Chapter 1333: Three Parts Military, Seven Parts Examinations (Requesting Monthly Tickets)

A most unusual imperial military conference was convened aboard the riverboat bound for Yiling Prefecture — besides an Emperor, a Prince, and several high ministers, there were also a Crown Princess and a Princess Consort listening in and taking minutes. Truly something unheard of since ancient times.

"Your Majesty," Vice Military Advisor Wu Guoyong spoke first, "the Field Headquarters Staff Office received reports from Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan this morning: Yong'an City, Qutang Pass, the Xi Mouth, Xiama Ford, and Wushan City in Kuizhou Prefecture have all been recovered. The Qutang Gorge has been opened, and the army can advance along the river at any time and take up station in Yong'an.

However, the city walls and official lodgings at Yong'an City, Qutang Pass, the Xi Mouth, Xiama Ford, Wushan City, and the other places have all been put to the torch, and the surrounding countryside has been stripped bare by the roving bandits. The Field Headquarters Staff Office believes that grain and fodder must still be raised through multiple channels, and civilian laborers conscripted to repair the city walls and official lodgings, before we can welcome Your Majesty's presence."

Zhu Cilang smiled, noncommittal, then turned his gaze to the Minister of Works, Zheng Sen.

The repair of city walls, roads, harbors, canals, river dikes, irrigation channels, and other such great public works now all fell under the Ministry of Works. Yet the construction of palaces and imperial tombs was not the Ministry of Works' responsibility — the imperial house handled such projects by its own means. As for armaments, textiles and dyeing, and the manufacture of sundry goods, none of those belonged to the Ministry of Works anymore.

Armaments were mainly contracted out for purchase by the Ministry of War and the Navy Ministry respectively, and both the Ministry of War and the Navy Ministry had their own arsenals and shipyards, with no need for the Ministry of Works to interfere.

Moreover, the Ministry of Works, which managed so many great public works, did not itself maintain a huge construction force, but instead contracted projects out through market-based bidding.

The Ministry of Works' own personnel consisted of the officials and master craftsmen responsible for design, supervision, and acceptance of projects, as well as the officials responsible for managing "Ministry of Works assets" in various regions — that is, engineering projects invested in by the Ministry of Works or operated and maintained under its responsibility.

This time Zheng Sen had brought along a team composed of master craftsmen, officials, and some Ministry of Works suppliers, following Emperor Zhu on his western campaign.

Seeing Emperor Zhu's inquiring gaze, Zheng Sen frowned with some difficulty and said, "Your Majesty, the civilian laborers accompanying the army from Huguang are few. If the damage to the city walls and official lodgings at Yong'an City, Qutang Pass, the Xi Mouth, Xiama Ford, Wushan City, and the other places is too severe, I fear they will be hard to repair in a short time."

Zhu Cilang said, "We can conscript Sichuan men!"

Zheng Sen shook his head. "We are strangers in an unfamiliar land — who knows whether we can conscript anyone? And before the roving bandits withdrew, they carried out a massive pillaging of eastern Kuizhou Prefecture. I fear supplies there are desperately scarce and prices exorbitant; even with money, it will be hard to hire people!"

Zhu Cilang glanced again at Shi Kefa.

Shi Kefa said, "Your Majesty, the Grand Secretariat long ago ordered Shizhou Guard to prepare 200,000 shi of rice and grain at Jiannan Division as a reserve, ready to be shipped to Kuizhou Prefecture at any time. Moreover, Shizhou Guard produces rice in abundance; the various stations and forts within its territory all have large stores of grain that can be sold to the court. At the very least, the army entering Kuizhou will not go hungry."

Shizhou Guard was a fine place. Not only did it have many fertile valleys, but the tension between people and land was relatively mild, so the local military-household magnates could accumulate large quantities of grain — Shizhou Guard's transport was not very convenient, and places not near the Qing River waterway found it hard to ship goods out, so the local strongmen were accustomed to storing grain rather than hauling it to Jingzhou Prefecture for sale. Now they could sell it to Emperor Zhu at a high price.

Shi Kefa continued, "As for civilian laborers — the Sichuan people have long suffered under the roving bandits and have long been craning their necks in expectation of the imperial army. If the court can soothe and win them over properly, they can be turned to our use. It is just that..."

Just how were they to be soothed and won over?

