Chapter 371: Summer Rain

In the spring of the ninth year of Jianyan, on the Lantern Festival, the Emperor on Phoenix Mountain further declared that he was still enduring for the sake of the nation, and then single-mindedly adhered to the grand strategy of the Northern Expedition... Of course, among the common folk in the southeast, the rumor was that the Emperor had brandished his sword and composed poetry, intimidating the powerful households... But regardless, shortly after the Lantern Festival, the most important part of the Emperor's southern tour—the tax reform centered on "never increasing levies" and "merging the head tax into the land tax"—had officially crossed its most difficult mountain and achieved a stage victory.

The most cultured region, and also the core of the so-called southeast, the Liangzhe Circuit and Jiangnan East Circuit, had officially completed the land survey and household registration targeting the powerful households, and the relevant reforms were completed first among those powerful households.

Also during the spring plowing, the Emperor, still stationed at Phoenix Mountain, issued another formal decree, pointing out two major matters... First, an open decree to the chief councilors in the Eastern Capital, the officials of the Secret Pavilion, and the various Imperial Camp Commanders and Controllers, which finally finalized the last expansion plan for the army.

The decree was clear and unmistakable: from that day forward, the army was to be expanded, and by the autumn of this year, the Imperial Camp's Vanguard, Rear, Left, Right, Center, Cavalry, and Navy must reach a full strength of three hundred thousand men!

Although the decree did not reveal the final numbers, it could not be hidden from those in the know—from the logistics and the scale of conscription across the regions, the vast majority of the new recruits were still allocated to Han Shizhong's Imperial Camp Left Army, Wu Jie's Imperial Camp Rear Army, the Shanzhou-Hedong Front Army actually under Li Yanxian's command but nominally part of the Imperial Camp Center Army, and Qu Duan's Imperial Camp Cavalry Army.

Clearly, this Emperor had finally made up his mind to break open the situation from the natural fortress of Hedong.

Everyone had expected this, as it was an objective necessity of military strategy. However, the deadline indicated that the Emperor's determination for the Northern Expedition remained unchanged, and the original timetable had not shifted.

In other words, with the Emperor's southern tour being a visibly "successful" one, the pace of the Northern Expedition was drawing closer and closer.

In fact, the Emperor's second decree was precisely to formally and extensively promote the tax reform in the southeast.

And this second decree was sent together with the documents of Lu Yihao, the Grand Councilor and Grand Coordinator of Liangzhe Circuit, to the various prefectures and counties around the southeast, simultaneously requiring Jiangnan West Circuit, Lianghuai Circuit, and Fujian Circuit to carry out similar reforms after the spring plowing.

In the decree, the Emperor pointed out with an almost frank attitude that the original intention of this reform was because the Jingkang Incident had left the national treasury empty, with no money or grain to support the army and the Northern Expedition. Thus, taxes were increased in the southeast and Jingxiang. While the tax increases in the southeast and Jingxiang had made indelible contributions to national stability and the upcoming Northern Expedition, they had also increased the burden on the poor at the bottom. Since ancient times, when the people have no means to live, they rebel. There was Fang La before, and Zhong Xiang after, one following the other. This must be taken seriously.

Therefore, at this moment when the grand strategy of the Northern Expedition was about to be accomplished, it was imperative to complete the financial and tax reform in the southeast, the region with the heaviest tax burden, so that the common people at the bottom could have a brief respite, before the great plan could be pursued further.

Now that the reforms had been implemented in Liangzhe Circuit and Jiangnan East Circuit, and had shown considerable results, it was clear that this matter was indeed feasible. Hence, it was to be promoted in the remaining four circuits to reassure the people and stabilize the state.

As for anyone who dared to harbor selfish motives and neglect public duties, exploit the general situation to be perfunctory in their own area, or even make excuses and resist openly or covertly, they would be severely punished without leniency, and executed without mercy.

Once the decree was issued, along with the official gazette from the Eastern Capital and the temporary ten-day bulletin from Phoenix Mountain being distributed across the land, the whole country was stirred, and both high and low were terrified.

