Chapter 289: 287: On Princes

Zhang Guowei was a member of the Donglin Faction. He had just arrived in Nanjing this spring to serve as Minister of War.

Zhao Han's rise in Jiangxi had triggered sweeping changes among provincial officials everywhere. Moreover, Jiangnan was even shorter on grain, the famine even more severe, and the Nanjing Minister of Revenue and the grain-inspecting Censor had been replaced several times over.

Those who were replaced either slunk back to their hometowns or were thrown into prison to answer for their crimes.

At this very moment, many cities across Jiangnan had begun recruiting troops to defend their walls — partly out of fear that Zhang Xianzhong would fight his way across the Yangtze, and partly out of fear that Zhao Han would suddenly march out with his army.

As for their combat effectiveness, well… hard to say.

Let us first tell a story —

In the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing, roughly seventy wokou landed along the Zhejiang coast. In eighty days they fought their way across three provinces, killing and wounding several thousand people, and finally sailed off without a care.

During that time, two wokou were captured and a dozen or so were beheaded.

Pity that such battle results had not a half-penny's relation to the government troops. It was actually the common folk of Wuhu who, standing on their rooftops and hurling lime jars, beat the wokou so badly they fled for their lives.

The fifty-odd surviving wokou then went on to attack Nanjing, which had a garrison of over a hundred thousand.

Of course, those hundred-thousand-odd government troops were not all inside Nanjing city. Some were guarding the imperial tombs, some were farming military colonies outside the city — in any case, the troop strength on paper was over a hundred thousand.

Zhu Xiang and Jiang Sheng, two Guard Commanders of the Nanjing garrison, voluntarily led troops out of the city to give battle. Because the weather was too hot and the wokou did not come, the soldiers all shed their armor to cool off, and the officers even sat drinking wine beneath the trees.

The fifty-odd wokou suddenly attacked. The government troops were so terrified they fled at once, falling into the ditch-traps they themselves had dug beforehand.

In that battle, Ming army casualties exceeded three hundred.

Of the two military officers leading the troops, Zhu Xiang was killed and Jiang Sheng was gravely wounded.

The whole city of Nanjing went under martial law, recruiting troops to resist the wokou. Even days after the fifty-odd wokou had left, Nanjing was still under martial law, terrified the enemy would wheel around and strike again.

After the Jiajing wokou troubles were quelled, decades passed, and Jiangnan's military readiness grew even more hollow.

They said every prefecture, department, and county was recruiting troops to defend its walls — but where would the local government offices get the money?

Even if they had money to recruit troops, they had no grain to feed them.

Jiangnan's money and grain had all been shipped to Beijing!

Take Nanjing, for example: over ten thousand new troops were temporarily raised and drilled. Most were civilian laborers forcibly conscripted, and some were city residents serving in rotation — in any case, a mouthful of food was enough to make up the numbers.

Several scholars with swords on their backs stood there, and the Nanjing Minister of War dared not arrest them.

If he arrested these men, what if the rebel Zhao refused to sell grain?

The fury of the entire city's populace would all come crashing down on him, Zhang Guowei.

Zhang Guowei thought it over. Since the Nanjing prefectural treasury had no money anyway, he would go ask the ennobled houses and the gentry to buy grain, and have the Restoration Society scholars inside the city serve as witnesses.

Once the ennobled houses and gentry had bought grain, Zhang Guowei need not fear being impeached for colluding with the rebels.

Once the Restoration Society scholars had served as witnesses, if those grain-buying ennobled houses and gentry dared hoard for speculation and sell at exorbitant prices, Zhang Guowei need not fear drawing public wrath.

What was more, he could then harness public wrath to force the ennobled houses and gentry to open their granaries and release grain!

Two days later, the ennobled houses, gentry, and powerful families around Nanjing all came rushing over with silver at the news.

The Nanjing docks.

Liu Shunyi, a naval commander of the rebels, stood on the dock and shouted: "Today we have fifteen boatloads of grain. Unhusked rice at six mace of silver per shi, corn at three mace of silver per shi."

So cheap?

A man dressed in brocade suddenly had his attendant strike a gong, then shouted: "Silence, silence! No one is to compete — my house will first buy five large boatloads of unhusked rice!"

The crowd dared not speak, both fearful and furious.

The man who spoke was a servant of the Duke of Wei's household.

Liu Shunyi smiled. "Each household may buy at most one boatload."

The Duke of Wei's household slave said at once: "I will pay one tael of silver per shi of unhusked rice!"

