Chapter 548: Isn't This Redemption-Style Land Reform?

On the question of land in Hubei, Zhu Cilang had already made up his mind and did not need to hear the opinions of Huang Zongxi and Ji Kun. But the whole of Huguang was vast and its circumstances complex, and it still bore the after-effects of the campaign to drive out the barbarians and open up the land, so a one-size-fits-all approach would not work. That was why he had summoned Ji Kun and Huang Zongxi, the two men with ideas, to Wuhan, to hear what they had to say.

"This subject believes that in all matters one must uphold the great principle, fix names and stations, and act openly and uprightly. Only thus can affairs flow smoothly and prosper, can high and low live in harmony, and can all within and without rejoice. What this dynasty has lost is precisely this: it has stressed the great principle but slighted names and stations; it has had enfeoffment without establishment. Thus above there is the Son of Heaven, but below there are no enfeoffed lords; without enfeoffed lords there are no enfeoffed vassals. The enfeoffments of the guard stations are therefore names without rectitude, and in practice they have rotted away."

The man now discoursing on great principle and names and stations was Ji Kun! He was cast as a pettifogger and a harsh official, so naturally he set great store by law and order. At the same time he came from a military-register background; his ancestors had been meritorious officials who had followed Zhu Yuanzhang in conquering the realm, and had been enfeoffed in the Yangzhou Guard.

In his view, the guard-station system that Zhu Yuanzhang had set up was in fact half-feudal and half-bureaucratic! And this half-feudal, half-bureaucratic character was precisely the fatal flaw of the guard-station system.

If it had been feudalism in its complete form, then there could not possibly have been so many guards. There would have been no need for them, and they could not have been controlled. Nor does there exist in this world any feudalism without territory directly governed by the sovereign.

What is called feudalism is in fact this: the places one can manage, one runs directly; the places one cannot manage, one contracts out.

In the Ming's circumstances, at most one could enfeoff a few dozen military governorships along the borders of the realm, either with princes holding the marches or with meritorious officials as lords. The remaining territory would still have to be directly administered by the bureaucratic government.

In this way, with outer feudatories and inner officials, each checking the other and maintaining pressure, it would also be easier to preserve vitality.

Moreover, if the outer feudatories enfeoffed on the frontiers lacked the strength to rebel, they could only expand outward, and go torment the barbarians and Tartar caitiffs.

Of course, it was also possible for the inner-official, outer-feudatory arrangement to go badly wrong! The nine frontier princes at the founding of the Great Ming had something of the rudiments of inner officials and outer feudatories. But the nine frontier princes' system was likewise half-feudal and half-bureaucratic, with no open and upright law to bind high and low, and so all manner of awkwardness arose without end.

If it had been bureaucratic rule in its complete form, then it would have been much the same as the Zhao Song.

"In this subject's humble opinion, the great affairs of state ought to have name matching substance, and be conducted openly and uprightly. What is a military governorship should be made a military governorship; what is government office should be made government office; what is public land should be made public land; what is private holding should be made private holding."

Ji Kun continued: "At present the names and substance of the southeast are somewhat rectified, and therefore governance there is far more workable than before; the common people are somewhat at peace, and the court's revenues have increased considerably, enough to barely sustain two or three hundred thousand of the new army. But in Huguang, Bashu, Shandong, and Yunnan-Guizhou, matters where names hardly match substance are many and serious. For example, there are those who are in fact military governors but bear the titles of Governor, Governor-General, or Militia Commissioner; there are also those who are in fact enfeoffed vassals but bear the titles of Guard Commander, Guard Assistant Regional Commander, or Guard Assistant Regional Commander; and there are still more cases of what are called military-farm official lands but are in fact the private fiefs of enfeoffed vassals.

If the court wishes for enduring peace and great stability, it should first rectify names and stations, then consolidate the foundation, and use a strong trunk to command strong branches!"

His words seemed to stray somewhat from the point, but in fact the root of the Ming's land problem was precisely the confusion of the feudal system!

"How does one rectify names and substance?" Zhu Cilang asked.

Ji Kun said: "What can be made government office, make government office; what can be made official land, make official land."

His meaning was: whatever can be taken in hand, then don't stand on ceremony. Who did not know what sort of man the Crown Prince was? But what could not be taken — well, there was no help for that either!

The Great Ming was now only somewhat at peace in the southeast, and there were still plenty of opponents to deal with. How could it possibly fight a ruinous war here in Huguang against a bunch of local warlords tempered by the campaign to drive out the barbarians and open up the land?

The plains of Huguang were of course easy to handle, but in western and southern Huguang there were still vast stretches of mountains, with primeval forests reaching from earth to sky. To truly sweep them clean would take no less than eight or ten years — don't even think otherwise.

Ji Kun added: "What cannot be made government office should be enfeoffed, with laws and statutes established, lord acting as lord and vassal as vassal, each fulfilling his duty."

Put in plain words, this meant: what could not be directly governed could not simply be left alone either, but must be openly and uprightly enfeoffed. Only thus could laws and statutes be established, so that enfeoffed lords and vassals each performed their duties and contributed men and effort to the court.

