Chapter 506: Secret Schemes

The first problem Zhu Cilang now faced was not Dorgon, nor Li Zicheng, but the problem of feeding the more than one hundred million common people of the southeast. Among them, the problem of feeding the more than ten million refugees who had fled from the north was the most critical of all!

And the land he could use to solve the food problem, even taking into account the recovery of most of Huguang, amounted to only about four hundred million mu. That came to just a little over two and a half mu per person... If it were all used to grow grain, it would be enough to eat.

But the problem was that more than one hundred million people could not go around bare-bottomed! They still needed clothes, and they needed to dress warmly — this was the cold Little Ice Age, after all! Moreover, the Great Ming still had to export silk and cotton in exchange for silver — actually, compared with the consumption of the more than one hundred million people at home, the amount of silk and cotton exported was not very large. Even if trade were banned, not much would be saved.

Besides, Ming society was also full of injustice — being both in the late stage of feudal society and the early stage of capitalism, it would be a miracle if it were fair!

So the grain supply, already tight, could not be distributed equally. For the people at the bottom, having enough to eat was even more of a problem.

And Zhu Cilang had only two ways to solve the people's food problem. The first was to arrange imports and encourage colonization — by collecting "tariff grain," he would have Chinese and foreign merchant ships entering the southeastern trading ports bring in rice from Shuizhenla and Champa. At the same time, by creating demand for rice imports, he would get sea merchants to take part in the movement to colonize Shuizhenla or Champa.

The second was to destroy the tax-shelter system in the southeastern countryside — that is, to strip the scholar-officials of their tax-exemption privileges, thereby raising the degree of marketization in agriculture!

The marketization of agriculture sounded like a flood and a wild beast. But while stripping the scholar-officials, the imperial clan, and the nobility of their tax-exemption privileges, and eliminating such improper means of land consolidation as fraudulent registration and commendation, it was impossible to carry out land distribution by headcount, so agriculture had in fact already become marketized. Since it had become marketized, of course there would also be land consolidation and the bankruptcy of farming households caused by competition!

In fact, the external "rice colonization" and the internal marketization of agriculture complemented each other.

Without domestic consolidation and bankruptcy, who would go to the miasmic lands of the south to open up wasteland and farm? Moreover, the only thing that could sustain the "rice colonization" movement pushed by the sea merchants was farms run in the capitalist manner, not the manors of feudal lords.

Likewise, if there were not a fairly marketized agriculture adapted to competition, once "rice colonization" developed, it would in turn strike at the small-peasant economy of the Ming southeast...

In short, for the sake of eating, the Southern Ming now had no choice but to set out on the capitalist road, and to plunge headlong into the Age of Discovery, when colonialism ran rampant.

It was truly too difficult, and too evil!

"Imperial Lord, the whole of De'an Prefecture and the whole of Hanyang Prefecture have now been taken by our great army. Of Chengtian Prefecture, only the city of Jingmen Department remains; all the rest is now territory of our Shun. Jianli County and Yuan'an County in Jingzhou Prefecture are also in our hands.

Jingmen Department is now surrounded three layers deep and three layers wide by the Marquis of Bo's great army! And many of the common people of Jingmen Department have come of their own accord to serve at the front, helping dig trenches and besiege the city!

Jiangling County and Yiling Department remain under the control of the Zuo family army, but Zuo Liangyu's fate is unknown, and Zuo Menggeng does not dare test the edge of our Shun heavenly troops, so on this side of the river they are merely holding the cities with heavy forces."

Inside the Prefect's yamen at Hanyang, Li Zicheng was at that moment listening to Tian Jianxiu's report on the situation on all fronts.

The situation appeared favorable to the Shun dynasty! The first-phase objectives of Li Zicheng's southern invasion of Huguang had basically all been achieved. Only Jingmen Department city in Chengtian Prefecture, Jiangling County and Yiling Department in Jingzhou Prefecture, and Huangzhou Prefecture at the easternmost edge of Huguang remained untaken.

"Hahaha," Li Zicheng laughed, stroking his beard with satisfaction. "At last we've taken quite a bit of territory that drips with fat! Our Shun dynasty's food problem for this year and next is no longer a worry!"

The "food problem" he spoke of was not the problem of filling the bellies of the common folk, but the problem of how his Shun court was to meet its expenses.