Then, after the spring plowing was over and the decree had been sent, the Eastern Capital once again dispatched an envoy to pay respects to Phoenix Mountain, requesting the Emperor to return to the capital. They also reported on all major and minor affairs the court had handled since the Emperor's southern tour the previous year, along with the results of the unified judgments by the chief councilors in the Secret Pavilion, asking the Emperor to review and inspect them.

However, the Emperor again issued a public decree. On one hand, he praised the several councilors and all the important ministers left in the Eastern Capital for their hard work and meritorious service, and for handling matters properly. On the other hand, he publicly replied that he would continue to stay at Phoenix Mountain, waiting for the implementation of the new policies in the surrounding circuits, to prevent unrest in the southeast.

This had a certain air of "so happy here, I forget about Shu."

The Eastern Capital, high and low, had no choice but to keep communication smooth between the two places while striving to pressure and assist the local authorities, repeatedly issuing orders demanding that local governments cooperate with the Emperor's financial and tax reforms. They also sent out Censorate Inspectors to tour the regions, and dispatched people to the relatively closer Lianghuai to help establish the Public Bureaus.

And so, the Emperor remained in the southeast to oversee matters. Then, from late spring onward, as summer gradually arrived and the surrounding circuits began to implement the new policies, problems indeed emerged one after another.

For example, the Lianghuai Circuit, whose economic size was in no way inferior to Liangzhe and Jiangdong—considered the north from the south's perspective, and the southeast from the Central Plains' perspective—did not experience any of the imagined severe resistance during this process.

This was not only because Wang Gui's garrison at Wuwei Army was located between the Yangtze and Huai Rivers, but also because of the so-called "between Jingkou and Guazhou, separated by a single river." The various events in Jiangnan across the river had been witnessed by Lianghuai from start to finish, and they had long been mentally prepared.

Besides this, Lianghuai was still relatively close to the Eastern Capital, had always been politically obedient to the central government, and belonged to the core ruling area of the court. The commissioners of Lianghuai Circuit and the local officials of large prefectures like Yangzhou, Shouzhou, Bozhou, and Luzhou were mostly trusted confidants directly appointed by the court's chief councilors or the Emperor himself, so the implementation was exceptionally effective.

However, the most important point was that back then, the Huai region had personally felt the impact of the Jingkang War. Huaibei had experienced displacement, and Huainan had jointly supported the campaigns on the Huai... Moreover, both Huaixi and Huaidong were former garrison locations for the Imperial Camp. When the Emperor was stationed in Nanyang, Han Shizhong and Zhang Jun's official titles were Huaixi Military Commissioner and Huaidong Military Commissioner respectively... From the very beginning, the people of Lianghuai understood deep down the authority of the court and the formidable power of the Imperial Camp army.

Besides, before the new policy, wasn't there the signal of the Imperial Camp's expansion and preparations for the Northern Expedition?

Under these circumstances, how would Lianghuai dare to truly engage in confrontation?

However, as the saying goes, extremes meet.

While Lianghuai had no obvious acts of resistance, they instead went overboard in some ways. Especially in Huaixi, many local officials harassed or even took the opportunity to extort the wealthy local households... And this situation, after the Public Bureaus were established in Lianghuai, quickly caused a backlash. The powerful local households, using the Public Bureaus as their organizational form, contacted the Censorate Inspectors, and even directly appealed to the Eastern Capital, turning their spearhead against the local government.

For a time, the two sides were locked in an inextricable dispute, with a pile of messy accounts.

One could only say that Liu Dazhong had hit the nail on the head back then—Lianghuai had already begun to see a situation where powerful households used the Public Bureaus to contend with the government.

If this continued, it would likely form a structural problem.

In comparison, Jiangnan West Circuit was much more straightforward.

