Chapter 311: Daddy Zheng Has Arrived

Zhenjiang Prefecture, Dantu Township.

As the year-end of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen drew near, this trading town at the junction of the Grand Canal and the Yangtze River had unexpectedly taken on a prosperity it had not seen in many years.

For the Great Ming and for all of Cathay, this year had been nothing short of catastrophic. Beijing had fallen, and the eastern barbarians had entered and taken possession. The once-sound Ming realm had now come to a standoff between the Tartars in the north and the Han in the south. It seemed that the best future the Great Ming could hope for was the sort of cornered existence of the Eastern Jin or the Southern Song.

Yet what man of insight did not know that a cornered existence was no security at all? Since ancient times, had not every dynasty that clung to the lands south of the Yangtze been flattened in the end by the Central Plains dynasties? And the "exception" of our own dynasty's founding emperor was not really an exception at all — he had risen from the southeast, not merely clung to it. The nature of the two cases was entirely different!

Could it be that in a few decades or a century, the divine land of Cathay would once again suffer a collapse of heaven itself?

But a future collapse of heaven mattered little to the common folk living in the present. They concerned themselves only with the firewood, rice, oil, and salt before their eyes, and simply scraped by as best they could in this world of endless calamity.

And for the humble folk of Zhenjiang Prefecture, now under the direct rule of the Ming court in its southward relocation, a single decree — "remit all arrears, abolish the three levies, and exempt the land tax for five years" — gave them a hope that at last they might breathe a little easier.

In truth, the regular land tax of the Ming was not heavy at all. But that "not heavy" held only if the tax were spread across all farmland and borne by everyone together. Before the realm fell into chaos, the Ming's registered farmland amounted to more than seven hundred million mu, and the true figure was certainly over a billion mu!

With a billion mu of land bearing twenty-six million shi of grain, each mu owed only two sheng of grain — a mere three and a half jin. The tax rate was so low as to be negligible.

But by the middle and late Ming, most of the land belonged to the gentry and officialdom, or was registered under their names, and was therefore exempt from taxation. Yet no matter how much the court economized, it still needed ten or twenty million taels of revenue a year!

So the local authorities could not simply stop collecting taxes altogether, but neither could they collect from the gentry. They could therefore only tax the small number of peasants who still owned land, and the tenant farmers who no longer actually owned land but still held it in name!

Moreover, tax collection itself had its costs! It required corrupt officials and underlings to do the collecting, and they had to skim their share. If the court got one tael, the men below would surely embezzle two.

Thus ten or twenty million in land tax and surcharges — and that was all that actually reached the treasury — became fifty or sixty million once it reached the grassroots.

Furthermore, beginning with Zhang Juzheng's reforms, the Ming had increased the proportion of taxes collected in silver. Here in Jiangnan, apart from the tribute grain, everything else was commuted to silver. And this process gave the gentry who monopolized the countryside yet another opportunity to buy and sell for profit — had the Great Ming possessed a normal commercial environment, this would not have mattered. In Jiangnan, rice prices were high and silver was plentiful; commuting taxes to silver ought to have been a policy that benefited the people.

The problem was that from the middle and late Ming onward, the gentry's tax-exempt privileges had been extended to commercial activities. Not only were they exempt from the land tax, they could also reap enormous profits by evading commercial taxes.

Under such circumstances, rural commerce was easily monopolized by the gentry — without their consent, outside merchants could not even enter the villages. Monopoly is never a good thing. And so the burden pressing on the peasants' shoulders was weighted down yet again!

And in Jiangnan, which had always been "heavily taxed," a land tax nominally just over three dou per mu, after several rounds of added weight, had long since exceeded one shi by the time it fell upon the shoulders of the ordinary small farmer!

For those poor peasants who no longer actually owned land but still bore its name, the pressure of taxation was even greater. It was precisely for this reason that Li Zicheng's slogan of "no levies for three years" had possessed such enormous power to incite.

Zhu Cilang understood this as well. And so in early twelfth month of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, he issued a decree to the Southern Metropolitan Area, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, and the other regions under direct court rule, proclaiming "no levies for five years" — two years more than Li Zicheng's "three years" — while also remitting all arrears accumulated over the years and abolishing every surcharge and additional levy.

The moment the decree was issued, ten thousand voices roared in acclaim!

