Chapter 1498: The Obedient Eat Grass, the Rioters Eat Meat!

"A nation of armed rioters…"

When the Retired Emperor Chongzhen heard this, his head began to ache!

Back when he was emperor, he had toiled conscientiously for seventeen years. Looking back now, he had clearly done plenty of muddle-headed things, but he had always worked extremely hard at being emperor — and yet the Great Ming dynasty had very nearly been toppled by rioting rebels.

And those rioters didn't even all have guns; at most, they all had blades. Blades alone were dangerous enough — if they'd had guns…

"Imperial Father, how is one supposed to govern a nation where every man is an armed rioter?" Zhu Hengli frowned, inwardly somewhat resentful of his father, because he too had a nation of rioters!

That place called Henry Island — the land was fertile, the climate pleasant, and the territory quite large. But the island was full of half-naked native rioters who were thoroughly unreasonable!

They refused to do honest labor, refused to pay taxes obediently, and even when they weren't asked to work or pay taxes, that still wasn't enough — they had to come rob the settlers of their goods!

The settlers sent by the Mancini Tea Company and the Portugal-Macau Company to open up Henry Island as a colony had clashed with these unreasonable native rioters many times, and quite a few people had died!

Left with no choice, they had issued flintlock muskets to all the settlers!

So Henry Island was now an island of rioters where every man carried a gun… If he went there in the future to take up that country, how was he supposed to be its king? Wouldn't he just get shot dead by rioters? Forget it — better to stay in the homeland and be a peaceful official. Later, when he had a son, he'd send the boy off to be king of the rioters.

Zhu Cilang said with a smile, "Henry, don't worry about armed rioters. Let your father teach you a trick… Rioters must eat meat. If every man carries a gun, then every man must eat meat! Once rioters eat meat at every meal, they won't rebel."

Eat meat? Zhu Hengli thought to himself: But meat is very expensive! In the Great Ming, the income of a ninth-rank petty official couldn't even let a whole family eat meat every day — and the rioters over there were supposed to eat it at every meal…

"Then what do the obedient folk eat?" the Retired Emperor Chongzhen asked curiously. "Rioters eat meat — what do the obedient folk eat?"

Zhu Cilang shot him a glance and laughed. "Imperial Father jests. What the obedient folk eat — does Imperial Father not know? The obedient folk eat grass!

And if there's not even grass to eat, then it's time to rise up. At that point, the obedient folk become rioters, and they all want meat! Didn't the founding ancestors of our Great Ming go from obedient folk to rioters, and from rioters to meat-eaters?"

Obedient folk and rioters, rioters and silk-clad wastrels — all can transform into one another. And the reason obedient folk become rioters is, first, to adapt to their environment, and second, because life forces them to it.

The armed rioters of New Continent, South Continent, and Western Chu were forced into being by the local conditions for survival — guns there are a necessity!

But on the soil of the Great Ming, rioters are usually driven by the pressures of life. The conflict between people and land is plain for all to see. A policy of dividing the land equally to sustain the people cannot last — because it causes the population to grow even faster!

"Rent-King" Zhu Cixuan sucked in a breath of cold air. "Rioters eat meat, obedient folk eat grass… then won't everyone fight to become a rioter? But where would there be enough meat to feed them all!"

He was the "Rent-King," after all, so of course he feared revolution — if revolution came… he wouldn't be able to happily collect rent anymore! A man as clever as him could certainly see the essence of revolution — the essence of revolution is that someone wants to seize his houses and land!

Zhu Cilang waved a hand. "No need to fear… the common people of our Great Ming are, in the end, still mostly obedient folk! As long as the obedient folk all have something to eat, they won't so easily turn into rioters. And as long as the number of rioters doesn't grow too large, there will always be meat to give them. If there isn't enough meat in the Ming homeland, send them abroad to places where there's plenty of meat and few people."

These words sounded utterly lacking in ambition, but reality was exactly that!

Zhu Cilang paused, then continued, "And the three nations of New Continent, South Continent, and Western Chu exist precisely to absorb these rioters… As long as these three nations can keep absorbing our surplus rioters and the obedient folk who can no longer survive, the realm of our Great Ming will remain stable. This is why We do not care whether New Continent, South Continent, and Western Chu observe proper rites."

