Chapter 349: A Popular Uprising Is at Hand!

Linzhou is a small island at the center of Xuanwu Lake, facing Cuizhou across the water to the north and south. All around is a vista of lake light, and a little farther off rise the majestic Zhongshan and the tall, imposing city wall of Nanjing. From Linzhou Island, the lake, the hills, and the ancient city can all be taken in at a single glance. Yet for all this beauty of lake and mountain, the island had become forbidden ground because of the Yellow Register Repository on Liangzhou Island in the lake, and for more than two hundred years ordinary folk had been barred from boating here.

But today, dozens of boats large and small had appeared on Xuanwu Lake, shuttling back and forth between Taiping Gate Wharf, near the inner city of Nanjing, and Linzhou Island. In no time at all, the several hundred scholars in Confucian robes gathered outside Taiping Gate had all been ferried over to Linzhou Island.

By now, a circle of curtains had been set up on Linzhou Island, enclosing a large stretch of leveled open ground. Across the open ground, rows of mats had been laid, and on the mats, kneeling cushions had been placed for people to sit on. The Confucian scholars coming off the boats were invited inside the curtains by another group of young men in Confucian robes who had long been waiting on the island, and they seated themselves on these cushions — some sitting upright in formal kneeling posture, others cross-legged.

In the northern quarter of the curtained area, a low wooden platform had been erected, on which were arranged several dozen tables and chairs, laid out just like the rostrum of a mass meeting in later ages.

The "rostrum" was empty at the moment, with only a few tall sword-bearing Confucian scholars standing guard there, their eyes burning as they watched the disorderly "Donglin representatives" below.

This was the site of the First Donglin Congress! Successors of the Donglin from South Zhili, Shandong, Henan, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan, and other provinces not yet fallen or not completely fallen — in all, four to five hundred juren, every one of them a vanguard fighter of the landlord class — were now gathered together in one hall, all waiting for the moment when the congress would begin.

But after a long wait, the Donglin grandees who were supposed to sit on the rostrum and speak still had not appeared.

Who knew what these leaders of the scholarly world were doing at this moment? Were they grieving and fretting over the grim situation facing the feudal Great Ming?

That's right — the situation had once again turned grim!

Right there at Taiping Gate Wharf, every scholar representative attending the First Donglin Congress had been given a copy of the "Public Declaration to Honor the Emperor and Expel the Barbarians." The Declaration plainly stated that the Tartar caitiffs had massed a hundred thousand troops on the borders of Shandong and Henan, and had further threatened to slaughter Shandong, dig up the Kong family cemetery, sever the Confucian lineage, and exterminate the Yansheng line!

Shandong is in peril! Qufu is in peril! The Confucian teaching is in peril! China is in peril!

With the situation so perilous, the Donglin of all the realm should of course set aside past grievances, unite as one, and rally around the Ming court led by the Crown Prince Zhu Cilang. This was also what most of the Donglin juren attending today's congress had in their hearts!

Hmm — those who did not think this way, Zhu Cilang would not have allowed to come to the congress. Those who could come, apart from the Hunanese and Jiangxi men surnamed Zhu, were the "talented scholars" from Shandong, and those Donglin juren who had answered the special examination questions conscientiously and supported the tax increase.

As for those who handed in blank papers and made trouble — heh heh, all academic losers! Their juren degrees had probably been bought. How could they be worthy of being called Donglin?

Of course, the "Grand Donglin" seated on the rostrum were not all so easy to deal with — since this was a Donglin Congress, there had to be some Donglin Party men who could adorn the occasion, didn't there? For example, Qian Qianyi, Hou Xun, Shi Kecheng (representing Shi Kefa), Zuo Guangxian (seventh younger brother of Zuo Guangdou), Wei Zaode, Zhu Zhiyu, Huang Daozhou, Liu Zongzhou, Fang Yizhi, Hou Fangyu, Mao Pijiang, Chen Zhenhui, Huang Zongxi, Luo Dagong, Ji Kun, Zhang Huangyan, Xia Yunyi, Chen Zilong, Xu Fuyuan, and others — they had now all gathered in the Qilin Pavilion on Linzhou Island, and before the face of the Army-Supervising Crown Prince Zhu Cilang, they were speaking freely and each expressing their own views.