Truly, every family has its own difficult scripture to chant! Li Zicheng did not have to worry about feeding more than one hundred million mouths, but day and night he worried about the expenses of his court and his army.

It was the same old problem — he had again lost money being emperor! To lose money even as emperor, there truly was no one else like him!

Last time the loss came from the "three years without levies," and this time it came from "enclosing land and granting fields." Of the five prefectures Li Zicheng held, Xi'an Prefecture was locked in a tug-of-war among the Shun, Qing, and Wu forces, while Hanzhong Prefecture was the base supporting the Xi'an campaign and the future invasion of Sichuan — neither prefecture could contribute money or grain to the court at Xiangjing Prefecture. And Xiangjing, Yunyang, and Nanyang prefectures had lost their revenues because land had been enclosed and granted to the "old-camp warriors."

Not only was there no place to collect the land tax, even the commercial taxes, which had once brought in a little, could no longer be collected. The enclosure and land grants had directly destroyed the private commerce of Xiangjing, Yunyang, and Nanyang prefectures — in the Ming countryside, commerce and finance were in the hands of the landlords and gentry. After the enclosure and land grants, the landlords and gentry of the three prefectures either collapsed or fled, commercial circulation and financial lending came to a halt, and what tax was there left to collect?

Without commercial taxes and without land taxes, how could Li Zicheng the emperor not lose money? These days, he had been keeping things going on the old reserves brought out from Beijing, but there was not much left of those reserves. If he did not find a way to make up the shortfall soon, Li Zicheng might well follow in Chongzhen's footsteps and become an emperor who died poor!

"Left Counselor," Li Zicheng said with a smile to Niu Jinxing, "send men quickly to preside over the land distribution by headcount in Chengtian, De'an, and Hanyang prefectures... How many mu per head is appropriate? Has it been calculated?"

"In reply to the Imperial Lord," said Niu Jinxing, the Left Counselor, that is, the Chancellor, of the Shun dynasty, with a chuckle, "this subject has already had Niu Quan take men to look through the household registers of the three prefectures, and also summoned old clerks from the departments and counties under the three prefectures to make inquiries. We have a rough figure. These three prefectures are very rich — the land is level, they border the Han River and the great Yangtze, half the farmland is paddy, and the population is large. If land is to be distributed by headcount, each head should receive three to six mu... adjusted according to the quality of the land received, with the average no less than four mu."

Li Zicheng said, "Four mu per head is not much!"

"Imperial Lord," Niu Jinxing said with a smile, "the land between the Yangtze and the Han cannot be compared with the land of Shaanxi or Henan... When Huguang ripens, the whole realm is fed!"

"True enough," Li Zicheng laughed. "I have heard people say so too. Then how much land tax should we collect?"

"Fields are fat or thin, and cannot be treated all alike. If we take the middle figure, it should be no less than three dou." Niu Jinxing said, "If we reckon on twenty-five million mu, the annual income should be no less than seven million shi of white rice!"

"How much can be collected this year?" Li Zicheng asked, eyes bulging.

"At least five million shi of white rice."

"Good, good!" Li Zicheng rubbed his palms together, the very picture of a man frightened by poverty. "With five million shi, this year's emperorship will not be run at a loss!" He paused, then suddenly asked, "Left Counselor, are we collecting too much? How much did the Zhu traitor collect in a year from the three prefectures of the Jiang-Han region? Surely not five million shi? Should we collect a little less?"

Hearing this, Niu Jinxing hastened to say in a flattering tone to Li Zicheng: "The Imperial Lord is truly a benevolent and righteous sovereign. The total tax grain the Zhu traitor allotted to Huguang was only a little over two million shi. Even counting all manner of surcharges, levies, commutations, and meltage fees, what the people paid would not exceed ten million shi. Divided among the three Jiang-Han prefectures, it came to at most two or three million shi. But in those days most of the land paid no tax at all — it was either military colony land, or princely land, or gentry land, or hidden land. Whether there were even twenty million mu of land in all Huguang that actually paid tax is doubtful. Thus the burden on the ordinary small farmer was not light... Yet even so, Huguang remained quiet, and no righteous army ever rose from Huguang."

Li Zicheng nodded and let out a long breath. "Fine, five million shi it is... There are plenty of places to spend money now. The Ministry of Works and the Ministry of War both have large expenditures. Xi'an Prefecture has also sent men to press for money and grain. We are now counting on Huguang for our very meals!"