At Pengli Marsh (later Poyang Lake), a person who was simultaneously a shaman, a local strongman, and a water bandit rallied people to rebel, falsely claiming to be Zhong Xiang and Yang Yao, styling himself the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, and quickly sweeping through several prefectures and counties. They even raised the slogan of going down the river, breaking into Phoenix Mountain, and capturing the Emperor alive. At the same time, the southern part of Qianzhou, which had barely settled down again but had a tradition of rebellion, also stirred. After the Jingkang Incident, the Qianzhou bandits had appeared for the third time.

One was a shaman-water bandit from Pengli, the other was a Miao stockade bandit from Qianzhou—one in the south, one in the north—and they immediately formed a significant force in Jiangxi.

Of course, the court was truly prepared this time. Wang Gui's troops from Wuwei Army immediately went upstream, entered Pengli Marsh via Jiangzhou. At the same time, Guo Zhongxun's Imperial Camp reserve troops did not hesitate and set out from northern Qianzhou, launching the second siege against the Qianzhou bandits.

That wasn't all. As early as late spring, Liu Qi's army had gradually dispersed northward under the pretext of letting soldiers take leave to return to the Yellow River, but then waited at Chizhou without crossing. At this time, they directly assembled and moved west.

The result was that the former took seventeen days, and the latter took twenty-three days. Both rebellions were settled before midsummer arrived.

Then, Liu Qi's troops really did head north back to the Yellow River. Wang Gui's troops also returned north after the battle to await orders. As for Phoenix Mountain, it opened its gates to Guo Zhongxun's troops, who had pacified Qianzhou... Guo Zhongxun's ten thousand troops were selected and rotated. Half of the weaker soldiers remained in Qianzhou, while the other half took the opportunity to turn towards Hangzhou and gather before the imperial presence.

Of course, with the thorough military cleanup concluded, the land survey and household registration in Jiangxi also proceeded with complete firmness.

As for Fujian Circuit, it was different from both Jiangxi and Lianghuai.

First, Fujian Circuit, along with Lianghuai, had observed the reforms in Liangzhe and the southeast, so they were also mentally prepared. Moreover, the scholar-officials of Fujian were generally highly accomplished in this era. Almost every prefecture had renowned scholars who could rally their hometowns, and some had even made early preparations. Also, don't forget that Fujian Circuit suffered the most from the poll tax, so the Emperor's new policy was the most liberating for them.

But precisely because of the crisscrossing mountains in Fujian, the local clan and lineage forces there were uniquely powerful for their time.

All these factors ultimately led to an unexpected direction for the new policy reform in Fujian Circuit—the problem was not about powerful households resisting the state, nor about intense conflicts between the government and the Public Bureaus, and there weren't many actual rebellions. The problem was the massive regional conflicts that arose between different localities over the land survey and household registration issues.

Now, what was the purpose of the land survey and household registration? Naturally, it was to fairly distribute the tax quota.

However, when the results of the land survey and household registration were compared with the original total quotas by region, producing inevitable differences, those varying amounts, combined with the total quota remaining unchanged due to the "never increasing levies" policy, led a considerable number of people to believe they had been treated unfairly.

Those whose share decreased naturally felt they had been overpaying for centuries. Those whose share increased naturally felt they had been wronged.

The result was that between prefectures, between cities and villages, between cities, and between villages, fierce disputes often arose over the allocation of tax amounts—hundreds of strings, tens of strings, or even just a few strings or a few coins.

At the prefectural level and between cities, these disputes could still be mediated and allocated, or resolved through documents and by accepting the superior's decision. However, as the upper and middle levels gradually smoothed things out, and the differences were passed down to the grassroots, especially when they reached the village level, things suddenly spiraled out of control due to the emergence of large-scale armed brawls.

This was, of course, an extremely serious problem, its destructive power no less than the rebellion in neighboring Jiangxi. But faced with this situation, no one, high or low, knew how to respond for a time... First of all, they were only fighting among themselves, not truly raising a banner of rebellion against the Great Song. They hadn't even touched the county towns. They couldn't just directly transfer Guo Zhongxun's and Yang Yizhong's troops to suppress them, could they?

