Chapter 562: We Are All Old Feudalists

The "Memorial Admonishing Against Feudalism and Advocating Deliberative Governance" is a powerful essay that needs to be savored carefully. When Zhu Cilang first read it, his mind was entirely occupied with the food problem, so he didn't think much of it. But now, with the food problem temporarily alleviated and the messy business of dealing with all manner of demons and monsters in western Hunan and Guangdong laid out before him, Crown Prince Zhu has finally come to appreciate the value of the "Memorial Admonishing Against Feudalism and Advocating Deliberative Governance."

Because he has discovered that the true purpose of the "Memorial Admonishing Against Feudalism and Advocating Deliberative Governance" is not to introduce feudalism into China, but rather to regulate the feudalism that already exists!

Later generations held a view that the Marxist division of so-called feudal society does not apply to China. Because ancient China was for long periods a unified, centralized empire, and no feudal society existed. But after Zhu Cilang spent two and a half years as the Ming Empire's Army-Supervising Crown Prince, he has come to realize that within this unified, centralized empire of the Great Ming, irregular feudal institutions exist everywhere.

Feudal institutions and bureaucratic rule are not opposites, either. There is probably no feudal state in the world that could endure for any length of time while completely lacking a bureaucratic system—that would mean the monarch held no directly administered land, but had enfeoffed all the realm's territory and people, and the next level of vassals did the same downward, all the way to the very bottom.

Most of the time, feudal monarchs hoped to expand their own directly administered domains while compressing the domains of their lower-level vassals, and to break up great vassals into petty lords as much as possible.

And a feudal monarch's directly administered domain was precisely the land governed by bureaucrats whom the lord could remove and replace at any time. It was also the feudal monarch's most reliable foundation of power and finance!

In other words, directly administer whatever can be directly administered; enfeoff petty lords wherever direct administration is impossible; and only when there is truly no alternative acknowledge a great lord as one's vassal. Most feudal rulers throughout the world probably followed this line of thinking, and very few feudal lords would voluntarily reduce their own directly administered domains.

Therefore feudalism is a passive method of rule, not one adopted proactively.

Thus the existence of central bureaucratic governance does not mean that feudal society does not exist. And the proportion of central bureaucratic rule within the empire's total territory merely indicates how strong or weak the emperor's authority is in domestic political life, as the greatest feudal lord. In extreme circumstances, a Chinese emperor might even establish rotating-official rule over the entire realm. But such situations were extremely rare; it was far more common for an emperor whose edicts could not get out of the capital gates.

So fundamentally speaking, feudal society did exist in ancient China. It was only that over quite long historical periods, the emperor's directly administered region was very vast, while the territory and population ruled by vassals was relatively small, which gave people the illusion that the supreme ruler of the central empire could govern every corner of the entire country.

Unfortunately, that was merely an illusion!

And the present supreme ruler of the Great Ming Empire, the Army-Supervising Crown Prince Zhu Cilang, has no way to completely grip in his hand even the half of the realm that remains to the Ming.

That's right—Zhu Cilang has indeed forged a new-model army of his own that is fairly capable in battle, and the total number of registered officers and men has now exceeded two hundred thousand. And the sixteen General Headquarters at Huai'an, Yangzhou, Fengyang, Jiangpu, Anqing, Jiujiang, Wuhan, Yuezhou, Jingzhou, Xiangyang, Nanchang, Changsha, Hengzhou, Guangzhou, Fuzhou (not yet established), and Hangzhou (also not yet established) can, within the next year or two, provide Zhu Cilang with at least another two hundred thousand recruits, thereby raising the Ming court's directly controlled new-model army to four hundred thousand.

About half of them could be brought up to model-army standard and become field armies of great combat power—bringing all four hundred thousand new-model troops to model standard is impossible. On the one hand, the various regions need central garrisons to maintain order; on the other hand, model standardization requires the assignment of large numbers of mobile artillery and cavalry, which requires great quantities of horses, and the Southern Ming will for a long time to come receive only a very limited number of horses.

And garrison new-model troops without cavalry and mobile artillery, and with training far inferior to the model army, can at best handle low-intensity security warfare. They can be used to overawe the localities (to scare people), but they cannot be used to flatten regions with powerful local separatist forces (a real all-out fight is out of the question).

