Chapter 573: Li Zicheng Has Won Again!

"Eat his mother, drink his mother, the Roving King has come to divide the fields."

On the very day Zhu Cilang ascended the throne and became the seventeenth Son of Heaven of the Great Ming, the song welcoming the Roving King rang out over the city of Chongqing Prefecture.

The Shun Yongchang Son of Heaven Li Zicheng had finally won his first major victory after his death!

What? He died and still won a victory? Was this victory won in the world of the living, or in the world of the dead?

This question is a little complicated!

Although Li Zicheng's physical body is dead, and his soul has gone no one knows where, he still lives on in the annals of history!

Although Zhu Cilang, He Tengjiao, and Du Yinxi had already concluded through fundamental analysis that Li Zicheng was dead, and the Xi's Zhang Xianzhong had also guessed that Li Zicheng was only pretending to be alive,

neither side had publicly declared Li Zicheng dead.

Because a dead Li Zicheng would not carry enough deterrence over the gentry and landlord class of Huguang. In order to smoothly carry out the policy of "clearing the fields, checking the land, and picking the fruit," Zhu Cilang did not expose Li Zicheng's pretense of being alive.

And Zhang Xianzhong also felt that a living Li Zicheng was more advantageous for his own northward advance into Guanzhong and for gaining a firm foothold there.

Because as long as Li Zicheng was alive and maintained a state of war with the Great Ming, the Great Qing would not launch a fierce assault on the territory under Li Zicheng's name — Dorgon, Dodo, and Fan Wencheng had all read Romance of the Three Kingdoms thoroughly. Looking at the map, wasn't the present world divided into three?

Moreover, the Great Ming was the strongest of the three. If the Shun and the Qing did not join forces, that was one thing, but how could they afford to fight each other to the death?

Therefore, as long as the Shun maintained a state of war with the Ming, Dorgon would not send troops into Shaanxi. He would only seize the time and concentrate his strength on striking the Ming forces in Shanxi — since last winter, the second siege of Datong had begun, and at this moment the city of Datong was still tightly surrounded and being starved out!

After figuring out this situation, Zhang Xianzhong, who had gone north into Guanzhong and occupied Xi'an Prefecture, continued to fly the banner of the Shun's Western King externally, claiming that he had taken over Shaanxi on Li Zicheng's orders.

Since both Zhu Cilang and Zhang Xianzhong "believed" Li Zicheng was alive, and the Great Qing seemed to have no objection either, and the Shun court itself also declared that Li Zicheng was still alive and stationed at Yong'an (Kuizhou), then Li Zicheng naturally lived on in the annals of history.

According to the later History of the Shun: Annals of Emperor Gaozu, after the Shun Gaozu Li Zicheng was defeated at Gong'an, he led his army into Sichuan, took Kuizhou as his base, renamed it Yong'an, and made it his place of sojourn. Subsequently he dispatched Taizong Li Guo with thirty thousand troops to raid Chongqing, and with the coordination of Gao Yigong's and Luo Hu's armies totaling thirty thousand men, attacked Chongqing from both sides and utterly routed the forces of the Great Ming Governor-General of Sichuan, Ma Shiying!

However, Ma Shiying's defeat did not mean the collapse of Ming rule in Sichuan. Because at the same time Chongqing Prefecture fell, Yang Zhan in western Sichuan successfully recovered Chengdu Prefecture, which Zhang Xianzhong had abandoned. So Ma Shiying and Zeng Ying, having lost Chongqing Prefecture, retreated toward Chengdu.

Meanwhile, Qin Yiming, the Regional Commander of Sichuan who had earlier remained to guard Kuizhou, withdrew to Zunyi Prefecture, where he met the Loyal Duke Qin Liangyu, who had come from Huguang with large quantities of firearms and military pay. Having received reinforcements, Qin Yiming's forces gained a firm foothold in Zunyi Prefecture.

So the situation in Sichuan remained bewildering and unclear.

And the dead Li Zicheng would still have to survive in the annals of history for some time. The Shun dynasty, under his banner, would continue to advance!