But if it were to be treated merely as criminal cases for the local government to adjudicate, that probably wouldn't work either. Because, in these grassroots armed brawls, there was chaos and mutual concealment. Where would the case details and criminals come from? And what were a few county yamen runners worth in the face of several hundred or thousand armed young men from the villages? What executive power did they have?

And so, helplessly, everyone, high and low, watched as Fujian Circuit fell into a strange state of overall chaos because of this matter.

For a time, even the Emperor, who had been complacent about Lianghuai's compliance and Jiangxi's swift and decisive action, was dumbfounded on Phoenix Mountain. He could only hastily follow Li Gang's suggestion, sending an "Imperial Investigation Team" led by Xu Jingheng, Liu Dazhong, Fan Zongyin, and Mei Li to various places in Fujian to smooth things over, while hastily ordering Fujianese officials everywhere... those nearby to return directly to Fujian to maintain stability, and those far away to quickly write letters back to provide guidance.

But to be honest, at this time, the Emperor had already sensed something was wrong. He could roughly see that the problem in Fujian Circuit was not only the most unexpected but also the most serious and difficult in practice. First, its scale was far beyond imagination—almost the entire grassroots level of Fujian was in chaos. Second, the place where it happened, or rather the social stratum where it happened, was precisely an area where the central power of this feudal era could hardly reach effectively... In other words, he, the Emperor, was simply unable to exert his strength.

And indeed, that was the case.

As reports from all sides came back, they all indicated that this bewildering grassroots turmoil in Fujian had not only severely delayed production but also caused intense social upheaval and created a series of local conflicts.

Even more critical was that by the time Zhao Jiu received news that the situation was gradually stabilizing locally, summer was already passing... This meant that the collection of the summer tax in Fujian Circuit had been extensively damaged.

Furthermore, even the autumn tax was not guaranteed!

And don't forget, why did Zhao Jiu go on the southern tour and carry out this reform? Wasn't it to unite people's hearts before the Northern Expedition, to let the common people in the south be a little more stable before the Northern Expedition, so they could stand together and face north?

Then why could the Northern Expedition proceed?

Wasn't it because, looking at the fiscal budget, it was estimated that it would be in place this year?

But now you can't even collect the full summer tax for an entire circuit, let alone the autumn tax, not to mention that Jiangxi has also been affected to some degree—so what are you going to use to launch the Northern Expedition?

And moreover, is the Jiangnan region actually stable or not?

This unrest has fundamentally shaken the Zhao sovereign's entire strategic plan from the roots.

Poor Zhao sovereign—since he first emerged, he prided himself on suppressing warlords, sweeping away rebellions, recovering the Central Plains, overthrowing the Two Emperors, shooting arrows at Wanyan Loushi, intimidating Yelu Dashi, subjugating the Western Xia, establishing the Public Council, opening routes to the Western Regions, founding the Original School, extracting gold from the Japanese emperor's mouth, earning silver from Goryeo Confucian officials, demanding copper mines from Dali, securing rice from Southern Yue, fighting shoulder to shoulder with Yue Fei and Han Shizhong, chatting and laughing with Li Gang and Lü Haowen... and turning around, he could also count crows on Phoenix Mountain, build black dragon boats to sweep West Lake, drag his sword and compose poetry to dominate the Southeast, hold martial arts tournaments to punch down on the powerful and look down on the Neo-Confucians—yet he never imagined that, caught off guard, he would stumble headfirst into a rural brawl in Fujian.

It's utterly ridiculous.

But it wasn't over yet. As summer was about to end, just when the Fujian unrest was gradually calming and the Zhao sovereign was hesitating whether to return north to Dongjing, another piece of bad news—or rather, a visible phenomenon—appeared.

The Zhao sovereign could see it clearly from Phoenix Mountain: the entire Southeast began to experience widespread rainfall in late summer, and it kept raining without stopping.

In fact, back in early summer of the fourth month, the Southeast had already seen a bit too much rain. At that time, local officials had told Lü Yihao that this year's silkworm silk output might suffer slightly.

