Chapter 677: Where Should This Lonely Prince Flee?

"Your Highness!"

The sound of riding boots echoed through the hall. Zhu Cizhao, who had been slumped drowsily on the throne atop the dais in the main hall of the Prince of Yunnan's palace (the former residence of the Duke of Qian), lifted his eyelids and saw Zhang Yong and Qiu Lei stride in side by side. Zhang Yong was travel-worn, his face grim as water, and before he had even knelt to kowtow he let out a sigh. Qiu Lei wore a face full of worry; seeing this fine son-in-law who had landed his father-in-law in trouble, he found the bitterness hard to voice.

The two of them had both fled back in defeat from Xundian Prefecture north of Kunming Prefecture, and the one who had beaten them was, of course, the Shun's Prince of Jin, Li Dingguo!

After the eight princes of the Deliberative Council unanimously approved the southern campaign against Yunnan, the Shun's war machine had gone into high gear!

As soon as the Lantern Festival of the first year of the Joint Reign had passed, the military prefectures under Li Guo and his son, Sun Kewang, Li Dingguo, Liu Wenxiu, Ai Nengqi, and the rest received their troop-mustering orders. The prefectures and departments of western and northern Sichuan — Chengdu Prefecture, Tongchuan Department, Baoning Prefecture, Long'an Prefecture, Jiading Department, Mei Department, Qiong Department, and others — also received orders from the Deliberative Government to requisition grain, fodder, and civilian laborers.

After the adjustments of the fifth year of Yongchang, the Shun dynasty's two fundamental institutions — land enclosure and allotment, and per-capita land equalization — had both been set on the right track. The former had granted roughly 20 million mu of land to 200,000 military households (including official households) registered to the military prefectures, while the latter had granted roughly 30 million mu to about 2.6 million smallholder farming households.

For the Shu lands under this newly risen Shun dynasty, lands that had endured years upon years of warfare, these two fundamental institutions were still quite well suited!

Although the excessive number of military households (and official households) needing land grants meant ordinary farming households received rather little land — just a bit over eleven and a half mu per household on average, and only a little over two mu per person. But the military-prefecture farm estates scattered across the various prefectures and departments of the Shu lands (including Hanzhong, Yunyang, Gongchang, and other places) were numerous, so ordinary farming households could rent and cultivate military-household land to increase their income (exploitation through land rental of course still existed — the Shun peasant regime was not, after all, a later revolutionary regime), and could basically secure food and clothing.

And by renting out their land, the military households registered to the military prefectures could obtain an income sufficient to support military service — the fubing system built on the foundation of land enclosure and allotment was a classic land-for-service system. The cost of a soldier's service was mainly supported by the income from the land, and the government needed only to provide a small amount of subsidies and rewards to mobilize a rather enormous army.

Of course, the land enclosure and allotment system and the per-capita land equalization system would gradually develop problems as the population grew, as industry and commerce developed, and as the military-household and official-household stratum corrupted, and might even move toward collapse.

But for now the Shun was still in its earliest founding days, and the population of the Shu lands had also been reduced by years of unending warfare, so it had just now reached a level that could perfectly support the fubing system — too few farming households was also bad; with too few farming households, military households could not recruit tenants, and without tenants they could not serve on long-term campaigns. And too large a population (including both military and civilian households) would create a sharp contradiction between people and land, leaving military households with too little land per capita and too heavy a burden of provisions, likewise unable to bear military service.

But now was the moment when military households, civilian households, population, and land were all in the greatest harmony. And so fifty thousand elite troops, one hundred thousand civilian laborers, five hundred thousand shi of grain and fodder, and tens of thousands of large draft animals were all conscripted and assembled in under a month.

And at this very moment, the Ming's western Sichuan military command had only just been established, and the military funds and equipment support the Zhu Emperor had promised had not yet arrived — the route from Wuhan through the mountains of western Hubei, the mountains of Guizhou, and then into the mountains of western Sichuan was truly not an easy one, and without several months it simply could not get through!

So the newly defeated western Sichuan army simply could not withstand the soaring morale of the fifty thousand Shun heavenly troops, and commanders such as Zeng Ying and Yang Zhan had no choice but to yield the main road into Yunnan, gather up their forces, and retreat to Wusa Prefecture and Zhenxiong Prefecture, which bordered Guizhou.

After seizing the three prefectures of Mahu, Dongchuan, and Wumeng, along with the territory of the Sichuan Regional Military Commission, Li Dingguo did not pause to rest and regroup, but pressed on without stopping toward Yunnan. He broke through from Dongchuan Prefecture into Xundian Prefecture and caught the forces of the Prince of Yunnan, Zhu Cizhao, completely off guard.

And before Li Dingguo had stormed into Yunnan, the Prince of Yunnan, Zhu Cizhao, and the Duke of Qian, Mu Tianbo, had actually still been locked in open and covert strife.

Yunnan had originally been the Mu family's territory, and Yunnan Prefecture (Kunming) was even more so the Mu family's old nest. But because Mu Tianbo had let his guard slip, the tusi Sha Dingzhou of Ami Department and Wangnong Mountain in Lin'an Prefecture (roughly the later Wenshan Prefecture) had staged a mutiny inside the city of Kunming, and he had lost this old nest.

