Chapter 235: Another Two Years Passed

…

Spring passed, autumn came, and two more years elapsed, reaching the eighth year of Hongwu.

Under the dual pressure of Song Jiang's rebel army and the court's ruthless policies, northern gentry either perished or compromised, and nearly all accepted the Two New Policies.

The head tax was redistributed onto landholdings, abolishing the millennia-old "head tax." Previously, northern head taxes were hard to collect due to population concealment and migrant issues; after reform, taxation shifted to land, requiring northern gentry to pay based on acreage, lightening the burden on landless or land-poor commoners, stabilizing the court's northern tax base, and significantly increasing state revenue. By breaking the gentry's privilege of exemption from labor and tax, forcing them to pay land taxes and perform corvée (or pay in lieu), the tax base expanded, loopholes narrowed, and state revenue grew further.

Previously, the gentry's tax exemption caused "the rich owned endless fields yet paid little tax and labor; the poor had no land to stand on yet bore heavy tax and labor," crushing the people. After reform, northern gentry privileges weakened, northern commoners' tax burdens became fairer, popular resentment over unequal taxation diminished, and the survival pressure on the northern lower classes eased greatly. The "Land-Incorporated Head Tax" policy freed landless northerners from head tax worries, relaxed restrictions on population mobility, enabling commoners to freely engage in handicrafts and commerce, promoting social mobility.

Moreover, the court vigorously promoted northern industrial development, sparking an industrial revolution across the Central Plains, and shifted the focus of foreign trade to the north.

Thus, in the northern territories of the Zhao Song dynasty, a completely different scene had emerged.

Former northern gentry who had concealed landholdings, after losing their tax privileges, saw clear declines in land income, forcing them to redirect capital toward industry; textile mills and other factories sprang up like mushrooms after rain across the northern land.

Meanwhile, with agricultural development—especially the promotion of advanced farming tools developed by Ma Xiao Jiao—less labor was needed for farming.

—As fewer people farmed, grain yields generally doubled due to Yuan Qing Cheng's high-yield crops and advanced cultivation techniques; in some regions, yields more than doubled. Northern regions nearly achieved self-sufficiency in grain through local production alone.

Thus, vast numbers of rural surplus laborers, now well-fed, flooded into cities, injecting fresh vitality into the emerging industries. These commoners shed their muddy clothes, donned clean work uniforms, transforming from field laborers into factory workers; their identities and fates quietly shifted within this historical tide.

Northern towns expanded rapidly with population growth, and commerce flourished accordingly. Markets overflowed with goods from all directions: exquisite porcelain, practical machine parts, soft cotton cloth, hard steel products—all testifying to the fruits of the industrial revolution. Merchants gathered in crowds, carts and horses flowed incessantly; teahouses, taverns, theaters emerged as popular leisure spots. Once relatively desolate, the northern land now teemed with prosperity and vitality.

With the maritime trade center shifting north to Dengzhou Port and Mizhou Banqiaozhen Port, foreign merchant fleets, once confined to the south, now frequently traversed the Bohai Bay.

At the docks, cargo ships loaded with glass, soap, porcelain, silk, and tea operated day and night; spices from Da Shi and Persia were traded for northern Zhao Song factories' cotton goods, sugar products, fruit cans, liquor, wooden bicycles, rickshaws, matches, clocks, kerosene lamps, flour, and perfume.

Customs revenue from Dengzhou Port and Mizhou Banqiaozhen Port increased over fiftyfold in two years, becoming new "Golden Ports."

To ensure smooth industrial arteries, the court, backed by ample finances, launched an infrastructure wave across the Central Plains: dredging the old Yellow River channels, excavating canal tributaries; once-silted waterways reopened, allowing cement and coal cargo ships to reach factory docks directly; newly built highways spread like spiderwebs, with horse carts, wooden bicycles, rickshaws, and chicken carts flowing ceaselessly, transporting industrial goods to all directions.

Notably, after years of research, Ma Xiao Jiao's steam engine achieved breakthrough progress; it was believed that trains would soon be born.

