Chapter 1032: The Shun Empire's Historic Opportunity

"Ada, our family is after all an imperial house, so we can still afford to support a few dozen descendants. But the fubing below have multiplied far too much — that's the trouble! It isn't a problem yet, but in another ten or twenty years..."

Li Laiheng looked deeply worried. His father, Li Guo, was already past fifty and did not look in good health; in another ten-odd years he would probably be ready to become the late emperor. But he himself was still young — only in his thirties this year. If he lived to sixty-odd, he would still have to worry about this horde of fubing for another thirty years.

This year was only the tenth year of joint rule, and already the fubing had multiplied and bred to this extent. In another thirty years, the number of able-bodied men would probably exceed a million.

A million fubing, with each soldier granted one hundred mu of land, meant a hundred million mu!

Even if they took every mu of registered farmland in Sichuan and Yunnan and divided it all up, it still would not be enough!

If they did not grant land to these million fubing, but instead chose to maintain the scale of two hundred fifty thousand land-granted fubing and official households, then the entire fubing class would be dragged down by the "surplus males" — the fact that the Shun court did not grant land to support the second and third generation of fubing who had multiplied did not mean those men did not exist, nor that they could find some other way out. In the end, these people would become a burden on the fubing households, dragging already not-very-prosperous fubing families step by step into poverty.

The greatest difference between the Shun fubing system and the mercenary recruitment system the Ming now used was that the former were "contractors," while the latter were hired laborers. The land a fubing received not only replaced his military pay, but also had to cover a considerable portion of his weapons and provisions expenses.

Therefore, once the "surplus males" became a burden on the fubing, the financial strength of the fubing class would be greatly reduced. If the Shun court could not provide sufficient subsidies, then the fubing's fighting power would rapidly collapse as their finances declined.

Many of the Shun court's current great figures were originally military households from Shaanxi and Gansu under the Ming, so they certainly knew how the military household system had been ruined!

The fubing system, or the military household system, looks very fine, and in its initial stage it really is useful, but maintaining it over the long term is extremely difficult.

That is to say, as the Shun fubing population kept multiplying, the Shun court's military strength would collapse on its own. Unless the Shun court could produce ever more money and grain to subsidize fubing who had fallen into financial difficulty. This was simply a bottomless black hole!

Moreover, in order to extend the "shelf life" of the fubing class, the Shun court had to adopt policies suppressing commerce, so as to achieve "all profit from a single source." And the policy of suppressing commerce would in turn leave the Shun court lacking sufficient financial resources to subsidize the fubing!

So the mighty Shun fubing were bound to go through a process of flourishing to the utmost and then declining.

By comparison, the military system Zhu Cilang had chosen for the Ming was easier to maintain — although the Ming army also had land grants and military merit ranks, fundamentally speaking, the Ming army's new army (the Hard-Work New Army) was a mercenary force commanded by professional officers.

As long as Zhu Cilang could focus on the training and education of a small number of aristocratic officers and elite boy soldiers, he could use an officer corps of ten or twenty thousand men and a youth guard corps of tens of thousands (the Nine Border Youths) to maintain the fighting power of several hundred thousand Ming troops.

Although this military system of a small elite plus large numbers of state mercenaries did not look as good as the legendary "Qin military merit ranks" or "modern nation-state armies," for the Ming at present it was the only feasible approach, and it was also relatively easy to maintain.

"Ada," Li Laiheng continued, "my Northern Expedition Army has clashed several times with the Ming army's Calm Sea Army in Siam, and the fighting has been around the Golden City south of the Great City (Ayutthaya). Victory and defeat have been mixed, and we have not gained much advantage. It seems the southern campaign will have to stop at the Golden City of Siam."

"Stop at the Golden City?" Li Guo halted his steps and turned to look at his son. "Surely not? The Northern Expedition Army was trained specifically for the southern campaign — can it be that it cannot even defeat a Ming provincial army like the Calm Sea Army?"

Li Laiheng shook his head and said, "It is not that the Calm Sea Army is so strong, but that too many of our soldiers fell ill while besieging the Great City of Siam. When we set out from Burma there were over thirty thousand men; after taking the Great City, those still able to hold a blade and fight numbered fewer than eight thousand!"

"Fewer than eight thousand?" Li Guo was startled. "The miasma and pestilence of Siam is actually this fierce!"

