Chapter 195: Arrangements and the Drowning

In the sixth month of the tenth year of Chongzhen, in the Fengtian Hall of the imperial city of Fengyang, the Central Capital.

"Your Highness, our division has finished resting and reorganizing, and those little whelps of military farmland soldiers are drilling according to plan. When do we go out and fight the roving bandits?"

"Yes, Your Highness, my Second Brigade has also finished its reorganization. The soldiers are all clamoring to go to war and earn military merit!"

In the great hall, the generals of the Tianwu Army were reporting on the state of their respective units.

The army had marched south for nearly a month. Zhu Cilang had let the Tianwu Army rest and reorganize since early in the third month, and while resting they took turns leading the newly recruited military farmland soldiers in drills. Now two months had passed, and the soldiers had long been bored out of their minds.

Zhu Cilang smiled and said: "I know you're idle, but there's nothing I can do about it. The main force of the roving bandits is currently hiding around Mount Huo and Mount Ying. Even if you want to fight, you can't find them. I've already sent Yang Qili leading the Longxianging Night Scouts into Mount Huo to reconnoiter. Once the Longxianging Night Scouts have a clear picture of the situation on Mount Huo and have drawn the mountain routes, the Tianwu Army will march straight into Mount Huo and wipe out all the roving bandits!"

Huang Degong shouted: "These bastards, all they know is hiding. They're not even as straightforward as the Tartars!"

Zhu Cilang said: "If you want to fight, that's not impossible either. Small bands of roving bandits are still scattered across Fengyang Prefecture, Luzhou Prefecture, Taiping Prefecture and other places. I will reassign each unit's garrison, and when the time comes your mission will be to clear out all roving bandits within each prefecture's borders!"

"Yes!" The generals excitedly accepted the orders.

The next day, an edict from the Crown Prince redeploying the military forces of South Zhili and Huguang was issued from the imperial city:

The Tianwu Army's Royal First Brigade was to garrison Liuan Prefecture, the Second Brigade was to garrison Fengyang City, the Third Brigade was to guard Taiping Prefecture, Yang Yufan was to lead twenty thousand Fengyang garrison troops to relocate to Luzhou Prefecture, Shi Kefa was to lead troops to guard Anqing Prefecture and Chizhou Prefecture, and Zhang Guowei was to guard Yingtian Prefecture.

Zuo Liangyu's forces were to garrison Jiujiang Prefecture, defending the Susong and Taihu area; Liu Liangzuo's forces were to garrison Wuchang Prefecture, defending the Huangshi and Daye area. Each force would surround Mount Huo and Mount Ying, trapping the roving bandits to die on the mountain, making them eat dirt!

Huang Degong led the Royal First Brigade in mopping up small bands of roving bandits and bandit strongholds around Mount Huo, while Zhou Yuji's Royal Third Brigade was partly stationed around the Jiangnan General Weapons Bureau and ironworks, with the remainder spread out to encircle and suppress roving bandits and bandit lairs within Taiping Prefecture.

Zhu Cilang also reorganized the households of Fengyang Prefecture, Luzhou Prefecture, and Taiping Prefecture into units: ten households formed one jia, with a Squad Leader appointed; ten jia formed one li, with a li head appointed. In essence, this was a renovation and implementation of the Ming Dynasty's lijia system, which by the mid-to-late Ming had collapsed and existed in name only as more and more households fled.

After stabilizing the civilian households, Zhu Cilang enriched the lijia system anew by referencing the Song Dynasty's baojia system, employing collective punishment: if one household colluded with bandits, the other nine households were required to report it; if they did not report, all ten households were punished together! This way he could both effectively govern at the grassroots level and root out the bandits' spies hidden among the populace.

Zhu Cilang also issued an edict establishing sanitation departments in the cities of Fengyang Prefecture, which would regularly clean up urban refuse. Under the sanitation department were patrol soldiers who daily patrolled every street in the city; anyone caught urinating or defecating at will, littering, or spitting was fined ten wen, and the fines were divided among the patrol soldiers themselves as spoils.

Filthy environmental sanitation was a major source of plague outbreaks. Historically, in the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, a great plague struck the capital, emptying nine of every ten houses throughout the city, with entire households dying off. Tens of thousands of coffins were carried out of the city for burial every day, until even coffins could no longer be bought. The entire capital nearly became a ghost town.

