Chapter 219: It Is Time to Turn Our Eyes to Shaanxi!

At the hour of the Serpent, third quarter, Western Park, the Hall of Earnest Reflection.

Zhu Youjian, wearing a close-fitting arrow-pattern robe, strode into the hall from outside, bringing the chill wind with him.

Fine red-vine charcoal burned inside the hall, its cozy warmth immediately smoothing his furrowed brow.

Yet when he seated himself behind the imperial desk, he did not pick up his brush at once.

Today, a small change in his schedule meant he would begin reviewing memorials nearly half a shichen later than usual.

The reason was this: the picked vanguard troops he had ordered summoned two months ago from Shaanxi's five garrisons had, one after another, finally all reached the capital.

Accompanying these sixty elite soldiers of the Nine Frontiers was the Shaanxi Garrison Commander, He Renlong.

After a routine parade-ground inspection, Zhu Youjian had specially held a modest welcoming banquet for them.

It was no friendly feast.

Once they had eaten and drunk, and before this group of Shaanxi men had time to form connections among themselves, Zhu Youjian pulled that same "prisoner's dilemma" trick, making them write out answers on frontier corruption and local conditions.

Then, without waiting for them to finish their answers with furrowed brows, he returned ahead of time to the Western Park — after all, there was still a list of candidates for the clerks' examination awaiting his decision today, and he could not delay too long.

By his count, of the seven groups he had dispatched back then to get a clear picture of Shaanxi, that future "mortal affliction," five had now returned.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard's investigation into the Nine Frontiers, the summoning of Hong Chengchou, the observations of the restored Donglin officials, the oral accounts of the Nine Frontiers' picked vanguard, and in addition, Garrison Commander He Renlong.

Now only Li Zicheng and the envoy sent to deliver pay to the Shaanxi garrison had yet to return.

Shaanxi.

To anyone of later generations who understood the history of the late Ming, those two characters weighed as heavy as a thousand jun.

This place was the very first domino tile in the Great Ming dynasty's collapse.

Year after year of natural disasters led to total crop failure; the people, unable to survive, rose up in revolt, only to meet suppression by the Great Ming's imperial troops.

Famine, crop failure, uprising, suppression, the land laid waste.

Then more famine, further crop failure, further uprisings, further suppression, the land laid further waste.

Within a few years, the entire Guanzhong region would be reduced to scorched earth, and then that wave of destruction would mercilessly sweep through the neighboring provinces of Shanxi and Henan —

One must understand, he had already ordered the Ministry of Revenue to compile the Great Ming's tax tables.

Shaanxi 9.34, Shanxi 13, Henan 9.21 — together, 31.5.

Thirty percent of the Great Ming's tax revenue was concentrated in these three provinces alone!

If this domino tile could not be stopped, then he could forget about playing this Great Ming scenario — he might as well fast-forward straight to "ruling south of the river"!

(Attached image: tax revenue proportions from the Wanli Accounting Records. Not from the Tianqi period, but the difference should be slight — after all, everyone knows the Ming fiscal system remained unchanged for ages.)

This great province, with a paper strength of two hundred thousand men and tax revenue accounting for nearly a tenth of the Great Ming's total, would in the future, under the merciless grinding of natural and man-made disasters, become an enormous black hole devouring the empire's lifeblood.

Even more, Zhu Youjian sneered inwardly — of the military calamities within, it was truly hard to say how much was the work of roving bandits, and how much was the crimes committed by those so-called "Great Ming imperial troops."

He never overestimated the moral integrity of this age.

Civil officials were like this, eunuchs were like this, and those soldiers who licked blood from their blades were even more so!

To save the Great Ming, to save Huaxia, this first domino tile of Shaanxi was absolutely a place that could not be overlooked.

Famine, crop failure, uprising, suppression, the land laid waste. Improving any single link in this chain might perhaps improve and break apart the entire cycle.

But!

In all matters, it is that "but" one must fear.

At this point in time, the tenth month of the seventh year of Tianqi, the intelligence gathered from all sides showed that Shaanxi —

actually showed no signs whatsoever of imminent collapse!

To be sure, Sun Chuanting's statement — "If the realm is to rot, it will begin in a single corner, and it will begin with Shaanxi" — was indeed the consensus among the court's far-sighted men.