And His Highness the Crown Prince wore a smile and nodded frequently, the very picture of one humbly accepting counsel.

"…The practice of officials and gentry helping merchants evade taxes is a long-standing abuse of our dynasty. Though the court has lost some tax revenue, it has not been without benefit. The flourishing literary culture of the southeast today is precisely the benefit of officials and gentry sheltering merchants. Without the money provided by merchants, who knows how many juren and xiucai would have sunk into poverty as shabby scholars.

And the practices of land commendation and fraudulent registration have long prevailed in the southeast. 'Excel in learning and become rich; excel in learning and become noble' has long been deeply rooted in people's hearts. High and low, noble and base, poor and rich — all are largely determined by examination rank. If we suddenly implement uniform taxation of officials and gentry, and also carry out land surveys and military colony audits, I fear it will upset the order of high and low, destroy the bonds of human relations, and moreover greatly weaken the manpower and wealth of the scholar-gentry in the countryside. Great chaos in the southeast, I fear, is imminent!"

The old man stroking his Santa Claus-like white beard, his brows deeply furrowed, speaking with eloquence and assurance, was Zuo Guangxian, the seventh younger brother of Zuo Guangdou, one of the former Three Worthies of the Donglin.

His eight-legged essays were not as good as his elder brother Zuo Guangdou's. He had studied bitterly until past forty before finally obtaining the juren degree, and had probably lost faith in the examination system. After passing the provincial examination, Zuo Guangxian no longer strove to pass the jinshi examination, but instead obtained the post of County Magistrate of Jianning. In the nearly twenty years that followed, he served mainly as a local official — and a rather ruthless one at that, with considerable achievements in bandit-hunting and rebel-suppression.

But in the course of his long local service, Zuo Guangxian had also keenly felt the sharp contradictions that existed in late Ming society.

And in Zuo Guangxian's view, formed through long contact with the grassroots, the root of late Ming social contradictions did not lie with the court. The court collected only twenty million piculs of grain and a little over two million taels of silver a year — how corrupt could it be?

The root of late Ming social contradictions lay precisely in the corruption and disintegration of the grassroots!

The rise of the Jianzhou Jurchen came from the disintegration of the grassroots of the Liaodong frontier army. Liaodong had always been a key military region, with twenty-five guards and two subprefectures in all. If the grassroots of the Liao army had not rotted, these twenty-five guards alone could have fielded over a hundred thousand fighting men at any time. How then would the Jianzhou Jurchen have had any chance to rise?

And the roving bandits' rampage in the northwest was the result of the disintegration of the grassroots of the northwestern frontier army! Like Liaodong, the northwest had always been a key region of military guards. Guard posts were established everywhere, and military households were spread far and wide. And the backbone of the bandit armies was precisely the northwestern frontier soldiers who had lost their food and clothing!

But it was not only the grassroots of the military households that was disintegrating. After many years of local administration, Zuo Guangxian had very clearly sensed that the grassroots of the civilian households, led by the scholar-gentry, was also on the verge of collapse.

The slave uprisings that frequently erupted in the southeast were very likely the harbinger of the collapse and disintegration of southeastern civil society!

Zuo Guangxian looked deeply worried. He continued: "Your Highness, in recent years slave uprisings in the southeast have occurred again and again. Though they have not yet caused great disaster, the signs of an approaching storm are already here. Last year's Xu Du rebellion in Zhejiang saw large numbers of bondservants and poor folk take part, and it nearly became a great calamity; even now it has not been fully pacified. If the court further weakens the scholar-gentry through uniform taxation of officials and gentry, land surveys, and military colony audits, I fear that once the scholar-gentry are weakened, great chaos in the southeast will follow hard upon…"

(End of Chapter)