Chapter 178: Guard Station Land

Outside the city of Fengyang, the willows along the Huai River had already sprouted new buds. A group of riders urged their horses forward, surveying their surroundings.

Zhu Cilang rode his horse and looked around. The terrain here was flat and open—good land, yet it lay completely barren.

Fengyang Prefecture governed five sub-prefectures and thirteen counties. The five sub-prefectures were Shou, Si, Su, Ying, and Bo. The four counties of Fengyang, Linhuai, Huaiyuan, and Dingyuan were directly administered by Fengyang Prefecture, while the other counties were governed through their respective sub-prefectures. The entire prefecture covered nearly half of what would later be Anhui Province.

Within Fengyang Prefecture flowed the Huai River and several other waterways, along with numerous large and small lakes. The soil quality was passable, but the water conservancy works had fallen into disrepair, making irrigation difficult. Compounded by drought in recent years, these once-fertile fields had all gone to waste.

Based on what was recorded in the Yellow Registers, Zhu Cilang judged that Fengyang Prefecture had originally possessed at least ten million mu of cultivated land. Now, he estimated that several million mu had already been abandoned.

After disasters, famines, and war, many places had been laid waste—some even empty of people for a thousand li. Too much land across the Ming realm now lay barren. The gentry and landlords who had once taken advantage of the situation to buy land cheaply could no longer be bothered; even when they did buy, they only picked the best fields.

Zhu Cilang rode along the Huai River. Traces of canals and ponds remained, but with the great drought, water levels had dropped. Many channels could no longer carry water and had filled with silt, falling into ruin. The land a bit farther from the river had likewise been abandoned.

Yang Tinglin rode up close and said, "Your Highness, if these canals could be dredged and repaired, this entire area could be turned back into fine farmland!"

Zhu Cilang nodded. The purpose of this trip was to see whether this land could still grow grain. As the saying goes, one fears not poverty but instability—only by giving the people a stable life and a reason to live could the realm know peace.

Zhu Cilang swept his gaze across the area, then suddenly raised his horsewhip and said, "That stretch of land across the river looks excellent. Why is no one planting it?"

Zhu Dadian replied, "Your Highness, that is military farmland belonging to the Eight Guards of Fengyang."

Zhu Cilang frowned and said, "Wasting such good land is a terrible shame."

Drawing on the historical experience of military farming in China, the Ming Dynasty implemented a guard station military system that combined soldier and farmer, integrating defense with cultivation, establishing over three hundred guard stations across the realm.

Put simply, land was distributed to the military, who were stationed throughout the country. Each hereditary military household received an average of fifty mu, with officers receiving more. They supported themselves, and the status was hereditary—generation after generation guarding the land of the Ming.

The Ming founder, Zhu Yuanzhang, had once said: "I support a million soldiers without spending a single grain of rice from the people."

The court not only distributed land to the guard stations across the realm but also provided oxen, tools, and seeds, so that military households could farm and support themselves while remaining vigilant on watch. Each mu required a rent payment of two dou of grain—twice the burden of ordinary civilian households—but at least they could still live decently.

The system had been fine in principle, but as time passed, all its flaws emerged. Wherever there are people, there are factions. Over the years, the military farmland of ordinary soldiers had been largely seized by their officers, and the soldiers gradually became tenants of those very officers.

Not only did the military households have to work the land for the leaders who had stolen their fields every year, they also had to pay heavy rents. Working themselves to the bone all year round, they still could barely scrape together enough to feed themselves.

When a regular soldier of a military household died, the family had to send another able-bodied man to replace him. Because life was so hard for military households, many men deserted, taking their families and fleeing to make their own way in the world.

Desertions had begun as early as the Hongwu era. In the eleventh month of the third year of Hongwu, the number of deserters totaled 47,986. By the third year of Zhengtong (1438), a mere seventy years after the founding of the Ming, the number of deserting officers and soldiers had reached an astonishing 1,633,664. It was then that the court began recruiting soldiers.

