Chapter 517: The Loyal King, the Loyal Consort, the Loyal Subject

Chang Yanling hadn't gotten any definite word before Zhu Cilang sent him off to rest. Afterward, the Crown Prince ordered someone to invite the military strategist Li Yan back to Wuchang to attend a war council.

Li Yan had gone to Huaixi some days earlier to move troops, bringing with him the New Army's Left Division, originally garrisoned at Fengyang Prefecture, and several New Army guard brigades stationed at Runing — roughly twenty thousand men in all. Advancing from Huangzhou Prefecture, they had seized Huangpi, Xiaogan, and Hanchuan, pushed all the way to the east bank of the Han River, then pressed along the Han toward Hankou. They had now taken the county seat of Hankou, with their vanguard reaching Houhu and Lord Yuan's Dyke.

According to the original plan, Li Yan's force would begin its assault on the town of Hankou after receiving support from a mortar battalion brought up from downstream.

Li Zicheng's defenses at Hankou were built around Lord Yuan's Dyke. The dyke was of limited height but extremely broad and thick, so it simply could not be destroyed by cannon fire. Yet this difficulty was no problem at all for the "artillery expert" Zhu Cilang. The garrison Li Zicheng had left behind had hardly any cannon, and what they had was concentrated on Tortoise Mountain, so the line along Lord Yuan's Dyke could receive almost no fire support.

The mortars Zhu Cilang had brought from Nanjing could be placed at the very front, close to Lord Yuan's Dyke, and then fire 24-pound explosive shells.......

But Li Yan, returning from north of the river, brought Zhu Cilang another ingenious plan for seizing Hanyang Prefecture and even sweeping the Jianghan Plain.

This ingenious plan had not come from the military strategist Li Yan, but from Jing Muqing, a juren of Chengtian Prefecture who had broken out of the siege of Jingmen.

This Jing the juren had earlier raised a local militia and held Jingmen to the death, until Li Guo sent troops to surround him completely. He had assumed the Shun army could not last long in Chengtian Prefecture, but what happened next left him somewhat despairing.

The Shun dynasty's policy of "land by headcount, debts and interest forgiven" won almost unanimous support among the poor commoners of Chengtian Prefecture!

Although Li Zicheng had not mobilized these poor commoners into the Shun army, he had ordered Li Guo to organize a Shun-side militia force,

so the landlord militias inside Jingmen quickly fell into panic. Jing Muqing could no longer control the situation, and had no choice but to seize a moment when Li Guo's siege of Jingmen had slackened slightly, break out with his men, grab a few fishing boats by the Han River, and escape to the east bank.

And during his flight, a sudden inspiration struck him: he thought of a plan to pay Li Zicheng back in his own coin!

"Invite him in!"

Though he did not believe this Jing fellow had any way to pacify Xiangyang quickly, Zhu Cilang, in the spirit of treating a dead horse as if it were still alive, received the defender of Jingmen, the meritorious juren Jing Muqing, in the great hall of his temporary palace.

In this latest southern invasion by Li Zicheng, all of Chengtian Prefecture had been lost; only Jingmen, under this juren's leadership, had held out for a time. Perhaps this Jing the juren truly did have some ability?

Before long, a dark-faced, powerfully built man of about thirty, wearing a Zhuge-style headscarf, holding a goose-feather fan, and dressed in a white cross-collared scholar's robe, was led in by Yan Yingyuan and Li Yan.

At the sight of this man's appearance and getup, Zhu Cilang and Wu Sanfu were both stunned.

This was Zhang Fei the fierce having stolen Zhuge Liang's clothes and dressed up in them...... On that dark face there was even a great bristling beard like hog's bristles, and his eyes glared like a leopard's. With a face like that, how could you have the nerve to wear a feather fan and silk headscarf? You ought to be carrying an eighteen-foot serpent spear and challenging Li Zicheng's champions to single combat!

"This late-born scholar, Jing Muqing of the north, respectfully inquires after His Highness the Crown Prince's golden well-being!"

Just as everyone was staring in astonishment, the "fierce Zhang Fei" had already spoken, his voice booming and full of vigor, with not the slightest trace of Zhuge Kongming about him...... If Zhuge Liang had been like you, what hope would Sima Yi have had?

"Are you a military juren?" Zhu Cilang asked, eyeing him — he truly did not look like a civil official.

The juren named Jing Muqing frowned at these words. How could a Crown Prince judge a man by his looks? This juren was merely a bit rough in appearance; in fact he was a famous talent of Huguang, and his small regular script in the "hairpin-flower" style was exquisitely beautiful!

"Thousand Years, Jing the filial and incorrupt is a Huguang talent," said Li Yan, who had come in with him. Naturally he had looked into the situation and learned of Jing Muqing's abilities before bringing him here.