The Shun dynasty's governance of Sichuan had actually been fairly successful. Its present failure was not a failure of governance, but of "bursting from overfullness" — because Sichuan had not experienced prolonged, bloody warfare before the Shun occupied it (Sichuan had seen tusi rebellions from the Tianqi era all the way into the Chongzhen era, but the casualties had not been great), and because both the Shun and the Xi had brought large numbers of Shaanxi people (and some Huguang people) into Sichuan, Sichuan's population density in the early Hongxing years was already comparable to that of the Ming's core territory, the eight southeastern provinces.

Moreover, the Shun's "equalization" reforms were even more conducive to sustaining people — in the early period of the Shun's entry into Sichuan, because there were only a little over 200,000 military-farm households, they did not swallow up all the land in Sichuan, and therefore many Sichuan peasants also benefited from the land-equalization movement. The entire direction of the reform was, in fact, the equal division of land.

And the equal division of land was undoubtedly the best means of promoting population growth — some believed that equal division of land could cultivate a rural market, but in practice this proved a failure. Because after the equal division of land, the peasants' reproductive demand was enormously unleashed (similar situations occurred in later ages; in the early 1950s, China's population growth rate was astonishingly fast), and the increased grain was first used to feed the newly added population, and only then exchanged with the cities.

Under Shun rule, Sichuan likewise experienced rapid population growth, and the rapidly growing population further intensified an already severe tension between people and land. The expansion of the Shun military-farm households in turn pushed the numerous Sichuan people toward the opposite camp.

Now it was Zhu Cilang's turn to deal with Sichuan's surplus population!

Because Sichuan's population was now too large, even if all the land in the province were divided equally, each person would get only about one mu and a fraction — at best, bare subsistence.

But the problem was that Zhu Cilang also had a group of landlords on his side who wanted to launch a counterattack and settle scores!

A great many men in the Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan army came from the old Sichuan landlord class. Although these fellows were not much good in a fight, they had toiled hard if not brilliantly, and Zhu Cilang had to look after their interests. At the very least, one-third of Sichuan's land had to be allocated to them; only the remainder could be divided equally.

Of course, getting a bit of land was better than getting none — but once large numbers of Ming troops entered Sichuan, the Sichuan people would again be required to provide grain, fodder, and civilian labor, which would only deepen the Sichuan people's suffering!

Furthermore, over the past twenty years the Sichuan people had suffered under the military-farm households, but they had not yet suffered under the capitalist market! The capitalist market was a flood and a savage beast, and it would very quickly teach these people, who had lived stable lives under the Shun's strict rule, what capital's ferocity was, and what was meant by "no merchant is not a swindler."

"It is just that the Sichuan people need opportunities to climb upward!" Zhu Cilang said with a smile, taking up Shi Kefa's words. "The roving bandits took the Shaanxi people as their base, and the Sichuan people were firmly pressed down at the bottom, unable to move. People always overestimate themselves and underestimate difficulties, and the Sichuan people are no exception. So among the Sichuan people oppressed by the Shaanxi people, there are bound to be many who believe their talents go unrecognized... and we should let them see opportunities to climb upward. Then they will work for us. Once we have usable Sichuan people, pacifying Sichuan will not be difficult."

"Imperial Father," interjected Zhu Hehao, the Local Tyrant Prince, "what sort of people count as usable Sichuan people?"

Zhu Cilang laughed. "We do not know. But We do know how to find them."

"How does Imperial Father intend to find them?"

Zhu Cilang uttered two words: "Examinations!"

Examinations again!?

Ding Yuying, who was bent over taking notes, felt her heart tremble when she heard those two words — it was precisely because of examinations that she had been selected from among the common people by Emperor Zhu and given a seemingly glorious future. But in order to obtain that future, she now had to toil like an ox or horse for the Zhu family, working day and night without rest, and still had to study a great pile of subjects, and did not dare to study them poorly.

Emperor Zhu stroked his beard and said smugly, "This entry into Sichuan is three parts military and seven parts examinations. We must use examinations to find those among the Sichuan people who are willing to get things done and can get things done for us. With them running about, raising supplies, and soothing the common people on our behalf, our affairs will be easy to handle. Then there will be civilian laborers, and there will be grain!"

So examinations could serve such a purpose!

Ding Yuying thought to herself: The imperial examinations have been held for nearly a thousand years, from the Sui dynasty to the present, and only you, Imperial Father, have managed to turn them into something this elaborate.

"Imperial Father," Zhu Hehao still could not understand, "how can a single examination make the capable men of Sichuan willing to work steadfastly for us?"

Zhu Cilang suddenly glanced back at his treasured daughter-in-law Ding Yuying and said with a smile, "One examination will not do. We must make them take examination after examination... We cannot give all the benefits at once. We must dole them out little by little, and test them time and again!"

(End of Chapter)