Chapter 296: Fruits of Victory

In the fourth month of the fifth year of Chongzhen, Wenden's tun-bao were established in batches across the region, scattered like stars across the vast territory of Denglai.

Because the land deeds had been obtained improperly, and many of the plots had separated surface and subsurface rights, disputes and mass brawls over land broke out daily in every locality. Geng Zhongming's personal battalion was run ragged; whenever someone from Wendeng came to report Wenxiang Sect activity anywhere, they rushed over, finished looting and fighting, then moved on to the next place.

Ninghaizhou, Laiyang, Qixia, Penglai — each had a typical case suppressed. The Dengzhou mutiny had just passed, and the local officials feared these Liao soldiers like tigers. One only had to look at Sun Yuanhua's fate to know: mutinous troops might still be pacified and spared, but local officials had no path to survival. Moreover, having been in Dengzhou for a long time, they were very well-informed. Seeing how Geng Zhongming and the others were clearly there to seize land, and that the land belonged to the Wendeng Camp — meaning an even more terrifying Chen Xin stood behind Geng Zhongming, a power in Denglai already greater than the Provincial Governor — which of these local officials would dare accept lawsuits from those plaintiffs?

Song Wenxian's Foreign Affairs Office was newly established and very limited in scale, but over the past few years Song Wenxian had trained a few attendants. They could still manage to deal with the officials in the Denglai region. After a round of visits through the third and fourth months, the appropriate benefits were given to the local officials. The various parent-officials, already unwilling to provoke the Liao soldiers and now having received benefits, uniformly suppressed all who came to file complaints and seek redress.

The policy set by Liu Minyou and Chen Xin was to strike hard at the gentry, while clan heads would be detained indefinitely until they submitted. Those who refused to submit would remain under investigation in the name of the Wenxiang Sect, and other influential clan members would be intimidated as a warning, achieving the de facto elimination of clan authority.

The several places unfortunate enough to be made examples suffered severe crackdowns. The leading gentry and clan heads were either killed or arrested; those the local officials dared not hold were temporarily detained by the Liao soldiers, all on charges of colluding with mutineer remnants and forming Wenxiang Sect associations.

The native civilians could not defeat these Liao soldiers, and the Liao soldiers were unreasonable. With their leaders all gone, the civilian households were like a sheet of loose sand. Wendeng's tun-bao seized the opportunity to build houses and occupy land. These tun-bao households all possessed swords and spears; the civilian households were no longer a match and could only let them gain a firm foothold.

Then some smooth-talking individuals went to each village to recruit tun-bao households. All tenant farmers who originally worked their land were absorbed, still farming the same plots. The tun-bao provided draft oxen for allocation and use, organized unified water conservancy projects, allowed children over ten to learn to read in the schoolhouse, and guaranteed fair measure by having all grain buying and selling handled by the market office. The only additional burdens were military service and two types of corvée labor: military service meant participating in tun-bao training and possibly being deployed to fight; corvée labor meant repairing waterworks and nearby roads.

Compared to the heavy burdens the tenant farmers originally bore, these conditions were extremely generous. Wendeng had developed rapidly in recent years, and all sorts of tales circulated everywhere — it was said that even newly arrived refugees could eat their fill. Many of these native civilians also had relatives in Wendeng or had gone to seek refuge there. Word of mouth was uniformly good. Tenant farmers had previously suffered multiple layers of exploitation; once they joined a Wendeng tun-bao, they would bear only a fixed grain tax and those few corvée duties. Moreover, military service and road work even came with some compensation — it was not unpaid labor.

Faced with such benefits, their hostility gradually dissipated. Apart from a small number of die-hard clan loyalists, the majority of tenant farmers immediately joined the Wendeng tun-bao with gratitude. And the tun-bao allowed them to continue living in their original villages for the time being — this was specifically requested by Mo Huaiwen, precisely to use these people's mouths to spread word of the tun-bao's advantages among their neighbors.

The shift in ownership of the means of production and tools was rapidly transforming the rural conditions in several villages. Draft oxen and farmland once controlled by the clans could now be obtained through the tun-bao, and behind the tun-bao stood a powerful army. The changing chains of interest were severing the original clan bonds.

