Chapter 167: Reflections

In the Qianqing Palace, Chongzhen was reviewing Sun Chuanting's memorial of self-accusation.

Sun Chuanting recounted in detail how he led his army to join forces with Hong Chengchou and wipe out the roving bandits such as Ma Jinzhong in the northwest, and stated in the memorial that the bandit chiefs Ma Jinzhong, Renyi Wang, and Huntian Wang had all been executed, and that after mutual identification and screening among the tens of thousands of bandits under the three men's command, all those who were cruel and vicious had been put to death.

Of the remainder, over six thousand were selected and incorporated into the official army, with four thousand assigned to Cao Wenzhao, Regional Commander of Lintao, to command and train, and over two thousand merged into the Qin army, temporarily placed under Assistant Regional Commander Luo Shifang.

The remaining twenty-odd thousand were escorted separately to Fengxiang and Pingliang Prefecture for military farmland, and several dozen clerks and scribes were transferred from the Xi'an Governor's office to assist the two prefectures in managing the farmland affairs. These clerks from the governor's office had all participated in the successful military farmland project in Xi'an and were quite experienced; with their assistance, the farmland settlement efforts in both places should succeed.

Chongzhen greatly admired Sun Chuanting's measures. Provincial governors who could work steadily and wholeheartedly for the country were truly few and far between. If the high officials of all thirteen provinces of the Great Ming were like Sun Chuanting, the Great Ming would never fall.

Sun Chuanting was a rare outstanding talent who could command troops on horseback and govern the people off horseback. Among the current senior ministers of the Great Ming, in terms of being accomplished in both civil and military affairs, he stood alone.

Hong Chengchou excelled in the use of troops, resourceful and decisive, but had no outstanding achievements in civil governance.

Lu Xiangsheng was unmatched in loyalty and valor, deeply imbued with the scholar-official sentiment of compassion for the world, but his temperament was somewhat soft and he was not skilled at court intrigue.

Chen Qiyu possessed exceptional strategic vision and handled matters decisively and ruthlessly, but his selfish motives were too heavy.

As for the others, like Fu Zonglong, Governor of Sichuan, Zhu Zhifeng, Governor of Xuanfu, Wei Jingyuan, Governor of Datong, and Zhu Dadian, Governor of Shandong, although each had their own characteristics, none had particularly impressive achievements. These senior ministers were perfectly capable of governing a region, but their ability to manage the overall situation was questionable.

The military farmland efforts in Pingliang Prefecture should be greatly strengthened.

Located in the Hetao region, Pingliang Prefecture had rivers crisscrossing its territory. Despite years of severe drought, many rivers had only diminished in volume, not dried up.

The Yellow River brings a hundred harms, but only benefits the Hetao.

With the famine and years of warfare, the population of the northwest had greatly decreased. The afflicted commoners either joined the roving bandits or fled south to escape the famine, and large uninhabited areas appeared throughout the northwest.

This had the most direct relationship with the inaction of local officials in the late Ming.

Although the climate of the Little Ice Age was extremely abnormal, if governed properly, the number of people who rebelled due to famine, starved to death, or fled could be controlled to a very low figure.

Because in this period of the Great Ming, unlike later generations, there was no phenomenon of rapid population growth, and wasteland could be seen everywhere.

The low population was caused by many factors. Chongzhen believed there were two main reasons.

First, the dietary structure was too simple, and most commoners could barely maintain subsistence.

Because the methods of production were extremely backward, grain yields were too low. In a time when people could not even eat their fill, let alone speak of high-nutrition foods like meat, eggs, and milk.

At this time, the vast majority of commoners still ate two meals a day. After toiling hard every day and still enduring hunger, who had the mood and energy to reproduce offspring? And even if born, whether they could be raised to survive was another question.

If local officials were diligent in their duties, whether drawing from the local treasuries or summoning gentry donations, as long as they produced money and grain to organize the people to open up wasteland, dig canals and wells, and organize disaster relief, then no matter how severe the drought, most farmland would not suffer total crop failure.

As long as there was food to eat, who would rebel? Who would leave their homeland? Who would die of hunger?

As mentioned earlier in this text, the late Ming had a total population of approximately one hundred twenty million. In this era without large-scale industrial extraction, groundwater resources were very abundant.

It could be said that as long as the government produced a bit of silver to dig several deep wells for each village, even if the wells were not dug in the fields, the industrious commoners would find their own ways to irrigate the farmland.

Digging one well only cost a few dozen taels of silver. Spending a few hundred taels could stabilize several hundred to a thousand people and prevent numerous subsequent tragedies and disasters from occurring, yet the honored officials simply disdained to do it.

In their eyes, the common people truly were just weeds. If this year's crop died, next spring a lush new layer would grow again.

This problem was very simple and easy to solve, but the inaction of the government was what angered Chongzhen the most. As a transmigrator, he could not tolerate man-made tragedies occurring on a large scale.

Whether you were born into privilege or poverty, every life must be respected.

These lives were not crying and shouting for human rights; their greatest wish was simply to eat their fill and survive.

He would emphatically state this point in his edict to Sun Chuanting. As for local officials who did nothing, regardless of their rank or whose backing they had, once discovered, they would all be stripped of their official positions and scholarly titles.

Not ordering them into retirement—stripping them.

Being stripped of official position and scholarly title meant that from then on, he was a commoner, without any privileges, and all the land under his name would no longer enjoy the preferential treatment of tax exemption.

