knew everything the moment his troops marched a few li. Not only did the peasants along the route pass word, but even among Wang Yangming's own guides there were relatives of the bandits.

Wang Yangming's solution was brutal and practical: the baojia mutual-surveillance system, collective punishment, and amnesty for those who informed!

In a word: kill!

Fei Ruhe, too, had killed many in his bandit-suppression campaign. Some were inevitably innocent, but in chaotic times harsh laws must apply — there was no leisure to be scrupulous.

To return to the messenger reporting back: the field-soldier leaders wore gloomy faces, then split into factions and quarreled in chaos.

Some said to surrender immediately — the longer they delayed, the worse the outcome.

Some said to wait a while longer — they had to get the surrender terms settled first.

They quarreled like this for half a month. Every day the field-soldier leaders climbed the gate tower and saw the land outside the city being measured and distributed. That was their own land — though much of it had also been parceled out to ordinary field soldiers — and now, before their very eyes, it was being taken and given away.

The field-soldier leaders were anxious, and the ordinary field soldiers were just as anxious.

These rank-and-file soldiers were all tenant farmers. They had followed their leaders in revolt for nothing more than land. Having finally gained land, now it was all gone — so what had they rebelled for?

Better not to have rebelled at all, and stayed honest tenant farmers — Heavenly King Zhao would have given them land himself.

After Fei Ruhe had besieged the city for twenty days, the lower-ranking officers began secretly conspiring together.

A minor squad leader named Li Tianbao said, "Why did we rise up and fight? Wasn't it to get a few mu of land? I hear Heavenly King Zhao also wants to distribute land — so why should we sell our lives for Lin Jinshan? Even if we drive off Heavenly King Zhao's troops, we'll still only have those few mu of land. If we lose, forget keeping the land — we won't even keep our lives."

"Right — surrendering has no downside, not surrendering has no upside!" summed up another minor squad leader named Wang Yongsi.

"How about we set fires and open the gates tonight?"

"Tonight it is!"

"…"

Setting fires at night was certain to cause chaos, because many soldiers' families lived inside the city.

That night, flames rose within the city. Countless soldiers rushed down from the gate tower and, together with the city's residents, spontaneously fought the fire. The squad leaders who had conspired to surrender seized the moment to shout, "Heavenly King Zhao has entered the city!" quickly causing even greater chaos. Some soldiers simply opened the city gates and fled outward.

Lin Jinshan was fleeing too. The instant the fire broke out inside the city, he knew it was all over.

"Kill!"

Fei Ruhe decisively led his troops to storm the city. By daybreak the chaos was quelled, and a fifth of the county seat had been burned down.

Those at the leader level who were captured were all beheaded!

The other field soldiers were not purged — in these chaotic times, it was impossible to sort them all out anyway.

In another month, Fei Ruhe had thoroughly secured control and led his troops to sweep away the remaining field soldiers within the territory. Once the local peasant associations were established, Fei Ruhe immediately marched on Ruijin County, repeating the same pattern.

Basically, he captured one county seat every two and a half months, with casualties among his own troops negligible.

Attacking cities this way, there was no way to speed things up. The main bottleneck was that organizing peasant associations and measuring and distributing land (temporarily only the land around the county seats) was slow, and they had to keep recruiting locals who spoke Hakka.

However, after taking three county seats in succession, the pace suddenly quickened!

Because the other field-soldier leaders were terrified. Learning they had become Fei Ruhe's target, they immediately took their gold and silver and a small number of trusted followers and left Southern Jiangxi, entering Fujian and Guangdong.

They could return to their old homes in Fujian and Guangdong to live as rich men, or they could go back to Fujian and Guangdong and keep rebelling. Either choice was better than facing Fei Ruhe.

By year's end, all of Southern Jiangxi had finally become Zhao Han's territory.

…

Ganzhou city.

Over forty Hakka leaders and Jiangxi gentry were invited to gather in the great hall of the prefectural yamen. They were representatives from all the surrounding counties.

Among them were no few personal enemies, who began quarreling the moment they met.

The instant Zhao Han appeared, the great hall fell silent at once. Every gaze turned toward this Heavenly King Zhao.

Young, commanding, handsome, tall and straight!

"We pay our respects to Mr. Zhao!" Everyone hurriedly rose and saluted.

Even those Hakka leaders could speak the Jiangxi dialect — after all, they had been settled in Jiangxi for nearly a hundred years and inevitably had to deal with the local natives.

Zhao Han returned the salute with clasped fists and said with a smile, "Please be seated, everyone. I have come to Southern Jiangxi because I hear you are entangled in endless disputes. I hope to persuade you all to set aside your hatred and work together to fight the drought and provide disaster relief."

"The Governor-General's kind intentions are appreciated, but this matter cannot be mediated," a Jiangxi gentry representative stood up and cried out in fury. "These Hakka, coming from Fujian and Guangdong, have not only seized our Jiangxi land but also want to snatch our Jiangxi people's water sources!"

"Bullshit!"

A Hakka leader also stood up, retorting tit for tat: "You locals always bully us Hakka. Before Mr. Zhao came, when did you ever not collude with the officials to stab us in the back?"

"That's because you were unreasonable first!"

"You were the ones who started bullying!"

"……"

The conflict between natives and Hakka truly cannot be explained in a few words. No one even knows who bullied whom first — grievances built up over generations across nearly a hundred years.