But the Mu family's roots in Yunnan ran deep, and they had not utterly collapsed because of the fall of Yunnan Prefecture. After Mu Tianbo fled Kunming, he established a base in Chuxiong Prefecture (immediately adjacent to Kunming Prefecture), and also gained the support of Yang Weizhi (a Shaanxi man), the Circuit Intendant of the Jincang Circuit, and faced off against Sha Dingzhou at Chuxiong.

And after Sha Dingzhou's attack on Chuxiong failed, he turned his forces to attack eastern Yunnan and won the allegiance of most of the eastern Yunnan tusi. Thus Yunnan was split in two — Chuxiong and the west belonged to Mu Tianbo and Yang Weizhi, while Kunming and the east belonged to Sha Dingzhou.

Just as Sha Dingzhou was assembling the great armies of the various eastern Yunnan tusi and preparing to converge on Chuxiong, Zhang Yong and Qiu Lei arrived from the direction of Guizhou, escorting and protecting Zhu Cizhao.

Sha Dingzhou saw at once that the tide had turned against him, and hurriedly fled back to his old nest of Ami Department with the goods and treasures from more than 250 storehouses that he had looted from the Duke of Qian's residence in Kunming, and there he and his wife, Lady Wan (the former wife of Pu Mingsheng, the original tusi of Ami Department; after Pu Mingsheng's death she had brought the territory of Ami Department with her and married Sha Dingzhou), held out behind their natural defenses.

Zhu Cizhao, who had recovered Kunming (the one calling the shots was Zuo Mengmei), was not in the least polite about it — he moved directly into the Duke of Qian's residence, and placed Yunnan Prefecture, Xundian Prefecture, Qujing Prefecture, and Chengjiang Prefecture all under the jurisdiction of the Prince of Yunnan's palace.

This was tantamount to carving off half of the Mu family's territory, and seizing their old nest as well.

But with his enemy Sha Dingzhou (who had killed his mother and his wife) still alive, Mu Tianbo could only swallow this bitter indignation and join forces with Zhu Cizhao to attack Ami Department and Wangnong Mountain. They fought for more than a year, and it was not until the first year of Hongxing that they broke through Ami Department and Wangnong Mountain, captured Sha Dingzhou and Lady Wan, and brought them to Kunming to be executed by slow slicing.

But once Sha Dingzhou, their common enemy, had been killed, the conflict between Zhu Cizhao and Mu Tianbo inevitably erupted — and this was not merely a conflict between Zhu Cizhao and Mu Tianbo, but a conflict between two groups of armed landlord forces!

The army under Zhu Cizhao's banner had originally been a mercenary force paid with military wages, but Zhu Cilang was unwilling to keep pouring money into it, so he had sent them to Yunnan to seize territory and become landlords.

But the Mu clan had also been developing in Yunnan for more than two hundred years, and followed the same path of supporting troops with land!

How much farmland did Yunnan even have in these times? On the books, less than 1.8 million mu; in reality, probably several million mu — a province as large as Yunnan certainly had a total acreage of more than a few million mu, but the amount that could be controlled by the Han Chinese local regime under the Ming was only this much. The rest was all in the hands of tusi great and small, and the Mu family had fought them for two hundred years to reach the current state of affairs. The outsiders under Zhu Cizhao certainly could not confiscate other people's family property in a short period of time.

So the Mu clan and Zhu Cizhao's Prince of Yunnan's palace were bound to struggle over the land of Yunnan. Even if Mu Tianbo and Zhu Cizhao were both unwilling to fight, they could not restrain the men below them.

And Zhu Cilang, far away in Nanjing and Wuhan, had no spare strength to settle matters for Mu Tianbo and Zhu Cizhao — the two families had no less than a hundred thousand troops on the books combined; if the Zhu Emperor had to pay their wages, would that not be three or four million a year? Yunnan's total land tax amounted to only a little over 140,000 shi, and even that could not be collected in full.

Just as the struggle between the Prince of Yunnan's palace and the Duke of Qian's residence was growing ever more intense, Li Dingguo's great army suddenly came crashing in.

Zhu Cizhao and Zuo Mengmei knew the situation had turned dire, and hurriedly dispatched Zhang Yong and Qiu Lei to resist.

In the end they were defeated at Xundian Prefecture, and Yunnan Prefecture was now hanging by a thread!

"Your Highness, we should still join forces with the Mu family!"

"Your Highness, we should still seek help from Guizhou."

After reporting the news of the defeat, Zhang Yong and Qiu Lei then put forward their own suggestions.

With the situation now critical, the only options were to unite with the Mu family and at the same time seek aid from Guizhou.

"No, no, We cannot sit here in Yunnan Prefecture waiting to die!" Zhu Cizhao roared in terror. "Where should We flee to? Quickly, give Us a plan!"

Qiu Lei and Zhang Yong exchanged glances, both somewhat helpless. How could this prince be so cowardly?

"How about withdrawing to Lin'an Prefecture for the time being?" Zhang Yong said. "We still have some foundation in Lin'an Prefecture, and have occupied quite a few tusi mountain strongholds."

"And if Lin'an Prefecture cannot be held either? Where can We flee then?"

Qiu Lei said, "Then the only option would be to flee to the Annan Military Commission."

(End of Chapter)