Chapter 1260: No More Doing Business in Peace!

"How could it not be banned?" Zhu Cilang said with a smile. "We are the Emperor, and Our word carries the weight of nine cauldrons. Wouldn't a few imperial edicts to the Guangxi Provincial Military Command, the Xichuan Military Governorship, the Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan Governor-General's Office, the Hubei Provincial Military Command, and also to Changbo's Sichuan-Shaanxi Governor-General's Office be enough?"

Would that really be enough?

Wu Sangui and Wu Sanfu, the two brothers, both found it hard to believe.

The trade routes with the roving bandits had been running for twenty years. In places like Guangxi, Xichuan, and Guizhou, who knew how many local strongmen and officials had grown rich on trade with the roving bandits. Even Huguang, where the Great Ming's western capital was located, had plenty of treacherous merchants and corrupt officials doing business with the roving bandits.

And the biggest treacherous merchant of them all was the Great Ming Royal Chamber of Commerce!

How could such a thing possibly be banned?

Zhu Cilang smiled. "You needn't worry. That little bit of trade with the roving bandits — We can ban it with a few edicts. Because Our Great Ming now has no shortage of honest and capable officials!"

The Great Ming did of course have honest officials — it always had! There were some when the Chongzhen Emperor held power, and after Zhu Cilang took the throne and cleaned up the bureaucracy, there were even more honest and incorruptible officials.

But one thing was certain: the Great Ming still had a great many corrupt officials.

How could a semi-feudal, semi-capitalist society possibly have no corrupt officials? Zhu Cilang had lived two lives, and his mental age had long since passed sixty. He was certainly not naive enough to believe his own realm was truly one of clear seas and tranquil rivers, with heaven and earth all bright and pure.

So he never pursued absolute incorruptibility in the Great Ming bureaucracy — it simply could not be done, and there was no need for it. Because in a society of scarce wealth, pursuing absolute incorruptibility meant paying a very considerable price.

First, draconian laws and harsh punishments!

Second, suppression of private industry and commerce!

And Zhu Cilang's method looked, on the surface, extremely "ineffective": he used corrupt officials on the one hand, and arrested corrupt officials on the other. Officials went about their corruption with the utmost caution, while the Censorate racked its brains to catch them.

So at present, there were indeed no corrupt officials in the Great Ming who dared to brazenly line their pockets, but officials who were truly as pure as water were also very rare.

Under this cat-and-mouse coexistence in officialdom, trying to plug the western smuggling channels that had existed for twenty years (and that the Ming court had permitted to exist) was extremely difficult.

Moreover, the present provinces of Guangxi and Guizhou were not "fully direct-administered provinces" — only when all prefectures (directly administered prefectures), subprefectures, commissions, and guards were under the jurisdiction of the governor's office and the court could a place be called a "fully direct-administered province." When only some prefectures (directly administered prefectures), subprefectures, commissions, and guards were controlled by the governor's office and the court, it was called a semi-direct-administered province.

Guangxi and Guizhou were semi-direct-administered provinces. In Guangxi, the border ran along Liuzhou Prefecture and Nanning Prefecture: east of that line (including Liuzhou and Nanning) was under the jurisdiction of the Guangxi governor's office and the court. West of it was under the jurisdiction of the Guangxi Provincial Military Command — in practice, a military governorship controlled by the Guangxi Military Commander Jin Shenghuan, only without the formal title of a Military Governorship.

Of course, Jin Shenghuan was not a man whose every word was law even within his half of Guangxi. Because within Guangxi there had always been a great many tusi chieftain regimes, and Jin Shenghuan could not possibly wipe them all out. He could only get along with them as best he could.

And the smuggling trade with the Shun had always been a source of wealth for Jin Shenghuan and the Guangxi tusi chieftains.

As for Guizhou, Xichuan (the military governorship), and the Shizhou Guard, Yongshun Commission, and Baojing Commission in Huguang (Hubei and Hunan), the situation was much the same: the local semi-independent tusi chieftains all had business dealings with the Shun court.

To make these long-accustomed-to-freedom local emperors obediently fall in line with just a few imperial edicts was almost impossible — not that these local emperors would dare openly defy the Son of Heaven of the Great Ming, but they would play the game of feigned compliance while secretly resisting.

Still, the two Wu brothers did not dare tell Emperor Zhu that the Great Ming still had many corrupt officials — because the two of them were not exactly clean either. If the censors really looked into them, they would certainly be caught as well.

"Your Majesty, this subject believes that to cut off the roving bandits' trade routes, the only way is to set up checkpoints layer upon layer, supplemented by draconian laws and harsh punishments."

"Your Majesty, this subject believes we must send out the investigating censors in force, strictly investigating the provinces of Guangxi, Hubei, and Guizhou, so that every official in every place is put on alert!"

