Chapter 631: The Shandong Four Garrisons Merger Case

"In the Battle of Guishan, we lost after all! Forty-five thousand crack troops were broken by the eastern barbarians' eighty thousand in less than a day. We lost fifteen or sixteen thousand men, lost nearly all our armor, weapons, and supplies, and killed only a few thousand of the enemy. A bitter lesson!"

In a valley at Crouching Tiger Mountain, inside a large fortified mansion, the Zhu Emperor, who had halted his travels here, rapped on a desk and spoke these falsehoods with an air of deep anguish.

Listening to him, besides Shi Kefa, Gao Hongtu, Zuo Maodi, Huang Degong, Yan Yingyuan, Wang Zhou, Hao Yaoqi, Li Chengdong, and others, were Zhu Yihai, who had come from Qingzhou, Su Guansheng and Shen Tingyang, who had come from Dengzhou, and Gao Jie, who had come from Jinzhou in Liaodong.

Nearly all the leading figures of the Great Ming in Shandong and the Xu-Huai region had gathered, all prepared to spend the New Year at Crouching Tiger Mountain and welcome the arrival of the first year of Hongxing together with the Hongxing Emperor, Zhu Cilang.

But the Zhu Emperor had no mind for New Year celebrations at the moment. He was angry, grieved, and disappointed!

The Battle of Guishan had been fought too badly. It was one thing that forty-five thousand Ming troops could not defeat eighty thousand Qing troops, but why could they not even hold out for a single day?

In less than a day they had lost nearly sixteen thousand men, had no idea whether they had killed even five thousand of the enemy (the actual figure was 5,500), and had moreover lost Qufu city shortly afterward.

This was a great defeat!

The armies of Shandong had truly disappointed the Hongxing Emperor.

Zhu Cilang wore an expression of disappointment, while the commanders and generals below wore expressions of deep anguish and remorse.

Heh. They had now lost sixteen thousand men, and the forces left in their hands, all told, amounted to little more than forty thousand, at least half of them empty-handed.

With this paltry force they could not fight Dorgon, nor could they resist the Zhu Emperor, who held thirty or forty thousand heavy troops.

So they could only bow their heads and look submissive. If anyone dared to defy Zhu Cilang, the Zhu Emperor still had plenty of premium red arsenic for sending the Duke of Yansheng, Kong Yinzhi, down below to civilize the ghosts of barbarians.

But Zhu Cilang was not truly angry. Though he kept berating the Shandong armies, in reality he was extremely satisfied with the performance of these forces.

It was perfectly normal for Shi Kefa to be defeated by Dorgon. The two men's skill at war differed too greatly, and Dorgon also had thirty thousand more troops. Back then, Hong Taiji had led sixty thousand men and reduced Hong Chengchou's one hundred thirty thousand to almost nothing. Now Shi Kefa, after holding out against Dorgon's eighty thousand with forty-five thousand, still had thirty thousand left.

What did that show? It showed that the remaining thirty thousand were "quality assets"! They were soldiers who had fought a hard battle and still managed to withdraw from a great defeat. Without question, they were elite troops.

So Zhu Cilang intended to drive the price down properly and acquire these quality assets, turning them all into central army troops!

"Your Majesty!" As soon as Zhu Cilang finished speaking, Hao Yaoqi immediately rose and took up the thread. "This subject believes that the defeat at Guishan was mainly due to the chaotic military organization of the Shandong and Huaibei armies, their lack of unified command, and insufficient training. If they are not thoroughly reorganized and reformed, the same disaster will surely repeat itself in the future."

Zhu Cilang nodded. "Yaoqi speaks reason. The Shandong and Huaibei armies should indeed be reorganized and reformed."

This meant swallowing up our armies!

Shi Kefa, Gao Hongtu, Zuo Maodi, Zhu Yihai, Huang Degong, Li Chengdong, and the others all felt their hearts seize up.

And Zhu Cilang looked at Shi Kefa with a rather expectant gaze.

"Your Majesty, this subject also believes the armies should be reorganized."

Shi Kefa knew he could not resist head-on. Although he was "first among the six garrisons," he was now the weakest of the six.

Because his old base of Qufu and his moneybag, the Kong household, were both gone, and the December pay for the Qufu trained troops had still not been issued!

So he had no way to resist Zhu Cilang's takeover. If he submitted early, he could still get a bit of "equity" and seek a post where he could continue losing battles.

"Your Majesty, this subject also believes the armies should be reorganized and placed under unified command."

The next to declare submission was the Prince of Lu, Zhu Yihai. As a prince of the blood, how dare he contend with Zhu Cilang over military power?

Besides, Zhu Cilang had treated him generously.

Zhu Cilang nodded, extremely satisfied.

