Chapter 559: Go, Let's Beg for Food!

The north wind howled as it drove countless wooden boats winding southwest, churning up white-crested waves along the waterway from the Yangtze to the Xiang River at Changsha. The banner reading "The Great Ancestor, Exalted Emperor, Reborn" snapped and fluttered aboard one of the huge painted official vessels.

Along both banks of the Xiang River, countless able-bodied refugees from the north moved south on foot. Seen from above, the sheer scale and momentum of this refugee army advancing south along the Xiang would have been staggering.

This refugee host numbered in the hundreds of thousands, advancing by water and land together, led by the Great Ming's Army-Soothing Crown Prince, Zhu Cilang — a vast, majestic force pressing southward.

They were going to beg for food!

Truly something else — several hundred thousand people, a good portion of them fully armed, coming to demand food from Hunan's landlords and rich men. Not only fierce in manner, but utterly self-righteous!

Because they were begging for food by imperial decree!

If the landlords and rich men here in Hunan refused to provide food, that would be defying an imperial decree — and defying an imperial decree meant losing one's head. So ask yourself: along both banks of the Xiang, who dares test the blade?

And Zhu Cilang did not have only blades — he had an entire division of New Army officers and men, marching ahead of the refugee able-bodied men on foot. Whenever they reached a prosperous town, they would enter together with Governor He Tengjiao to impose martial law, then round up the local wealthy merchants and gentry and have them wait at the docks for the begging army personally led by the great Crown Prince Zhu.

At Qiaokou, a large town at the confluence of the Xiang and Qiao Rivers, lay the third most prosperous place in Changsha Prefecture after Changsha itself and Xiangyin. The Qiao River was unremarkable, but it connected the two great water systems of the Zi and Xiang Rivers. Qiaokou thus became the necessary gateway for merchant boats coming from the Zi River into the Xiang, and so it had grown ever more prosperous.

Moreover, the land around Qiaokou was extremely fertile. It was part of the Dongting Lake plain, dense with waterways and holding endless stretches of paddy fields. It was now autumn, with the rice already ripe, so from a height the eye met golden waves of grain, dotted here and there with villages trailing cooking smoke.

It was a pastoral scene worthy of a painting — yet at the edge of this scenery appeared a sight utterly out of place.

Countless refugees in tattered clothes, leaning on spears, bows on their backs, sabers at their waists, some still wearing battered and torn armor of various colors, surged like a tide up to the outskirts of Qiaokou Town, protected by its high walls.

The legendary northern refugees had arrived!

Zhang Tingsu, Zhang the Filial and Incorrupt, the richest man in Qiaokou Town and the largest rice merchant in Hunan, stood atop the wall at that moment, watching the ever-growing crowd of refugees, his face ashen as death.

The town's militia had long since been mobilized — each man had received one tael of silver from Old Master Zhang, and now all of them were up on the walls.

Yet no one dared entertain thoughts of resistance — these militiamen were not simple, honest peasants who had never seen killing. The Xiang River region had not been peaceful these past few years. Zhang Xianzhong had come through once, Li Zicheng's troops (some scattered soldiers and roving bandits) had come not long ago, and as for petty bandits not even worth mentioning, there was no need to speak of them.

But Qiaokou Town had held out by relying on its tall, sturdy walls and the militia Old Master Zhang had taken the lead in funding — well, not held out as hard as steel, but rather by handing over a great deal of money and grain, keeping the gates tightly shut, and escaping disaster.

But this time — Governor He Tengjiao of Hunan had already arrived outside Qiaokou with the vanguard cavalry of the Hard-Work New Army.

"Quickly, quickly, open the gates." Zhang the Filial and Incorrupt sighed, then turned to look at the shivering gentry and rich merchants behind him — all leading figures of the town. "Shall we go together and hear what Governor He has to say?"

What could He Tengjiao say?

By now he believed that Zhu Cilang was Zhu Yuanzhang reborn — the man even knew how to beg for food, so what was left to say?

Those now following Zhu Cilang to Hunan to beg were only a portion! Many more remained in Wuchang. Zhu Cilang had drawn grain from various parts of Huguang to relieve them, and at the same time had them build new city walls for the three towns of Wuhan under the command of Fang Yuegong and Qiu Yu — later these people would be settled in Wuhan, where Zhu Cilang would select the able-bodied to form a New Army, and would also distribute military farmlands and government lands in Hanyang and Wuchang to them.

Still others followed Wu Sanfu, Jing Muqing (Prefect of Xiangyang), and Yuan Jixian (Governor-General of Henan and Shaanxi, stationed at Xiangyang) to Xiangyang Prefecture to beg for food — the cities of Xiangyang and Nanyang had both been taken by Wu Sanfu in late July. Liu Zongmin had fallen back to Guanghua and Gucheng to continue resisting.