Therefore even if Zhu Cilang's army reaches the expected scale of four hundred thousand men, he still will not have the ability to establish strong bureaucratic rule over the entire realm.

Four hundred thousand troops only looks like a lot. After dividing out half as a field army to deal with the Qing troops in the north and the roving bandits in Sichuan, the remaining two hundred thousand men must be stationed across thirteen provinces—Jiangbei, Jiangnan, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Shandong, and Henan (the Ming also holds territory in Shandong and Henan)—plus the two capitals of Wuhan and Yingtian. Spread evenly, each province or capital gets only a little over thirteen thousand men. This amount of troops, placed along the Yangtze River banks and in the Lianghuai and Jianghan regions where the field model army is concentrated, can rely on the main forces to prop up effective central bureaucratic rule—considering the current situation, the Ming's main field army cannot be overly dispersed. It is best deployed along the Yangtze, the Grand Canal, the Han River, and the Huai River, where it can be rapidly concentrated by water, so that a great army can be assembled immediately when needed.

But in western Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan, where model troops cannot be deployed in large numbers, and in Shandong (including Huaibei), where powerful warlord forces exist, a little over ten thousand garrison new-model troops can by no means support unified rule by central bureaucrats.

Therefore cooperation and coexistence with local feudal forces is a choice made of necessity. And to cooperate and coexist, there must be rules and laws.

"Your Highness, this subject has carefully read the 'Memorial Admonishing Against Feudalism and Advocating Deliberative Governance.'" After receiving the copy of the "Memorial Admonishing Against Feudalism and Advocating Deliberative Governance" written out in Zhu Cilang's own hand, He Tengjiao had very carefully read and studied it together with his own staff.

After reading it several times, he understood that his time as Governor of Hunan was nearly up—because the problems in western Hunan were not very great, and did not require a man of his great ability at all. Guangdong was the place where he could display his talents to the full.

He Tengjiao said, weighing his words carefully: "This subject believes that in Guangdong, the native and Hakka clans band together to dwell and carve out territories for themselves, and may be regarded as gentry or citizens of the state. Therefore the official who governs Guangdong should be patient and meticulous, allocating land and water sources to the native and Hakka clans everywhere, and reasonably apportioning military service and taxes. The governing official should also restrict private feuds between clans and fairly adjudicate disputes among the various clans.

In addition, the government should order the powerful clans in every locality to build residences in the city of Guangzhou Prefecture, so that the elders of each clan reside permanently in Guangzhou and, representing their clans, serve as deliberative councilors. In all matters involving native and Hakka clan affairs, the governing official should fully heed the words of the deliberative councilors."

Zhu Cilang nodded repeatedly. This He Tengjiao was indeed an expert at internal struggle, and should also be fairly familiar with the petty affairs of powerful clans (Guizhou was the same sort of thing). The governorship of Guangdong belonged to no one but him.

Then Crown Prince Zhu turned his head to look at Cao Youyi, the future General of Guangzhou and concurrently Commander of Guangdong Military Affairs, and asked with a smile: "What does the Deputy Military Advisor think the court should do to govern Guangdong?"

The Ming court could not have only clan enfeoffments in Guangdong and no directly administered territory. Wherever direct administration was possible, it should still be directly administered as much as possible.

And what would support the Ming court's rotating-official governance in Guangdong was, of course, the one to two hundred thousand northern refugees about to go there to be fed, and the more than ten thousand garrison new-model troops selected from among them.

Cao Youyi already had some idea of his own "financial prospects." Hearing the Crown Prince's words, he immediately answered: "Your Highness, in this subject's humble view, the court's method for governing Guangdong should be: seize Guangfu, hold the Three Rivers, overawe Macao, and strictly control the maritime customs.

Guangfu is the heart of Guangdong; the East, West, and North Rivers are Guangdong's arteries; Macao and the maritime customs are where Guangdong's great commercial profits lie. Seize the heart, hold the arteries, control the sources of wealth—then the land and profits of Guangdong will naturally belong to the court."

Zhu Cilang smiled. The answer was proper and conventional, but easy to say and fraught with difficulties to carry out!

He pondered for a moment, then said: "Minister He, Minister Cao, you two are both pillars of the court and meritorious officials who have overcome difficulties. The affairs of Guangdong will depend on the two of you working with sincere dedication. Remember to unite sincerely and wholeheartedly, and by no means act with undue haste."

(End of Chapter)