Two of the six garrisons were already in hand! Gao Jie in Xu-Huai could be taken or left. Now only Huang Degong, Gao Hongtu, and Zuo Maodi remained.

"Your Imperial Majesty," Li Chengdong said with furrowed brow, "the brothers under this subject have all been allotted land in Tai'an Prefecture and Feicheng. They received fields in return for military service."

"Keep the fields," Zhu Cilang said. "They will all count as merit fields. We will also issue a separate military salary, with treatment equal to that of the other officers and men of the New Army of Overcoming Hardship." He paused. "The armies of the northern garrisons have resisted the barbarians for years. If they have no merit, they at least have toil. We will allot them merit fields in Shandong."

It truly was a takeover. A complete takeover!

The warlords felt as though knives were twisting in their hearts, yet they still had to put on smiling faces.

"Very well," Li Chengdong sighed. "This subject has nothing more to say."

Zhu Cilang turned his gaze to Gao Hongtu. Gao Hongtu said, "Your Majesty, this old subject's Shandong militia relies on the support of the Shandong gentry, and the soldiers used are not conscripts. This subject alone cannot make the decision."

Zuo Maodi also said, "Your Majesty, this subject's militia also rose with the support of the gentry of the province."

Both bore the name of "militia," but their natures were not the same. Shi Kefa's Qufu militia was in fact a mercenary force sustained by the Kong household's silver—naturally they followed whoever paid them. Zhu Yihai's army was much the same, sustained by the Prince of Lu's household silver and the tax revenues of Qingzhou Prefecture.

Li Chengdong had no money, but he had obtained two rather fertile territories, Tai'an Prefecture and Feicheng, so he distributed land to his men and made them feudal soldiers.

But Gao Hongtu's and Zuo Maodi's situations were more complicated. They were big militia bosses coaxing along small militia bosses, and the strength that truly belonged to them personally was not much.

Zhu Cilang smiled. "Ministers Gao and Zuo, if the two of you cannot make the decision, then bring those who can. We will speak with them personally.

Besides the matter of incorporating the militias, We also wish to speak with them about the matter of land surveys in Shandong."

According to the account books left from the Wanli era, Shandong province had nearly 61.75 million mu of land, with a fixed land tax of roughly 2.85 million shi of flour.

61.75 million mu of land paying 2.85 million shi of flour—still a bit low! Averaged out, that was only a little over four sheng and six ge per mu, not even half a dou.

Zhu Cilang intended to raise the land tax to eight sheng of flour per mu (Shandong could not compare with Jiangnan, Huguang, Sichuan, or Guangdong; yields per mu were relatively low, so a tax of eight sheng of flour was not low either). It looked like double the four sheng per mu that Dorgon levied in the north, but Zhu Cilang would implement the merging of the head tax into the land tax and the merging of corvée labor into the land tax, and there would be no household levy (cloth), and the cost of tax collection would be deducted from the eight sheng of flour.

In other words, in Shandong, the land tax would be eight sheng of flour per mu!

Zuo Maodi stammered, "Your Majesty, Shandong has been ravaged by war for years, and many land registers have been lost..."

He was a loyal subject, and the Zuo family had many martyrs, but his family was also one of the largest landowners in Shandong province!

"Prefectures ravaged by war will naturally not have land tax collected," Zhu Cilang said. "And the three prefectures of Qingzhou, Dengzhou, and Laizhou will be exempt from taxes for five years beginning in the first year of Hongxing.

Moreover, We will no longer pursue the matter of lost official and military lands in Shandong. Register anew: whoever occupies the land takes the deed, and whoever takes the deed bears responsibility for paying the tax! Except for merit fields and princely fields, officials and gentry alike will pay grain taxes, with no exemptions.

In addition, Shandong's commercial taxes and salt taxes will also be strictly collected beginning in the first year of Hongxing!"

Shandong was on the front line, and much territory was still controlled by the Qing army, so "losing money" was certain. But that did not mean Zhu Cilang could refrain from controlling Shandong's losses. The collapse of the Great Ming dynasty began with its finances, and Zhu Cilang's rescue operation likewise began with financial restructuring and reorganization.

Therefore he cared greatly about the "profit and loss" of territory. Territory that lost too much money he would rather not control directly, or even refrain from occupying for the time being.

Not because he disregarded politics, but because he truly could not afford the losses. He was now using the profits of the southeast, Huguang, and Fujian-Guangdong to fill deficits elsewhere, and he had no money-printing machine, nor could he easily borrow or raise funds.

Once a deficit appeared, the only way to cover it was by withholding military pay and official salaries, so Zhu Cilang did not dare expand blindly, and every expansion had to take the problem of consolidation into account.

(End of Chapter)