Chapter 284: Longyan Battle Record (7)

The talks between Ding Liqiu and Chief Clerk Wang Yuanzai were highly productive. The two sides not only aligned their thinking, but the Transmigrators might even gain an inside agent within Lin Shiwan's Bandit Gang — truly a case of meeting a pillow just as one grows drowsy.

Coincidentally, that very same evening while Ding Liqiu was drinking, Wei Yuan was also drinking in the military camp at the Rear Palace outside the city.

Drinking in a military camp doesn't involve so many formalities. You just find any table in the mess hall next to the kitchen, lay out the wine and dishes, and get started.

Who were the guests? The local Embroidered Uniform Guard Hundred-Household Officer Ma Rulin and his son Ma Jigong.

In the Ming Dynasty's Embroidered Uniform Guard, from the Commander at the top down to the Banner at the bottom, the majority were hereditary military households. And this father-son pair now sitting in the mess hall drinking were precisely the hereditary guard officers of the Longyan County Hundred-household Office.

The current Hundred-Household Officer Ma Rulin was in his forties, sturdily built, with a ruddy, weathered face, wearing an indigo fine-cloth long robe. Judging by his features and manner of speech, he seemed a very honest and sincere man.

Such cases were not uncommon, especially in remote regions — not all Embroidered Uniform Guard were shrewd and cunning city folk who "spoke with a Capital accent."

His son Ma Jigong was twenty years old this year, square-faced with thick brows, looking very steady and composed. He had already been appointed as an Embroidered Uniform Guard Ensign, and need only wait for his father to retire before he could fill the vacancy of Hundred-Household Officer.

In a backwater county like Longyan, the highest official was at most a Seventh Rank county magistrate, and there were usually only a handful of retired or idle officials and gentry living at home. Thus the local Embroidered Uniform Guard's primary function — monitoring gentry public opinion — was essentially defunct.

This father-son pair who had come today were, historically speaking, the "last generation of Embroidered Uniform Guard." When the Qing Army entered Longyan, Ma Jigong was the serving Hundred-Household Officer of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

The Ming Dynasty's Embroidered Uniform Guard, in its origins, was rather important.

Although this department had all sorts of duties — for instance, during the Wanli Era when the court waged war in Korea, the Embroidered Uniform Guard provided considerable intelligence on Japan; in ordinary times, these Great Lords would also occasionally catch a major river bandit or the like.

However, the original purpose when Zhu Yuanzhang established the Embroidered Uniform Guard was to create a counterbalance — the Embroidered Uniform Guard was a tool of imperial authority used to oppose gentry power.

The ancients could sometimes be very direct. As the Emperor's eyes and ears for monitoring and suppressing the scholar-officials, in a great metropolis like Beijing, any official of even slightly higher rank would have a Guard agent permanently stationed in his home as a "sitting listener."

This was equivalent to the Disciplinary Commission assigning someone to work year-round in a leader's living room — though to be fair, ancient leaders' houses were all large. Well, the ancients were just that direct; it feels rather endearing.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard's Southern Judicial Office was responsible for internal oversight — we'll set that aside for now. The Northern Judicial Office operated an imperial prison reserved for the Emperor's use, handling cases personally decreed by the Emperor. It could arrest, interrogate, and execute officials and gentry on its own authority, without going through the ordinary judicial apparatus.

This particular application was the fundamental reason for the Embroidered Uniform Guard's existence — its core function of intimidating officials, suppressing the gentry, and maintaining dynamic equilibrium in the court. All those other duties, like catching criminals and serving as imperial honor guards, were merely incidental.

Whenever a high-ranking Ming civil or military official got into trouble, he could never escape "being sent to the imperial prison" — the root of it lay right here: the Embroidered Uniform Guard could handle officials without following legal procedures, acting entirely according to the Emperor's will. You see, if a case went through the Three Judicial Offices, it would be handled according to the civil officials' will. The difference between the two was decisive.

Before Chongzhen, most Ming emperors handled the Embroidered Uniform Guard issue with relative "balance." In short, the court generally transitioned smoothly.

