Chapter 1343: Men Tilling, Women Weaving — There's Danger! (Seeking Subscriptions)

After making a large circuit through the Shizhu countryside, even a simple lad like Zhu Hexing had begun to notice that the Sichuan under twenty years of roving-bandit rule was vastly different from the Ming southeast he was more familiar with!

One might even say the Ming southeast and Sichuan belonged to two entirely different eras!

The Ming southeast was already a bustling semi-capitalist, semi-feudal society, where the movement of people, goods, and capital was quite free, with very little regulation.

Moreover, the people of the southeast had grown accustomed to such movement — accustomed to leaving the fields for the cities when farming failed, and if things went poorly in the city, moving on to a larger one to seek opportunity, and if that truly did not work, crossing the seas to make their fortune. And the vassal states and garrison colonies the Celestial Empire had established in the New World and the Southern Seas had now become a pressure-release valve for the social tensions of the Ming southeast!

In the relatively free villages and cities of the Ming southeast, failure and success were equally common — whether in study, farming, learning a trade, or doing business, there were those who did well and those who did poorly, those who were lucky and those who were not. And those who were especially unsuccessful and especially unlucky could in the end still go to the New World or the Southern Seas to make a living, and perhaps return home in glory. It was precisely because this opportunity existed (and the odds of turning one's fortunes around were not low) that the society of the Ming southeast could remain stable through the intensely competitive yet unprotected early stage of capitalism.

In fact, the same phenomenon existed in contemporary Europe — colonies were not only sources of raw materials and markets for goods, but also a vent for releasing the pressure of class contradictions at home. Without such a vent, England, with its "sheep eating men" and its various sects persecuting one another, would have been fighting civil wars every day — how could it have developed any capitalism?

Yet even with this pressure-release valve in place, it did not mean the situation in the Ming southeast was as stable as Mount Tai. Large-scale popular uprisings had not been seen for many years, but small-scale disturbances and all manner of underworld forces still persisted over the long term and were difficult to root out.

Furthermore, this balance in the southeast — where free competition generated contradictions that were then exported overseas — had not been established overnight. It had evolved over a long period, taking shape step by step, and had not reached its current state in just one or two moves.

Here in Sichuan, however, twenty years of feudal rule under the Shun dynasty and its policy of "all profit through a single channel" had caused the original sprouts of capitalism to vanish entirely. Even commercial circulation between prefectures was firmly controlled by the Shun's Revenue Government, and commercial activity within one's own prefecture or county was likewise under the strict management of each prefecture's Section Office. As for the movement of people, it was subjected to exceptionally severe restrictions!

And this kind of control had become a part of life for the people of Sichuan!

One could say that under the Shun dynasty's rule, Sichuan's economic life had nearly reverted to that of the early Ming. The people of Sichuan were therefore thoroughly unaccustomed to the free movement of people and goods!

In the old house of the Li Jinxue family, Zhu Hexing and Ding Yuying saw the homespun cloth woven by Li Jinxue's grandmother and a broken-down spinning wheel.

Li Fengshi (Li Jinxue's grandmother) had already gone to Shizhu city to "enjoy her old age," while the spinning wheel and hemp cloth had been forcibly kept in the old house by Li Jinxue — he did not wish his grandmother to have labored all her life, so he would not let her carry those things down the mountain.

"What kind of cloth is this?" Ding Yuying, being the more observant of the two, spotted the homespun cloth sitting on a wooden stand in the corner at a glance while they rested briefly in the dilapidated thatched cottage.

A guardsman of the Imperial Guard immediately picked up the roll of grayish-white homespun cloth and handed it to Ding Yuying. She took it and examined it carefully, finding it extremely coarse — it did not look like cotton cloth.

"It's hemp cloth," Li Jinxue said. "There's no cotton here in Sichuan, and very few people raise silkworms or spin silk. Everyone grows hemp and weaves cloth. The Shun bandit court's household levy also takes hemp cloth, and if a family can hand over extra hemp cloth, they can exchange it for lighter corvée duties. At the common folk's rural markets, hemp cloth can also be traded for firewood, rice, oil, and salt. When Sichuan folk marry off daughters or take wives, hemp cloth can even serve as the marriage payment!

My family has only one old woman, so we couldn't weave much hemp cloth. After meeting the household levy, there was little left over — not even enough to clothe ourselves — so we were rather poor. The well-off families in the countryside were usually those where the men could till the fields and the women could weave cloth."