Liu Shunyi shook his head. "One tael won't sell. We only sell at six mace."

An uproar broke out on all sides.

That household slave laughed. "Hey, never seen business done like this. One tael per shi you won't sell, but you insist on selling at just six mace. Is too much money burning your hands?"

Liu Shunyi cupped his hands toward the crowd. "Friends, Jiangxi's grain is not plentiful either. The dozen-odd boatloads of grain before you were all scraped together by the common people of Jiangxi through scrimping and saving. The Heavenly King Zhao cannot bear to see the people of Jiangnan go hungry, and so he specially ordered me to transport grain here. Unhusked rice at only six mace of silver per shi — once grain merchants buy it and mill it into white rice, what price they ought to sell it at, you can reckon for yourselves!"

"Excellent!"

"The Heavenly King Zhao is righteous!"

Liu Shunyi turned back around and said to the Duke of Wei's household slave: "Buy if you want to buy — only one boatload!"

That household slave eyed the cannons on the boats, eyed the fully armed sailors, and said through gritted teeth: "One boatload it is — the biggest one!"

The gates of Nanjing were shut tight; the rebels were right there on the river.

Yet many dock laborers were hired to board the boats and haul grain, while Restoration Society scholars and common folk from outside the city stood around watching the whole time as ennobled houses and powerful families did business with the rebels.

The scene was somewhat bizarre, and especially absurd.

The government naval forces also came over, along with many grain-transport boats and transport troops. Though they clearly had more boats and greater numbers, they dared not attack the rebel navy — they even kept far away, afraid of being hit.

Liu Shunyi wore a sneer of contempt. Whichever household bought how much grain, he jotted it all down in a little notebook.

Any household that later sold grain at a ludicrous price would certainly be settled with!

Huang Zongxi shook his head and sighed with emotion. "The age has crumbled, heaven and earth turned upside down — truly it is…"

"Ah, I don't hope for grain prices to fall — I only hope they won't rise any further," Gu Gao said with a sigh.

Gu Gao was the son of Gu Assistant Magistrate, the founder of the Donglin Faction. Gu Assistant Magistrate's family owned only a few hundred mu of land. If the rule were that each landlord could keep twenty mu per person, the Gu family truly need not fear having their land redistributed.

When the Donglin Faction was first founded, its purpose was utterly simple: to save the nation. Its members were mostly small and middling landlords.

After it stirred up great waves, all sides flocked to join, until dragons and fish jumbled together, and it became a political tool of the great landlords and great merchants.

The Restoration Society was exactly the opposite.

When the Restoration Society was first founded, its members were mostly great landlords and great merchants. After the organization expanded, countless impoverished scholars joined, and small landlords and small merchants rapidly multiplied.

Wu Yingji suddenly said: "Before the summer harvest, it will surely soar to two taels of silver per shi!"

Chen Zhenhui said: "Indeed."

"I intend to go to Jiangxi and join the rebels. Would any of you gentlemen go with me?" Wu Yingji asked.

Gu Gao said, "I also want to go to Jiangxi, not to follow the rebels, but to observe how they govern."

Huang Zongxi said, "Then let us go together."

Wu Yingji had already made up his mind: he would urge Zhao Han to seize the Southern Metropolitan Area and Zhejiang at once.

This gentleman came from a great clan; not only did he thrive in the Restoration Society, he also liked befriending wandering knights-errant of the rivers and lakes.

Drawing on his own years of experience in the rivers and lakes, he wrote "A Discussion on Suppressing Bandits in Jiangnan," analyzing and summarizing how to exterminate bandits. He also wrote "A Discussion on Stabilizing Prices in Jiangnan," discussing how to steady commodity prices — in any case, many of these were highly practical essays.

Wu Yingji strode over boldly and said to Liu Shunyi, "I want to join the rebels."

Liu Shunyi corrected him: "It is joining the righteous army."

"Same thing," Wu Yingji laughed. "I can't be bothered to find a boat. Just give me a ride on your warship."

Liu Shunyi cupped his hands and said, "Sir, please come aboard."

Seeing Wu Yingji board the ship, Gu Gao and Huang Zongxi also ran over and followed.

Zhang Guowei, Minister of War of Nanjing, stood atop the city gate tower at that moment, watching from afar as three scholars of the Restoration Society climbed aboard a rebel ship — the expression on his face was incomparably vivid.

The grain aboard the ships, along with porcelain and other goods, took two full days to unload, all of it sold in one lot to the gentry and merchants of Nanjing.

