Chapter 1265: Why Is There Still a Westward Advance?!

Kunming City.

As the wet season of the seventeenth year of Gongzhi in Yunnan was drawing to a close, a great rain seemed to blanket the entire southern frontier of the Shun Empire. Around the prefectural city of Kunming, too, all was the patter of rain.

North of Kunming, in the Valley of the Prince of Jin not far from Wuhua Mountain, within a modest and very plain residence, Li Dingguo, just returned to his Kunming mansion, sat draped in a white cotton robe, his gaze distant, watching the steam rise and shift from a cup of scalding Pu'er tea before him.

From outside the window came the sound of rain beating on the eaves, each drop in disorder, vexing to the heart.

This Prince of Jin, one of the Shun's eight deliberative princes, had only arrived outside Kunming at noon today. He had not gone at once to Wuhua Mountain to kowtow before Li Guo's coffin and pay respects to the new sovereign, but instead pleaded the fatigue of travel and went to his own residence outside the city. At this moment, he first had to meet with his three sworn brothers and properly discuss their strategy and way forward — he must not toil bitterly for half a lifetime only to end up with nothing!

In Li Dingguo's ears rang Sun Kewang's somewhat hoarse voice: "Fourth Brother, when you meet the new sovereign tomorrow, don't bring up the soaring prices. No one wants to hear that now, because everyone who can stand in the court has a vast estate at home; their own rice, flour, pigs, and sheep are more than they can eat, so why would they need to buy from outside? As for the brocade robes and fine clothes they wear, those are all made of top-grade Shu brocade — what harm if they cost a little more?"

Li Dingguo started as if waking from a dream, looked up in astonishment, and saw the three visiting princes: Sun Kewang, Liu Wenxiu, and Ai Nengqi.

These three deliberative princes were all getting on in years now. The eldest, Sun Kewang, had even caught a chill, and his voice was a little hoarse. But what he said was still very much to the point!

The rise in prices in Kunming and indeed throughout the Shun realm was, for the people at the Shun court, more beneficial than harmful.

Because the inflation within the Shun was caused by a surplus of gold and silver, and gold and silver are ultimately finite — how far can a surplus go? So the inflation would not run out of control.

Hyperinflation has no winners, but limited inflation does have winners — for instance, the Shun's eight deliberative princes are the winners!

The Shun did have land equalization, but that does not mean the Shun had no large landowners!

The Shun was a feudal state, after all — how could it possibly be completely equal? Even within the ruling fubing landlord class itself, the gap between rich and poor was enormous. The most ordinary fubing household held land amounting only to "forty shi" — roughly thirty or forty mu of paddy fields or a hundred mu of dry fields. But the Crown Prince, the Imperial Grandson, and the Eight Princes at the very top held as much as eighty thousand shi! And that was only the amount of land they were permitted to hold by regulation; in practice their holdings were only ever more, never less.

And the princes, marquises, generals, and ministers who held vast tracts of land were in fact suppliers, not consumers, of essential commodities such as rice, flour, pork, mutton, oil, tea, and homespun cloth.

Moreover, the Shun's "harmonious purchase system" had no force over them; no one could compel them to sell their stocks at low prices, so rising prices meant, for them, greater profits!

In addition, this group of princes, marquises, generals, and ministers had also shared out great quantities of gold and silver from the "India income." Their pockets were stuffed full of Indian silver and Indian gold — who among them would still oppose marching south?

"Three elder brothers, you all approve of the southern advance?" Li Dingguo asked, his gaze fixed on the Prince of Tang, Liu Wenxiu.

Among Zhang Xianzhong's four adopted sons, Sun Kewang had the talent of a chancellor, Ai Nengqi the talent of a general, Li Dingguo the talent of a Regional Commander, while the one most skilled at planning the grand strategy was the military counselor Liu Wenxiu.

Thus in the Shun's eight-prince deliberative system, Sun Kewang formed a team with Niu Jinxing and Gu Junen and was in effect the Shun's chancellor. Ai Nengqi was long stationed in Chengdu, serving as the all-fronts reinforcement commissioner, while also responsible for overawing Ü-Tsang. Liu Wenxiu, together with Song Xiance, presided over the Shun's military council, planning from the center.

Liu Wenxiu shook his head gently and said: "The southern advance is certain. The Crown Prince (Li Jicheng) made a fortune in India, and naturally everyone is envious. So the southern advance is the general trend and cannot be stopped."