The later-generation rumor that Chongzhen abolished the Embroidered Uniform Guard is actually false — the Embroidered Uniform Guard existed throughout the entire Ming dynasty. It was only in 1661, when the Southern Ming Yongli Emperor's Embroidered Uniform Guard Commander Ma Jixiang was killed in the Water Calamity, that the Embroidered Uniform Guard's 290-year history formally ended.

However, Chongzhen, who rose to the throne by eating a dead chicken, was different.

In this period of 162, Chongzhen was about to do something foolish: he would strip away the Embroidered Uniform Guard's core authority. What was its core authority? Monitoring and suppressing the gentry.

The Eastern Depot and Brocade Guard system, having lost its core application, was not abolished, but quickly became half-dead. And the bitter fruit, naturally, was borne by Chongzhen himself.

This was the innate weakness of an emperor who rose to the throne by eating a dead chicken: without systematic imperial education, he couldn't figure out where his own backside belonged.

For a qualified emperor, the Outer Court officials and the Inner Court eunuchs existed in dynamic balance: whichever side began to show arrogance, he would bolster the other side to strike back, to tear at them, while he himself sat steady. The Emperor's backside must always sit on the weaker side.

And in this process, the Eastern Depot and Brocade Guard system was the Emperor's core fulcrum for shaving peaks to fill valleys and maintaining triangular balance.

Yet Chongzhen, under the coaxing of the civil officials, crippled the Embroidered Uniform Guard himself — just as he abolished the courier station system that cost barely any silver each year.

The bitter consequences quickly manifested. The gentry class of the Late Ming can be said to have been the most frenzied of any dynasty: forming societies and factions, attacking those who differed, interfering in administration, dominating the countryside, coming and going freely through the Public Gate, seizing commoners' property.

These scholar-officials, who had slipped their leash during the Ming-Qing transition, thoroughly wrecked the entire administrative system. It is no exaggeration to call them the source of the nation's ruin: in the early Chongzhen years, when Qi Biaojia was appointed Regional Inspector of Suzhou and Song, the Restoration Society leader Zhang Pu came to pay a visit and "drew from his sleeve a memorandum. It concerned various persons in Suzhou, described as famous scholars," demanding that they be given favorable treatment.

The scholar-officials were extravagant, debauched, and lived in drunken dreams, while the lower-level licentiates were no whit inferior: monopolizing litigation, concealing tax grain, behaving with frenzied abandon, gathering crowds to stir up trouble — everywhere there were incidents of licentiates besieging local officials.

This nation-wrecking, government-destroying madness caused people of the Ming-Qing era, when discussing the Jiangnan gentry of that time, to speak with almost one voice of deep loathing. It was only after the early Qing series of "Temple Lamentation Cases" and "Tax Grain Efficacy Cases" that the gentry class's backbone was thoroughly broken by the Qing court, and this class's capacity to disrupt administration and evade taxes was eliminated.

How to put this — it's a bit awkward: because the minority rulers had no patience for those faults, the gentry instead began to honestly and obediently become compliant subjects of the Queue Kingdom. Until the Late Qing, the gentry class never again engaged in behavior that interfered with administrative operations.

The Ten Regular Attendants at the end of Han, the military strongmen at the end of Tang, the official-gentry at the end of Ming. The inner, outer, and military systems must always be kept in balance — any single system growing overlarge is an omen of national ruin.

In sum, the unprofessional Emperor Chongzhen's weakening of the Eastern Depot and Brocade Guard, which caused the official-gentry class to completely lose its restraints, was undoubtedly one of the important reasons for the Ming's fall.

Let us return to the main subject.

The hereditary Embroidered Uniform Guard Hundred-Household Officer Ma Rulin and his son, far away in the backwater county of Longyan, naturally could not bear a blame as great as the Ming's collapse.

In fact, as mentioned earlier, the Embroidered Uniform Guard in this sort of mountain county town was like a village police station in later generations — there were neither so many officials and gentry to monitor, nor so much grease to skim. It was just those few great households, over and over; even framing charges was difficult.

