Chapter 20: Land You Shall Have, Wives You Shall Have (And Recommendation Tickets Too)

"Old brothers, follow Us, and land you shall have, and wives you shall have!"

"Thousand Years..."

The speaker, an aging veteran soldier, was already overcome with gratitude. Inside a tent pitched on the inner parade ground, the nine other soldiers of his squad all knelt on the ground, watching Zhu Cilang hand their squad leader — a veteran from the Valiant Guard Camp — gleaming silver ingots and one decree after another, each of which, it was said, could be exchanged in Jiangnan for an estate of fifty mu of paddy fields.

The veteran looked to be in his fifties, though he had in fact just passed forty. He had spent half a lifetime in the Valiant Guard Camp and its predecessor, the Four Guards Camp, yet had never managed to save up more than a few dozen mu of land, nor had he ever taken a wife. Everything he owned in the world was not worth ten taels of silver.

One could say he had nothing at all! And after leaving the Valiant Guard Camp, he had not so much as tasted meat again.

But today, not only had he received "land options," he had also been enfeoffed as a "Meritorious Servant Who Overcame Hardship," received ten taels of gleaming silver, and eaten meat — and what was more, he had eaten it together with Zhu Cilang!

The august Crown Prince Zhu Cilang had eaten lunch today with the squad leaders and veteran soldiers of every unit, sharing the same food. He did not disdain them for being dirty, did not disdain them for stinking; together they sat on the open ground of the inner parade ground, eating and talking as they went.

To veterans of humble birth, such a thing was beyond even their wildest dreams!

Never mind the Crown Prince — even a Company Commander was an august "master." Would he ever eat and drink with common soldiers, much less converse with them?

Yet the Crown Prince Zhu not only did not disdain these stinking soldiers, he also showed an unexpected understanding of the hardships of the common people, knowing what everyone wanted and what they were thinking. In the words of later generations, he was truly down-to-earth! He did not seem at all like a lofty Crown Prince; he was practically a founding emperor risen from the masses.

And whatever everyone wanted, the Crown Prince Zhu guaranteed he would give them!

In a word: land you shall have, wives you shall have... Once we reach Jiangnan, you will all be Meritorious Servants Who Overcame Hardship, all of you will receive land, all of you will be able to take wives! You will all be Our trusted confidants and die-hard followers!

How does that compare to Li Zicheng? Is it worth following Us?

Zhu Cilang smiled again and said to the soldiers kneeling inside the tent: "All of you are pillars of our Great Ming. So long as you follow Us faithfully and escort the imperial progress south, once we reach Jiangnan, every man shall receive fifty mu of paddy fields! Today We first bestow the land-grant decrees, plus a reward of ten taels of silver!

Work hard, and land you shall have, wives you shall have!"

After saying this, he instructed his attendant secretary Bi Jiucheng to remain behind and record each soldier's name and native place, filling them in on the decrees, before turning and walking out of the tent amid gazes of astonishment or gratitude.

Outside the tent, Wu Xiang, Wu Sanfu, Zhu Chunjie, Li Jizhou, Huang Sanbao, Qiu Zhizhong, and three civil officials in their thirties or forties all stared at Zhu Cilang in stunned disbelief — the Crown Prince really would go that far!

He truly was stooping to befriend his inferiors!

He truly was mingling as one of them with a bunch of stinking common soldiers!

Was this still the Crown Prince?

This was almost on par with the Founding Emperor and the Yongle Emperor...

Zhu Cilang beckoned to them and said with a smile: "On to the next one... Two hundred tents, and every one of them must be visited today."

"Your Highness, why must you put yourself through this?"

A dark-faced civil official of about forty, wearing a great red python robe and black gauze cap, with a three-strand beard, shook his head and said: "You are a body of ten thousand gold. How can you associate with common men?"

"What are you saying, Master Chen?" Zhu Cilang said as he walked. "The rise and fall of the realm is the responsibility of every common man! And is not the realm of Our family founded precisely upon these common men?"

This "Master Chen" was named Chen Rui. He held the office of Crown Prince's Groom, was a lecturer of the Eastern Palace — in other words, one of Zhu Cilang's teachers.

Hearing Zhu Cilang's "heretical argument," the great Master Chen was first taken aback, then exchanged glances with the other two lecturers whom Zhu Chunjie had invited.

All three lecturers felt they no longer knew Zhu Cilang!

Zhu Cilang was a good student! He was extremely respectful toward his teachers, studied very diligently, and ardently longed to become a wise and sagely ruler like the Chongzhen Emperor.

Moreover, Zhu Cilang had always been exceptionally proper, and timid to a fault — he would not dare violate even the slightest palace rule.

But today... what was going on? He had changed completely. Not only had he feigned illness to skip his studies, he had also laid hands on military authority! That was a grave taboo for a Crown Prince! And he was spouting nonsense, talking about the Founding Emperor appearing in a dream — such talk of ghosts and spirits, was that credible?

