Chapter 564: The Crown Prince's Whip

At the Hanyang Gate Wharf in Wuchang County, Wuchang Prefecture, a group of men dressed as officials stood on the embankment, watching laborers carry rush-wrapped bales one by one off the wooden boats moored at the dock. Freight rickshaws were already waiting on the inner side of the embankment. The rush bales were piled on one after another, and as soon as a cart was full it was hauled off at once, passing through Hanyang Gate.

A somewhat puffy-faced man dressed like a wealthy squire said with animated delight, "At last we've held out until the autumn grain reached the market. Now the price of grain in Wuchang city can finally fall back a bit, and business will pick up too. The government's grain for land redemption is also about to arrive, and many Hubei gentry who have drifted to Wuhan will finally be able to breathe a little easier. Wuhan's markets will gradually revive as well."

This puffy squire was Yao Daqiao, now the acknowledged great rice merchant of Wuchang Prefecture! Although his capital was not the largest, because he had taken on a large contract from the Jiangdu Garrison Command to supply life-saving grain to the Northern Prefecture refugees resettled in Wuhan, he had received commendation from Zhu Cilang and been granted an imperial merchant license, and so had become the head of the Wuhan grain guild.

With this status, he was able to borrow heavily from the two Wuhan branch banks, and with the support of those loans his business naturally grew even larger. Not only did he trade in rice, but he also leased large tracts of land in Hanyang, Chengtian, Jingzhou, and other prefectures of Hubei to open farms, and he had begun constructing shops, wine houses, inns, and rice granaries on Hanzheng Street in Hankou Town. His business was flourishing more and more.

Beside Yao Daqiao, a ninth-rank official in a green robe who looked very much like a high official sighed: "No matter how good the market gets, there won't be much share left for us. In the three counties of Wuhan nowadays, the streets are full of people from the north!"

The one complaining about the northerners was Peng Ziqin, who had lost three or four thousand mu of land in De'an. He had now passed the Hubei special examination administered by Huang Zongxi and become a ninth-rank official of the Great Ming — these so-called special examinations were in fact recruitment tests for low-ranking officials, and could not be mentioned in the same breath as the original jinshi grand examinations.

Zhu Cilang was gradually abolishing the civil examination system! Only he had not publicly issued a grand edict of abolition, but was carrying it out quietly.

And the method of abolishing the examinations was to replace the nationwide spring grand examination with "official examinations" for low-ranking officials.

This recruitment of low-ranking officials had been given a very pleasant-sounding name by Zhu Cilang: the "special examination." It was administered by the provincial education commissioners, the Ministry of Personnel at court, or officials (or agencies) designated by His Highness the Crown Prince — because the "special examination for selecting officials" system was still being explored and had not yet formed a fixed system, a certain amount of confusion existed.

However, the broad principles had already been set: recruit low-ranking functionaries through examinations, permit them to serve in their home regions, and then select higher officials through bottom-rank elimination, promotion by merit and seniority, recommendation by superiors, and the Ministry of Personnel grand examination (the official promotion examination).

Besides this method of selecting officials through local or Ministry of Personnel "special examinations," the three academies — the Imperial Academy, the Nanjing Academy (formerly the Nanjing Practical Academy), and the Nanjing Military Academy — would also become cradles of officialdom, sending batch after batch of civil officials, military officers, and technical officials to the Great Ming.

Of course, the three academies were not universities in the true sense. Introducing modern education and opening universities was still not feasible now, so Zhu Cilang would not rush to pull up seedlings to help them grow.

Behind Yao Daqiao and Peng Ziqin stood a dozen or so more people, mostly "green-robed" petty officials or civil and military clerks, who vaguely surrounded two somewhat cold and stern-looking "blue-robed" officials in their midst. These two mid-ranking officials were none other than Ji Kun and Huang Zongxi.

Ji Kun was on his way to take up his post in Shandong and was waiting for his official boat to dock — he had received his orders in Changsha, then gone to Wuchang Prefecture to select his retinue, picking some people from among the sesame-and-mung-bean petty officials produced by the special examination administered by Huang Zongxi, plus some Censorate runners and Embroidered Uniform Guard secret agents, and at last had put together a provincial-level inspection bureau staff, ready to go to Shandong and play the villain.

And before Ji Kun arrived in Shandong, Zhu Cilang had not dispatched any Shandong Circuit Investigating Censors (neither the left nor the right cohort had been sent), only a Dengzhou-Laizhou Circuit Investigating Censor.

