Chapter 547: No Taxes, No Protection

Outside Hanyang Gate, several granaries built of timber stood conspicuously, occupying the most convenient spots for transport. Several more granaries of the same scale were under intense construction. Yet these huge granaries all stood completely empty.

In previous years at this time, grain boats from all over Huguang would already have packed the docks of Hankou and Wuchang. Horse-drawn carts and hand-pulled carts coming and going were piled high with heavy sacks of rice; grain merchants, dock laborers loading and unloading, and boatmen working sails and steering vessels — tens of thousands of them bustled ceaselessly around the docks of Hankou and Wuchang.

But from last winter until now, everything had been desolate and quiet, and altogether not much grain had been shipped in at all!

"When Huguang has plenty, the whole realm has surplus. Now that Huguang lacks plenty, can the southeast still have any surplus?"

Zhu Cilang, who was to depart in a few more days, stood atop the Hanyang Gate tower, gazing out at the Hanyang Gate docks as he murmured to himself.

Li Zicheng had indeed picked a fine time to send troops into Jianghan — precisely the point after the autumn harvest of the eighteenth year of Chongzhen and before the rice could be shipped to Hankou and Wuchang.

The southeast now had too many people and too little land, and it planted too many cash crops, so it could not feed itself and needed to buy grain from Huguang, which produced rice in abundance.

From an economic standpoint, this was not a problem. Huguang had two hundred million mu of land, nearly half of it paddy fields, and its population was not overly dense, so even if the harvest was not very good, there was still ample surplus grain to sell to the southeast.

The southeast, by contrast, had too many people and too little land, but it lay along the great river and the sea, with convenient water transport. Once the Age of Discovery arrived, it could export silk, cotton, and tea in large quantities in exchange for silver, and then buy Huguang rice to feed its people.

This was the inevitable choice of the market economy of the late Ming south!

After Zhu Cilang took control of the southeast, he knew this economic cycle carried risks — the Huguang region was not firmly under his control, and it was also threatened by hostile forces! But what power did he have to resist the liberalized market of the southeast?

Could he use a single decree to force the people below to convert mulberry fields back to rice paddies? That would be taking people's wealth — it would be killing their parents.

And once the southeast converted mulberry to rice, the five great textile centers of Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Yangzhou, and Songjiang would see massive unemployment. The urban poor would start making trouble again — and they were what Zhu Cilang, this feudal Crown Prince, feared most!

Qiu Yu, the Governor of Huguang, standing behind Zhu Cilang, had heard the Crown Prince's words and had no good advice to offer. He could only console him: "Thousand Years, quite a few rice merchants are now willing to go to Hubei under naval protection to buy rice. By next month, several million shi should be able to be shipped to Jiangnan."

Last year's harvest in Hubei had actually been decent. If not for Li Zicheng's perfectly timed campaign, and if that damned Zuo Menggeng had not carried off the merchant ships of Hankou and Wuchang, over ten million shi of Hubei rice would already have been shipped to Jiangnan.

And these days, because rice prices in Jiangnan had risen, many southeastern merchants were scouring everywhere for wooden boats and were now arriving one after another at Wuchang and Hankou, preparing to buy rice and ship it downstream to make a fortune.

Zhu Cilang glanced back at Qiu Yu, then turned his gaze to He Tengjiao, Governor of Hunan, and Du Yinxi, Prefect of Jingzhou.

"Minister He, Minister Du, you two have served in Huguang for many years and understand the local situation. Speak up."

He Tengjiao said: "Uncle Qiu is right. As long as Hubei can be stabilized and grain merchants dare to go down and buy rice, several million shi can certainly be had. Though not as much as in previous years, it can still somewhat ease the southeast's grain shortage.

Moreover, Hunan's harvest last year was also good. It is only because the two prefectures of Wuchang and Hanyang fell and most of the grain boats on the Yangtze were seized by Zuo Menggeng that the grain could not be shipped out. As long as the court can open the water route between the Xiang River and the Yangtze, Hunan can ship out at least ten million shi of white rice!"

Du Yinxi, however, shook his head, his expression grave: "Thousand Years, food is the first necessity of the people! There can be no negligence whatsoever in matters of grain. Now the southeast is crowded with people, yet it cannot feed itself and relies entirely on Huguang's strenuous supply. Although Huguang has broad fields, it has been harassed by roving bandits these past two years, and its output is far below what it once was. Purchasing ten million shi of white rice in Hunan may be possible, but Hubei — this subject thinks it cannot be done!"