"Last time the Indians were caught off guard, which was why the Crown Prince succeeded. How could there be such a great opportunity next time?" Li Dingguo still would not give up, hoping to persuade Liu Wenxiu.

Liu Wenxiu said: "The Indian coast is long and inherently hard to defend, and the realm is full of rival lords fighting one another — there is ample opportunity to exploit. With the Crown Prince's skill in war and the elite quality of the long-campaign fubing, there is ample opportunity to exploit!"

"The Zhu emperor has already moved to Wuhan, proclaiming that he will personally lead the campaign, and is about to invade in force. Advancing south at this moment will surely unsettle people's hearts — advancing south is making a fortune; defending the north is fighting for one's life!"

Li Dingguo raised another argument, and this time he spoke the plain truth.

A northern offensive did not actually exist; the purpose of his operations in Shaanxi was to defend the north — to hold the Qinling mountains and block the Ming armies that wanted to push south.

Liu Wenxiu countered: "If we defend the north with all our strength, can we be certain of holding?"

"That..." Li Dingguo hesitated.

He was the Regional Commander on the Shaanxi front, and he knew full well how desperately difficult the fighting was!

Setting aside the fact that the Shun army's combat strength was inferior to the Ming army's, the logistical difficulties were also growing ever greater, so supplies for the frontline troops were extremely tight. Moreover, most of the fubing serving in Shaanxi were in a state of "loss" — the silver and coin issued by the court, plus the income from their own land, was no longer enough to cover their military service and their ever-growing household expenses.

Sun Kewang sighed and said: "Our Shun's fubing system cannot be sustained for long. The current 600,000 fubing households have nearly eaten Sichuan dry, and yet they still cannot eat their fill. And these 600,000 households must still multiply and thrive — what is to be done in the future? Not let the surplus males enlist? Then who feeds the surplus males? And if we keep expanding the fubing, where is the land?"

The fubing system at first glance seems an ideal military system — supporting soldiers with land, keeping troops among the people. But once actually put into use, one discovers its fatal flaw.

That fatal flaw is the constant need to acquire land that can yield returns without heavy investment. The idea of handing the uncultivated virgin lands of the northwest, Mongolia, and the Southern Seas to war-minded fubing to develop is merely a beautiful fantasy.

Because developing virgin land requires great investment and carries great risk; large-scale losses are inevitable. Of course, some will manage well and grow rich. But both the fubing who lose their capital and those who grow rich will alike become unable to continue serving.

Therefore, for the Shun fubing, the most ideal direction of expansion was still Shaanxi and Huguang — directly seizing already-cultivated land to become military landlords, with low risk and stable returns.

But they simply could not defeat the Great Ming.

Sun Kewang said: "Fourth Brother, India seems to have a great deal of already-cultivated land!"

"Eldest Brother, you want the fubing to go to India?" Li Dingguo was taken aback. "Isn't that running away?"

"Running away?" Sun Kewang frowned deeply. "How is that running away? Third Brother, would you call this running away?"

Ai Nengqi was a tiger of a general, who had many times led fubing levied from the Chengdu plain north into Shaanxi to support Li Dingguo, and he felt the hardship of the northern front deeply. He shook his head at once and said: "What running or not running? Back in the day we followed the Old Ten Thousand Years across the realm — where did we not go?"

"Third Brother, you also support the southern advance?" Li Dingguo asked.

Ai Nengqi shook his head and said: "I do not support the southern advance, nor do I oppose it."

"Then what about going north?"

"I do not support it!" Ai Nengqi still shook his head.

"Then you still want the southern advance..."

Liu Wenxiu, at the side, interjected: "Third Brother has proposed a westward strategy! Eldest Brother and I think it is good, and we wanted to discuss it with you today."

"Westward?" Li Dingguo asked. "Westward to where?"

"Westward to the high plateau!" Ai Nengqi said. "The snow plateau lies right against our Shun's western border. The terrain is precipitous, but the troops there are very weak. When I was in Chengdu, I sent troops many times to fight the Ü-Tsang forces, and won every battle with very few casualties. I also heard from captured Mongols that the great lama of Ü-Tsang is regarded by the Mongols as a deity — whoever seizes the great lama can command all the Mongol tribes!"

Liu Wenxiu added: "We have been thinking that if we could send twenty or thirty thousand elite troops westward to seize Ü-Tsang, and then invite the great lama to Yunnan, we might be able to form an alliance with the four Mongol states of the Dzungars, Tumed, Chahar, and Khoshut — and then the whole board would come alive!"

(End of Chapter)