Furthermore, a Crown Prince ought to conduct himself with dignity. How could he mingle with a bunch of soldiers? What was he trying to do? Even if he must stoop to befriend his inferiors, he should befriend the scholar-officials — how could he associate with such coarse soldiers?

Zhu Cilang did not even look at his teachers' expressions, but said with righteous conviction: "The three masters may believe that the scholar-officials are the foundation of the realm, but have you forgotten whence our ancestral enterprise came?

The Great Founding Emperor did indeed esteem Confucian scholars, but he did not win the realm by relying on them. The Founding Emperor rose from commoner stock, emerged from the wilds, and when the Yuan lost its grip on the realm, he fought a hundred battles to found the imperial enterprise — relying precisely on the stout-hearted common men of the Yangtze and Huai River regions.

After founding the Great Ming, our Founding Ancestor did not forget these common men who had followed him. Across the four quarters of the realm he established seventeen Regional Military Commissions and one Garrison Commission, with three hundred twenty-nine guard battalions, internal and external, and sixty-five defensive chiliarch stations. The military households under their jurisdiction numbered over a million! All were granted farmland, farming and fighting as one, fully self-sufficient. These million-odd military households were the very foundation upon which our Great Ming established the state and governed the realm!

If the Regional Military Commissions, guard battalions, and military households established by the Great Founding Emperor had remained in good order, as they were in the Hongwu era, what would the roving bandits amount to? What would the eastern barbarians amount to? How could they possibly contend against our Great Ming's million-strong host? In the days of the Great Founding Emperor and the Accomplished Ancestor, the Wen Emperor, would those Jurchen have dared to rebel?

Think carefully, three masters... Today's calamity is not because our Great Ming failed to care for the realm's scholar-officials, but because the Great Ming failed to care for its million-odd military households! In the Hongwu era, a single military household had at least fifty mu of land. A million-odd military households ought to have held at least eighty or ninety million mu. But how much land do the realm's guard battalions hold today? Most guard battalions do not even have a single mu or a single qing of land left, do they?

Without land, the military households naturally cannot bear the burden of military service, and the Regional Military Commissions and guard battalions have become empty shells. The court has had no choice but to spend money recruiting soldiers to pacify Liaodong and suppress the bandits — and from this came the Liaodong levy, the training levy, and the suppression levy. And from this the realm has fallen into ruin!"

How could this be possible!?

How could the Crown Prince, at such a young age, possibly know all this so clearly? Surely some treacherous sycophant must be beguiling the Crown Prince!

All three masters cast decidedly unfriendly looks toward Wu Xiang, who looked every bit the treacherous sycophant and who knew the most about guard battalions and military households.

Wu Xiang felt his hair stand on end under their gazes, but he was just as astonished as the three masters. He was innocent — he had never spoken to Zhu Cilang of such things, which ought not to be spoken of.

And saying such things was pointless anyway; it would only offend people.

The lands of the Regional Military Commissions and guard battalions had long since been carved up and divided among the ennobled and privileged, the hereditary military officers, the military-registered scholar-officials, and the princes. Who could demand them back from those people? Was it possible? On what grounds?

Li Shichun, the Eastern Palace Reader-in-Waiting, who looked to be about sixty, gaunt, with somewhat prominent cheekbones, frowned deeply and spoke in standard Guangdong-accented Mandarin: "Your Highness, you are the heir to the state. Every word and deed must be prudent. Does Your Highness's present conduct carry His Majesty's decree?"

"It does!" Zhu Cilang was not about to tell the truth, of course. He lowered his voice: "This is a secret decree, and must on no account be known to outsiders... The Roving Bandit is about to arrive. His Majesty, for the sake of the Great Ming realm, will, when there is no alternative, journey south to the auxiliary capital. We and Wang Cheng'en have received the imperial command to oversee this matter. The reason We have invited the three masters here today is to discuss which of the court officials must accompany the imperial progress. Furthermore, We bear a heavy responsibility and require the assistance of the three masters. From today onward, the three of you shall attend Us in Our duties."

As long as there was a decree, all was well...

The three masters all breathed a great sigh of relief; the stones hanging in their hearts finally dropped to the ground.

What Zhu Cilang was doing now, without a decree, would have been enough to warrant his deposition. But with a decree, it was different... It showed that the Son of Heaven fully trusted the Crown Prince and was preparing to let the Crown Prince take hold of some military force — not only to escort the imperial progress south, but, if necessary, to shoulder the rise and fall of the Great Ming realm.

If the Crown Prince could ascend the throne ahead of time, then before too long the three of them would be Grand Secretaries of the Grand Secretariat!

Lin Zengzhi, the Junior Supervisor of Instruction, who had just passed fifty this year but looked dignified and at most in his early forties, said: "Since there is a decree, then may Your Highness continue to befriend the scholars. The three of us shall first deliberate among ourselves and produce a list. How would that be?"

Zhu Cilang nodded. "Then We shall trouble the three masters."

(End of Chapter)