"The problem now is that those autonomous military governorships, regional military commissions, and guard commissions are not easy to manage. The Censorate can only investigate officials directly under the Son of Heaven; it cannot investigate the enfeoffed lords of a region. We would have to send the Embroidered Uniform Guard to arrest people."

"The Embroidered Uniform Guard cannot easily make arrests either. Those people all have troops and commanders. We would have to send in the Kenan New Army!"

"But that would mean war. Is it really appropriate to start hostilities over such a small matter?"

"Indeed. Those tusi territories are all places of high mountains and treacherous waters. If they were brought under direct court administration, we would probably lose quite a bit of money on them, and they would still be very hard to govern well."

East Lake Palace, Chongzheng Hall — Zhu Cilang was holding the regular joint court session of the two offices here.

Unlike the scale of his previous visit to Wuhan Prefecture, this time Emperor Zhu had made plans for a long stay in Wuhan Prefecture, and had moved the entire court there. He had also ordered the construction, on a site within East Lake Palace some distance from the water's edge, of an office building combining Chinese and Western styles, named Chongzheng Hall, to serve as his place for handling affairs and holding court sessions within East Lake Palace.

At today's court session, a group of senior ministers from the two offices had begun arguing over how to cut off the roving bandits' trade routes.

The argument went on until, in the end, it somehow drifted to the topic of replacing tusi chieftains with regular officials.

Zhu Cilang's court had little interest in replacing tusi chieftains with regular officials — Emperor Zhu liked to keep economic accounts, and the court officials he employed were all good at keeping accounts too. They of course knew that large-scale replacement of tusi chieftains with regular officials was, for the court, a money-losing business.

Moreover, after replacing tusi chieftains with regular officials, the money-losing government offices the court dispatched would have far less control over those areas than the original tusi chieftains had. One careless move could provoke popular uprisings — truly a case of the loss outweighing the gain.

So as soon as someone raised the matter, the court hall gradually fell silent, and everyone turned their eyes toward Zhu Cilang.

"Replacing tusi chieftains with regular officials — let's drop that," Zhu Cilang said with a smile. "We simply don't want them to do business comfortably. We have no interest in governing those regions on behalf of the tusi chieftains."

He paused, swept his gaze around the room, taking in the expressions of all the senior ministers, then said with a smile: "The Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Kenan New Army must certainly be sent. Without a blade at their backs, those people won't know fear. But We have always ruled with both might and favor. The blade must be held to their necks, but the fruit must also be brought to their lips. Those who don't know their place will have their heads cut off; those who do will still be given some benefits."

"Your Majesty," Zheng Zhilong, the Minister of Revenue, quickly asked, "where are these benefits You wish to give out supposed to come from? The Ministry of Revenue has little spare money!"

The Ministry of Revenue of course had money! But Zheng Zhilong, as usual, had to plead poverty. He could not let anyone know how deep the Ministry of Revenue's coffers really were, or else the number of people reaching out for money would multiply.

Zhu Cilang nodded repeatedly. "Of course the money cannot come from the Ministry of Revenue! The Ministry of Revenue's funds have long been budgeted — one radish, one hole; they cannot be spent recklessly.

Besides, the Sichuan we are going to recover this time is known as the Land of Abundance. How much fertile land does the Land of Abundance have?"

He was scheming about Sichuan land bonds again!

The ministers present understood immediately. Sichuan had been fallen for twenty years, and the local powers had long since been brought to heel by the roving bandits. Those who had fled in time and escaped being brought to heel had also been impoverished for twenty years, and had long since lost their former strength.

"At least fifty million mu, of which about fifteen million mu is paddy fields!" Chief Grand Secretary Wei Zaode immediately said. "During the roving bandits' years in Sichuan, they surveyed the land at least eight times, and every last bit has been thoroughly recorded. Moreover, these lands do not belong to the Sichuan people — they were granted to the roving bandits' so-called garrison militia. These garrison militiamen are all bandits, so when the court recovers Sichuan, their lands will of course be confiscated. Some of this land has original owners, and should naturally be returned. But the land registered in Sichuan originally amounted to only a bit over ten million mu, much of which was official land or equal-field land. Even the privately owned land may not have title deeds to prove ownership. So in the end, the land available for distribution is at least forty million mu."

Zhu Cilang nodded with a smile. "With these forty million mu, are We still afraid We cannot command the troops of the various garrisons? The priority now is sealing off the trade routes and communications! The Ministry of War and the Grand Marshal's Office are to draft a plan: how many land bonds will be needed to placate the frontline garrisons, and how many mounted guards and New Army troops must be dispatched to overawe the disloyal — all of this must be planned. Also, the land bonds given to the frontline garrisons are all to be promissory notes, not permitted to be traded on the market. They must wait until Sichuan is recovered before they can be exchanged for actual bonds!"

(End of Chapter)