In fact, it was not that Siam's miasma and pestilence were especially fierce, but that Li Laiheng's Northern Expedition Army had been stalled for a long time beneath the walls of Ayutthaya, in a region dense with waterways, and the whole army had been camped beside water where mosquitoes bred, making them especially susceptible to malaria.

Although this Northern Expedition Army, trained for the southern campaign, had made the necessary preparations in equipment and tactics, they had after all never actually fought in Southeast Asia, so they lacked experience in preventing and treating malaria.

The Calm Sea Army, however, had been in Southeast Asia for many years and had accumulated ample experience in preventing tropical diseases. Moreover, Zhang Yong had long anticipated that the Shun army coming from the north would sooner or later break out in epidemics. So after entering Siam, he had not been eager to seek battle, but instead mobilized the Siamese soldiers and civilians and the overseas Chinese who had opened farms in southern Siam to build a bastion fort together on the banks of the Chao Phraya River, called Golden Fort.

After the Shun army stormed the Great City, Zhang Yong relied on Golden Fort to blockade the Chao Phraya waterway, while keeping watch on the Great City, and fought a war of attrition against the Shun army.

Li Laiheng sighed. "Ada, right now the Northern Expedition Army has many sick and even dead. Moreover, among the fubing households that previously moved to Ava, there have also been many deaths from illness. It seems the southern climate and terrain are something we cannot adapt to for the time being.

Though our Shun forces are strong, we cannot waste them like this for nothing. So your son believes that the Shun should stop at the Great City in the south. If the Great City cannot be held, then withdraw to Burma. In any case, the spoils from the battle of the Great City were considerable, so we would not be returning empty-handed."

Li Guo frowned deeply. "With only Sichuan, Yunnan, and Burma, it is still too narrow." He lowered his voice. "If Sichuan and Yunnan were lost, with only Burma alone, could we still hold on?"

"Ada," Li Laiheng paused, then lowered his voice, "now that Dodo is dead, and Spain has just been defeated in Japan, the pressure on the southeastern seas has greatly diminished. Your son reckons the Ming is about to use its troops beyond the passes. This is our opportunity!"

"Opportunity?" Li Guo looked at his son.

Li Laiheng said in a low voice, "Ada, right now is exactly when our Shun fubing are at their peak. The first-generation fubing who followed the old His Majesty and you to conquer the realm can still fight. And the second-generation fubing are numerous, and all have practiced martial arts since childhood, so they can fight even better than their fathers. With the two generations of fubing combined, we can field four hundred thousand men. And the second-generation fubing all want to obtain land, so they will certainly fight hard.

We should seize this opportunity and stake everything on one throw! If we delay, by the time the second-generation fubing have all reached the age of marrying and establishing themselves, they will probably be poor..."

Li Guo fell into deep thought.

He also knew that the Shun Empire's military power was now climbing to its peak!

Because the "Shun second generation" would come of age in large numbers within the next three to five years! These people had all been raised by their fathers as warriors! They could fight, they were numerous, and they also had the desire to fight — most of them had nothing at all except the skill of cutting people down!

If they missed this opportunity, and waited until this batch of men had all married and established themselves and sunk into the mire of poverty, then not only would their fighting power weaken, but they might also become a problem for the Shun court.

"Where do we strike?" Li Guo asked.

"How about marching out from Qishan?" Li Laiheng asked.

"Out from Qishan?" Li Guo thought for a moment. "Can we not take the lower Yangtze?"

"We cannot," Li Laiheng shook his head. "Fighting in the lower Yangtze means pitting our navy against theirs — how could our navy possibly be a match for the Ming's? Moreover, the Ming has built many forts along both banks of the Jing River and emplaced great cannons. We cannot take them."

Building bastion forts and assaulting bastion forts is a contest of mathematics.

"Then... can Guangdong and Guangxi be taken?"

"They cannot." Li Laiheng still shook his head. "Taking Guangxi is not enough to change the overall situation, and fighting in Guangdong would also mean pitting our navy against theirs. Moreover, the Ming army can move heavy troops into Guangdong by sea. If we go over mountains and ridges, we would only waste time, with no chance of victory.

On the contrary, marching out from Qishan and fighting in Gansu and Shaanxi is most advantageous for us! Our dynasty has operated in Hanzhong and Gongchang for many years, building forts and stockpiling grain, and our foundation there is already solid, so we can support a great army marching north!"

(End of Chapter)