When the tun-bao began recruiting a batch of temporary laborers to repair roads, offering a monthly wage of three qian of silver, ordinary civilian households who had not joined the tun-bao enthusiastically signed up. Reports coming in from all localities were very optimistic, concluding that even if those clan heads were released now, these civilian households would absolutely never again follow them in brawling with the Wendeng tun-bao.

This outcome greatly satisfied Liu Minyou. Mo Huaiwen's strategy had worked very well — offering the carrot only after the stick, both establishing the Wendeng Camp's dominant position and subsequently achieving the goal of easing tensions. By absorbing tenant farmers, they resolved the conflict over land, that crucial means of production, and by providing labor opportunities, they dispelled the wariness of the local owner-farmers. The only ones who could not be reconciled were the gentry and those local-tyrant clan heads, because the benefits Wendeng had seized all came from them.

This set of methods was rolled out step by step in other places. Mo Huaiwen also went to Pingduzhou and began handling the most troublesome area, Pingduzhou. The amount of farmland there was enormous — the whole of Pingduzhou had over 2.3 million mu of cultivated land, plus about 100,000 mu of abandoned land that would only be recultivated during the Kangxi reign.

After capturing Pingdu, the Wendeng Camp had seized the local clerks and transferred the city gentry's land to the Wendeng Camp. Most of this was mature farmland, and a considerable portion of it was nominally registered under others — quite unlike Dengzhou, where tenant farmers predominated. This would be the place of the most intense conflict. Many of those who had registered their land under the gentry were relatives, friends, and old acquaintances, in reality paying only a very small annual registration fee. Among these, there were further cases of split surface and subsurface rights or additional subletting, making the situation even more complex than in Dengzhou.

The tun-bao previously established in Pingduzhou mostly occupied land with less dispute. Now they were beginning to move on those sensitive, high-quality plots. Mo Huaiwen's strategy was to absolutely refuse to recognize nominal registration and to recognize only the land deed. Tenant farmers actually working the land could join the tun-bao. All other land would be confiscated and given to Wendeng tun-bao households to farm.

There would be another round of fierce struggle in Pingduzhou. Mo Huaiwen had long prepared for this. The armaments stored in Wendeng were being transported to Pingduzhou in a steady stream to arm the ordinary tun-bao households.

Liu Minyou remained in Dengzhou, reorganizing the money shop and the Four Seas Trading Company. Chen Xin worked with him to refine some details. The military would invest using retirement pensions but could not directly participate in operations as shareholders. The military's sole equity representative was Chen Xin; Dong Yu could act as proxy when entrusted.

Once commercial capital combined with military interests, Wendeng would no longer develop toward feudal landholding but would shift toward industry and commerce. What prompted Liu Minyou to devise this approach was precisely that Department Magistrate and the Judge of Linqingzhou.

The local gentry, bureaucrats, and brokers everywhere formed a natural monopoly. The gentry had status and capital; the brokers controlled sales channels; and at the core was the power of local bureaucrats. For Wendeng's industry and commerce to develop, this monopoly had to be broken. Every new sphere of influence seized would expand a vast margin of profit for industry and commerce.

Previously, the Four Seas Trading Company belonged solely to civil administration and had no connection to the military. Now it was completely different. With the military's shares added, the Four Seas Trading Company's interests were closely tied to those of the soldiers. There was no need for Chen Xin's ambition to swell; as the military gradually realized the benefits, they would proactively expand outward on their own.

Chen Xin serving as the military's sole equity representative was to preserve the military's purity and also to reduce the military's actual influence over civil administration. Chen Xin remained the sole interface between civil and military governance. The military began related preparations in the fourth month, adding corresponding punishment clauses to the military code. To the original severe punishments were added the revocation of retirement pensions and equity earnings.

As the news spread, some quick-witted officers had already perceived the benefits, and all sorts of talk circulated within the army. Non-military personnel in Wendeng's upper ranks gradually got word. These people were even quicker of mind. The Four Seas Trading Company had already demonstrated decent profitability the previous year, and they too wished to buy shares. The two men had no choice but to include civil administration personnel as well. Civil administration personnel had no retirement pensions; they could voluntarily buy shares, with limits based on rank.

