Chapter 1089: It's All for the People! (Please Subscribe)

"Imperial Father speaks most rightly. We collect a little grain, a little cloth — all for the people. It is utterly different from the Zhu family, who only indulge their own extravagance!" Li Laiheng paused, then said, "So the people of Sichuan and Yunnan will surely understand our difficulties."

Would they understand? Li Guo had his doubts!

Back in the day, the extravagantly wasteful Zhu Ming court collected no more than a little over one million shi of rice per year in land tax from Sichuan, and there was no household levy. The handicraft goods they collected were later mostly folded into commercial taxes, and who knows whether they even got two hundred thousand taels a year in hand? Now the land rent and household levy collected by the Shun have risen more than tenfold.

Li Laiheng spoke again: "So that the common people know that what we collect from the increased levies is not squandered, your son suggests giving the increased land rent and household levy a few specific names."

"A few names?" Li Guo frowned, thinking: Just how much more is he going to add?

"Right!" Li Laiheng nodded. "The first item is the Zhu Rice — that is, the rice we levy to resist the Zhu family's five hundred thousand troops. An additional levy of five million shi of white rice per year!"

Li Guo asked, "There is a second?"

"Of course!" Li Laiheng said. "The second is the Fort Levy — that is, the corvée labor levied to build fortresses at all critical points. Our Shun has always kept taxes light and corvée minimal, so adding a little Fort Levy is something the people can understand."

Li Guo sighed: "What fine people they are!"

"There is also a third!"

Li Guo drew a breath: "How can there be more?"

"There is also the Burma Levy."

"Exempt what?" Li Guo did not understand.

"'Burma' as in the country of Burma, 'levy' as in household levy." Li Laiheng said. "It is the household levy added for opening up Burma. The Zhu family has raised seven armies to attack us, and one of those armies is striking at Burma. Burma is our Shun's line of retreat — no, it is the very foundation of our Shun's prosperity. Burma has thousands of li of fertile fields, and sea routes that reach every nation under heaven. Now Sichuan's population is gradually increasing while its farmland is limited. In another twenty or thirty years, I fear Sichuan's fields will no longer feed Sichuan's people. How will the people make a living then? How can our Shun's realm be secure? Therefore your son wishes to levy the Burma Levy to open up Burma's farmland, build Burma's fortresses, and gradually send the landless and jobless people of Sichuan to settle in Burma."

Li Laiheng glanced at his father, saw him grimacing and counting on his fingers, and knew his "womanly compassion" was acting up again. He quickly said with emphasis: "Ada, this Burma Levy truly is for the people's good! Central and southern Burma have vast stretches of flat, fertile land — together they are even larger than all of Sichuan's land. And the population is sparse, with much wasteland, just right for sustaining Sichuan's people."

What Li Laiheng said was of course reasonable. What could truly pose a fatal threat to the Shun Empire entrenched in Sichuan and Yunnan was not the Zhu Emperor's so-called seven hundred thousand punitive troops.

Because there simply were no seven hundred thousand punitive troops. How could there possibly be that many? The present Great Ming basically has no land-based conscription system; it relies mainly on state mercenaries to maintain rule — and state mercenaries are extremely expensive!

The lowest-ranking guardsman on garrison duty receives a monthly pay of two taels of silver (two one-tael bank coins), paid for thirteen months a year, totaling twenty-six one-tael bank coins. Monthly grain ration is five dou (sixty jin, issued as grain coupons; what is not eaten can be exchanged for meat, vegetables, or cloth). Vegetable allowance is one tael every four months. Two full sets of uniforms per year (everything from inner to outer garments), two pairs of military boots per year, and six pairs of cloth shoes. There are also various miscellaneous supplies. If all converted to silver, a single guardsman's annual personnel cost on garrison duty runs between forty and forty-five one-tael silver coins. For veteran soldiers of warrior rank or colonel rank, the expense is even greater — to say nothing of officers.

To maintain seven hundred thousand such troops would cost thirty to forty million a year, and to send them to war would likely require seventy to eighty million or more. Therefore the Ming court's directly controlled army now consists of thirty-one divisions (including one Young Guard Division), plus one Governor's Standard per province — fifteen Governor's Standards for the fifteen provinces of the Four Rivers, Two Lakes, Two Guangs, Two Rivers, Shaanxi, Shandong, Liaoyang, and Fujian — plus some independent units directly under the Grand Marshal's Office and the military academies. At full strength it does not even reach six hundred thousand, and even if all were sent out, it could not make up seven hundred thousand.