To put it bluntly, New Continent, South Continent, and Western Chu were three enormous patches that Zhu Cilang had crafted for his feudal dynasty!

As for whether these three patches were nations of sovereign and father — that actually didn't matter. Just like that America in history that fought for independence: even after fighting two wars with Britain, anti-British sentiment at home remained high (until just before the First World War), yet that nation still kept absorbing the poor who couldn't make it in the British Isles or anywhere else in Europe. Objectively, it enormously stabilized the old order of Britain and all of Europe. Without a meat-eating nation of rioters like America working so hard to absorb Europe's struggling laboring masses, world revolution would have broken out long ago!

Zhu Cilang looked at Zhu Cixuan. "Old Six, you're a clever man. Once you get to Western Chu, observe carefully, and you'll understand everything!"

Zhu Cilang was grooming the "Rent-King"!

Prince Fu, Zhu Cixuan, was exceptionally intelligent, had no great ambitions, was very close to Wu Sanmei (in her early years Wu Sanmei kept failing to bear a son, so she had raised Zhu Cixuan as her own for a time), and was also on excellent terms with the Lucky Crown Prince.

With some tempering, perhaps in the future he could become a "Rent Grand Secretary."

……

While the Zhu family's fathers, sons, and brothers were discussing what rioters eat, Old Six Niu's family — who had been sweet-talked into taking a "rioter card" at Ji'ning Guard in Anbei — had already crossed the Pacific and arrived in the nation of rioters on the continent of North New Continent. The journey had not been pleasant: the waves at sea were huge, the sailing ship carrying their family pitched and rolled violently, and everyone except the veteran sailors vomited miserably. But that was not the worst of it — the worst was the dense fog common over the North Pacific in summer.

The North Pacific in winter commonly sees great storms that can easily capsize seagoing vessels. So ships using the Kuroshio eastward route usually depart Japan in summer. But the summer North Pacific is also prone to dense fog, which easily causes ships to lose their way or collide. On the eastward voyage, the fleet carrying Old Six Niu's family had one serious collision: two wooden ships of several hundred tons' burden were crippled, one of them beyond repair and had to be abandoned. More than a hundred people were injured in the accident, seven or eight fell overboard and vanished, and several more later died of their wounds.

But the sailors on the same ship as Old Six Niu told him that this voyage had actually gone fairly smoothly, and the casualties were not many — drowned, fallen, dead of illness, all together still under five percent!

So upon reaching their destination, the sailors would all receive a generous bonus!

Old Six Niu's family disembarked at America Seaport City in the United States of New Continent. The dock they landed at belonged to a military harbor, heavily guarded on all sides — this was to keep them from running away! In New Continent one could dig for gold, hunt for furs, and there was plenty of fertile land, so it would not be hard for Old Six Niu's family to live comfortably here.

After Old Six got off the ship with his wife and children, soldiers of the United States of New Continent Army waiting there took them straight to a military camp.

There, Old Six Niu once again met Chiliarch Wang, the man who had swindled him into coming to New Continent.

Chiliarch Wang was as courteous as ever, without the slightest official airs. He personally stood guard on the camp's parade ground with a group of men, registering each newly arrived military household into the rolls (enrollment in the nomadic Chiliarchy), and distributing daily necessities and rations.

Seeing Old Six's family, he said cheerfully, "Old Six Niu has seven people! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven — all here! Good. Per person: one fur outfit, one wool blanket, one flintlock musket, one bayonet, one machete, three javelins. Per household: one set of cooking utensils."

Old Six Niu doubted his own ears and asked again, "Lord Chiliarch, did you say one flintlock musket per person?"

"One per person," Chiliarch Wang nodded. "Your household receives seven flintlock muskets!"

"Seven? But my family only has two adults, and the other five are all children — smaller than the guns, and three of them are girls."

Chiliarch Wang said with a laugh, "What's wrong with children? Raise them a few years and they'll be grown, won't they? Gun-handling has to be trained from childhood. Start learning to load now, and once you've learned, practice marksmanship — grow up and you'll be a sharpshooter. Hurry up, get your guns and then go collect your rations."

(End of Chapter)