Chapter 1235: Don't Be Afraid — This Is India!

On the broad Karnaphuli River, over a hundred warships large and small lay moored in order, bow to stern, stretching from the newly completed Chittagong naval harbor all the way to the foot of the equally newly built Chittagong fort.

All of these hundred-odd warships were Western-style sailing ships and Western-style galleys. The largest among them were a full seven or eight hundred tons burden, floating on the water like castles! The smaller galleys were also over a hundred tons burden, with long, slender hulls and both oars and sails, clearly built for charging into battle in coastal waters and inland rivers!

If one looked closely at the flags on these Western-style warships, one could see that they actually belonged to two nations. The large Western-style sailing ships all flew the flag of the Republic of the Netherlands, while the Western-style galleys flew a blue banner bearing the character "Chuang" — this was the flag of the Shun Empire!

Well, would you look at that — the Shun Empire now had a real navy! From this day forward they were no longer dirt-poor roving bandits, but high-end, grand, and respectable pirates!

And the commander of this Shun pirate fleet was none other than the Shun Empire's Imperial Grandson-heir, the "Pirate King" Li Jicheng.

On the pier of the Chittagong naval harbor, the "Pirate King" Li Jicheng was strolling with a young military officer about his own age. This young officer was Luo Ke, heir to the Marquis of Tongguan, and the son of Luo Hu, the former leader of Li Zicheng's Boys' Battalion.

Luo Ke had been transferred from the Shaanxi front, and his current post was Vice Commissioner of the Arakan Military Commission, because the Commissioner of Arakan was the former king, who had now been relocated to Ava by the Imperial Grandson-heir Li Jicheng, Governor-General of Burma Military Affairs. Thus Luo Ke was the highest authority in Arakan, and both Chittagong and Mrauk U fell under his rule.

Although he had landed himself a fine posting, and one far from the war-clouded northern front at that, Luo Ke's brow remained furrowed.

"Luo Ke, are you still worried about the fighting in Shaanxi? I, the Imperial Grandson-heir, don't trouble myself over it — you're only the heir to a marquis, so what are you fretting about?"

Li Jicheng knew Luo Ke's heart was still in Shaanxi — in fact, he had been the same when he first arrived from Shaanxi! His body had reached Burma, but his heart remained in Shaanxi. Every day the moment he closed his eyes, what entered his dreams was Mount Qi, Mount Qiuchi, Wuzhang Plain, Heshang Plain, the Western Han River, the Baishui River, Lianghekou Town, Xigu City... every one of those place names was a memory carved into Li Jicheng's very bones, for he had fought in those places, and in those places he had buried his comrades and his enemies. In those places he had savored the joy of victory, and he had also wept in sorrow over defeat.

Luo Ke gave a bitter smile. "If Your Highness truly did not worry, why would you have stirred up so much here in Burma? You have even built a naval fleet..."

Li Jicheng, his private thoughts exposed, merely let out a soft breath. "Luo Ke, what do you think? Is all my bustling about in Burma in vain?"

Luo Ke sighed as well. "Whether it is in vain depends on what Your Highness wants." He lowered his voice. "If you wish to rule as king in this corner of Burma and preserve the Shun bloodline, then of course it is not in vain. But if Your Highness hopes to save the entire nation with the revenues from developing Burma..."

Li Jicheng's brow furrowed deeply. "Is the situation truly that dire?"

Luo Ke sighed again. "The Shaanxi front can still hold, for after so many years of fighting, every place is thick with forts, mountain strongholds, and passes — no one can break through easily. But our Shun's national strength is steadily draining away!"

"Surely it cannot be that bad?" Li Jicheng seemed unwilling to accept it. "The court has held on for so many years and pulled through, hasn't it? Now that Burma is beginning to yield some returns, surely that can help make up the shortfall?"

Luo Ke shook his head. "The land in Ba-Shu and Yunnan is nearly exhausted! These past few years land grants have grown tighter and tighter, and the court has also begun to strictly cap rents, forbidding the fubing households from collecting too much. I hear they are even going to implement a public-military rent-sharing reform... Many fubing households are already unable to make ends meet. If another share is given to the public treasury, I fear there will be mass bankruptcies!"

