Chapter 840: Mongol Warriors, Go Block the Gun Barrels!

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In the eleventh month, deep winter had arrived.

The stretch of land north of the Daqing River in Shandong Province had once again reached the season when the banners atop the city walls changed hands. Since the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, this territory had already changed masters several times. The first change was from Ming to Shun: the county magistrates sent by the Shun replaced the Ming officials and became the local lords of a hundred li. Then came a period when Ming, Qing, and Shun all left it ungoverned, and a pack of local strongmen rose up in response — that counted as the second set of masters. Next came the Ming Governor of Shandong, Gao Hongtu, to offer amnesty and recruitment, and quite a few strongmen became the Ming's "fathers and mothers of the people" — that was the third set. The fourth change of masters came with the Qing dynasty's first southern campaign, the one in which Hooge was killed. Everything north of the Daqing River fell to the Qing. Some of the strongmen shaved their heads and became good slaves of the Qing dynasty, while the other part — good Ming landlords unwilling to become Qing slaves — fled south of the Daqing River and threw in their lot with Gao Hongtu and Zuo Maodi.

After this fourth change of hands, the situation north of the Daqing River gradually settled down. The Qing dynasty looked as though it was "playing the long game" — it had held the place for several years! And it even began implementing land distribution by headcount in the prefectures and counties north of the Daqing River — this was something the common people had dreamed of for years! The Roving King had never managed to do it for the people of Shandong, yet the Qing dynasty had actually pulled it off.

Of course, there were still people who were dissatisfied! The landlords and rich peasants who had stayed in their home villages and not fled were all unhappy.

Why should a fine family estate be divided up and given to others?

But these people could not stir up much of a fuss, because the most troublesome among them had either gone over to Gao Hongtu and Zuo Maodi, or gone over to the Qing dynasty and become good slaves. The ones left were either hopeless bookworms or people wholly devoted to working the land.

The hopeless bookworms, of course, went into decline; if they did not starve to death, they became the poorest people in the village and the stock example of how studying was useless.

But those who knew how to manage always found chances to make money. After Dorgon opened up the quotas for the Bordered Green Banner, many bought themselves bannerman status and moved to Datong. And among those who did not go to Datong, most later bought bannerman status from Kong Youde or Geng Zhongming, or else simply crossed the sea to the Northeast — going from Shandong to the Northeast to become a bannerman was the simplest and cheapest way. All you had to do was board a sand-boat run by Shandong-speaking Joseon people or Spaniards, cross the sea to Liangfangkou, and after landing find a barber's stall to shave your head into a queue. Then you went to the yamen that the Ten Banners Beyond the Pass had set up at Liangfangkou and reported in. If you wanted to farm, you said you were a booi slave of one of the Nine Banners Within the Pass, and that because your master had fallen on hard times you had no choice but to go beyond the pass to make a living. Then you would receive an identity and a share of land. If you were willing to perform military service, you were a bannerman; if not, you were a banner slave. If you did not want to farm but instead wanted to make your living as a traveling merchant, then you registered with the Bordered Green Banner.

The Bordered Green Banner did not have to perform military service and could move freely anywhere beyond the pass, but it was forbidden to own land, forbidden to lend money to bannermen or banner slaves, and had to pay a head tax. Moreover, commerce beyond the pass was underdeveloped, and the monopoly of the Nine Great Imperial Merchants was very powerful, so the business of an ordinary Bordered Green Banner merchant was not easy to run.

So braving the journey to the Northeast to farm was still the mainstream. And precisely because this way out existed, the Qing dynasty's land enclosures and headcount-based land distribution here in Shandong did not stir up much trouble.

Just when everyone thought the Qing dynasty's rule had stabilized and that the Ming royal army would never come again, the royal army came — riding mules and firing black guns!

This was truly unexpected! Although the Qing troops ruling Jibei Prefecture were not proper old Manchu of the Eight Banners, their strength still looked decent. The fighting men in green cotton armor and green helmets all looked quite imposing, and they had plenty of cavalry, coming and going like the wind, swaggering and showing off their might — far more formidable than the Ming beggar soldiers everyone remembered.

But no one had imagined that when the royal army came riding mules, it would drive off the Qing green-capped heavenly troops just by firing black guns. There was not even one proper pitched battle between the two armies, and the green-capped heavenly troops were left with only three strongholds in all of Shandong: Liaocheng, Anping, and Dezhou.

