Chapter 889: The Real Fear Is an Emperor Who Can Do Arithmetic! (Please Subscribe)

"The roving bandits are growing ever more entrenched in the southwest?"

The Zhu Emperor frowned slightly and asked in return, "A gang of Shaanxi men who came from afar, and crude bandits at that — how is it that they can keep the people of Sichuan content, keep their own finances from running short, maintain so many troops, and even have surplus wealth to import foreign muskets and cannon through Burma? What is the reason for this? Ministers Ma and Zeng, have you ever thought about it?"

Indeed — what was the reason?

Ma Shiying and Zeng Ying exchanged glances. The two of them, of course, knew the answer!

Sichuan was known as the Land of Abundance, and as early as the Tang dynasty it had been called "Yang first, Yi second" — the second richest place under heaven after the southeast. The Southern Metropolitan Region, the "Yang first," had a fixed provincial tax-grain quota of more than six million shi during the Wanli era, while Sichuan, the "Yi second," had only 1.08 million shi!

In the same period, Jiangxi's total tax grain was more than 2.6 million shi, Zhejiang's was more than 2.5 million shi, and even Shaanxi had to pay more than 1.7 million shi.

Zhu Cilang continued, "According to the provincial tax-grain quotas fixed in the Wanli era, Sichuan was 1.08 million shi, Yunnan less than 180,000 shi, and Guizhou a little over 50,000 shi. The three provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan together came to about 1.3 million shi. Today, Guizhou and most of Zunyi Prefecture in Sichuan still belong to the court. What the roving bandits hold is no more than the greater part of Sichuan, all of Yunnan Province, Hanzhong and part of Gongchang in Shaanxi, and places like Yunyang in Huguang. By a rough reckoning of the provincial tax-grain quotas, their annual income should be about 1.4 million shi of white rice, plus over a hundred thousand taels in salt tax and over a hundred thousand taels in commercial tax. With that little income, how could they stand against the court's great armies?

Yet the court spends no less than three million a year on military affairs in Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan — and that does not even count the annual revenues of Guizhou plus Zunyi Prefecture. How is it that a hundred thousand troops of Sichuan and Guizhou, maintained with more than three million taels, cannot defeat roving bandits with an income of only a little over a million? Can the two of you explain this to Us?"

Ma Shiying understood what Zhu Cilang meant. He sighed and said, "Why does Your Majesty ask when You already know the answer? The field-and-land system of this dynasty indeed has many omissions. Sichuan has always been called a land of abundance, with a thousand li of fertile fields and a population of ten million. How could it have only a little over thirteen million mu of farmland?"

Zhu Cilang said, "Indeed — that figure is about the same as Fujian's! Fujian is eight parts mountain, one part water, and one part field, but Sichuan is a land of abundance!"

Seeing that Ma Shiying had lifted the lid, Zeng Ying smiled bitterly and said, "Your Majesty is sagely wise. The land of abundance in Sichuan of course has far more than thirteen million mu of farmland. This subject does not know the true figure either. This subject only knows that around Chongqing, the registered farmland is often only one-third to one-quarter of the actual amount."

In other words, Sichuan's actual farmland was at least forty or fifty million mu! And those forty or fifty million mu were all flatland, at least half of it paddy fields. In later ages, the cultivated area of Sichuan Province plus Chongqing Municipality, however one reckoned it, was over 130 million mu. Yet in the Great Ming court's account books it was only thirteen million mu! Their consciences had all been fed to the dogs!

Moreover, Sichuan salt was greatly renowned in history, fully able to rival Huai salt. Yet in the last years of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign, Sichuan's salt tax had shrunk until it was almost invisible!

Zhu Cilang snorted. "Sichuan has abundant paddy fields, few floods or droughts, and a suitable climate. Rice can be harvested twice a year. Even with only ten-odd million mu of paddy fields, the annual output of white rice should be forty or fifty million shi. How could it give the court only 1.08 million shi? Where is their conscience? If Sichuan could pay a full three million, would the court still need Shaanxi, stricken by drought year after year, to pay taxes? If the taxes of the Shaanxi people could be remitted, how would the calamity of the roving bandits ever have arisen? The present suffering of the Sichuan gentry is truly of their own making. We spend more than three million a year on military expenses — We have done all that benevolence and duty require, and no more!"

What did that mean? Sichuan that big, Yunnan that big — and he was just going to give them up?

Zeng Ying had never imagined that the Zhu Emperor would wash his hands of Sichuan and Yunnan at a time like this. But the Zhu Emperor could give them up; he could not. He had no choice but to steel himself and remonstrate: "Your Majesty, this — this... Sichuan and Yunnan are lands left by our ancestors. How can they be cast away?"

"Don't talk to Us of such useless things!" the Zhu Emperor said with a laugh. "Our court now has an annual income of over a hundred million. We do not lack Sichuan's paltry million-odd. If We do not want it, it is no matter!"

Sichuan! The Land of Abundance!

How could an annual tax payment of less than ten million possibly do?

Right now, the eight provinces of the Four Jiangs, the Two Hus, Fujian, and Guangdong together bore a hundred million in taxes and levies. That figure was by no means light!

If the Zhu Emperor let Sichuan pay only a million-odd, would the gentry of the Four Jiangs, the Two Hus, Fujian, and Guangdong not raise an uproar? And the people of Sichuan would not be able to live with their own consciences either!