The Shun dynasty's new capital, Yong'an City, was shrouded in the pattering night rain. In a certain residence, candlelight shone through a thin layer of window paper, and two figures sitting face to face could be faintly seen.

"As the saying goes, spring rain is dearer than oil. It seems this year the farmers of Sichuan will have good days ahead. Heaven has granted them a meal, and the Prince Who Soothes the Army has also given them land by headcount."

Inside the room, the somewhat portly Left Assistant of the Shun and Grand Secretary of the Tianyou Pavilion, Niu Jinxing, leaned against a couch, holding a register of Yong'an Prefecture's land enclosure, land grants, and per-capita land equalization, reading it carefully.

"His Majesty's method of land enclosure and equalization may benefit the farmers, but it cannot govern industry and commerce. Previously, industry and commerce in Xiangjing Prefecture, Chengtian Prefecture, and Jingzhou Prefecture declined considerably. This year it should be Sichuan's turn to decline."

The other person was a young man who somewhat resembled Niu Jinxing. He was Niu Jinxing's son, Niu Quan. Niu Quan had served as Prefect of Xiangjing Prefecture for a time last year, and had now been transferred by Li Guo to Yong'an Prefecture as Vice Minister of the Revenue Ministry. He seemed to have some slight criticism of the per-capita land equalization policy the Shun dynasty was implementing. He did not dare openly oppose it, and only dared to speak of it before his father, Niu Jinxing.

Niu Jinxing glared at his son. "What of it if industry and commerce decline? At the founding of every dynasty, there have been many cases of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce. This dynasty takes the Tang as its model, and the Tang also emphasized agriculture and suppressed commerce at its founding."

"But we cannot do without industry and commerce entirely. It is too inconvenient!" Niu Quan shook his head. "As soon as Xiangjing Prefecture's land enclosure and debt relief decree was issued, the great craftsmen and great merchants vanished immediately. The year before last, the bit of rice harvested from our family's estate had nowhere to go, and in the end it was transported to Lexian Bridge to be sold. But what now? We have all entered Sichuan. We can't very well transport it to Hankou to sell, can we?

Moreover, before, we still had our old reserves and could give everyone some silver as salary to tide things over. But this year I'm afraid there is no silver to distribute, and we will have to switch to issuing rice and flour instead. And quite a few of our brothers lost their estates in Xiangjing and Nanyang and came along with us. To re-enclose land and settle them in Sichuan will also require spending money!"

The gentry and landlords of the Ming did not reject industry and commerce, and they also possessed the privilege of tax-free passage through customs. In most places, industry, commerce, and the gentry were one and the same. Therefore, when the Shun stripped the gentry of their land and used laws to cancel the peasants' debts, it simultaneously destroyed the foundation of industry and commerce.

This problem had existed before in Huguang, and now that they had entered Sichuan, it would likely become even more severe! Because Sichuan was self-contained. Once the foundation of industry and commerce was gone, it would be unlikely that the Shun's veteran camp warriors could obtain the handicraft products they needed through mutual trade with the Great Ming.

In addition, the Shun court now had no source of cash. So very soon there would be no silver to issue to the officials below, and they would most likely have to switch to issuing rice.

From now on, officials of the Shun dynasty would have to drive horse carts and ox carts to haul their salaries away.

"What a big deal," Niu Jinxing said with a snort of laughter. "You worry that the rice cannot be sold, so why not ask the farmers for other things? Ask for some cloth, some meat, some furs and game. Whatever the household needs, just have the estate send it over. As for salaries, issuing silver or issuing rice and flour makes no difference. And it doesn't have to be rice and flour either — we can also issue cloth.

Since ancient times, men have plowed and women have woven. The tax systems of the Sui and Tang were designed around men plowing and women weaving, and they created the zu-yong-diao system. However, the Sui and Tang took the 'able-bodied male' as the basis, without regard to how much land or property one had, which was too unfair to the common folk. But we can take land as the basis. From now on, each mu of land can be required to pay a portion in rice, a portion in cloth, and perform a little corvée labor. Wouldn't that do?"

