Chapter 230: 228 Bonds (Bonus Chapter for Big Boss Penguin)

Xu Xiake was invited into the Regional Commander's residence. Eating flatbread as he went, he said, "At first, only the remnants of the Sweeping King's forces crossed from Jiangxi into Huguang's Liuyang and Chaling counties. The Liuyang County Magistrate, a son of Feng Menglong, cares for the common people, so the gentry and folk give their lives for him. There is a local hero named Wang Hui, brave and skilled in battle. Thus the bandits who slipped into Liuyang stirred up no real trouble."

"I know that much," Zhao Han said. He paid close attention to conditions along the two provinces' border.

Xu Xiake went on, "The Chaling County Magistrate took office only this spring — a mere juren. Word has it that to buy the post he borrowed several thousand taels of silver in capital debt at usury. As soon as he arrived he began fleecing the people. When the Sweeping King's remnant force reached Chaling, the common folk rose up in response, and within ten days or a month they stormed the county seat. Then they took You County as well and now sit on a mob of twenty thousand. The bandits from Yongning County slipped into Ling County, seized the county seat, and then submitted to the Chaling bandits as their leader. The former attacked Mount Heng, the latter attacked Anren — both broke through the cities and swelled their ranks."

"They certainly know how to stir things up," Zhao Han remarked with feeling.

The bandits who had been battered black and blue in Jiangxi, once they slipped into southern Hunan, had swiftly seized five counties.

Xu Xiake continued, "After taking Anren, the southern-route bandits had over ten thousand men under arms. They crossed the mountain gorges and struck Leiyang in a surprise attack. The northern-route bandits marched from Mount Heng, the southern-route bandits from Leiyang, and they closed on Hengyang from north and south. The Hengzhou Prefect abandoned the city and fled, and the Prince of Gui fled far away with his clansmen."

"What are the bandit chieftains called?" Zhao Han asked.

Xu Xiake said, "The northern-route chieftain styles himself 'Cloud-Dragon.' The southern-route chieftain styles himself 'Little Overlord.' After taking Hengyang, the two fell out over dividing the spoils and even fought a battle in Hengyang. Little Overlord was no match and fell back to Leiyang, then marched south and took Yongxing. Cloud-Dragon's subordinate leaders also fell out among themselves. One chieftain struck out on his own, styling himself 'Overlord of Chu.' The Overlord of Chu marched his men away and seized Qiyang. Cloud-Dragon, with no thought of advancing, took a host of concubines in Hengyang. Another chieftain, disgruntled, led his troops straight on Shaoyang, styling himself 'Lord Ma.'"

Good heavens — infighting without end, splitting into four separate rebel bands.

"Shaoyang fell too?" Zhao Han asked.

Xu Xiake shook his head. "The Baoqing Prefect held Shaoyang stubbornly and ordered every county to raise troops to suppress the bandits. The great Liao clan of Longhui has a hero named Liao Sheng. He raised three thousand local braves and shattered over ten thousand bandits outside Shaoyang city. Lord Ma fled in panic with his followers and hid in the mountains as a bandit. At the time I was trapped inside Shaoyang city."

"And the bandit chieftain Cloud-Dragon?" Zhao Han pressed.

Xu Xiake said, "Liao Sheng led five thousand men straight on Hengyang. Cloud-Dragon brought thirty thousand bandits out to meet him. Liao Sheng, fierce and brave, broke them in a single battle, and Cloud-Dragon fled in defeat. When I left, Liao Sheng was besieging Hengyang city, and Cloud-Dragon held the walls fast, not daring to come out and fight."

Good heavens — this Liao Sheng is ferocious.

First three thousand against ten thousand, then five thousand against thirty thousand — and both times victory in a single battle.

Xu Xiake said, "Though Liao Sheng twice shattered the rebels in a great victory, he also scattered them in every direction. Now every mountain range is infested with bandits. Whenever I entered the hills I was sure to be robbed; even traveling by water I was robbed. I had no choice but to detour south, planning to cross the mountains and make straight for Guangxi. Who knew the south had also fallen into chaos — the Miao folk in rebellion, Little Overlord running rampant through southern Jing. I could only turn back north and flee all the way back to Jiangxi."

"Just who is this Liao Sheng?" Zhao Han asked.

Xu Xiake said, "All I know is the Liao clan is the great lineage of Longhui — their fields stretch across the landscape, half the county is theirs."

"A local strongman, then," Zhao Han said.

If Zhao Han had ever seriously studied Southern Ming history, he would certainly have known of this Liao Sheng.