Total share capital was set at one million taels. The military's retirement pension fund had only been contributed for one year and was still under 100,000 taels. Chen Xin, representing the Central Military Staff, advanced two additional years' worth, totaling 300,000 taels as investment, with further capital increases each subsequent year based on the total assets at the time. The original Four Seas Trading Company was valued at 600,000 taels in fixed assets, distribution channels, cash on hand, and inventory. The remaining 200,000 taels covered other non-military high-ranking personnel and civil administration, with the leftover portion temporarily counted under Chen Xin personally; he would absorb other useful powerful figures as shareholders.

Liu Minyou continuously refined the relevant clauses for the joint-stock company, not incorporating the production segment or the money shop into the trading company, hoping to maintain some control over this nascent joint-stock company by holding the upstream and financial sectors. Both he and Chen Xin were well aware that capital is inherently profit-driven and expansionist, with no morality whatsoever. Combined with a violent machine like the army, it could very well produce an uncontrollable monster. And once this monster was unleashed, what it would ultimately become — Liu Minyou had no idea at all. So he could only position it as commercial capital for now, keeping finance and production outside this system.

Zhou Laifu was the original general manager of the trading company, but with the change in model, Zhou Laifu's abilities might not be sufficient to manage it, especially given his overly mild temperament. After much deliberation, Chen Xin and Liu Minyou transferred Wang Erya from the tobacco factory to serve as the trading company's Assistant Regional Commander manager.

Chen Xin himself was busy with post-war consolidation and training. Every unit was summarizing the lessons of the Dengzhou and Lüshun campaigns, adjusting the training syllabus. New weapons needed testing; the eight-pounder cannon required a new organizational structure at the battalion level. With the three-tier mobilization system established, the combat troops needed enhanced external-line mobility. The dedicated logistics battalion needed to be expanded and equipped with wagons of greater carrying capacity. Across the entire Wendeng system, wagon specifications needed to be standardized for dual military and civilian use — capable of transporting passengers and goods in peacetime, and immediately convertible to military use upon mobilization. The provisional logistics battalion needed a skeleton unit built, with its officers as permanent cadre, so that it could deploy immediately upon emergency militia mobilization. The tun-bao militia system also needed improvement. More importantly, based on the lessons learned, the battalion-level organization needed to be redesigned so that each battalion and each company-commander unit possessed independent combat capability, making command more flexible.

With myriad complex affairs and everyone busy, there was temporarily no energy to complete the internal institutional and personnel adjustments in Wendeng. At the end of the month, Zhang Dahui sent intelligence: Wendeng's merit evaluations had been decided. Against the backdrop of the disastrous defeat at Dalinghe, the court had magnified the achievement of recovering Jinzhou. The official gazette carried extensive propaganda about it, while the suppression of Kong Youde and Li Jiucheng was downplayed — Chongzhen did not wish for an internal rebellion to draw too much attention.

What Chen Xin cared about were the positions Wang Tingshi had submitted for merit evaluation. Wang Tingshi proposed establishing one Main Army battalion under the Dengzhou Garrison, directly commanded by the Dengzhou Regional Commander, with a troop strength of 5,000 — the Regional Commander being, needless to say, Chen Xin. Additionally, two flank commands were proposed: the Left Flank stationed at Jinzhou, with one Vice Regional Commander, namely Zhu Guobin. The Left Flank would command one each of Raider, Reinforcement, and Mobile Corps battalions. The Raider Battalion would be directly commanded by Zhu Guobin. The Mobile Corps would have a separate Mobile Corps Commander for rescue operations — that Mobile Corps Commander being Zheng Sanhu. The Reinforcement Battalion's Assistant Regional Commander would be one of Wang Tingshi's men; Chen Xin had not even inquired who it was. The Right Flank would be responsible for Denglai defense, also with one Vice Regional Commander, commanding one each of Raider, Reinforcement, and Mobile Corps battalions. Vice Regional Commander Lu Chuanzong would directly command it, stationed at the garrison city. Wendeng Reinforcement Battalion's Assistant Regional Commander Dai Zhenggang would be stationed at Wendeng. Right Flank Mobile Corps Battalion's Mobile Corps Commander Wang Changfu would be stationed at Pingduzhou. Including the Jimo Battalion, there was also one Garrison Commander position, submitted for Fan Shouye.

The Dengzhou Garrison was mostly composed of Chen Xin's original Wendeng units; no one else had the means to compete, including the forces from Shandong — none had a battle record worth presenting. His only worry was that the court might again play its checks-and-balances game and veto a few positions, which would more or less affect his overall disposition.