Niu Jinxing's method could not be called brilliant. It was in fact the path of self-sufficiency, nothing more than the true character of a small-peasant economy (a manorial economy).

In the early period of many feudal dynasties, because years of continuous warfare had wiped out much of the population and destroyed all trades of industry and commerce, the commodity economy also lost its foundation. The self-sufficient small-peasant economy, by contrast, thrived because there were few people and much land.

At such a time, it was entirely correct for a feudal dynasty to adopt the state policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce, restraining land annexation, and protecting the small peasant!

There aren't even any people — what the hell is the point of industry and commerce!

But when a feudal dynasty developed into its middle and late periods, because the population increased and the contradiction between people and land intensified, and the policy of restraining annexation gradually lost its effectiveness, the development of industry and commerce became unstoppable. At that point, if the state could not follow the trend and adjust its policies, and still insisted on the so-called ancestral family laws of the dynasty's early years, then there would be trouble.

The Ming was precisely such a feudal dynasty that did not know how to adapt.

And the Shun dynasty's Left Assistant Prime Minister Niu Jinxing was now preparing to open a small-peasant model of the early dynasty for Li Zicheng.

Niu Quan asked again, "Then what about the trades of the hundred craftsmen?"

"State-run!" Niu Jinxing said with a smile. "Do you still remember the 'Artificer's Record' in the Rites of Zhou?"

"I remember some of it."

Niu Jinxing said, "Doesn't the 'Artificer's Record' say at the very beginning, 'The state has six classes of officials, and the hundred craftsmen occupy one of them'? Our dynasty emphasizes agriculture and suppresses commerce, so naturally we do not expect treacherous merchants to develop the hundred crafts. Therefore, vigorously developing state-run enterprises is the proper path. We must not only have state-run hundred crafts, but also monopolize salt, iron, tea, wine, and other goods, as well as the great mines in all regions. In addition, commercial officials must be set up at border markets to strictly control what is exported and imported."

Niu Quan thought for a moment. "Where will the artisans come from?"

"Establish artisan households!" Niu Jinxing said. "Artisan households do not receive per-capita land equalization, nor do they need to pay the zu and diao taxes, but they must enter official service and perform labor service, serving two or three months a year, and may be given food and clothing as appropriate."

Niu Quan frowned and asked, "Then will the common people still be allowed to engage in industry and commerce?"

"They will," Niu Jinxing said. "State-run as the primary, private as the auxiliary. If private enterprise were not allowed, where would the hundred craftsmen and artisans come from to enter official service?

However, salt, iron, tea, and wine must be monopolized. All people who smelt iron, brew wine, boil salt, or grow tea must be strictly controlled by the government and may not operate privately.

In addition, all mines of the five metals must also be operated by the government, and the people may not be involved. The business of casting coins from copper and iron must also be state-run!"

Niu Jinxing was also making progress! Four years ago, when he first began planning institutions for Li Zicheng, he was in fact just a half-baked amateur fumbling around. Although he was a juren by examination, the juren of the Ming were only proficient in eight-legged essays. Their level in policy essays was not very high, and they did not understand the institutions and regulations of past dynasties very well either — in theory, writing policy essays required mastery of the classics, but Ming scholars had a bit of cleverness and developed many cramming materials for the examinations, allowing scholars to pretend to understand what they did not and muddle through. Niu Jinxing was a juren who had muddled through.

But over the past two or three years, while governing the country, he had also been studying, and gradually gathered many advisors around him, so his level had naturally improved considerably.

What he had now laid down for Li Guo was a typical route for a feudal state based on a small-peasant economy.

The military foundation of the state was the land-enclosure military service system. The economic foundation was per-capita land equalization and state-run industry and commerce, that is, a small-peasant economy. Now only a method for selecting officials was lacking, and then it would be nearly complete.

Recommending a new book by the great author Chenfeng Tiantang, "The Tanhua Scholar of the Song Dynasty," a finished work going on sale August 1st — go take a look. Also recommending Yu Tian Xia Yu's great work "The Head of the Household Is in Trouble" — just the title looks fun!

(End of Chapter)