The Shun, after all, had its roots as a peasant regime. The first-generation elders were still around and still sympathized with the peasants, and they had also learned the lesson of Xiangyang Prefecture and Nanyang Prefecture being overthrown over land issues. Therefore, after entering Sichuan, the Shun regime had been very careful to protect peasant interests. At the start they had carried out equal-field land grants, leaving the peasants with about seventy percent of the land. Thus in the first decade after the Shun entered Sichuan, there had truly been something of a comfortable, modestly prosperous state of affairs.

But as the second-generation fubing gradually came of age and the long war of attrition between the Ming and the Shun began, the fubing's demand for land grew by the day, and the Shun court was forced to carry out a "second equal-field redistribution," taking land from the common people to support the fubing — though of course, the second equal-field redistribution was not simple plunder, but a land redistribution that took the people's capacity to bear it into account to the greatest possible extent.

The usual practice was to take with one hand and compensate with the other: take the people's mature fields and compensate them with virgin land; take the people's flat fields and compensate them with mountain land; take the people's Sichuan fields and compensate them with land in Burma. Moreover, the Shun court repeatedly issued strict edicts capping rents, fixing the upper limit of what fubing households could collect at thirty percent of the land's yield, while also forbidding the eviction of tenants.

Since the rent portion of the zu-yong-diao taxes collected by the Shun court also amounted to about twenty percent of the land's yield, the second equal-field redistribution was still bearable for the common people of Sichuan and Yunnan.

However, because fubing land paid no rent to the court, the more land the fubing occupied, the less revenue the court received. As the Shun's fubing households surpassed six hundred thousand, the Shun court's land-rent revenue was approaching exhaustion, and a Shun court that had lost its land rent had no way to sustain a long war. Left with no choice, the Shun court came up with the public-military rent-sharing scheme.

Of course, in name this public-military rent-sharing was not meant to take a share of the fubing households' income, but rather to collect an additional rent from the peasants who rented and farmed fubing land — in theory, ten percent of the yield per mu. Thirty percent plus ten percent made forty percent, and paying rent to the court also meant bearing the transport costs. The Shun's low-level officials would also "nibble" a bit, so the actual burden was somewhat higher still... The peasants under Shun rule were likely to suffer more and more.

Li Jicheng frowned. "The rent cap is to sustain the people. Without it, wouldn't the fubing households bleed the common folk dry? If soldiers drove the people to revolt, our Shun dynasty would face internal strife and external invasion at once!"

"As for the public-military rent-sharing, there was no alternative. A court this large must eat and spend, the front lines everywhere must be supplied with army grain, and the revenue from industry and commerce is still too small — the court can only collect another share from the peasants... If this expedition to India can yield something, the situation should improve."

"Hard, hard, hard!" Luo Ke said the word "hard" three times.

Li Jicheng looked at Luo Ke. "Hard? What's so hard? Are you worried that the landlords and corrupt officials of India won't be willing to contribute military funds — to rob, no, not rob — to contribute military funds?"

"That's not it," Luo Ke said, shaking his head. "Your Highness is certain to return laden with spoils this time, but... what the court lacks now is not gold and silver, but real, tangible grain and supplies!"

"India is so terribly far from Sichuan and Shaanxi — whatever funds the landlords and corrupt officials of India contribute could never be transported there!"

Li Jicheng laughed. "I've already thought of a solution. What we gain in India can be used to buy flintlock muskets from the Dutch. With flintlocks, our fubing may be able to crush Wu Sangui. If we can seize Shaanxi, our Shun's situation will open up!"

Hearing Li Jicheng say this, Luo Ke could only nod, though in his heart he did not quite agree with Li Jicheng's thinking.

The Shaanxi front was now thick with fortifications everywhere; it was simply not a situation that tens of thousands of flintlocks could break open.

Moreover, the main problem the Shun now faced was not military, but that the limited land of Sichuan and Yunnan simply could not support as many as six hundred thousand fubing households and the prolonged Ming-Shun war!

The foundation of the fubing system the Shun now practiced was supporting soldiers with land. If they could seize economically valuable land through war, then the fubing system could enter a virtuous cycle. But the problem now was that the Shun's enemy, the Great Ming, had already successfully revived, and had adopted a conservative strategy of holding firm, bottling the Shun up in the great mountains of Sichuan and Yunnan. And the prolonged war had caused the Shun's fubing to swell malignantly. If this went on, sooner or later they would swell until they burst!