Geng Zhongming's unit was not converted into a Raider Battalion but continued as the Central Personal Battalion. Lü Zhi had originally wanted to establish a separate Raider Battalion under the Army Supervisor's jurisdiction, but Wang Tingshi argued that Geng's unit was atoning for past crimes — after all, they had killed and plundered in Dengzhou. If Geng Zhongming were promoted, the censors at court might erupt again, putting both Wang Tingshi and Lü Zhi in a very passive position.

So Lü Zhi ultimately had to abandon that plan and explained it to Geng Zhongming, telling him not to take it to heart. Geng Zhongming was in fact the most awkward figure in Dengzhou. He belonged to the Provincial Governor's personal battalion, with Wang Tingshi as his direct superior, yet he had also attached himself to Lü Zhi. Add to that Chen Xin as the de facto boss, and he had to carefully walk a tightrope among the three men, daring not offend any of them.

Wherever Chen Xin told him to strike at the Wenxiang Sect, he went and struck. The loot he brought back was divided into four shares, one for each of the three lords, and one he kept for himself. But Chen Xin never accepted his share, so that portion went into Geng Zhongming's private purse.

In terms of treatment, it was not bad. Geng Zhongming had looted his fill during the Dengzhou Rebellion and had also pulled off a double-crossing score with Wang Bingzhong. Upon returning to Dengzhou, he had shared a fair amount with his several superiors. As things stood now, at least retaining his original post was not a problem. Since witnessing the Wendeng fighting strength, he felt that a lower position was better, lest one day Wang Tingshi or Lü Zhi use him as a counterweight against Chen Xin — that would be when his real suffering began. He harbored no other thoughts at all, only hoping to live out his days peacefully in Dengzhou.

Fortunately, all three parties were relatively harmonious at present, so Geng Zhongming did not have to struggle between them. Chen Xin even had him prepare to set up checkpoints and collect taxes in various places. Although he was only providing troops to guard the roads and the people collecting the money were not his, Chen Xin had promised him a share of the proceeds. It seemed a good stretch of days lay ahead.

Wang Tingshi had left one Reinforcement Battalion Assistant Regional Commander slot in the Left Flank and inserted one of his own men. His Provincial Governor's personal battalion was divided into three battalions, with two Assistant Regional Commander slots still vacant. Now with even fewer troops, the original personal battalion soldiers had either mutinied or been preempted by Lü Zhi and absorbed into the naval camp. Wang Tingshi had to look to Dongjiang Garrison and other garrisons for candidates. Geng Zhongming of the Central Battalion was clearly Lü Zhi's man; he had to control the other two battalions to have any voice in Dengzhou. Lü Zhi, having secured the naval camp and the Central Battalion, did not contest the Left and Right Battalions further.

By late in the month, Chen Xin still had no time to go back and see his son. Zhao Xiang was also unwilling to go to the ruins of Dengzhou at this time, so she only sent Juxiang to look after Chen Xin's daily needs.

On the twenty-fifth day of the fourth month, the court appointments finally arrived in Dengzhou. All the promotions Wang Tingshi had submitted were approved. Chen Xin had finally swallowed the last fruit of victory from the entire Dengzhou campaign. According to court regulations, all substantive appointments at Mobile Corps Commander and above required traveling to Jingshi to receive the official documents, patents of appointment, and command tallies, and to have an audience with the Emperor. Therefore, apart from Zhu Guobin and Zheng Sanhu, who were at the front lines, everyone — including Geng Zhongming, despite his criminal status — had to go to Jingshi to complete the procedures. Even though Chen Xin was extremely unwilling, he had no choice but to make the trip. Wang Tingshi likewise had to go to Jingshi, to the Ministry of Personnel, to handle his own formal procedures.

After receiving the appointment, in order to reduce complications for the trip to Jingshi, Chen Xin notified Mo Huaiwen not to stir things up too fiercely in Pingduzhou in the near term. Four days later, he was joined by Song Wenxian, who had rushed back from Lüshun. After consulting with Wang Tingshi, Chen Xin decided to take the land route to Tianjin this time, as the speed would be more controllable. Accompanying them were Geng Zhongming, Lu Chuanzong, Dai Zhenggang, and Wang Changfu. Escorted by thirty guards from the Central Army, the party set out for Jingshi.