Zeng Ying was left speechless by Zhu Cilang's words, while Ma Shiying had already understood that Zhu Cilang wanted to raise Sichuan's taxes!

"Your Majesty," Ma Shiying said, "Sichuan has suffered many years of war. The people's livelihood is ruined, and every trade lies waste. Even if it is recovered, it will need many years of rest and recuperation."

Zhu Cilang smiled and asked, "If the people's livelihood is ruined and every trade lies waste, how have the roving bandits maintained so many troops? The Sichuan-Guizhou army is no fewer than a hundred thousand strong, with muskets, cannon, and breastplates in full supply, and pay and provisions issued in full. How is it that they cannot defeat the roving bandits? Zeng Ying, tell Us."

What was there to say?

The Military Staff Office sent an advisory group to Sichuan and Guizhou every year to investigate, and it understood the situation there very well. The Sichuan-Guizhou army was not as elite as the army directly under the court, and its battalion-level square formations were somewhat inflexible in the mountainous terrain of Sichuan and Guizhou, where "there is not three feet of level ground." But the main reason the Ming army in Sichuan and Guizhou suffered more defeats than victories was simply this — the Shun army had at least two hundred thousand men! And its equipment was not too poor either; at least in the rugged mountain and forest terrain, the Shun's equipment was sufficient.

And how much money did it cost to maintain two hundred thousand troops with decent equipment and training, and high morale? Without a real expenditure of six million a year, how could it possibly be enough?

And besides deploying troops on the Sichuan, Guizhou, Shaanxi, and Huguang fronts, the Shun army had in recent years also carried out the replacement of native chieftains with regular administration in Yunnan and the Sichuan borderlands, cleaning up all the local powerholders, including Mu Tianbo — and it had never lost a battle!

How much military expenditure did all that require?

What left a famed Sichuan-Guizhou general like Zeng Ying with nothing to say was that Sichuan under the roving bandits' rule had basically maintained a comfortable, moderately prosperous life for the common people. It could not compare with the thriving southeast, but the ease of a smallholder's pastoral life was still there.

"Your Majesty," it was again Ma Shiying who came to Zeng Ying's rescue, "in Sichuan the roving bandits practice the method of enclosing land and equalizing fields. They enclosed more than ten million mu in Sichuan and distributed it to their officers and men below, letting them collect rent to support themselves. The remaining land was divided equally among the common people, and the bandits' false court collected taxes on it — the concrete method is the same as the Tang dynasty's zu-yong-diao system. That is why maintaining two hundred thousand troops costs them very little. The grain, cloth, and corvée labor collected under the zu-yong-diao system are enough to maintain the false court's expenditures and subsidize the military, and they still have surplus capacity to ship silk to Syriam in Burma to trade for Western firearms."

Ma Shiying had only spoken half the truth. The other half was that after the Shun court had been long established and stable in Sichuan, it had continuously carried out "land registration," striking at powerful families and native chieftains, and ferreting out all the previously concealed estates! Now in Sichuan Province alone, the registered farmland was no less than fifty-five million mu! The farmland in Hanzhong, Yunyang, Gongchang, and other places added together came to another six or seven million mu. In Yunnan, nearly twenty million mu had been cleared and registered!

The cultivated land in the Shun court's farmland registers now amounted to eighty-two or eighty-three million mu!

Of that, thirty million mu had been distributed to more than two hundred thousand officers and men — on average, over a hundred mu each, with an annual income of several tens of shi of white rice, enough to support military service. The remaining land had been distributed to three million smallholder households, who each year turned over "rent and levy" totaling more than ten million (shi and bolts of cloth). Add the salt tax and commercial tax, and the Shun's finances were naturally very ample.

If the income from the garrison troops' landholdings were also counted as income of the Shun court, they had at least twenty million (shi, bolts, strings of cash) a year, while Zhu Cilang allotted only three million taels a year for the Sichuan-Guizhou army. Add a little self-raised funding, and at the very most it came to 3.1 or 3.2 million — less than one-sixth of theirs. It would be a wonder if they could win!

The Zhu Emperor paused, then looked at Zeng Ying and said, "Minister Zeng, most of Sichuan's famous scholars and powerful gentry are now taking refuge in Guizhou, are they not? We now appoint you Governor-General of Sichuan and Guizhou, Li Qiande as Governor of Sichuan, and Mu Tianbo as Governor of Guizhou. The two military commands of western Sichuan and eastern Sichuan are abolished. We further appoint Yang Zhan as Provincial Military Commander of Sichuan and Li Zhanchun as Provincial Military Commander of Guizhou. Go and consult with the famous scholars and powerful gentry of Sichuan and Guizhou, work out the tax quotas to be paid by each county of the two provinces after Sichuan is recovered, and report them to Us. If We deem them feasible and profitable, We will naturally assemble a great army and send it into Sichuan.

Furthermore, none of the land equalized by the bandits' false court may be returned to its original owners. The Sichuan gentry and the officers and men of the Sichuan army may only obtain land from the tracts the roving bandits enclosed, as reward for merit and as compensation. And in the future, these lands must be taxed like common fields! Even merit fields within their tax-exemption period must first pay and be refunded later!"

(End of Chapter)