Chapter 1290: Let's Go — Time to Rise in Revolt!

Niu Jie lifted the curtain of the four-wheeled carriage and glanced out through the glass window. The streets were full of vendors selling joy balls, fried dough nests, bean-skin wraps, hot dry noodles, and lard cakes.

The cries of hawkers, rising and falling, drifted into the carriage through the gaps around the window along with the enticing aromas of all kinds of food. Because this street led to the docks, it was extraordinarily bustling. Besides the food stalls, shops lined both sides of the street in tight rows, stretching all the way through the city gate and out to the South Dock beyond the walls. The street was crowded with pedestrians — half of them traveling merchants or residents of Jiangling who made their living around the South Dock, and the other half ragged refugees, supporting the old and leading the young.

That's right — refugees!

When Niu Jie saw these refugees, the corners of his mouth curled upward into a mocking smile.

What "Great Ming golden age," what "glorious Celestial Dynasty" — it's all surface glitter! Just look at these refugees who've lost their land, can't even become tenant farmers, and can only wander and beg to stay alive! Since ancient times, where has there ever been a golden age or Celestial Dynasty like this?

By the time the carriage neared the barbican of the South Gate, the refugees had grown into a vast sea of people, nearly filling the entire barbican. But they weren't blocking the road — after entering the barbican, they quickly dispersed to either side of the roadway.

Niu Jie, who had already been wandering around the Ming heartland for several months, knew these refugees were heading to the gruel kitchens to find food.

Gruel kitchens that distributed porridge to relieve the starving did exist in the Shun realm as well, but they were not common, not permanent, and never set up inside cities. Instead, they were established in the countryside during famines. Usually, the local garrison-farm gentry of the stricken district took the lead, contributing some of their own grain and requesting a bit of relief rice from the authorities, then cooked and distributed porridge in the villages and towns to give the hungry a way to survive.

But here in the Ming, the gruel kitchens were mostly set up in the cities, and they were permanent. Whether or not there was a famine, and whether or not those coming to beg were actually starving, as long as you were ragged and filthy enough, you could get a bowl of thin gruel. But you couldn't take it away — you had to finish it on the spot, in front of the petty official distributing it.

Jiangling's gruel kitchens were set up in the two barbicans south of the city. Small gates had been opened on either side of the barbicans specifically for the hungry to leave by — after finishing their gruel, they were not allowed to linger, could not rejoin the queue, and had to leave immediately. The Jiangling county authorities had also installed many wooden railings outside the gruel kitchens, partitioning off numerous one-way lanes, so the queue for gruel was very orderly.

And after leaving the barbican through the small gates, it was not easy to circle back and rejoin the queue. The small gates only let people out, not in, and the main entrances of the barbicans were guarded by Jingzhou Prefecture's local troops (the Jingzhou Prefecture regional army), who would not let ragged refugees enter the city — refugees could only enter through Jiangling's East Gate.

In the eastern part of Jiangling, in a corner of the old Jiangling princely city, a "refugee camp" had been built specifically to house refugees. After the able-bodied refugees left to seek food, petty officials from Jiangling County would go into the camp and distribute gruel to the elderly and sick who couldn't move easily.

Also, inside the barbican east of Jiangling, there were quite a few shops run by colonial trading firms, all of them swindling people into going south to the Nanyang and on to Xinzhou — every one of them black-hearted, always pressuring people into signing three- or five-year indenture contracts!

Oh, and there were also ways to get money from the colonial trading firms! If a refugee family had an unmarried daughter or a widowed young woman, and was willing to let her go to Xinzhou to marry, they could get a sum of money. Depending on age and looks, the payment varied — the most could reach over a hundred taels.

But Niu Jie was highly skeptical of this. A hundred taels to "buy" a girl and ship her to Xinzhou — how much would they have to charge to "marry her off" and still turn a profit? At least five hundred taels, surely? Who would buy? Would a man who could spend five hundred taels of silver on a wife be so desperate that he'd go to the United Provinces of Xinzhou to scrape out a living? Could there really be mountains of gold and silver there?

So these human traffickers must be selling decent girls off to brothels and pleasure houses!

The Ming authorities really are utterly useless — they won't even bother with such blatant human trafficking and the abduction of respectable women!

"Young Master Li, we've reached the docks!"

By this time, the carriage Niu Jie was riding in had stopped outside Jiangling's South Dock.

The driver was also an undercover agent of the Shun dynasty, attached to the Shun Ministry of Revenue's Trade Bureau — an office founded by Gu Junen that handled both foreign trade and intelligence gathering!

Niu Jie climbed out of the carriage and looked around. He spotted a merchant vessel flying the Shunfeng Trading Company's banner already moored at the dock.