But to say that within just a few short years this place would rot away several provinces and set off the Great Ming's irreversible death spiral?

Whoever dared say that now would likely be taken for a madman and laughed at.

Zhu Youjian leaned back in his chair and sighed.

Just look at the vast sea of official documents that had come in over these past two months through the "Current Abuses Collection Channel."

Garrison troops short of pay, local banditry, princely clan stipends, erosion of the tax base, natural disasters of drought and flood —

Every malady Shaanxi had, the other provinces of the Great Ming had as well, every single one! Some even worse.

Take just the single matter of natural disasters.

Never mind other places — just consider the Northern Metropolitan Region, where the capital itself sits.

A great drought in the fifth year of Tianqi, a great flood in the sixth year of Tianqi, and the just-passed seventh year of Tianqi saw widespread minor drought.

By comparison, Shaanxi had instead enjoyed favorable weather in the fifth and sixth years of Tianqi, and this year, only Xi'an Prefecture alone suffered a great drought, the rest merely minor drought.

A drought of this scale, set against the two-hundred-year sweep of the Great Ming's long history — what did it even amount to?

(Attached image: disasters in the north and Jiangnan over the last three years in the book. Shaanxi's situation is indeed relatively fine; the Northern Metropolitan Region is the truly miserable one.)

"Unbelievable — we actually lost the race to the bottom!"

Zhu Youjian could not help grumbling inwardly.

Though Shaanxi could hardly claim the championship in the race to the bottom,

the fists of Shaanxi's men were, by chance, the hardest!

Those two hundred thousand troops on the books were no paper tigers.

Even with rampant embezzlement of pay and severe manpower shortages, years of constant confrontation and slaughter with the barbarians had given Shaanxi's soldier base and combat proficiency a quality far beyond what the long-peaceful guard-station troops of the interior could match.

What was more — the desertion of soldiers from guard stations after their pay was withheld had also scattered many stout-hearted fellows, men whose arms could gallop a horse, across the various parts of Shaanxi.

For Zhu Youjian, his feeling now was like having transmigrated to just before the apocalypse, yet no one believed a giant meteor would strike in three days.

If he were an ordinary person, it would be fine — he could simply find some corner and slowly work toward his goals.

But as it happened, he was the Emperor of the empire, fated to shoulder all of this.

Abandon Shaanxi?

A pirate from Hainan may say such words, a hereditary military household from Shandong may say such words — but the Emperor seated upon this throne absolutely cannot say such words!

No. I can wait no longer.

The preparatory work and the priming of public opinion must begin as soon as possible!

Zhu Youjian's mind was made up, and he issued his order at once.

"Companion Gao."

"This slave attends." Gao Shiming immediately bowed.

"I have now read in full the various conditions of Shaanxi," Zhu Youjian said, his pace unhurried. "That land's people are destitute and its wealth exhausted. It has suffered barbarian raids, then suffered famine; it has been saddled with the sand tax, and now ordered to cover the tax quota. Truly, as Sun Chuanting put it, if troubles erupt on all sides, Guanzhong will surely be the first disaster."

He paused, giving Gao Shiming a moment to absorb it, then continued: "Very well. Convey Our decree: the Secretariat is to establish a dedicated Shaanxi Group, to track Shaanxi separately."

"As for the group leader——"

Zhu Youjian's gaze sharpened slightly as he rapidly sifted through suitable candidates in his mind. At last, a name surfaced in his thoughts.

"——it shall be the Messenger Yuan Jixian, just returned from distributing rewards in Liaodong. His memorial 'On the Differences Among the Liao People, the Liao Troops, and the Liao Generals' was superbly written — perceptive, grounded in solid evidence. He is a man who can accomplish real things."

"Assign him a full complement of five group members. Two of them must be of Shaanxi native origin; the other three must have experience serving as local prefectural or county officials in Shaanxi."

"If the Secretariat currently lacks suitable candidates, have the Ministry of Personnel assist by recommending and selecting them."

"Once the personnel are in place, arrange the schedule. I wish to meet them personally and speak with them face to face."

Gao Shiming listened attentively, and the moment the Emperor's voice fell, he immediately acknowledged the order.