Of course, besides these troops directly under the court, the Great Ming also possesses many internal tributary garrison armies. Not counting the Northern Court Protectorate, which is a name without substance, the present Great Ming has fifteen garrison commands: Anxi, Hexi, Shuofang, Anbei, Beiping, Daning, Heilongjiang, Jianzhou, Dongning, Jin'ou, Jinghai, Xichuan, Chuanbian, Pingman (under the Pingman General), and Guizhou (the Guizhou Governor's Office has been abolished and replaced by the full authority of the Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan Governor-General, making it also a garrison command). These fifteen garrison commands vary in troop strength, averaging around twenty thousand each, for a total of about three hundred thousand.

However, these garrison armies are stationed all across the realm, and the number that can be used to attack the Shun is truly limited. Only the four military commands established specifically against the Shun — Xichuan, Chuanbian, Guizhou, and Pingman — can contribute a few more troops. Even adding the court's entire directly controlled army, it is estimated they still could not scrape together seven hundred thousand. Moreover, the court's directly controlled troops cannot all take the field; in principle, the provincial Governor's Standards do not leave their provincial borders. In addition, the Pingliao Army has still not been disbanded, and over a hundred thousand officers and men remain stationed in Liaoyang and on the Khorchin grasslands.

So the five hundred thousand troops Song Xiance calculated is already the absolute limit of Ming's military capacity. And a limit cannot be sustained for long. Therefore, even if Zhu Cilang threw everything into the war, the troops he could commit long-term to the war against the Shun would be only around three hundred thousand.

The Shun, by contrast, with all benefits flowing from a single source, is very strong in military mobilization. Through its land-based conscription system (the fubing system), it can maintain three hundred fifty thousand troops over the long term — fifty thousand more than the Ming side. Even if their combat strength is somewhat inferior, by relying on terrain and holding defensive positions, there would be no great problem.

But these three hundred fifty thousand fubing and fifty thousand officials (also fubing) place enormous pressure on the Shun Empire's small-peasant economy — these four hundred thousand people alone occupy half, or even more, of the farmland of Sichuan and Yunnan. The conflict between people and land in Sichuan and Yunnan has thus been greatly intensified!

The Shun's Chancellor Niu Jinxing, also grimacing, endorsed Li Laiheng's proposal. He said: "Imperial Lord, His Highness the Crown Prince is not wrong. The people of Sichuan multiply by the day, and the farmland is already insufficient. If we expand the fubing by another hundred thousand or more, we will at once have to enclose another ten million mu or more. If we cannot open up more land in Burma, I fear that in another twenty or thirty years — without the Ming even coming to fight — we will collapse on our own."

Li Guo thought to himself: Enclose more than ten million mu of land, and on top of that increase the rent, corvée, and levy — even Chongzhen was not this ruthless! If this goes on, will the Shun even last twenty or thirty years?

"I only fear the Sichuan people will refuse, and rise up one after another!" Li Guo said in a low voice.

"No fear, no fear at all!" Liu Zongmin, the Prince of Han, waved his great hand and laughed heartily. "Our military prefectures are stationed throughout the land, and every official high and low can fight. If the Sichuan people dare rebel, kill the bastards!"

"It will not come to that, not at all." Gu Junen shook his head. "Imperial Lord, you worry too much. Harsh as the Sichuan people's lot is, it is still better than under Ming rule. In those days, the farmland of Sichuan all belonged to the gentry, the native chieftains, and the princely estates. The common folk could only rent land to survive, and most of their hard-earned yield went to the gentry, the chieftains, and the princely estates. Moreover, the Ming long ago abandoned the policy of restraining commerce, allowing treacherous merchants and wicked traders to run rampant through the countryside. The gentry also mostly engaged in industry and trade, bleeding the people white through buying, selling, transport, and moneylending. Our dynasty, by contrast, takes agriculture as its foundation, restricts land annexation, and suppresses commerce. So the people still hold half the land and are not exploited by merchants. Though poor, they are equal, and they can still survive. Otherwise, the population of Sichuan would not have grown so much over these past ten-odd years. As long as we can give those who truly cannot survive an outlet, the people of Sichuan will not rebel."

"Ada!" Li Laiheng said. "Since going north is now impossible, we can only grit our teeth and go south."

"But Burma is full of miasma and pestilence everywhere!" Li Guo asked. "What are we to do about that?"

Li Laiheng said: "I have thought of a way. We will use the cloth from the Burma Levy to trade for the cultivated fields of the Burmese around Ava and Syriam. Disease in cultivated land is less than in virgin land, so people survive more easily. The Sichuan people cannot endure the climate and do not know how to clear Burma's forests. Settling them on virgin land would be sending them to their deaths. We can only find a way to settle them on cultivated land."

"Everything we collect in the Burma Levy is for the people!"

Li Guo sighed: "Then collect it. Besides the additional Zhu Rice, also levy the Fort Levy and the Burma Levy. Furthermore, issue an edict: We, to protect the people, shall personally lead the campaign, march forth and encamp at Yong'an, and fight a decisive battle to the death with the Zhu Emperor!"

(End of Chapter)