The backer behind the Shunfeng Trading Company was none other than the Shun Ministry of Revenue's Trade Bureau, and it had branch offices throughout the Jing-Chu region.

Niu Jie, dressed as a wealthy squire, strode quickly forward. Two men dressed as sailors came up to meet him and blocked his path.

Niu Jie cupped his hands in salute, then patted his left chest with his right hand and said with a smile, "May the boss prosper, smooth sailing, and wealth pour in! I am Li Yijie of the South Seas — my respects!"

"So it's Young Master Li," one of the sailors said, returning the salute with a fist-cup and then patting his right chest with his left hand. "Has the young master come to Jiangling to study or to do business?"

Niu Jie said, "I've come to visit a friend."

The sailor asked, "May I ask where your honored friend resides?"

Niu Jie said, "Hulin District of Jingzhou Prefecture... might I be able to catch a ride on your favorable wind?"

"What a coincidence — our sand-ship happens to pass right by Hulin District."

"Then I'll be imposing on you!" Niu Jie cupped his hands again. "The fare is negotiable."

"Please come aboard!" The sailor made a gesture of welcome and then led Niu Jie onto the ship.

Inside the cabin, ten men around his age, dressed either as merchants or scholars, were already waiting. When they saw Niu Jie enter, they all turned to look at him.

"I am Li Yijie. Greetings to all you brothers."

Everyone stood up and saluted Niu Jie with cupped fists: "Greetings, Young Master Li."

Niu Jie smiled, then strode over to an empty chair placed at the head of the room and sat down with an air of authority. Then he waved at the ten men in the cabin. "Sit, all of you sit."

Once everyone was seated, Niu Jie's face turned serious. "Tell me, all of you — how many good men have you contacted?"

A burly man with a full beard, a high nose, and deep-set eyes said, "Young Master Li, we've already made contact with five or six thousand good men!"

"That many?" Niu Jie was taken aback.

"Young Master Li may not know," the bearded man said, "but there are a great many refugees in the Jing-Chu region these days, and the Zhu court has been lax in controlling them. So many refugees have banded together into gangs and societies. We only need to win over a few gang leaders and society heads, and we can gather hundreds or even thousands of good men. We've contacted five gang leaders and society heads — altogether they can muster two thousand able-bodied men!"

Another man, a middle-aged scholar type, added, "Besides winning over gang leaders and society heads, our Shun also has a foundation in the Jingzhou Prefecture area. Back in the day, we held out for quite a few years in the mountain valleys around Badong and Guizhou.

Though we couldn't hold on in the end, we only lowered our banners and silenced our drums — the Zhu thieves never rooted us out completely. The Trade Bureau's people have been secretly maintaining contact with them all along, and now is the perfect time to mobilize them. They can also provide over a thousand able-bodied men."

The Ming court's control over the countryside cannot compare to the Shun court's — the latter has six hundred thousand garrison-farm households spread throughout the villages!

In the Ming, most counties and the areas below them enjoy considerable autonomy. As long as taxes are paid in full, the court doesn't interfere much — and couldn't manage to even if it wanted to.

Only in important places like Yingtian, Wuhan, Shanghai, Yangzhou, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Huai'an, Tianjin, Tianhe (Yingkou), and Lüshun does the court's control over the countryside remain relatively strong.

A fat man dressed as a merchant also spoke up: "Within the Shunfeng Trading Company there are also men from our Trade Bureau — no fewer than a thousand who can fight. Every one of them has a musket and chainmail, and they can serve as the backbone!"

These thousand-odd men were all elites selected by the Trade Bureau from the garrison-farm households of Chongqing Prefecture and Kunming Prefecture. They had undergone special training before being sent into the Ming — not only were they highly skilled in martial arts, they were also extremely reliable!

A man in his thirties dressed as a fortune-teller continued, "We've also recruited some poor fellows locally around Tiger Tooth Mountain, and we've brought in a fallen great clan as well. That's another thousand-odd able-bodied men — five thousand in total is no problem."

"Has the Zhu Ming authorities noticed anything?" Niu Jie asked. "The Zhu emperor is in Wuhan right now — there must be plenty of Embroidered Uniform Guard and Eastern Depot agents in the Jing-Chu region, no?"

"Young Master Li, rest assured," the bearded man who had spoken first said with a laugh. "We've been very careful in our work. The Zhu thieves' running dogs haven't noticed a thing."

"Excellent!" Niu Jie clapped his hands with a smile. "Then let's set out! To Tiger Tooth Mountain — raise the banner and make some real trouble!"

(End of Chapter)