Zhu Youjian nodded slightly. The agitation and oppression in his heart finally eased somewhat with the making of this decision.

Only then did he turn his gaze to the memorials upon the desk and pick up the vermilion brush.

The so-called Secretariat grouping was a new system he had gradually begun to implement after his ascension.

It was a gradual move toward categorizing and specializing the Secretariat's work.

The first group was the Military Group, led by Sun Chuanting;

the second was the Civil Governance Group, led by Ni Yuanlu;

the third was the Northern Metropolitan Region New Policies Group, led by Qi Xinxiao.

This Shaanxi Group now made the fourth.

And the Yuan Jixian he had just mentioned, along with that memorial 'On the Differences Among the Liao People, the Liao Troops, and the Liao Generals,' had been the greatest surprise of this entire tour of the Nine Borders by the Messengers to distribute rewards.

This policy essay differed from the other frontier policy essays submitted after the reward distributions.

It did not simply dwell on the issue of corruption, but incisively dissected the internal ecology of the Liaodong military garrisons.

The Liao people, the Liao troops, the Liao generals.

Under his brush, these three, though seemingly all "Liao men," had long since diverged into three groups with utterly different standpoints, even mutually antagonistic.

One example among them was the most shocking.

The Liaodong officers, in ordinary times, kept household retainers and raided some barbarian settlements beyond the frontier or small Jurchen stockades, using the herders' heads to claim rewards.

After all, when the Ministry of War examined the heads, they could tell male from female, Han from Mongol — but they could never tell whether the slain had been warriors or not.

Yet conversely, whenever the barbarian or Jurchen main forces launched a large-scale incursion, so long as the enemy was strong, these officers would immediately hold fast to their walled cities, hang up the No-Battle sign, and allow the fields and villages of the hereditary military households under their command to be freely torched, their families carried off into captivity.

Why?

Yuan Jixian, in his memorial, pointed it out with a single piercing stroke — it was not worth it!

The court's merit assessment asked only whether a city had fallen; it never inquired into the life or death of the local populace.

A frontier general who held his city incurred no fault — why then should he risk his life against a powerful foe for such "extraneous matters"?

To use Yuan Jixian's own words: "The so-called Liao people, Liao troops, and Liao generals — they seem all to be Liao men, yet how can they all be Liao men!"

Once this essay appeared, it was immediately championed by everyone in the Secretariat and the Grand Secretariat Committee as the foremost official document of this Nine Borders reward-distribution tour.

Yuan Jixian, by this, vaulted into Zhu Youjian's field of vision.

Selecting him for this post was, on one hand, because his talent and ability were indeed outstanding.

A man who could clearly discern the distinctions among the Liao people, the Liao troops, and the Liao generals could naturally also discern the distinctions among the many forces in Shaanxi — the hereditary military households, the garrison troops, the frontier officers, the princedoms, the imperial clansmen, the landlords, and so on.

After Zhu Youjian had reviewed the conditions of Shaanxi and discovered that the situation was actually better than he had expected,

he began to suspect whether the Shaanxi affair in history had been more a matter of natural disaster or more a matter of man-made calamity.

After all, in theory, two consecutive years of favorable weather should have allowed the localities to accumulate some grain reserves. How could it have collapsed so rapidly after a few years of drought?

Production and consumption, viewed from a larger, colder perspective, are frigid and objective.

That the peasants held no reserves did not mean that the landlords, princedoms, and local magnates of Shaanxi held no reserves.

Could it be that this so-called Little Ice Age famine, in its very earliest, most incipient stages, did not even require any revolution in productive forces, but could have been somewhat mitigated simply through the redistribution of reserves?

Zhu Youjian did not yet have an answer; he had to await further investigation and policy study.

On the other hand, it was a matter of conventional factional cross-matching.

Yuan Jixian, as the chief officer, was a man of Yichun in Jiangxi.

Beneath him would be placed Shaanxi natives, as well as men with experience serving in Shaanxi but who were not of Shaanxi origin.

Only through such interweaving could the fairness of decision-making and the transparency of information be ensured to the greatest extent.

This last point was not worth mentioning — it was merely a trivial art of balancing.