When that day came, northern economics would not merely soar—it would witness the true explosion of the industrial revolution.

In short, after years of agony, the northern territories of the Zhao Song dynasty finally welcomed unprecedented prosperity and revival. This transformative force reshaped the northern economic structure and profoundly influenced the people's lifestyles and ideologies.

In the south, however, the scene stood in stark contrast to the north's vigorous flourishing.

The gentry faction, relying on deeply entrenched power, viewed the court's Two New Policies as a flood or ferocious beast, uniting to resist. They colluded with local officials, manipulated public opinion through clan power, and even incited ignorant commoners to riot, rendering the court's reforms utterly stalled in the Jiangnan water towns and Lingnan regions.

In tax policy, the south still maintained the grotesque situation of "the rich evading taxes effortlessly, the poor crushed by oppressive levies." Gentry used tactics like concealing landholdings and falsifying population figures to shift heavy taxes onto commoners. Countless tenant farmers endured high rents and burdensome head taxes; even in bountiful years, they barely scraped by. Many households, hearing how well the north had developed—with everyone free from hunger and no more infanticide—fled northward en masse to escape taxes, secure full meals, and achieve food freedom, leaving vast fields fallow and overgrown with weeds.

Industrial development in the south faced even greater hardship. Gentry monopolized vast landholdings, profiting immensely from rent, and clung to the outdated notion of "agriculture as root, commerce as trivial," refusing to invest wealth in industry, preventing the formation of large-scale factories. A few merchants daring to open workshops lacked competitiveness due to inability to achieve economies of scale. Streets still featured scattered traditional workshops with low productivity, narrow product variety, and no trace of modern industry. Many sharp-minded southerners seeking opportunity moved north to establish factories, even settling permanently there.

In commerce, though the south enjoyed convenient water transport, rising social tensions and low purchasing power caused gradual decline. Once-prosperous commercial hubs like Yangzhou and Hangzhou saw sparse crowds and shuttered shops. Compared to the north's bustling trade and global connectivity, southern trade routes grew narrower; foreign trade survived only weakly through Guangzhou, Quanzhou, and a few other ports, trading mostly traditional silk and tea, lacking competitiveness against new industrial goods.

Urban development could not be called backward, but without court funding and reduced northern grain demand, the court no longer invested in clearing canals; the south could only maintain its prior state, even declining. This sharply contrasted with the north's wide, clean highways and interconnected waterways.

In rural areas, with large populations bound to land and heavy taxes, commoners lacked resources to improve technology or adopt new tools. Gentry, earning from rent regardless of harvest, had no incentive to raise yields; grain production stagnated for years, wasting the south's fertile land.

In short, southern social classes remained firmly controlled by the gentry faction; upward mobility was narrow, and ideologies were conservative and rigid. In teahouses, discussions centered on family gossip and outdated rituals, not industrial innovation or commercial opportunity; academies still taught the Four Books and Five Classics, with few paying attention to science, technology, or new ideas. This lifeless atmosphere, compared to the north's vibrant, progressive social climate, seemed like two different worlds.

…

Muzhou, Qingxi County.

Fang La, in his thirties, wearing a blue headcloth, a faded dark gray hemp robe, a dark red coarse cloth belt, and sandals worn thin at the edges, addressed over a hundred youths before him:

"The world and the state are governed by the same principle. Sons till fields and weave cloth, laboring all year, yet receive little grain or cloth; fathers and elder brothers seize it all and squander it. If displeased, they beat and torture. Will you endure this?!"

"No!"

"The gentry grow rich from our wealth, yet oppress us, denying us livelihood! Will you accept this?!"

"How can this be right?!" "The court intended the Two New Policies to relieve our suffering, but the gentry, greedy and reactionary, fiercely blocked reform to keep draining the blood of our southeastern children, leaving us to toil all year while our wives and children freeze and starve, unable to secure even one full meal. What do you say?!"

"We obey!"

This pyramid-scheme-like atmosphere was Moni Sect's Fang La inciting nearby youths oppressed by gentry Fang Youchang to rebel.

