Chapter 527: Burning the Boats, the Hegemon of Western Shu

"Your Majesty, we're here — Shishou County seat, this is Shishou Mountain. If we haul up the great general's cannons captured at Jiangling, we can lock down the Yangtze waterway. This river is the Huarong River..."

At that moment Gu Junen was in the main hall of the Shishou county yamen, explaining the battlefield terrain to Li Zicheng over a map found in the Shishou county office.

Shishou County seat, nearby Shishou Mountain, and the Diaoxian Crossing guarding the junction of the Huarong River and the Yangtze were now all occupied by the Shun army that had crossed the river.

The Ming army's dispositions in the above areas had been hollow from the start. Although local officials had been ordered to raise militia, because the Shun army was distributing land on the north bank, the poor peasants of Shishou and Huarong counties, separated by only a river, were all red-eyed with longing for the Roving King. It was already good enough that they had not risen in armed revolt — how could anyone count on them to form militia?

Moreover, the landlords and gentry of Shishou and Huarong counties had all slipped away and fled — apart from someone like Huang Shu, who had truly offended Zhu Cilang beyond forgiveness, what landlord-class intellectual would still go over to the Roving King now? Having seen every landlord and rich man on the north bank ruined and left penniless, fleeing to Jiangnan to beg, the landlords, rich peasants, and unscrupulous merchants of Shishou and Huarong had all taken their portable wealth and run off to Wuchang Prefecture. With that pack of demons and monsters gone, how could any militia force be raised? Even if raised, it would simply turn into a peasant self-defense army...

So Shishou and Huarong counties were held by only a handful of He Tengjiao's headquarters-battalion soldiers. The two county seats plus the two critical points of Shishou Mountain and Diaoxian Crossing had fewer than two thousand men in all. When the Roving King's tens of thousands of troops came sweeping over, of course they collapsed at the first touch.

"The Huarong River?" Li Zicheng heard a rather familiar name and asked with a smile, "Is Huarong Road somewhere near here? That's where Cao Cao nearly got chopped down by that fellow surnamed Guan!"

"Your Majesty, that Huarong Road is not in Jiangnan but on the north bank," Gu Junen said. "It now belongs to Jianli County. Back then, when Cao Cao fled from Wulin toward Jiangling, Huarong Road was the shortest route, but it required passing through a stretch of marshland. In the end he met with mud, the road was impassable, and he ordered his soldiers to cut reeds and weeds to fill the road. The weak soldiers were trampled underfoot by the others, sank into the mud, and a great many died."

"I know all that — in the end that fellow Cao ran into that fellow Guan on Huarong Road," Liu Zongmin cut in, speaking with great relish. "But this fellow Guan valued loyalty — Cao Cao had once done him a kindness, so he couldn't just chop him down with one stroke, and he let Cao Cao go free... If I were Guan Yunchang, I'd have chopped that fellow Cao with one stroke!"

Gu Junen did not know whether to laugh or cry. That was all made up by that fellow surnamed Luo — how could a great general like you actually believe it?

Li Zicheng chuckled. "Wasn't that Cao Cao the one you took men to cut down?"

This Cao Cao was not that Cao Cao, but Luo Rucai, a great roving-bandit chieftain who had attached himself to Li Zicheng. Because he was cunning and crafty, he had earned the bandit nickname Cao Cao. Pity that no matter how calculating he was, he could not out-calculate Li Zicheng, and in the eleventh year of Chongzhen Li Zicheng killed him and absorbed his forces.

Just as the group was joking and laughing, a report came from outside the door: "Your Majesty, Lord Liu, the Count of Guangshan, has captured the Shishou County Magistrate and says he has urgent military intelligence to report."

Lord Liu, the Count of Guangshan, was Liu Tichun, a fierce veteran general of Li Zicheng's old camp, holding the rank of Resolute General of the Right Camp's Right Headquarters Battalion. Shishou and Huarong counties had been taken by troops under his command.

"A county magistrate — what urgent military intelligence could he have?" Liu Zongmin shook his head, his face full of disdain.

Gu Junen said to Li Zicheng, "Your Majesty, shall this subject go and ask?"

Li Zicheng agreed without much thought, and added, "If this magistrate wants an official post, use your judgment and give him one... These days the scholars coming over to us have grown fewer again. They're all refugees from Shaanxi and the Central Plains, and there are almost no scholars or officials who know the local conditions of Jingchu."

"As commanded."

Gu Junen acknowledged and turned to leave, but before long he came back with several soldiers, escorting a pale-faced official in a blue robe. The man was in his thirties, fair and plump, with a goatee, his face full of terror. Once brought up, he flopped down onto the ground with a thud, his mouth still trembling as he cursed: "You motherfucking bandits, I, Tao Xingjin, will not surrender, will not surrender..."