The Crown Prince who soothes the army is truly one who loves the people as his own children — surely the Founding Emperor of Great Ming reborn!

Because the tax burden had been so greatly lightened, the farmers around Dantu Township now had a little purchasing power. As the year-end approached, they could come to Dantu Township — a place they would never have dared even to think of visiting in ordinary times — to stroll about, buy a few New Year goods, add a couple of garments, and watch a few free operas. The free operas, of course, were not New Year's entertainments, but anti-Qing plays sponsored by the Propaganda Bureau of the Marshal's Office.

In a somewhat dilapidated theater in Dantu Township, a performance of "The Crown Prince Displays His Divine Might at Dagu" was underway. On stage, a "crown prince" in golden helmet and golden armor, wielding a Green Dragon Crescent Blade, was trading blows with a painted-face barbarian general who fought with two great hammers. The fighting was lively indeed, with gongs and drums beating out the accompaniment!

The stage was lively, and so was the audience. At a square table nearest the stage sat a graceful young girl in emerald attire, about fifteen or sixteen years old, with features as fine as a painting and a delicate, refined countenance, possessed of the limpid, crystalline beauty of a Yue maiden from Jiangnan. From her dress and adornment, she was clearly a young lady of a great house; every item of her attire from head to toe was of the finest quality. One could not tell which family's young miss had come out for a stroll. Yet around her stood five or six swarthy, hulking men with arms crossed, every face set hard, matchlocks tucked into their sashes and sabers hanging at their waists! They frightened the villagers who had come to watch the free opera into keeping well away.

Beside the girl sat a small boy dressed as a scholar, just past ten years old. At an age that ought to have been full of innocent delight, he behaved like a little old man, shaking his small head with an expression of utter disdain.

The girl, however, was watching with great delight, clapping her hands vigorously and crying out in a voice like silver bells: "How magnificent the Crown Prince is! The Crown Prince is the greatest!"

The boy shook his head and said: "How could he possibly use a guandao? He should be using a matchlock!"

"Xiaohua! What does a little child like you know?" The girl shot him a glance. "The Crown Prince's martial skill surpasses the world — he's even greater than Lord Guan the Second, so of course he uses a guandao." She pointed at the stage. "See there? That barbarian general has already been defeated."

"Hmph, it's all fake," snorted the boy called Xiaohua. "When you become the Crown Prince's consort, you can ask him yourself."

The girl's face instantly flushed bright red. She lowered her head and muttered: "Who says I'm going to be his consort..."

The boy nodded and said: "Sister Chagu, it's true! The day before yesterday on the boat, my father and your father were talking about this very matter. The reason they're bringing you to the capital this time is to send you into the palace — that surely means you'll be sleeping with the Crown Prince!"

"Stop it, stop it!" The girl suddenly realized there were a great many people around her. How embarrassing it was to speak of such things!

But was Father really going to marry her off... give her to that heroic and brilliant Crown Prince to sleep with? No — she had to go and ask clearly.

With that thought, she abruptly stood up and said to the boy: "Xiaohua, let's go!"

"Go?" The boy was startled. "The opera isn't over yet!"

"No more watching. We're going to the official boat." The girl bit her red lips. "To ask clearly!"

The boy waved a hand. "Hey, what's there to ask? There's no mistake about this. When has anything I, Chen Yonghua, have said ever been wrong?"

This boy was actually Chen Yonghua! The very Chen Jinnan, Chief Helmsman Chen, of whom it was said: "If in all your life you never knew Chen Jinnan, then calling yourself a hero is in vain!"

Oh, but he was not yet a Chief Helmsman. He was merely the son of Chen Ding, an aide to Zheng Zhilong, and this year he was only eleven years old.

And the girl with him was Zheng Sen's half-sister, Zheng Chagu — the very woman Zhu Cilang was about to take into his household as a selected attendant.

While the two children watched the opera, the richest man in the Great Ming, Zheng Zhilong — a tall, powerfully built man in his forties, dressed as a military officer — stood aboard a large and luxurious official boat, frowning as he read a letter he had just received.

His trusted aide, Chen Ding, a short, stocky, slightly plump man, had spread out a map and was marking and sketching on it with a brush.

After a while, Chen Ding set down his brush and said to Zheng Zhilong with a smile: "Commander, it seems the Tartars will not be marching south for the time being. His Highness the Thousand Years' half of the realm is now secure!"

(End of Chapter)