Zhu Cilang asked: "Why not?"

Du Yinxi said: "Because of the land equalization by headcount!"

Zhu Cilang fell silent. This question had been debated for quite some time at the temporary palace in Wuchang, and no final conclusion had yet been reached.

Du Yinxi said: "The gentry and the merchants are one body; if the gentry perish, the merchants cannot survive! If Your Highness wishes to restore the Hubei grain route as quickly as possible, then after Your Highness recovers all of Jingxiang, please immediately set things right and restore a bright and clear order to Hubei!"

Du Yinxi's view naturally had some merit! Zhu Cilang was not a roving bandit, nor a Tartar. He was the Crown Prince of the Great Ming, charged with pacifying the realm — he represented the old world, not a new order built after smashing everything to pieces.

Therefore, after recovering the Hubei prefectures of Jingzhou, Chengtian, Xiangyang, De'an, and Hanyang, it was only natural to return the land to its former owners.

Du Yinxi continued: "Your Highness, the court must clearly separate public and private in governance! Public land is public land, and private land is private land. Otherwise, the victims will not only be the Hubei gentry, but also the northern stalwarts who followed Your Highness south!"

Many of the northerners who had fled with Zhu Cilang to Jiangnan were also landlords. If Zhu Cilang could not set things right for the Hubei gentry, how could he ever set things right in the north? If he acknowledged Li Zicheng's "achievements" in Hubei, he would naturally also have to acknowledge the results of Dorgon's land equalization by headcount in the Central Plains.

In that case, what motivation would the officers and men of Zhu Cilang's Northern Army have to launch a northern expedition to recover the Central Plains?

Zhu Cilang glanced at his military advisor Li Yan. He was from Henan, so of course he was a big landlord!

"Your Highness," Li Yan naturally understood Zhu Cilang's mind and quickly spoke up, "the north has over forty million mu of banner land, more than enough to reward the stalwarts for their merits. As for the land the eastern barbarians equalized out to the common people — if it is to be returned to its original owners, then those ten million and more northerners will all become the eastern barbarians' most loyal supporters!"

Zhu Cilang smiled faintly. This Li Yan had once been a roving bandit; his political consciousness was high after all!

"Indeed!" Liu Kongzhao, now the Earl of Kecheng Chengyi, chimed in, "Among ten million northerners there must be a million stalwarts. If all of them became the eastern barbarians' vanguard, would the Central Plains ever be recovered? This subject believes the court should acknowledge the land the roving bandits equalized out as belonging to those who till it!"

Although Liu Kongzhao came from the southern nobility and landlord class, he had now completely thrown in his lot with Zhu Cilang, so naturally his position had shifted accordingly.

"But where will the grain come from?" Du Yinxi said. "If we do not set things right, the Hubei grain route cannot be fully restored, and we will lose at least several million shi a year. The people of the southeast will go hungry — and this is not a matter of just one or two years!"

"Well..." Zhu Cilang smiled. "Have the Left-Ban Supervising Censor Ji Kun and Huang Zongxi, the Vice Bureau Director of the Ministry of Personnel, arrived?"

Ji Kun and Huang Zongxi had come on behalf of the Censorate and the Grand Secretariat to report to Zhu Cilang on the "Nanjing rice-seizing incident." The Marshal's Office had also sent someone — Zhang Dingbian, Guard Commander of the Xiaoling Guard New Army.

Li Yan replied, "Ji Kun and Huang Zongxi arrived in Wuhan yesterday."

Zhu Cilang nodded and said with a smile: "Those two have some ideas. Have them attend tomorrow's joint council at the temporary palace, and let everyone hear their views."

In truth, Zhu Cilang had long since made up his mind. Returning the Hubei land to its so-called "original owners" was impossible — leaving aside what would happen to the several million people living in the four great agricultural prefectures of Jingzhou, De'an, Chengtian, and Hanyang, the mere matter of how much tax those "original owners" had paid the Great Ming over all those years already decided that their private property could not be protected.

Huguang was so vast, yet its total annual grain tax was only a little over two million shi — and even that amount had been collected in full only a few years out of every decade. And how much did the Ming court's tax stations on the Yangtze collect from the ten or twenty million shi of rice shipped from Huguang to Jiangnan every year?

These Hubei landlords had not paid up, and now they expected the Crown Prince to send the Kecheng New Army to protect them? Dream on!

(End of Chapter)