So among the common people of Sichuan, hemp cloth actually functioned as currency!

Zhu Hexing frowned as he glanced at the ragged cloth in Ding Yuying's hand. The Ming imperial house no longer ran any court workshops — weaving bureaus, official kilns, and the like were all, in Zhu Cilang's view, money-burning departments. If something was needed, one simply sent someone to the market to buy it, which saved a great deal of money. So the cloth Zhu Hexing used was top-grade goods from the market — not the finest of the fine, but compared to the hemp cloth in Ding Yuying's hand, it was beyond comparison!

He looked at the hemp cloth and shook his head, murmuring, "This cloth is simply too ugly, isn't it?"

Ding Yuying nodded. "Not only ugly, but rough. If it left Kuimen, I fear no one would even pick it up off the ground!"

"Surely not?" Li Jinxue glanced at the clothing of Zhu Hexing and Ding Yuying — indeed, it was extremely bright and fine! Such beautiful fabric he had never even seen back when he taught in Shizhu city — the senior garrison troops there wore at best a suit of good-quality hemp clothing. Where would one ever see such lovely silk garments?

Ding Yuying's delicate brows drew tightly together. Seeing her expression, Zhu Hexing asked curiously, "Yuying, what have you noticed now?"

Ding Yuying said, "Husband, if Jiangnan cotton and silk were to enter Sichuan, this kind of hemp cloth would truly find no buyers!"

Zhu Hexing cast a disdainful glance at the roll of hemp cloth. "Goods of this sort — it would only be natural if no one wanted them!"

"But here in Sichuan, men tilling and women weaving has been the way for so many years," Ding Yuying said. "Many middling and better-off families have probably stored away a great deal of hemp cloth! If hemp cloth becomes worthless, what will these families do? Will they all be ruined?"

"That..." Zhu Hexing thought it over and agreed, but he did not jump to a conclusion. Instead, he looked at Li Jinxue.

Li Jinxue's brows had already knotted together, as if he were wrestling with some difficult thought. After a while, he let out a soft sigh. "The people of Sichuan are always fated to suffer. They suffered under the roving bandits! Who would have thought that with the royal army's arrival, there would be new suffering to endure..."

"Yuying," Zhu Hexing said to Ding Yuying, "how about we ask Magistrate Ma if he has any good solution once we return to the city?"

Ask Ma Wanchun? Ding Yuying thought to herself: Is it appropriate for you, an eighth-rank deputy magistrate, to raise such a weighty question with a magistrate of the lower sixth rank?

In the end, Ding Yuying did not stop Zhu Hexing from putting the question to Ma Wanchun — and that single question completely stumped Ma Wanchun, who was busy organizing and training the local militia.

He stared at the two meddlesome youngsters before him, feeling quite vexed. If not for their formidable backgrounds, he would have scolded them long ago!

Was this the sort of thing a county deputy magistrate ought to be asking about?

Besides, if you had a solution, that would be one thing — but you don't even know what to do, so why ask at all? Do you think I would have a solution? If I had a solution, would I still be a county magistrate? I'd have entered the Grand Secretariat and become a Grand Secretary long ago!

"Well, well..." Ma Wanchun suppressed his irritation and said patiently, "Deputy Magistrate Zhu, you must understand that although we are the father-and-mother of the people, even parents cannot accomplish everything! This matter you raise is rather troublesome — if no one wants the hemp cloth, the father-and-mother of the people can do nothing about it either!"

Zhu Hexing nodded, thinking to himself: That is certainly true — after all, not all parents are as capable as my own father and mother!

"How about we report this matter upward!" Zhu Hexing said. "The two of us can jointly draft a memorial and submit it to the Yong'an traveling palace!"

What? Report this to the traveling palace? Ma Wanchun was stunned again and again. Was this not simply looking for trouble? His Majesty the Emperor handles ten thousand matters a day — would he have the time to deal with this? Besides, what did it have to do with the Emperor if the cloth woven by common folk found no buyers? Sichuan had several million farming households, and the household levy alone brought in two to three million bolts of hemp cloth a year. What was to be done if no one wanted it anymore?

Seeing the troubled look on Ma Wanchun's face, Ding Yuying smiled and said, "Your Honor, please do jointly memorialize with my husband. Once the memorial is sent off, my husband and I will soon be leaving Shizhu County."

At this, Ma Wanchun finally took an interest! This was excellent news!

The old group is buzzing again — welcome, everyone, to join the book's new group. Group number: 635667889

(End of Chapter)