Moreover, after several generations putting down roots locally, the Ma family had long since become Lian Di natives — merely a middling-property household. So, having received Wei Yuan's invitation to come to the military camp for "a drink," the Ma father and son were, to be honest, somewhat overwhelmed by the honor.

Even though the Embroidered Uniform Guard had lost its primary business, its secondary business of monitoring local military and civilian conditions still remained, so the Ma family's information was usually quite well-informed. They knew very well who Wei Yuan was: the direct subordinate of Cao Chuan, the newly risen red-hot favorite who had wiped out the sea bandit chief overnight and was a powerful general commanding over ten thousand troops.

Although the moment had not yet reached the rotten stage of Late Ming military bosses everywhere, as the Ming state belched smoke from all four corners, the status of military men was gradually rising — this was an indisputable fact.

So Hundred-Household Officer Ma came today with respectful deference: he was not like those fools who couldn't read the situation. He knew very well that these Short-Hairs had heaven-scraping backing. If one truly provoked them, they could kill a mere Embroidered Uniform Guard Hundred-Household Officer on the spot, and the court wouldn't even blink.

Unlike the somewhat apprehensive Hundred-Household Officer, Wei Yuan rather appreciated this father-son pair. Ma Rulin was steady and solid, Ma Jigong was young but seasoned; neither carried that nauseating air of officialdom. In fact, the Ma family's local reputation was quite good — Old Ma rarely got mixed up in those unsavory matters.

This intelligence had all been gathered in advance by the Transmigrators. Provisions go before troops march; over a month before the Red Spear Camp entered Longyan, the Transmigrators' Intelligence Department had already secretly laid out a network in this county town. This was also the foundation of confidence for Wei Yuan's invitation to the Ma family for drinks today.

After three rounds of wine and five courses of dishes, Wei Yuan, seeing the moment was about right, brought up the purpose of his invitation: "Magistrate Ma is the local power here. Our unit is newly arrived, strangers in an unfamiliar land, and in the days ahead we will still need to rely on your generous assistance!"

Hearing this, Ma Rulin hurriedly clasped his fists in salute: "I dare not, I dare not. General Wei is a battlefield commander; such courtesy truly overwhelms this humble one."

After saying this, Ma Rulin thought for a moment and then added: "General, you summoned me today — I have some inkling of what it is about."

At this point, Ma Rulin turned his head and shot his son a meaningful glance. Seeing the signal, Ma Jigong reached into his bosom and drew out a stack of pale yellow bamboo paper: "This is the military intelligence on the local region's thirteen major and minor bandit gangs, along with inside information on all the great households harboring bandits and maintaining bandit connections."

"Furthermore." Ma Jigong, at this point, smiled and lifted the hand pressing down on the papers: "There is also a roster of twenty-six long-established households that have been maintaining bandit ties for years."

"Ho ho ho..." Wei Yuan, hearing this, laughed and shook his head: "Indeed, a sounding drum needs no heavy hammer. Ma Rulin is loyal to the state — Commander Wu of Zhangzhou did not deceive me!"

Only upon hearing this line from Wei Yuan did the great stone in Hundred-Household Officer Ma's heart truly settle — just as expected, his direct superior had long since leaked his family's background.

After praising Old Ma, Wei Yuan nodded, then extended a finger and flicked the kerosene lamp on the table: "Magistrate Ma, what do you make of this object?"

"This object is exquisitely crafted. The fuel inside is surely not vegetable oil; I imagine it is precious." Ma Rulin, who had been studying the kerosene lamp intently from the very start, had no idea what Wei Yuan meant at this moment and could only answer honestly.

"In Hangzhou, this one lamp sells for 500 taels of silver, and the lamp oil is sold by the tael."

"This lamp is produced by the workshop my General has established. Therefore, my General is as wealthy as a nation."

"Everyone who cooperates with us makes a fortune." Wei Yuan, at this point, looked at Old Ma with a grin: "Magistrate Ma, once this bandit suppression campaign is settled, you might as well quit this Embroidered Uniform Guard post."

After pausing for effect, Wei Yuan said slowly: "Hand over the position early to Brother Jigong, and then, Magistrate, go be a shareholder at the mine — wouldn't that be splendid?"