Li Yan made the introduction: "Though Jing the filial and incorrupt comes from generations of a military family, he himself is a Confucian scholar. As a child he was known as the child prodigy of Jingmen, and he passed the provincial examination at eighteen. Had he not spent nine years in mourning for his parents, he would long since have become a pillar of the court."

So this was a military-register juren, descended from a fierce general under Zhu Yuanzhang — one who looked much like himself. This was a case of "throwback."

"How does one mourn for nine years?" Zhu Cilang was a bit puzzled. Wasn't it three years for one death? How did one observe nine years of mourning?

Jing Muqing sighed, his expression turning sorrowful: "This late-born scholar was given in adoption to his uncle as a child. My adoptive father passed away in the eighth year of Chongzhen, my adoptive mother departed this world in the eleventh year of Chongzhen, and then in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, my birth father also fell ill and died, at the age of eighty-four......"

Oh, so you still have a birth mother...... Zhu Cilang thought to himself: What a terrible waste of time. If you mourned them one by one, that would be twelve years! If you were a good-for-nothing, it wouldn't matter, but if you truly have ability, then this is a crime against the state!

"A true filial son indeed!" Zhu Cilang nodded. "We are a filial son Ourselves, and naturally We value filial sons most highly. Grant him a seat!"

"I thank Your Highness."

Having thanked him for the seat, the great juren Jing sat himself down grandly on an embroidered stool, looking like a huge hulk, like an iron pagoda.

"We have heard from the military strategist that you have an ingenious plan for quickly pacifying Xiangyang?" Zhu Cilang looked at Jing Muqing. "Would you share it with Us?"

Jing Muqing waved his feather fan and stroked his bristling hog's-bristle beard, and said in a bookish manner: "This late-born scholar does have a plan. I would not presume to call it ingenious, but perhaps it can strike at the roving bandits' vital point."

"Is that so?"

Jing Muqing nodded. "This late-born scholar's method is to pay the other side back in their own coin!"

What? Zhu Cilang was taken aback. What did he mean?

Seeing Zhu Cilang's blank look, the great juren Jing did not keep up the riddle, but said with a smile: "It is simply: the Crown Prince has come to divide the land!"

Huh? The Crown Prince has come to divide the land...... learning from Li Zicheng?

Zhu Cilang shook his head. "Jing the filial and incorrupt, We are the Ming Crown Prince who commands the army, not a roving bandit! Moreover, counting Huguang and Fujian and Guangdong, the southeast has over a hundred million people, while the land amounts to at most five hundred million mu. After deducting the land distributed to meritorious officials and officers and men, at most four hundred million mu could be equalized — barely three mu and a fraction per person...... not enough to maintain stability!"

Jing Muqing was also taken aback at this. He had not expected the Crown Prince to have actually studied the matter of dividing land and fields!

"Your Highness is wise." Jing Muqing offered a word of flattery, then continued, "Equalizing land across the whole realm is indeed inadvisable. But if Your Highness wishes to strike straight at Xiangyang, then you must equalize land within the borders of Xiangyang Prefecture."

"Within Xiangyang Prefecture......" Zhu Cilang's eyes suddenly lit up. "Right! Li Zicheng has enclosed all the land of Xiangyang Prefecture and distributed it to his old-camp soldiers!"

Li Zicheng, after all, still followed the ways of a feudal dynasty. He could carry out equal-field distribution by headcount, but at the same time he had to enclose land and grant fields. Otherwise, how could his old-camp soldiers live like lords? And if he didn't let them live like lords, Li Zicheng's army would simply fall apart!

So in Jingzhou, Chengtian, De'an, and other prefectures, Li Zicheng could carry out equal-field distribution by headcount and play the liberator of the poor and lower-middle peasants, but in his old nest of Xiangyang, he was the supreme chieftain of the armed landlord class.

To the people of Xiangyang Prefecture, Li Zicheng was a worse existence than Emperor Zhu...... At least the local landlords, rich peasants, and unscrupulous merchants of Xiangyang did not hate Emperor Zhu. But in the eyes of every commoner of Xiangyang Prefecture, Li Zicheng was a demon who had seized their family property and turned them into slaves!

Li Zicheng truly had failed the elders of Xiangyang!

And this class contradiction in Xiangyang was at the same time Li Zicheng's weak point!

Zhu Cilang burst out laughing: "An ingenious plan indeed! Li Zicheng uses equal-field distribution to beguile the hearts of the people in Hunan, and We shall use the same equal-field method to beguile the hearts of the people in Xiangyang...... truly paying him back in his own coin!"

He looked at Jing Muqing, who resembled the fierce Zhang Fei, and said with a smile: "Master Jing, you are a native of the Jing-Xiang region. Can you go and oversee the equal-field distribution in Xiangyang on Our behalf? Once it is done, whatever your family has lost, We shall compensate you with official fields from Wuchang Prefecture!"