Northern development had always lagged behind the south.

But because the southern gentry faction was so tightly united, they turned the south into a sealed iron barrel, preventing the court's Two New Policies from truly penetrating; the south's prosperity and wealth became a breeding ground for the gentry's greed, leaving no soil for industrial development. Zhao Yu refused to develop the south, under gentry control, to strengthen his enemies.

Thus, under Zhao Yu's orders, the north, implementing the Two New Policies, developed vigorously, decisively surpassing the south; crucially, ordinary northerners now enjoyed far greater happiness than ordinary southerners.

Yes.

In this era, transportation and communication were extremely backward.

Gentry could suppress news, temporarily deceiving southern commoners into believing in false peace, oblivious to the north's transformation and rise.

Yet truth, like a stubborn sprout breaking through soil in spring, would inevitably emerge under sunlight.

As more southerners traveled north for livelihood, the lies and concealments meticulously woven by the gentry class dissolved like mist at dawn. Those who witnessed the north's earth-shattering changes and experienced the peace of fair taxation returned home, like fresh spring winds piercing the gentry's carefully constructed information cocoons; carrying awe and hope, they spread stories of the north by word of mouth, igniting long-dormant fires in southern commoners' hearts beside every campfire and beside every rice field.

Fang La had never been to the north, but as a Moni Sect follower, he often heard members who had visited describe the north's changes over the years, stirring his resentment—he felt southern commoners were like lambs imprisoned in darkness, while the north's reforming light seemed forever unable to penetrate this land shrouded in gentry greed.

Crucially, once while washing his hands by water, whether due to blurred vision or otherwise, Fang La saw his own reflection wearing a dragon robe and crown, clearly an emperor.

This convinced Fang La he had the potential to become emperor.

What further strengthened his belief was that recently, a Daoist Priest speaking Shandong dialect met Fang La and gave him a copy of the "Tuibeitu."

The "Tuibeitu" contained an image: "Ten thousand plus one dot, winter ends, one ascends to honor. Crossing the Zhe River, manifestation appears in Wuxing."

"Ten thousand" is "wan," plus one dot forms "fang"; "winter ends" means "la"; "ascends to honor" signifies ruling from the south; together they perfectly match "Fang La." The next two lines indicate Fang La's dominance across Zhejiang, seizing Jiangnan prefectures, with power centered in Wuxing.

Thus, Fang La became even more certain he would become emperor and carve out a domain in Jiangnan.

It was this conviction that led Fang La to organize this rebellion.

"Spring debts unpaid, autumn debts return; public and private debts clash and seize. Grain not yet off the threshing floor, silk not yet off the loom—already not ours. We poor folk labor all year, yet end up with wives and children freezing and starving; worse still, powerful elites seize our land, wives, and daughters, destroying families, forcing us into servitude to repay debts."

"Our southern people have suffered exploitation for too long. Recently, because gentry stubbornly refuse reform, and the court and Emperor have abandoned us southerners, our suffering grows unbearable. If you rise justly, all quarters will respond; within days, tens of thousands will gather!"

"Local officials, fearing blame, will dare not report, only seek to pacify. I will delay them with strategy, holding them off one or two months—then Jiangnan prefectures can be taken in one blow!"

"When the court receives news, it will convene, discuss, mobilize troops, allocate grain and supplies—no less than half a year before a major army can be dispatched!"

"By then, our momentum is established, no cause for worry!"

"At that time, I will hold the river as defense, impose light corvée and low taxes, easing the people's burden—who will not respectfully come to pay homage?"

"Within ten years, unification will be achieved!"

"Otherwise, we merely die under gentry exploitation!"

"What say you all?"

Over a hundred people answered in unison: "Good!"

Seeing that everyone supported his uprising, Fang La kicked over the wine table before him, drew the rust-spotted iron sword at his waist, and shouted: "If that's so, then follow me to slay Fang Youchang and rise up!" After that, he strode out, heading straight for the lacquer garden where they worked…

……

(End of chapter)