Your village killed my grandfather, our village beat your grand-uncle to death — when will this cycle of vengeance ever end?

Those are the major conflicts, but among the Hakka themselves, and within the Jiangxi gentry, there are also their own separate quarrels.

Bang!

Zhao Han slammed the gavel down hard, startling everyone into immediate silence.

Zhao Han's face darkened. "Let me say a few words first. May I?"

"Commander Zhao, please speak." The group turned docile again — after all, Zhao Han held the blade.

Zhao Han said, "Even an honest judge finds family affairs hard to settle. Many of your feuds go back generations, and I lack the ability to judge right from wrong. I will not concern myself with past grievances. Starting next month, anyone who breaks the law will be dealt with according to the Great Ming Code. If you don't understand the Great Ming Code, you should at least grasp the principle that a life must be paid for with a life, yes?"

As he spoke, Zhao Han swept his gaze over them again and gave a cold laugh. "Do not think the law cannot punish a crowd. If you gather a mob to brawl, all the blame will fall on those who organized and led it. And do not think you escape punishment just because no one died. Any act of brawling will be severely punished without mercy!"

A gentry representative asked, "Commander, how will water disputes be resolved?"

"For now, they will be handed over to the peasant associations," Zhao Han said. "In the face of natural disaster, we should pull together in the same boat, not fight among ourselves."

The Hakka representatives would not accept this. One said, "Commander, you are siding with them. The native villages have peasant associations; our Hakka villages have none. The peasant associations will naturally speak in their favor."

"Then why don't you establish peasant associations? Are you afraid that once they are set up, you will lose your authority in the countryside?" Zhao Han shot back.

No one could answer, because Zhao Han had hit the mark — though some Hakka also simply did not trust Zhao Han.

Zhao Han suddenly switched to Mandarin and said, "I am not from Jiangxi. I am actually a northerner."

At these words, everyone looked somewhat surprised.

Zhao Han continued, "To me, people of Jiangxi and Hakka people are no different — all are simply children of Huaxia. I favor no one and discriminate against no one. Those who act according to my rules are my own people. Those who do not act according to my rules are not my own people. As for your Hakka villages and towns, first you refused to cooperate with household registration, and after registration you refused to cooperate with the peasant associations. My tolerance has its limits."

The Jiangxi gentry listened with schadenfreude; the Hakka leaders listened with growing unease.

"The ordinary Hakka brothers would certainly not resist the peasant associations — it is all you leaders who are obstructing them," Zhao Han's tone grew heavier. "As punishment, I will forcibly redistribute the land, rather than allowing each of you to keep up to one hundred mu as before! Now, for those living in the hills, each person may keep at most fifty mu!"

Those Hakka leaders were both furious and terrified, each one suppressing his rage.

Zhao Han went on, "Anyone who refuses to accept this may raise troops and rebel. I do not mind killing a few to make an example. Every time the Hakka stir up trouble, whether someone took part or not, the land the other Hakka in that town may keep will be reduced by ten mu — unless they report it in advance; only then will they escape punishment."

The Jiangxi gentry grew even more delighted; they loved watching their enemies suffer.

Zhao Han suddenly turned toward those gentry representatives. "You had better stay in line as well. Some of you refuse to accept my land redistribution and are secretly conspiring to cause trouble. I received reports of this long ago. Do not force me to resort to confiscating estates and exterminating clans."

The gentry instantly sobered, their smiles vanishing at once.

Zhao Han then announced, "The latest land policy has been slightly revised. You may acquaint yourselves with it."

This year's land policy had again been fine-tuned. Farmland was divided into four grades: upper fields, middle fields, lower fields, and lowest fields.

Upper fields were mostly paddy fields, middle fields mostly dry fields, lower fields mostly hillside plots, and lowest fields were extremely barren.

When distributing land, each person could receive four mu of upper fields; if upper fields ran short, other grades would substitute. One mu of upper fields equaled two mu of middle fields, equaled four mu of lower fields, equaled five mu of lowest fields.

If someone took only middle fields, that meant each person could receive eight mu!

If someone took only lowest fields, that meant each person could receive twenty mu!

This was formulated by the peasant associations after several years of observation and statistics, based on actual field output. Future land taxes would also be levied according to this standard.

In the past three years, those who had reached the age of twelve could also receive land this time.

Anyone who had not received their full allotment before would now have it made up.

There was no fear of running out of land — Taihe County, Yichun County, Pingxiang County, Yongxin County, and Yongning County had all been ravaged terribly by the rebels. After the sharp population decline, people could be relocated there from the other counties.

The southern Jiangxi region was the same; after the successive waves of warfare, there was certainly enough arable land to go around.

"You Hakka — are you willing to form peasant associations?" Zhao Han asked.

The Hakka leaders exchanged glances, then knelt down in unison and said, "We shall all obey Commander Zhao's orders!"

Zhao Han had already said that future matters like water disputes would all be mediated by the peasant associations.

If the Hakka did not establish peasant associations, would they not simply be left at the mercy of the Jiangxi natives?

Zhao Han finally breathed a sigh of relief. As long as they did not resist the peasant associations, that was good. The native-Hakka conflict would certainly be hard to eliminate, but it could be resolved gradually from now on.

(End of chapter)