But it was only slight, not enough to be called a disaster. And now, it was similar... calling it a disaster would be too alarmist, but this relentless round of rain was indeed affecting the autumn harvest in the Liangzhe Circuit.

This made Zhao Jiu unusually flustered, and it also made Lü Yihao flustered, and the local officials flustered too... because no one was a fool—they all knew that after autumn, the Imperial Camp would have three hundred thousand troops, and they all knew that the summer tax from the Fujian Circuit had gone badly wrong. If by any chance the autumn harvest in the Southeast suffered a disaster, what would they do?

Amid the fluster, someone couldn't hold their nerve and proactively submitted a memorial to the Zhao sovereign, suggesting that he perform sacrifices to Heaven and Earth to pray for clear skies.

Zhao Jiu tore up that memorial on the spot.

Barely a day after he tore it up, while the rain over West Lake was still falling, a routine envoy bearing greetings from Dongjing arrived on schedule... Throughout the entire ninth year of Jianyan, such envoys arrived every month, and they were generally high-ranking officials at the Vice Minister level from the Imperial Library... This time was no exception—the envoy was Liu Hongdao, Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of War and concurrently Director of the Waterways Bureau.

But to be honest, Liu Hongdao was in charge of the Yellow River issues. Unless there was some urgent matter within his purview, there was no need for him to serve as this greeting envoy... Sure enough, as soon as he ascended Phoenix Mountain and met the Zhao sovereign in person, before even reporting on various Dongjing affairs and regional military matters, he first brought up a troublesome issue.

"The Yellow River waterway?" Zhao Jiu frowned in response.

"Yes," Liu Hongdao replied solemnly. "Specifically, the waterway around Shanzhou. There is a midstream pillar in the river there... I don't mean Commander Li, but an actual midstream pillar..."

"I know... Hasn't it been fine before?" Zhao Jiu clasped his hands behind his back, looking at the drizzling rain outside the old hall, showing slight impatience as he cut him off.

"Your subject did not say there was a problem. But now, as we prepare for the Northern Expedition, large quantities of military supplies are beginning to be transported to the Guanzhong region, and that waterway is inevitably proving insufficient," Liu Hongdao replied earnestly.

"That's true," Zhao Jiu nodded repeatedly. "There's no helping it..."

"Actually, there is a way," Liu Hongdao quickly continued to explain. "Before I came, Minister Hu of the Ministry of Works discussed it with me... We could actually rebuild the Tang-era plank road along the river in Shanzhou... Since both banks of the great river in that area are in our hands, it's entirely feasible."

"But how long would it take to build the plank road?" Zhao Jiu frowned even more deeply.

"If we use gunpowder, it can be done quickly," Liu Hongdao replied earnestly. "We tested it in Dongjing before—drilling holes and using the powder can completely blast rocks to open a path... But using large amounts of gunpowder requires Your Majesty's decision, so we came here specifically for this... Your Majesty, if we can quickly excavate the plank road, not only can military supplies reach Guanzhong in time, but once the fighting starts, we can also accelerate the transport of Southeast materials to the Hedong battlefield. This concerns the smooth flow of logistics, and your subject believes it is worth it."

Zhao Jiu instinctively opened his mouth to speak, but for some reason, he hesitated and did not give a reply. Instead, as if lost in thought, he stood fixed inside the doorway, gazing silently at the old hall outside, saying nothing.

At that moment, looking out from the hall, the lush Phoenix Mountain, the faintly visible Leifeng Pagoda, and the hazy West Lake were all shrouded in misty rain, enveloped by the summer downpour.

Zhao Jiu knew in his heart that it was time to make a decision again... but this decision was truly extraordinary, truly momentous, to the point that even he, who thought he had long prepared for everything, still felt some hesitation and shrinking back when faced with it.

PS: Thanks to Rabbit Look Rabbit classmate for the patronage, thanks to Salted Watermelon classmate for the patronage, thanks to Na'erbu classmate for the patronage, and I continue to wish everyone an early New Year.