Chapter 517: Corvée Labor

Following the battle at Beishan Fotou Fort, the Pioneer Army again dispatched detachments to strike. For a time, the larger bandit gangs either fled, were killed, or surrendered. The bandit situation in the Zengcheng region was swiftly purged, and the name of Regional Commander Cao became known to every local overnight.

Regarding the bandit suppression, the landlords who had sent men to observe the scene and collected first-hand information were especially shocked. In their memory, the grassroots level of the Great Ming had not seen such a strong army—well-funded, high in morale, and daring in close combat—for a very long time.

And what was most baffling was that such a costly force, consuming vast amounts of coin and grain, was not deployed at the frontier to guard against foreign enemies, but instead stooped down and came to the countryside to conduct bandit suppression, a losing business.

Yes, anyone could see that this bandit suppression was a real money-losing venture. The meager spoils from the bandit dens, even counting both the dead and the living, could not cover the expenses.

In that case, this Regional Commander surnamed Cao sending his private troops here to suppress bandits must have some deeper motive... It couldn't be because County Magistrate Gu loves the people like his own children? What weight does a muddle-headed mediocrity like him carry? Could he really summon such a powerful army to operate at a loss?

After making this rational judgment, some of the local gentry with insight and vision could not help but develop a subtle feeling about this sudden bandit suppression campaign.

Soon, the premonition of the clever ones was confirmed—within a month after the Fotou Stronghold operation, several landlords who colluded with bandits were uprooted one after another.

These local tyrant families and village bullies had either long colluded with bandits, or were simply the backers behind local bandit gangs. They committed evil and fenced stolen goods daily; none of them were good people.

In fact, these despotic households had long been notorious locally. It was just that the government had always been weak while the local strongmen were powerful, leaving these villains with no one able to rein them in.

And then this time, Kangxi... Regional Commander Cao arrived.

After the captured bandits confessed, these few despotic households were immediately put on the blacklist. Once the Pioneer Army freed up its hands, troops were promptly dispatched to surround their estates, break down the gates, and arrest the people.

The household retainers and thugs kept by the local tyrants and bullies had combat strength at best equal to the bandits, and naturally were no match for the Pioneer Army. As for the estate laborers, upon seeing the government banners and the large number of official runners opposite them, they lost any interest in resisting: honest folk keep their own accounts in their hearts.

After the estates were breached, everyone inside was uniformly charged with the crime of "harboring bandits." The principal figures were taken to the County Yamen prison to await trial; the household enforcers and thugs were seized and sent to Huangpu to board immigration ships; the tenant farmers were even less likely to be let off—family in tow, the whole lot was scooped up and sent to Tainan to farm the land for two years first.

Because Cao Neigui had now climbed to the upper echelons of the Great Ming Empire, the bureaucratic system of Guangdong no longer had any power to restrain him. In this matter, the gentry allies of those few despotic local tyrants initially tried to use traditional networks and political shields, but found they could not be brought into play—any overt or covert move, once it involved that Regional Commander, completely lost its effectiveness.

With a powerful force behind the scenes "suppressing the karmic destiny," the judicial procedures of the Ming Dynasty, for the first time ever, operated at breakneck speed.

The consistently mediocre Gu County Magistrate, in the days that followed, held court sessions continuously, busy beyond measure. During this period, Master Gu completely changed his usual demeanor, becoming just and strict, swift and resolute, hating evil as his personal foe, and fearless of the powerful. In the Public Hall, the three wooden instruments and the leg press flew together, the planks and the finger crushers were used in tandem, and screams of agony rose and fell without end. The several despotic local tyrant households were tried and had their confessions collected like mere Commoners, utterly incapable of resistance.

After this, the documents were forwarded through the prefectural and county levels, accompanied by the accumulated mountain of crimes. Very soon, the documents for execution after the autumn assizes were submitted to the Ministry of Justice in Beijing for review.

To a certain degree, the deep-seated shock caused by the suppression of these few despotic households, at least in the Zengcheng region, surpassed that of the bandit suppression itself.

In this matter, the local gentry suddenly discovered a colossal force. What was terrifying was that this force, while seemingly belonging to the Great Ming, was completely beyond their control and could at any moment grind the masters to dust. This made certain people deeply worried.

In fact, the masters' worries were correct.

For this earth-shaking social transformation launched by the Transmigrators, bandit suppression was merely a warm-up. After the first stage of bandit suppression, incidentally beating the grass to startle the snake, dealing with the gentry, and making the other side understand the stakes—all of this was part of the intended plan.

Once all potential opposition forces had been struck or cowed, the main event of social transformation would follow: population relocation.

Looking throughout history, people will always encounter a phrase in certain periods: nine out of ten houses stand empty.

Yes, whenever natural and man-made disasters struck, and the Central Plains witnessed a dynastic change, the prelude always featured the phrase "nine out of ten houses stand empty."

In fact, this is not a matter of disasters, but a natural law, because the true population carrying capacity of the Central Plains is only one-tenth of that at a dynasty's end.

Before the modern era of three-dimensional steel bar and cement cities, all of human society, for thousands of years, was flat. People lived in single-story dwellings; only emperors and lords could reside in palaces and castles.

The land carrying capacity of the entire ancient society was very low. In urban areas, a population of a million already counted as a super metropolis. Even so, great killers of population erasure on the scale of plague and dysentery still occurred frequently, objectively preventing the ancients from expanding the scale of their cities.

The same was true in the countryside. Thanks to low productivity, the land carrying capacity in ancient times was extremely low. In rural areas, if a household of three had less than 10 mu of arable land, they were already beginning to suffer malnutrition and counted as a poverty-stricken household.

In the late period of a dynasty, with a population explosion, a tenant household of five or six people often did not even have three mu of land—this was already abject poverty. The living conditions of these people were extremely poor; they were merely surviving, ready to rebel or die at any moment.

Then, the contradictions brought about by resource scarcity would erupt in full, and society would begin to reshuffle. Whether it was Li Zicheng, the Tartar Captives, mutual slaughter, or foreign invasion... in short, the social contradictions would not resolve until the population across the entire land dropped to one-tenth of its previous level.

And what happens after it drops to one-tenth? Nine out of ten houses stand empty, a new dynasty is established, "people's hearts long for stability," a wise sovereign emerges, and everyone happily begins the cycle anew.

This is, in essence, the nature of dynastic change: in ancient times, the population of the entire Central Plains dynasty could not exceed 20 million people. Once it did, resources became insufficient. When the late Ming population exceeded 100 million, mutual slaughter was inevitable until the population again fell below 20 million, at which point the contradictions would vanish.

This doomsday scenario, when concentrated onto the single piece of land that was Zengcheng County, manifested as bandits everywhere, all industries withering, and the people with no means of livelihood.

Therefore, the Transmigrators understood one thing clearly: without resolving the fundamental social contradictions, so-called bandit suppression alone was useless, because destitute, landless farmers would continuously transform into bandits. Moreover, these people could not be killed off—when someone is about to starve to death, would they still care about bullets?

Thus, after the first round of intimidation, Ding Liqiu, Head of the Guangzhou Special Zone, personally stationed himself in Zengcheng County at the end of 1630 to preside over and promote a profoundly significant social experiment by the Transmigrators under the rule of the Great Ming: Corvée Labor.