To those in the know, this was perfectly normal. The Qing heavenly troops had two great advantages: first, they could fight hand-to-hand; second, their cavalry was fierce and could control the battlefield. Now that the Ming army had mastered the Maurice formation, hand-to-hand combat was of little use. So cavalry was their only remaining advantage — and now that it was constantly being shot at with black guns, ambushed, and raided at night by the Ming "mule soldiers," what other option did they have but to shrink back and hold the cities?

Once the Qing green-capped heavenly troops left, the Ming iron-capped black-gun troops became cocky. They began patrolling everywhere in Jibei, the Eastern Depot, and western Yanzhou, proclaiming Ming authority. Along the way they also caught a few Qing stragglers who had refused to shave their queues and pretend to be bald, cut off their heads, and displayed them to the public. And they posted notices to reassure the people, written with the lyrics of "Welcoming the Great Ming" — usually by planting a wooden pole outside some village gate, hanging a queued head from it, and setting up a notice board beside the pole with a reassurance notice pasted on it.

Outside the county seat of Haifeng County, not too far from Bohai Bay, a group of peasants had just seen off ten Ming royal-army heavenly soldiers carrying fearsome "black guns." Now they gathered before a newly erected notice board and fetched the last village xiucai who could still read a fair number of characters. They saw he was so hungry he could barely move, so they quickly fed him a little something to give the pitiful old scholar some strength, and then told him to go read the notice board.

The old man's surname was Wang, and people called him Old Xiucai Wang, though in fact he had never passed the xiucai examination at all. He was only an old tongsheng — that is, a scholar who had passed the county examination and the prefectural examination but had not yet passed the academy examination. Passing the xiucai examination was truly not easy!

But back in Ming times, Old Xiucai Wang had been somebody in the village. After all, he had sat the academy examination many times and had several well-known friends among the literati of Jinan Prefecture, so his family had been able to occupy a large stretch of saline-alkali land and rent it out. He had also opened a private school and taken in a few young pupils, and his life had been fairly comfortable.

But under the Qing dynasty, Old Xiucai Wang fell on hard times. The Qing had no xiucai, and moreover, after the headcount-based land distribution, once you received land you had to pay grain tax and perform corvée labor. The old xiucai did not know how to farm, nor could he perform corvée labor. His son was unfilial and rebellious: incited by his classmates, he had signed his name to some "Proclamation Against the Hu Barbarians," and fearing the Qing heavenly troops would seize him, he had slipped away when the Qing troops reached Haifeng County. Old Xiucai Wang was left all alone and wretched, living by selling off the family possessions. In the past two years the possessions had all been sold, so he had no choice but to beg in Haifeng County town just to scrape by. Recently, with war and chaos everywhere, Haifeng County town would not let outsiders in, so the old xiucai had to stay home and starve.

In the end, who would have thought that the lifesaving royal army would come!

After eating a full meal and receiving several big packets of dried sweet potato, the old man finally began to sing: "In the morning we beg for a sheng, at dusk we beg for a ge; of late the poor man can hardly stay alive. Open your gates early and welcome the Great Ming, and be assured that great and small alike will rejoice. Slaughter cattle and sheep, prepare wine and broth; open the city gates and welcome the Great Ming. When the Great Ming comes, no grain tax is paid."

At this song, the surrounding peasants were somewhat confused.

"How can there be no grain tax? Which royal army has come? Is it the Ming or the Shun?"

"Right, old sir, take another careful look — is it Ming or Shun?"

The old man's eyes were dim with age, but he truly did look again very carefully. "It is the Ming, no mistake. It also says above: three years of tax exemption! Counting from the seventh year of Hongxing, the seventh, eighth, and ninth years — these three years no grain tax will be paid! Whether imperial grain or gentry grain, all is completely exempted! All miscellaneous levies and surcharges are likewise exempted! The cloth levied for the household tax will no longer be collected either."

"Really? We don't have to pay rent to the bannerman masters in Dezhou either?"

"What bannerman masters — look at what's on that pole. Their heads have all been cut off."

"Now we'll have good days ahead!"

"How vast is the imperial grace!"

"The Great Ming has produced a wise sovereign!"

"The Great Ming is still the best!"

The peasants, great and small, truly all rejoiced — because after all these years of upheaval, the conflict between people and land here in Jibei had completely ceased to exist. What weighed on the common people was simply "rent, corvée, and cloth tax" — that is, paying grain, paying cloth, and performing labor service. Because the Qing dynasty's situation was bad, the burdens piled on the common people had grown heavier and heavier. Now that all of it was exempted at once, how could the people not be happy?

At least they could be happy for three years. As for after three years — who knew, the royal army might change hands again!

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