Now in the cities of Fengyang, garbage was everywhere and ditches were blocked. In the past the authorities had no money to dredge and manage them, and over time they became cesspools of filth, their stench assailing the nose. When summer came, flies and gnats swarmed endlessly, and dysentery and plague ran rampant — conditions extremely prone to producing epidemics.

Worried about the outbreak of plague, Zhu Cilang took precautions in advance, establishing the sanitation department and building multiple public bathhouses in each prefecture and county, mandating that city residents bathe regularly, organized by the authorities and entirely free of charge.

For women, the sanitation department also built some separate bathhouses. Some women, afraid of gossip, were reluctant to go bathe, but the social climate of the late Ming was still relatively open, and most women were willing to give it a try — especially since on the first day of going, the authorities would reward them with three jin of millet.

After a period of rectification, the cities of every prefecture and county in Fengyang were spotlessly clean, and the people looked radiant, enjoying the welfare and environment provided by the authorities. The masses began to feel far less resistant toward the government than before.

In mid-seventh month, Zhu Dadian had finished re-surveying and redistributing the land of Luzhou Prefecture and Taiping Prefecture to the newly recruited military farmland soldiers. The Taiping ironworks and the Jiangnan General Weapons Bureau had also resumed normal operation, so Zhu Cilang led his entourage on an inspection tour of Luzhou and Taiping Prefectures.

The weather in the seventh month was scorching hot, so Zhu Cilang could only take shelter in his dragon carriage. This time, besides the thousand personal guards of the Yongwei Camp accompanying him, Sun Yingyuan had also dispatched a regiment of the Royal Second Brigade to escort him along the way.

A procession of over two thousand men — even grander than the Emperor's own — made the local officials who came to greet him along the route tremble with alarm, thinking the Crown Prince was again preparing to deal with someone.

Luzhou Prefecture was held by Yang Yufan, and everything there was passable. During Zhu Dadian's investigation, the local tyrants and great households who wanted to kick up a fuss were all suppressed in good time — not only did they fail to stir up the slightest wave, even their family property and fields were confiscated along the way.

The guard station lands of Luzhou Prefecture and the confiscated lands of the local tyrants and evil gentry were, just like in Taiping Prefecture, distributed to the newly recruited military farmland soldiers — that is, the hundred thousand reserve farmland soldiers recruited in Fengyang Prefecture.

Adding Fengyang Prefecture, Zhu Cilang now had twenty thousand Tianwu Army troops and one hundred eighty thousand military farmland soldiers, supporting over a million civilians.

And this was only the achievement in three prefectures. Moreover, the weapons and equipment of the one hundred eighty thousand farmland soldiers had not yet been universally issued, so they could not form effective combat power. If fighting broke out in the near future, they could only serve as baggage troops hauling grain and fodder. Thus Zhu Cilang was not satisfied with the current state of affairs — he felt this was only the beginning.

In early eighth month, as the procession was crossing the Yangtze by boat to Taiping Prefecture, the dragon boat Zhu Cilang was riding sprang a leak and sank into the river.

Fortunately, the dragon boat happened to pass by an islet in the middle of the river, and Zhu Cilang narrowly escaped with his life. There were no major casualties among those on board either.

Though he did not know exactly who among the shadows was plotting to kill him, Zhu Cilang could already guess the general picture — either that pack of hereditary nobles in Nanjing, or some gentry and landlords of Jiangnan, or the officials of Luzhou and Taiping Prefectures.

Zhu Cilang showed no mercy. Using this incident, he directly eliminated a number of Luzhou and Taiping Prefecture officials who were on his list, on charges of treason. These officials had colluded with landlords and evil gentry, secretly harboring ill intentions all along, covertly obstructing and throwing obstacles in the way of the farmland work. If not for this opportunity, when else would he wait to remove them!

Taiping Prefecture was less than a hundred li from Nanjing, yet Zhu Cilang did not take the opportunity to visit Nanjing. The hereditary nobles and gentry of Nanjing were probably gathered together right now scheming ways to deal with him — let them stew in their own anxiety!

Zhu Cilang was not worried in the least. Once everything here was properly perfected, he would sweep the roving bandits from Mount Huo, and then lead the army to Nanjing to meet that pack of hereditary nobles.