Yet others followed Li Yan and Hao Yaoqi to Jingzhou Prefecture to beg for food — Jingzhou Prefecture was as before: west of Huya Mountain and Yidu was controlled by Tian Jianxiu, while east of there had returned to the Great Ming.

These two routes were also about begging plus settlement. Once the food problem was solved, all the refugees would settle in Jingzhou or Xiangyang. The able-bodied among them would be recruited into the army, and the rest would be allotted some land near the cities.

Distributing land in Xiangyang Prefecture was not difficult, because land was going to be equalized there by headcount anyway — it was just a matter of adding twenty or thirty thousand northern refugee households.

But getting land in Jingzhou Prefecture was somewhat harder, because Li Zicheng had already equalized the land there, and most of it now had owners; taking it back would not be easy. However, Jiangling City had been swept clean by the Zuo family's internal bloodbath, and both the city and the nearby Shaguan market were empty. Li Yan simply picked out a batch of refugees who were merchants or had some craft and brought them to Jiangling Prefecture, settling them inside the city and at Shaguan market.

And the bulk of the northern refugees gathered in Huguang now followed Zhu Cilang into Hunan — Hunan had never been conquered by Li Zicheng, so it had many great households!

If you wanted to feast on the great households, Hunan was naturally the place to come!

"G-Governor... there are simply too many people. Are all of them here to beg for food in Hunan?"

After welcoming He Tengjiao into Qiaokou Town and inviting him into his own great mansion, Zhang the Filial and Incorrupt exchanged some pleasantries, then probingly asked about the "begging" question.

He Tengjiao frowned and glared at Zhang Tingsu. "Zijia, what nonsense are you talking? It is called 'seeking sustenance'!"

Although there was a considerable age difference between him and Zhang Tingsu, they were friends despite the gap in years. The Zhang family of Qiaokou was a great house of Hunan, and He Tengjiao had received much help from him when recruiting and training troops in Hunan.

So the two spoke more casually in private.

After that one rebuke, He Tengjiao lowered his voice and said, "There's no way around it... five hundred thousand people have come along! Not a single member of the gentry in all of Hunan can escape this."

"Ah!" Zhang the Filial and Incorrupt's fair face twisted into a knot. "The Crown Prince's meaning is..."

"These five hundred thousand people will have to be fed by you people of Hunan!" He Tengjiao said. "And on top of that, you must also provide grain to feed the refugees left in the southeast. But the Crown Prince will not take from you for nothing — this grain can be credited against future land tax. For every shi given now, one shi and five dou of future land tax will be forgiven."

"Does that mean even juren can no longer be exempt from tax?"

"Juren tax exemption..." He Tengjiao shook his head. "There are no more juren!"

"No more?" Zhang the Filial and Incorrupt was stunned. "How can that..."

His juren degree had cost him three thousand taels of silver! He had only just bought it — how could it be gone...

"Gone! All juren degrees in Huguang are abolished," He Tengjiao said. "Starting three years from now in Hunan (the Crown Prince has granted Hunan three years of tax exemption), officials and gentry alike will pay grain and taxes together! The land tax is set at two dou per mu, with the rate adjusted according to the quality of the land."

"Two dou per mu..." Zhang the Filial and Incorrupt — no, Zhang the Xiucai (he still had his xiucai degree) — was in such pain he could hardly bear it, his facial muscles beginning to twitch. "Then I would have to pay twenty thousand shi a year!"

Twenty thousand shi of white rice! How could he bear to part with it...

"No, you won't have to pay that much." He Tengjiao shook his head repeatedly.

Zhang the Xiucai had just begun to breathe easier when the truly fatal words came.

He Tengjiao said, "Much of your family's land consists of government fields, military farmlands, and hidden fields... all of which are to be reclaimed. Only private fields are subject to tax."

"What? They're going to, going to..." Zhang Tingsu could hardly believe his ears.

He Tengjiao smiled bitterly. "Yuezhou, Changsha, Changde, Baoqing, Hengzhou, Yongzhou — all six prefectures plus Chenzhou follow this rule! There will be a land survey and inspection, and moreover, gentry households must bring out grain to lend to His Highness the Crown Prince."

"I refuse... my family has no grain left!" Zhang Tingsu was speaking through gritted teeth!

It was not that he hated the Crown Prince so much, but that his heart was convulsing... it ached!

He Tengjiao sighed. "If you refuse, tomorrow a hundred thousand people will come to your house to eat... you know what feasting on a great household means, don't you? Whether you have grain or not is not for you to say!"

"A hundred thousand people feasting on a great household..." Zhang Tingsu's eyes rolled back, and he fainted dead away on the spot.

(End of Chapter)