Chapter 553: The Crown Prince Turned Out to Be a Beggar

Wang Fuzhi was of course a great Confucian thinker, a great Confucian through and through, and Ji Kun, that "Legalist thief and harsh official," could not compare with him in Confucian thought. But Wang Fuzhi's contribution to Confucianism lay mainly in the realm of the "Great Way" — for example, the monism of qi, the debate over mind and matter, the unity of name and reality, the theory of human nature, and so on. It taught Confucian disciples how to understand the world — Confucianism was not merely the "school of officials"; it did not only possess the way of holding office and administering government, but also had a Great Way, that is, the Confucian worldview. In plain words, Wang Fuzhi was the great Confucian who mainly worked on this aspect of what Confucianism held about the cosmos and all things.

Of course, he also had his own political ideals, chiefly the equalization of all under heaven and opposition to autocracy. The present Li Zicheng actually suited him rather well as an enlightened ruler!

Gu Jiang, on the other hand, followed the same path as Huang Zongxi and that Ji Kun who had been forced into becoming a harsh official — all three took politics, economics, and law as their main fields of study. Moreover, all three were scholars from the densely populated southeast, so naturally they understood the hardship of too many people on too little land.

Seeing the unconvinced look on Wang Fuzhi's face, Gu Jiang smiled and said, "Brother Ernong has only traveled within Huguang, and has never been to Jiangnan, nor to the Central Plain, so naturally you do not know how dense the population of Jiangnan is, nor how the Central Plain has grown ever colder and harsher these years. The calamity under heaven today is the combined result of natural disaster, man-made disaster, and the excessive growth and multiplication of the population. A single equalization — heh heh. Your Huguang has broad land and abundant grain; would you be willing to take some out and share it equally with the northerners who have fled here?"

"This..."

Wang Fuzhi was actually rendered speechless by Gu Jiang's few words. In this era, people's regional consciousness was extremely strong; even the poor and lower-middle peasants of Huguang were unwilling to share equally with refugees from other places.

This equalization of all under heaven could only be carried out by each person in his own home region — but then what was to be done about regions with large populations or extreme climates? Those now rising in revolt and throwing the realm into chaos were not the people of Huguang, Sichuan, or Guangdong and Guangxi, where the land was broad and the people secure, nor even the southeast, where people were many and land was scarce. It was the northern Central Plain, which bore the triple pressure of population, climate, and foreign invasion at the same time!

The collapse of the Ming dynasty, to a certain extent, was the result of extreme imbalance in development among the various regions, while the court lacked the ability to allocate resources and wealth.

If the Great Ming court had been able to fully mobilize the strength of Huguang, Sichuan, Fujian, and Guangdong, pacifying the Central Plain and even crushing the eastern barbarians would both have been possible.

For example, Huguang paid two million dan in grain tax a year, Sichuan one million dan a year, and a place as fabulously wealthy as Guangdong paid nine hundred ninety thousand dan a year — it was simply absurd. To these places, the Chongzhen Emperor's paltry surcharges counted for nothing; they should have been taxed harshly, ten times over would be about right!

Meanwhile the provinces of Northern Zhili, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Henan, because of the disasters of the Little Ice Age and the invasions of the eastern barbarians, urgently needed relief from the state, not endless surcharges and dunning.

But because the Great Ming court had its capital at Beijing, its control over distant provinces like Huguang, Sichuan, Fujian, and Guangdong was insufficient, and so it could not mobilize the resources there.

Now, however, the Great Ming court had been pulled to Nanjing by Zhu Cilang, and had moreover formed the Southern Ming version of the Northern Garrison Army, and had allied and intermarried with Zheng Zhilong, the pirate chieftain of Fujian, and had also built a powerful navy capable of fighting on the Yangtze. Thus it possessed the ability to deploy the northern army along the Yangtze to suppress the southeast and Huguang. In this Huguang campaign, he had again borrowed Li Zicheng's blade to cut down the prestige of the Huguang landlords and gentry, and his control over Huguang had greatly increased!

Ji Kun sighed and interjected, "So many northerners clutching knives have followed the Crown Prince south — they have come to equalize rich and poor in Jiangnan, Huguang, Fujian, and Guangdong! We scholars of the southeast can only go along, not oppose. Going along with him, perhaps we can still accomplish something."

Huang Zongxi, at his side, shook his head and said in a low voice, "Whether it is equalizing rich and poor, or begging for food — that is still hard to say!"

"Begging for food?" Ji Kun looked at Huang Zongxi. "What do you mean?"