In history, after the Qing troops seized Shaoyang, Liao Sheng spent his entire family fortune to raise an army and actually recruited tens of thousands of local braves, fighting in turn under Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo. Only when the Prince of Gui fled into Burma did Liao Sheng, knowing the Ming could not be restored, disband his army and return home to live in seclusion.

While Zhao Han was chatting with Xu Xiake, Liao Sheng had already retaken Hengyang and displayed the bandit chieftain Cloud-Dragon's severed head to the public.

Moreover, Liao Sheng then took the initiative to campaign against the Overlord of Chu, beating him so badly he fled south. All told, he had smashed sixty thousand bandit troops. Though they were all a disorderly rabble, Liao Sheng's own men were likewise local braves, and his troop strength had never been more than a few thousand.

Such a fierce man — a pity he comes from a great clan. He will most likely be an enemy in the future, because Zhao Han means to go and redistribute the land.

Zhao Han gave Xu Xiake a few taels of silver, arranged for him to rest, and immediately summoned Pang Chunlai and Li Banghua to confer.

After hearing Zhao Han's account, Pang Chunlai said, "This man is nothing to worry about. Defeat him just once, then immediately go to his home county and redistribute the land — he won't even be able to recruit local braves."

"True enough," Zhao Han said, unable to suppress a laugh.

The sons of the soil under Liao Sheng's command followed him into battle only because they feared the rebels running amok.

But if Zhao Han went there to redistribute the land, he would need only to win a single victory and could then use land policy to divide and dissolve the villagers, leaving Liao Sheng with money and grain but unable to raise troops for war.

Li Banghua said, "In fact, if we march from Jiangxi, Huguang is even easier to attack — we will surely sweep through like splitting bamboo."

"Why do you say that?" Zhao Han asked.

Li Banghua said, "Jiangxi filled Huguang. Within Huguang there are many Jiangxi people. They can understand the Jiangxi dialect. The propaganda corps and peasant associations will face no language barrier."

"Jiangxi filled Huguang" — the process began in Zhu Yuanzhang's time and continued throughout the Ming dynasty's two hundred-plus years.

In the early Ming, the authorities organized the migration of Jiangxi people into Huguang.

Then, with Jiangxi's taxes excessively heavy, commoners from central Jiangxi fled in great numbers to Huguang to reclaim wasteland.

The mid-Ming Grand Secretary Qiu Jun even said, "Of the common people of Jiangxi, more than half have migrated to Huguang."

According to later research, across the entire Ming dynasty, 78.5 percent of Hunan's outside immigrants came from Jiangxi, with Ji'an Prefecture accounting for over half. In the mid-Ming, among Hubei's million refugees, those of Jiangxi origin numbered 690,000.

This led to the Jiangxi dialect flourishing for a time in parts of Huguang, threatening to displace the local Huguang vernacular.

Moreover, the Jiangxi people also brought to Huguang a "litigious ethos" — a readiness to go to court at the drop of a hat, which gave Huguang's county magistrates endless headaches.

After careful thought, Zhao Han said, "We must launch our campaign ahead of schedule. Guangdong and southern Hunan are crawling with bandits. If we let them run rampant, how much population and wealth will be lost?"

Pang Chunlai laughed. "If we march early, the Finance Chief is bound to get a headache."

"After next year's summer harvest we march on Hunan and Guangdong. This winter we seize all of Jiangxi," Zhao Han said. "The regular army will be expanded to sixteen thousand men!"

Before now there had been only eight thousand regulars; they had often used peasant soldiers to fight.

But to leave Jiangxi and campaign across provincial borders while continuing to give peasant-soldier treatment — that would be far too shabby.

"Doubling the regular army — the money and grain won't suffice," Li Banghua warned.

At present there were three main fiscal outlays: first, official salaries — the town-level officials were terribly expensive; second, military expenditure, including the continuous manufacture of military equipment; third, disaster relief spending — this year many places suffered major calamities, requiring not only relief for the common people but also discretionary tax reductions and exemptions.

As for education spending, it did not even make the list yet.

Pang Chunlai also said, "With this year's great disaster, we cannot raise taxes."

Zhao Han said with a smile, "Issue bonds. Borrow money and grain from the common people, at twenty percent annual interest, to be fully repaid within five years."

"Can that really work?" Li Banghua was somewhat doubtful.

Pang Chunlai was equally baffled, because the Ming court and its officials, whenever they needed money and grain, simply levied taxes directly — why would they ever need to borrow money and grain from the common people?