After unloading their cargo, the warships immediately towed the great logs and headed for the Shanghai area, where Zheng Zhilong's seagoing vessels would help transport them to Guangdong.

Zhang Guowei watched the rebel fleet depart, then sat down, utterly drained.

He gazed at the sky — dark clouds were massing, as if it were about to rain.

If only it would rain; that would mean this year's drought was not severe.

In history, Zhang Guowei is widely remembered as a martyr who resisted the Qing, but his true calling was as a water conservancy expert. How he longed for the clash of arms to cease, so he could wholeheartedly devote himself to building waterworks — even if it meant toil and hardship, he would take joy in it.

Shanghai.

Watching the Jiangxi fleet transfer the great logs to the Zheng family's seagoing ships, Wu Yingji said, "Zheng Zhilong has colluded with Jiangxi. The entire province of Fujian can probably be taken within a month."

"Best to take Jiangnan first!" Huang Zongxi said indignantly.

Huang Zongxi's resentment toward the Chongzhen Emperor, though not yet accumulated to its peak, had already led him to curse inwardly countless times.

Amid this resentment, his thinking had gradually shifted, though he had yet to set it down systematically in writing. He felt that when judging order and chaos in the realm, the measure lay not in the rise and fall of a single ruling house, but in the sorrows and joys of the common people.

So long as the common people could live in peace and happiness, even the changing of dynasties mattered not at all!

Zhao Han's essay "On the Family, the State, and All under Heaven" had struck Huang Zongxi to his very core. Moreover, much of its content were things Huang Zongxi himself had never thought of; after reading the essay, he felt as if enlightened by the finest wisdom.

Returning to his cabin, Huang Zongxi read through "On the Family, the State, and All under Heaven" once more, then suddenly picked up his brush and began to draft a piece.

"On the Prince"!

"In the beginning of human life, each man was selfish, each man sought his own gain. There were benefits for all under heaven, yet none arose to promote them…"

From the time human society came into being, people have always been selfish and self-interested.

Undertakings beneficial to the public — none would initiate them; things harmful to the public — none would eliminate them.

If there were one man who sought not his own gain but only the gain of all under heaven, who sought not to spare himself harm but to spare all under heaven harm, then he would necessarily labor a thousand, ten thousand times harder, endure a thousand, ten thousand times more toil, yet enjoy none of the benefits himself. Ordinary men would not do such a thing… So it has been from ancient times to the present; even the sage-kings of the Three Dynasties could not escape this.

The rulers after the Three Dynasties set themselves up as masters of men, appropriating all the benefits under heaven for themselves and shifting all the harms under heaven onto others. They even forbade the people from acting on their own selfish interests, treating their own private gain as the public good of all under heaven. Perhaps they felt some shame at first, but as time passed they grew perfectly at ease with it.

Huang Zongxi's "On the Prince," influenced by Zhao Han's "On the Family, the State, and All under Heaven," was written far more penetratingly than in the original course of history.

He likened the state to a great commercial firm: the Emperor was the firm's chief manager, the officials were second managers, third managers, and branch managers, and all the people under heaven were the firm's shareholders.

The firm belongs to its shareholders; all under heaven belongs to all the people under heaven.

If the Emperor and his officials are unfit for their posts, they should all be dismissed and replaced — just as shareholders would replace the various managers. That is the most reasonable way. In the present age, the chief manager and the second managers are in fact scheming to usurp the shareholders' property, and they will not rest until the shareholders have all been starved to death.

Only those muddled petty Confucians cling rigidly to the bond between ruler and minister, believing that the relationship between ruler and minister is inherently immutable.

A true great Confucian should understand the ultimate principle: the common people weigh heavier than the altars of state, and the altars of state weigh heavier than the sovereign!

Having finished this "On the Prince," Huang Zongxi took it to show Gu Gao and Wu Yingji.

The two read it and were utterly astounded.

Wu Yingji said, "This essay must not appear in the world — what ruler could tolerate it?"

"Burn it at once, lest it bring a calamity that costs you your life!" Gu Gao urged.

Huang Zongxi merely laughed. "Much of this essay's meaning derives from 'On the Family, the State, and All under Heaven' — I have only written it more unsparingly. If that Zhao Han of Jiangxi can tolerate it, then this man is surely an enlightened sovereign for all ages. If he cannot endure it, then he is a fraud who deceives the world, and killing me would be all the better — it would let the world see his true face."

(The temperature suddenly dropped; I've caught a cold, my throat and nose are miserable, so only two updates today.)

(End of chapter)