Do not suppose that feudal lords necessarily resist the central government. In the last days of the Ming in history, was not old lady Qin Liangyu, who toiled so bitterly for the court for so many years, herself a feudal lord? She was the "old empress dowager" of the Shizhu tusi, and her White-Pole troops were the household troops of the tusi. In merit and in hardship, even the Capital Camps could not compare with them.

Zhu Cilang neither agreed nor disagreed, and turned his gaze to Huang Zongxi. Huang Zongxi had also been a "harsh official" for over a year now, and his whole bearing had grown somewhat somber.

"Your Highness," Huang Zongxi said after a moment's deliberation, "do you intend to treat the land of Hubei as official land or as private land?"

Zhu Cilang looked at Huang Zongxi. "What does Minister Huang think?"

Huang Zongxi said: "Land equalized by headcount ought by rights to be official land. Equal-field was meant to curb engrossment and narrow the gap between rich and poor, so it should be official land, with private sale and private subletting forbidden. But the court's official land and military land today is not set up to curb engrossment or narrow the gap between rich and poor. Not only is subletting permitted, but tenants are even expelled from the land for owing rent, and the official rent collected is very heavy. Can such a system of official land truly be implemented in Hubei?"

Zhu Cilang was not a founding hero-emperor, so he could not take the road of "restarting the cycle." He could only, in stifled frustration, try to lead more than a hundred million scattered and displaced people in groping for a way out of the cycle of order and chaos.

That was why he did not, like Li Zicheng and Dorgon, equalize land by headcount — the essence of equal-field by headcount was to restart the cycle of order and chaos, and its precondition was that the population had been greatly reduced by "chaos," so that the contradiction between people and land had been fully relieved.

Give a commoner eight or ten mu of good land, and naturally he will live in peace and delight in his work. Moreover, before the population swells to a certain number, the profit in engrossing land is not great — the feudal-bureaucratic engrossment of land is for the sake of collecting rent; only when people are many and land is scarce is rent high! With no people, to whom would you rent it out?

At the same time, when land is sufficiently plentiful, it is not easy for peasants to farm at a loss, and the small-peasant economy is easier to sustain.

But once Hubei returns to the general framework of the Ming southeast, where people are many and land is scarce, how is the achievement of equal-field by headcount to be maintained? If the land of those several prefectures of Hubei were all turned over to the Military Farm Bureau, then not only would rents be high, but there would also be the problem of expelling tenants. Would those Hubei peasants be satisfied? They had all received land from Li Zicheng; from now on would they not think of the Roving King day and night?

But if one did not collect so much rent and did not expel tenants, then peasants elsewhere who rented public land would cry injustice.

Huang Zongxi added: "If the land equalized by the roving bandits in Hubei were all classified as private land, then should the policy of five years' tax exemption for private land be implemented in Hubei? At present the number of merchants and gentry in Hubei has greatly decreased and will be hard to restore in the short term. If the rice grown by small peasants cannot be sold, there is not much point to it. If it cannot be sold, why should they not plant a little less?"

"Does Minister Huang have a good plan?" Zhu Cilang asked with a smile.

Huang Zongxi said: "This subject proposes that the land equalized by the roving bandits in Hubei be classified as private land, but that the common people of Hubei must pay a sum as the price of purchasing the land. The purchase price may be set at the amount of white rice produced by one mu of land in two years — roughly between one shi five dou and four shi, payable over five years.

The equalized land in Hubei amounts to some thirty or forty million mu. Averaged at three shi, this would yield between ninety million and one hundred twenty million shi of white rice!

The court may use a portion of it to compensate those who lost land and hold title deeds, so that the court need not use the official land of Wuhan Prefecture to make good their losses. The remainder may all belong to the court. This subject estimates that fifty or sixty million shi would still remain. Once the land-purchase law is fully implemented in Hubei, the court will be able to obtain twenty million shi from Hubei within a few years, which will not only relieve the grain shortage in the southeast but also greatly increase revenue."

Was this not redemption-style land reform? Zhu Cilang thought to himself: It ought to work, right? He did not know who in later times had adopted it, but since it had been tested in practice, it could not be wrong! Still, this method was a distant source of water, for after all, sorting out the land of the four prefectures of Hubei and concluding land-purchase contracts with the peasants was not something that could be done with a few words.

"Minister Huang's plan is a good one!" Zhu Cilang nodded. "Minister Ji's proposal is also good. Both have merit.

Let a Hubei Land-Clearing Bureau be established, under the Military Land Bureau of the Ministry of War. This Land-Clearing Bureau shall be headed by Minister Huang. In a while a Huguang recruitment examination is to be held; Minister Huang shall also serve as chief examiner, and in passing select a batch of officials for the Land-Clearing Bureau."

"As for Minister Ji!" Zhu Cilang glanced at Ji Kun. The latter wore an expression of eager expectation, clearly wishing to leave the ranks of the harsh officials and become a respected civil official of the Great Ming!

The Crown Prince smiled: "A reward of two thousand taels of silver!"

(End of Chapter)