"Let's give it a try," Zhao Han said.

A month later, officials at every level began to move, and the peasant associations spread the word in the countryside.

The reasoning was that this year's great disaster, though the areas under Zhao Han's rule suffered relatively lightly, had struck the territories under government control with terrible severity. Mr. Zhao could not bear to see the common folk suffer, and so he had diverted money and grain for relief, leaving his own coffers short. He was now borrowing money and grain from the people, at twenty percent annual interest, to be repaid within five years.

When this news spread, the common people buzzed with discussion; everyone found it most peculiar.

They had only ever seen officials fleece the common people — never had they seen officials borrow from the common people.

Peculiar was all it was. Everyone, the gentry included, believed Zhao Han would never renege on a debt.

The prestige Zhao Han had built up over a long period was now paying off. On the other hand, the common people could also reason it out: if Zhao Han really meant to cheat them, why not simply raise taxes? Or impose a direct surtax? Borrowing money and grain and then not repaying it would be a pointless extra step.

When Ming local officials suppressed bandits, they imposed direct surtaxes.

Wucheng Town.

This town, together with Jingdezhen, Zhangshu Town, and Hekou Town, is known as one of the Four Great Towns of Jiangxi.

"Great towns" in name, they are in fact all major tax-collection towns — and Wucheng Town is also a place every military strategist must contest.

Since Zhao Han was expanding in Nanchang Prefecture, he naturally had to take Wucheng Town: first, to increase tax revenue; second, to control the chokepoint of Lake Poyang.

Several secret agents of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, dressed in commoners' clothes, came ashore at Wucheng Town to rest.

They had been dispatched by the Chongzhen Emperor. Besides probing the movements of the rebel Zhao, they were also to gather intelligence on the rebel Zhao's policies of governance. The Chongzhen Emperor felt that since the rebel Zhao could grow and strengthen, he must have some exceptional qualities — perhaps a few tricks worth learning.

After these Embroidered Uniform Guard agents reached Wucheng Town, they chose an inn and immediately split up to gather information.

One agent went outside the town and saw great numbers of common folk, some in small boats, some carrying loads on shoulder poles or on their backs, all bringing grain to the granaries outside town.

The agent stepped forward and asked, "Are you all delivering tax grain?"

The commoners answered as they walked: "The grain tax was paid long ago. We had a disaster this year, so the land tax was reduced by thirty-five percent. Our area actually got off lightly — I hear that in some mountain villages, the drought was so bad they reaped nothing at all. Not only do they not have to hand over grain, the authorities are even giving them disaster-relief grain."

"Then what are you doing?" The agent was even more puzzled.

A commoner laughed and said, "The authorities reduced taxes and provided disaster relief, so they've run short of money and grain. They had no choice but to borrow from us common folk, and they're paying twenty percent interest."

"Aren't you afraid the authorities will renege on the debt?" the agent asked, bewildered.

"The Emperor might renege. Mr. Zhao won't," the commoner said.

The agent was shocked. "The 'authorities' you speak of — is that Mr. Zhao?"

The commoner found it amusing. "Besides Mr. Zhao, what other authorities are there in Nanchang? Mr. Zhao has a kind heart and cannot bear to see the common people suffer. He used up all the grain on disaster relief, so of course we ordinary folk have to help out."

The agent immediately returned to town and told his companions what had happened.

The next day, they continued south and soon discovered the same situation: everywhere, commoners were voluntarily lending grain to the "authorities."

The gentry, however, did so very rarely — and the grain merchants in particular would not lend a single grain of rice.

Because the Southern Metropolitan Region and Zhejiang were suffering a severe drought, the merchants were hoarding grain to drive up prices, planning to ship it over next spring. They were not selling now because grain prices had not yet peaked; they were content to let the people of the various prefectures of Jiangnan starve to death, certain that by next spring grain prices would soar again.

Not only did the grain merchants refuse to lend grain to Zhao Han, they were going around the countryside buying up grain at high prices, hoarding it to make a fortune next year.

Some commoners greedy for money therefore also refused to lend grain to Zhao Han, seizing the chance to sell their surplus grain to the merchants at high prices.

Of course, so long as Zhao Han did not step in to crack down on them, the grain merchants would not oppose Zhao Han either. For Zhao Han had brought stability, and this year's disaster relief in particular had preserved Jiangxi's grain income, allowing them to buy even more grain to ship to the prefectures of Jiangnan.

The merchants liked social stability, and they genuinely supported Zhao Han.

A very bizarre phenomenon.

(End of chapter)