But the jurisdiction of the Shandong Inspection Circuit (which governed Shandong Province excluding the two prefectures of Dengzhou and Laizhou, plus Huaibei, Xuzhou, and Haizhou) was extremely special — almost all of it was territory carved up by warlords.

In Zhu Cilang's court, the work of censors was anti-corruption — fighting bureaucratic graft and bribery! The warlords were masters of their own houses; what was there to be corrupt about or not?

So anyone with clear eyes knew that Ji Kun's trip to Shandong must carry a special mission!

"Brother Chunfan, this time you have gotten your wish. Though you carry the title of Censor, in reality you are an imperial inspector, touring the realm on Heaven's behalf!"

Huang Zongxi seemed to envy Ji Kun greatly, but Ji Kun himself only sighed from time to time.

"Not a true censor, yet still a harsh official, serving as His Highness the Crown Prince's whip to lash those gentlemen in Huaibei, Xuhai, and Shandong. But are those men so easy to deal with? This errand will not be easy to carry out well!"

Shi Kefa, Gao Hongtu, Zuo Maodi, Huang Degong, and Gao Jie were not of Zuo Menggeng's sort. The Zuo family army had had too comfortable a life these past few years, which had worn away their fighting spirit, and they could no longer fight well. But these men were on the front line against the Tartar caitiffs!

"How could that be?" Huang Zongxi laughed. "His Highness the Crown Prince is now at the height of his power, with hands so long they nearly reach Guangdong."

Ji Kun smiled: "It is precisely because His Highness the Crown Prince's hands have grown so long that those gentlemen north of the Huai River have begun to stir restlessly. Up to now, the model divisions of the Hard-Working New Army number only seven, and the independent ironclad cavalry regiments and artillery regiments each number only two. In all, no more than a hundred and ten or twenty thousand elite troops — how much territory can they control? Now they are scattered everywhere, so their grip on Huaibei, Xuhai, and Shandong has naturally weakened. Otherwise, why would Huang Degong and Gao Jie have started fighting each other?"

The model divisions had originally been the Van Division, the Rear Division, the Left Division, the Center Division, the Right Division, and the First Division, and recently a Guards Division had been added — the Guards Division designation had first appeared before the Battle of Tangjia Mountain. But after the battle it was quickly disbanded, and the Shaanxi troops temporarily incorporated into it became new recruits undergoing retraining, with some of those who could ride and tend horses being converted into cavalry.

By the autumn of the nineteenth year of Chongzhen, the Guards Division was reorganized once more, becoming the seventh model division.

At the same time, the Spanish light muskets ordered from the Dutch also arrived in large quantities, and the various model divisions began large-scale re-equipping. The matchlock muskets that were retired were issued to second-line regiments.

Besides the seven model divisions, the Grand Marshal's Office had also successively organized twenty-eight regiments with a full strength of up to two thousand five hundred men each, and twelve infantry regiments converted from brigades of the various guard armies.

And the equipment and training of these forty regiments would gradually be made consistent with the first-line regiments incorporated into the model divisions. Only Zhu Cilang could not produce enough horses for the cavalry regiments and artillery regiments to use, so he could not use these regiments to form more divisions — a model division, besides four infantry regiments, also had to be assigned an artillery battalion (with two artillery companies and one engineer company, of which the two artillery companies could be split into four half-companies and assigned to infantry regiments) and a light cavalry battalion. Therefore a great number of warhorses and draft horses were needed.

Without horses, and unable to equip three-pounder cannon (the cannon of this era were heavier than those of the nineteenth century and had to be pulled by horses; oxen could of course pull them too, but oxen were easily frightened and unsuited to maneuvering on the battlefield), the New Army units based on infantry regiments did not possess strong field combat capability, but could be used to defend cities and fortresses — for Zhu Cilang, the number of cannon was not a problem, so he could form many artillery companies without draft horses, and could even assign one to every infantry regiment.

And these artillery companies with little mobility were not entirely immobile; as long as the battlefield was set along a navigable river, they could be transported to the battlefield by boat.

But equipping all the second-line infantry regiments with muskets and cannon (without draft horses) would still require a considerable length of time, so at present, the New Army units that truly possessed strong combat power were only the seven infantry divisions plus four cavalry or artillery regiments.

Under these circumstances, Zhu Cilang could not afford to fall out with that gang of warlords in Huaibei who served as meat shields. His advancement to the throne would best be done with their support, or at least with them coming to lend their presence.

(End of Chapter)