Huang Zongxi stroked his beard and said with a smile, "His Highness the Crown Prince borrowed Li Zicheng's blade to cut down the gentry landlords and seized tens of millions of mu of good fields in Hubei, but at the same time he was outmaneuvered by Li Zicheng. The Huguang campaign has dragged on too long, and no one knows when it can be fully concluded. Right now there is not much white rice in Wuchang to ship east, while the price of rice in Nanjing, Yangzhou, Suzhou, Shanghai, and Hangzhou rises day by day — the price of one dan of white rice has already reached four or five taels of silver. The common people of the southeast can still struggle to survive, but the refugees from the north have no reserves; before long they will all starve to death!

His Highness the Crown Prince holds power by the swords of the northerners — can he ignore whether they live or die?"

Ji Kun slapped his thigh. "Exactly! His Highness the Crown Prince cannot ignore the lives of those northerners. But how is he to manage it? There is no grain!"

"There is grain!" Wang Fuzhi said. "Hunan still has grain."

"How much?" Ji Kun asked casually.

Wang Fuzhi actually thought for a long while before saying, "Enough for emergency relief!"

"Enough for emergency relief?" Ji Kun asked. "In past years, no less than twenty million dan of white rice was shipped east from Huguang! Did Hunan have a great harvest this year? Can it fill such an enormous hole?"

"How could there be so much surplus grain this year?" Wang Fuzhi said with a smile. "But there are still reserves from past years. Which great household in Hunan does not have its granaries and storehouses full to the brim? Do the great households of your Southern Zhili not store rice?"

"Right!" Ji Kun smacked his forehead. "How did I forget that country moneybags love to hoard rice..."

He was no country moneybag; he was a litigation trickster from Yangzhou. Although he was also a landlord, he did not actually live in the countryside, but left everything to his steward and lived at ease in the city of Yangzhou, so for a moment he had forgotten that old landlord moneybags all hoarded grain.

Huang Zongxi laughed. "This is excellent! The Crown Prince is now essentially the chief of the Beggars' Sect. He can survey fields and inspect land, but he cannot simply confiscate the grain stored in people's homes — he can only beg for it!"

Wang Fuzhi again did not understand. "Why can he not confiscate the grain in the great households?"

Huang Zongxi said, "He would not do such a thing! Otherwise why would he have borrowed Li Zicheng's blade to deal with the landlords of Hubei? Would it not have been more satisfying to wield the knife himself? This Crown Prince of ours acts with proper measure and will not act recklessly!"

Ji Kun nodded. "Right. Though the Crown Prince cannot be called a lord of benevolence and virtue, he still has reason, restraint, trustworthiness, and righteousness."

It was true that Zhu Cilang had a knife in his hand, and was somewhat cunning and fierce, but he was not one who was unreasonable, without restraint, untrustworthy, or heartless and faithless.

From his breakout from Beijing, all along the way he had been cunning with reason and fierce with restraint; moreover, he kept his word and treated his followers with feeling and loyalty.

Wang Fuzhi thought for a moment. "In that case, His Highness the Crown Prince is one of the rare enlightened rulers of our dynasty!"

"Not merely rare," Huang Zongxi said with a smile. "Simply unique. We have indeed met an enlightened lord."

He had only spoken half of what he meant. It was true that Zhu Cilang was an enlightened lord, but after all he was an enlightened lord of the northerners. Huang Zongxi, Ji Kun, and Wang Fuzhi could never enter the core circle of the great Crown Prince Zhu.

Wang Fuzhi grew more and more confused. "An enlightened lord has to beg for food?"

Ji Kun and Huang Zongxi exchanged a glance and both nodded. The two of them had followed Zhu Cilang for quite some time and already knew his ways.

Huang Zongxi said, "Right, he has to beg for food!"

Ji Kun laughed. "Because enlightened lords all know they must keep the tigers and wolves under their command in check, and cannot let them devour all the fat sheep clean! What backgrounds do those northern magnates who came south with the Crown Prince have? When they were in the north, were they not likewise rats of the state? If there were no rules to restrain them, and they were allowed to pen up and eat all the fat sheep of the southeast, could the Crown Prince's days go on?"

"But can he actually beg for it?" Wang Fuzhi was still somewhat doubtful. When the Chongzhen Emperor was in Beijing, why could he not beg for it? Could it be that this Crown Prince's skill at begging was better than his father's?

"He can!" Ji Kun said with a half-smile. "He is the reincarnation of the Great Ancestor, the Exalted Emperor — of course he knows how to beg for food!"

Zhu Yuanzhang had, it turned out, begged for food before.

Ji Kun laughed. "Think again — let the few of us put our heads together for His Highness the Thousand Years, and then jointly submit a memorial to point out a clear path of begging for His Highness!"

(End of Chapter)