He spoke Zhejiang official dialect mixed with local patois, and Li Zicheng found it hard to follow, so he asked Gu Junen, "Second Military Advisor, what's going on? Is he surrendering or not?"

Gu Junen shook his head. "Your Majesty, bad news..."

Bad news again? Li Zicheng's heart trembled. Why bad news again? What's happened now? Surely Xiangjing hasn't fallen?

"What is it?" Li Zicheng asked hurriedly.

Gu Junen pointed at the plump magistrate beside him. "Your Majesty, ask him!"

"You, magistrate, speak up," Li Zicheng barked. "Has that bandit Zhu broken through Xiangjing?"

"No, no, no, no... I don't know." The magistrate just shook his head.

"Magistrate Tao," Gu Junen interjected, "tell us how that bandit Zhu dealt with the riverside gentry and unscrupulous merchants who fled to Wuchang."

Magistrate Tao was taken aback, but he did not consider this any state secret — anyone in Huguang and Jiangnan with decent sources already knew about it.

"His Highness the Crown Prince took official land in Wuchang Prefecture to exchange for the land deeds of north-bank landlords. One mu of official land in Wuchang Prefecture was roughly exchanged for twenty mu of north-bank land deeds... And after the exchange, the north-bank landlords had to register their residence in Wuchang. His Highness the Crown Prince would also expand the city of Wuchang to provide them housing within the walls.

Furthermore, all juren from the fallen north-bank territories were demoted to xiucai, and a full land survey was to be carried out across Huguang, with officials and gentry paying grain taxes on the same basis."

Li Zicheng still did not quite understand, and looked at Gu Junen.

Gu Junen raised his voice: "Quickly, tell us how that bandit Crown Prince Zhu plans to deal with the farmland of Xiangjing, Nanyang, De'an, Chengtian, Hanyang, and Jingzhou prefectures!"

Seeing that Gu Junen was also getting angry, Magistrate Tao Xingjin hurriedly answered truthfully: "The Crown Prince has already issued an order to distribute land by headcount in Xiangyang and Nanyang prefectures, and at the same time to recognize the headcount-based land distribution carried out by the roving bandits in De'an, Chengtian, Hanyang, and the north-bank parts of Jingzhou. No matter who originally owned the distributed land, once it is recovered in the future, no questions will be asked. The farming households who received land need only pay a small amount of redemption grain within the next five years to obtain official title deeds..."

What? What? Li Zicheng's face turned ashen, and his lips trembled faintly. He had roamed the world for many years and seen plenty of vicious, shameless, despicable villains, but not one could compare with that bastard Crown Prince Zhu Cilang... He was the Crown Prince! The Crown Prince of the scholar-official landlord class! When he, the Roving King, distributed land to the peasants, that Crown Prince, once he took back the territory, ought to return the land to the scholar-official landlords! He ought to stand up for the scholar-officials!

How could he recognize the Shun regime's land equalization... This was a double-crossing robbery!

"I, I always thought I was dealing with a cunning and vicious Ming Crown Prince," Li Zicheng stamped his foot. "I never expected to run into a double-crossing bandit Crown Prince!"

"Your Majesty," Liu Zongmin was still utterly baffled and shook his head, "the Zhu Crown Prince hasn't double-crossed anyone... He didn't swallow up the land we distributed, so how is that double-crossing?"

Li Zicheng pressed a hand to his large forehead and thought: What kind of people do I have under me! I am plainly a brilliant and mighty founding sovereign — how is it that I can never find a group of civil officials and military commanders with true king-counseling talent?

Every last one of my subordinates is a goddamn blockhead!

He wondered whether Zhu Cilang had many talented people on his side. At that thought, Li Zicheng suddenly pointed at Magistrate Tao, who was still trembling on the ground. "You tell me — if you speak well, I'll let you go; if you speak wrong, drag him out and kill him!"

This magistrate named Tao Xingjin was truly cursed with bad luck... He was only a juren, and originally had little chance of holding office, but his family had money, so he bought himself a county magistracy and was assigned to Shishou County to "recover his costs." He never imagined that before he had even finished one term as magistrate, the whole situation of the realm would change so drastically.

He could have abandoned his post and fled, but he could not bear to part with the capital he had spent buying the office... And now look — holding office had put his very life in danger!

To save his life, Magistrate Tao had no choice but to confess honestly. "Th-then I'll speak... The thing is, land plus peasants is what makes a property. Land with no one to farm it is worth nothing at all! His Highness the Crown Prince didn't rob the gentry landlords of their land — he robbed them of the land and the tenant farmers together!"