Some people might not care about losing their official position; as long as their scholarly title remained, they could return to their hometown and, relying on the wealth accumulated from years in office and the protection of classmates, fellow graduates, and examination mentors, still enjoy wealth and honor, and the local government would still regard them with special favor. Officials and gentry, of course, could not be treated the same as common weeds.

But if the scholarly title was gone, you were no longer qualified to be called an official or gentry. Even if you had money, you were merely a rich man, and you might well be stripped clean by wicked clerks.

The fruits of years of hard study turning to nothing—surely everyone would find that hard to accept, but since it had already come to this, what could you do?

As for these stripped officials, their classmates, fellow graduates, and examination mentors were also to be strictly supervised. If anyone dared to plead for a convicted official, sorry—Yizhou was short a County Magistrate. Go over there and compose poetry with the savages.

Would you dare to rebel?

Do you think the sage's books taught you how to rebel?

A xiucai rebelling takes ten years and still fails. Having enjoyed years of comfort in wealth and privilege, ask yourself—do you still have the guts to rebel? You would scare yourself to death!

The local bandits and roving rebels you look down upon dared to rebel because, apart from their lives, they had nothing.

The fine wine and beautiful women, the delicious delicacies you have enjoyed—they have never even heard of such things. And they have not studied books, knowing very little of the outside world.

Only the ignorant are fearless.

Those who know nothing have the biggest courage.

The more you know, the more constrained you become in action, thinking back and forth, fearing this and that.

At night you ponder a thousand paths; upon waking you still sell tofu.

That saying describes these timid literati.

But that was drifting off topic. Chongzhen pulled his thoughts back.

The second main reason for the low population was the extremely backward medical conditions.

Giving birth was like walking through the gates of hell.

Even in later generations with extremely advanced medical conditions, the infant mortality rate was not low, let alone in this era without any medical assistance whatsoever.

In the Great Ming of that time, almost every village had a midwife, called an "accoucheuse" in the West.

The status of midwives was very high. In a certain sense, in the hearts of the common people, they were even higher than the county magistrate.

Because every household faced the problem of continuing the family line, and the extremely ignorant commoners had no idea how to handle childbirth, they could only rely on the great goddess of the village.

Although the midwives were also illiterate, they were people with quick minds and rich practical experience.

Their initial experience naturally came from their own childbirths. Midwives all shared one common trait: their families were flourishing with many children.

They could bear children, and all grew to healthy adulthood, then continued to reproduce.

Do something enough times and you learn how it works.

The great thinker and philosopher, the Old Oil Seller, once said: "Nothing to it—just practice makes perfect."

But no matter how experienced the midwives were, they could only assist with childbirth, without any subsequent medical support.

They weren't doctors—just midwives, and crude, rough-handed ones at that, the kind who took no responsibility once the child was out.

Infant mortality in those days was terrifyingly high, and deaths of both mother and child from difficult labor were widespread.

Because there were no forceps.

At that thought, Chongzhen's heart stirred. Making trial forceps had to begin as soon as possible. Though he had never seen them, he could guess the general idea from the name alone, so he would have the skilled craftsmen of the Ordnance Directorate forge them.

He called over Li Erxi, who was nodding off beside him, explained the method of use and general shape of the forceps, then ordered him to convey the decree to the Ordnance Directorate.

He hoped his wild imaginings might help more women.

Even if a child came through birth safely, various diseases, lack of nutrition, and so on all became decisive factors in whether the child would survive to adulthood.

Setting aside the major epidemic diseases, even a minor chill could carry off a fragile life.

But this problem was very hard to solve.

The Great Ming was desperately short of Bureau Directors.

In the villages and countryside, where would you find a Bureau Director?

Only in the county towns—the Bureau Director came with the medicine shop attached.

But with transportation as terribly inconvenient as it was, if a young child fell suddenly ill, how could you rush to the county town? And did you have the silver to pay the Bureau Director?

In the vast majority of cases, all you could do was endure—bitterly endure.

Praying to gods and Buddhas, watching helplessly as your own child passed away—such tragedies played out countless times every single day.

Sometimes Chongzhen wondered: what exactly had he come to the Great Ming to do?

Pacify the bandits, destroy the slaves, and then secure wealth, honor, and safety for himself and his descendants?

That was hardly blameworthy—people were all selfish by nature.

But on that premise, could he not spare a bit more thought for the common folk struggling in hunger and cold?

In poverty, one cultivates one's own virtue.

In success, one brings benefit to all under heaven.

If a person lives, and when capable, cares only for private gain and not for others—then what meaning does life have?

He had crossed over into the body of the most honored man in the Great Ming, holding countless resources in his hands. Under such circumstances, was it not only right to benefit the myriad people?

In his previous life he had been nothing more than an utterly ordinary man. Though he had suffered countless setbacks and blows in reality and seen many dark sides, his heart had remained bright at its core.

He had once dreamed that if one day he held great power, or possessed boundless wealth, he would help those in need and leave more beauty in this world—but in his later years, that had been only a dream.

Now that Heaven had given him this chance, if he still did nothing, then his conscience would have been eaten by a dog—and then that dog would die of poisoning.

He had once dreamed of wielding a sword and roaming the world, and of reaching the state of worrying before all under heaven worries, and rejoicing after all under heaven rejoices.

What was the purpose of roaming the world with a sword?

To relieve the suffering of the common people.

Now his position meant he no longer needed to roam the world. With a single command from him, there were plenty of sword-wielders, and all who carried out his orders were fulfilling his dreams.

Those childhood dreams of being a great hero.

The knight-errant dream of eliminating the wicked, comforting the good, and rescuing those in peril.

He would be the greatest knight-errant under heaven.

The greatest knight-errant serves the nation and the people.