From the mid-Ming onward, in an attempt to curb officials and military commanders from encroaching on military farmland, the court granted each commander a certain amount of "integrity-supporting land" according to rank—but it was like throwing meat buns at a dog; it never came back.

Now, two hundred and seventy years after the founding of the Ming, the number of deserting military households was beyond counting. The guard station system had long become a hollow shell. Most soldiers' land had become the private property of guard station officers, who had turned into local tyrants.

After riding around the area for a while, the group headed toward a small village of only a few households in the distance, surrounded on all sides by farmland.

Several children playing by the edge of the fields saw the group of people in fine clothes on fine horses approaching from afar and ran in terror into the fields to find their elders.

When Zhu Cilang and his party reached the edge of the village, they saw an old man lying on a rock, basking in the sun. He was past fifty, but hardship had aged him early, and his clothes were as ragged as a beggar's.

Yang Tinglin dismounted and approached to strike up a conversation: "Elder, how have the harvests been in recent years?"

The old man took one look at the dress and bearing of Zhu Cilang's party and knew they were either rich or noble—perhaps even officials. A tense look came over his face, and he plucked up his courage to ask, "What business do you have?"

Yang Tinglin smiled and said, "No need to be nervous, elder. We are grain merchants passing through, hoping to see if you have any grain to sell."

Seeing that Yang Tinglin spoke kindly, without that air of looking down on others, and hearing that he was here to buy grain, the old man relaxed.

The old man said, "There's no grain to sell here. Every year, almost all the harvest goes to pay the rent. We don't even have enough to feed ourselves."

Yang Tinglin asked again, "Elder, how are the harvests here? Is life manageable?"

The old man ignored him, clearly unwilling to answer. Zhu Cilang gave a signal, and Wu Zhong understood, pulling out a few taels of silver and handing them over, saying, "My master wishes to ask you some questions. This is your reward!"

The old man's face immediately broke into a beaming smile. He looked at Yang Tinglin and said, "Whatever this gentleman wishes to know, please ask freely. This old man will tell you everything he knows!"

The old man then began answering the questions he had just been asked: "Whether the harvest is good or bad has nothing to do with us—it all goes to the Centurion anyway. As for life, just staying alive is enough!"

Seeing how cooperative he was, Yang Tinglin didn't stand on ceremony and pressed on: "Elder, are you from a hereditary military household? Is this your own land?"

The old man pointed at the wheat field before him and gave a bitter laugh. "My family has farmed this land for generations. In the past, this field belonged to my family. Now it doesn't."

Having received the silver, the old man grew talkative and began telling the story of his family—from how the Ming distributed land to military households at its founding, to how his ancestors' fields were seized by the local guard station Centurion, and finally to how in the eighth year of Chongzhen his son had been killed by the roving bandits while defending Fengyang.

The group listened with deep feeling. In the survival of one small household, they could see a microcosm of a dynasty's policies.

Finally, the old man said with a bitter expression, "Last year there was little rain, and the harvest began to fail. When we can't eat our fill, we dig for roots and strip bark from trees, waiting for the court's relief to scrape by. And the grain we grow ourselves, we can't even eat. These days, a commoner's life isn't worth anything!"

After hearing this, Zhu Cilang felt as though a great stone were pressing on his heart—heavy, suffocating. He said nothing, turned his horse around, and with his head bowed, spurred it forward fiercely.

Only after galloping several li did he gradually slow down. The others behind slowly caught up, and seeing the Crown Prince in low spirits, no one dared to speak.

Zhu Cilang gazed into the distance at the boundless plain and asked softly, "So much land—such good land—and yet the soldiers and people live in such poverty. Is there no justice in heaven?"

The others all sighed. Yang Tinglin said despondently, "The people's livelihood is hard indeed."

Zhu Cilang looked up at the sky and said in a cold voice, "Calamities sent by heaven may yet be forgiven, but calamities wrought by man are unforgivable!"

Asking for recommendation tickets—the second chapter is coming right up!