Chapter 23: The Refugee Problem

In the Ming dynasty, Beijing was divided from the inside out into four parts: the Forbidden City, the Imperial City, the Inner City, and the Outer City.

The Forbidden City, which was the imperial palace, sat on the central axis at the very heart of Beijing and was where the Emperor and his family resided.

Surrounding the Forbidden City was the Imperial City, whose main gate was Chengtian Gate, known in later ages as Tiananmen. Apart from the Laundry Bureau among the Eight Bureaus, twenty-three of the twenty-four yamen's inner-court service agencies were located in the Imperial City, where most of the eunuchs and palace maids lived.

In the Ming dynasty, the number of eunuchs and palace maids exceeded ten thousand; only a small portion served on duty in the imperial palace, while the rest lived in the Imperial City, most of them in the area north of Wansui Hill.

The Inner City, which was the downtown of Beijing, had been rebuilt from the site of the Yuan dynasty's Dadu capital, covering an area of over fifty thousand mu. It housed imperial relatives and high-ranking court officials, and also contained all sorts of commercial workshops. The Inner City and the Imperial City formed a '回' shape, with the Inner City outside and the Imperial City inside.

Before the Jiajing reign of the Ming, Beijing had only the Inner City, the Imperial City, and the Forbidden City. Jiajing, in order to accommodate more of the capital's population, began constructing the Outer City.

However, due to insufficient funds, only the southern portion was built, covering an area of over thirty-six thousand mu. The Outer City and the Inner City formed a '吕' shape, with the Inner City on top and the Outer City below.

The street layout of Beijing's Outer City was the same as in later ages, mostly based on horizontal and vertical lines. The main thoroughfares throughout were streets leading to the various city gates, with dense alleys and lanes, giving everything a neat, square appearance.

Several of the main streets were extremely wide, allowing five or six horse-drawn carriages to pass side by side. Zhu Cilang rode in a carriage, looking at his surroundings with some surprise—he hadn't expected the Outer City to be even more bustling and prosperous than the Inner City.

Along the avenue the carriage passed, both sides were packed with shops and taverns; the cries of hawkers and the sounds of string and wind instruments were incessant.

On the streets, there were many wealthy households and nobles dressed in fine clothes, accompanied by beautiful women, moving in and out of various shops and taverns surrounded by household servants and guards. Everything they wore and used was extravagantly luxurious to the extreme.

Yet on the other side, in stark contrast to this scene of prosperity, beneath the eaves of many shops on both sides of the street, many begging refugees mingled with beggars, clutching broken, empty bowls as they went door to door pleading for help.

Shop owners wielded sticks, constantly driving them away and shoving them, afraid they would affect their business. Occasionally, a shop would toss out some leftover scraps of food, which immediately triggered a scramble among these people.

On the second floors of some taverns, sons of officials sat by the windows in a show of elegance, tossing down a few meat bones, then watching several refugees below fight over them with a few dogs, which sent them into hearty laughter.

At this time, although Beijing still bore a somewhat imposing and majestic appearance on the surface, in Zhu Cilang's eyes, he could already see the signs of decline and decay of a dying age.

Public security in the capital was mainly the responsibility of the Five Wards Troops and Horses Office and the patrolling censors; sometimes the Embroidered Uniform Guard would also get involved.

The Five Wards Troops and Horses Office, namely the Central, Eastern, Western, Southern, and Northern Ward Troops and Horses Command Offices, were the yamen responsible for arresting thieves and bandits in the capital, clearing streets and ditches, and handling prisoners and fire prohibitions.

The news that the Crown Prince was leaving the palace to comfort the people had already been issued by imperial decree, and all the yamen in the capital had received the message. The Five Wards Troops and Horses Office was naturally no exception—especially the Southern Ward Troops and Horses Command Office, which bore heavy responsibility and had everyone on edge.

When Zhu Cilang left the palace in his carriage in plain clothes, they had already sent people to follow him, clearing the way and protecting him in secret. Even the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Shuntian Prefecture couldn't sit still, dispatching runners to trail far behind, afraid something might go wrong.

Though it was called going out to comfort the people, it was really disaster relief and arranging for these refugees. Zhu Cilang naturally wouldn't be stupid enough to parade out to the Outer City with the Crown Prince's full ceremonial regalia and shout at the street: I am the Crown Prince of this dynasty, the heir to the Great Ming, I represent the Emperor in coming to see you—here is grain, eat up first!

If he did that, even with the Eastern Palace guard and the Five Wards Troops and Horses Office protecting him, he'd probably be swamped by the refugees. When faced with food, who cares who you are?

So, Zhu Cilang decided to first come out in plain clothes to see the situation, and only after understanding things well enough would he decide what to do.

For this trip out of the palace, he brought a full three hundred Eastern Palace personal guards in plain clothes protecting the carriage. What if there were spies from the roving bandits or the Jianzhou barbarians mixed in among the refugees? If they knew he was the Crown Prince of the Great Ming, wouldn't they seize any chance to kill him?

My career has just started—how could I allow such a ridiculous ending to happen? I must guarantee this Crown Prince's safety!

After wandering around for half a day, Zhu Cilang discovered that there were way too many refugees. How was he supposed to handle this? The decree only said to come out and comfort the people, but no silver had been seen. Surely the Emperor, his father, wasn't naive enough to think that having this Crown Prince show his face and say a few words would be enough?

Chongzhen really hadn't thought that far ahead. He was simply counting on Zhu Cilang to represent the Emperor in saying a few words and handing out some rice porridge for relief. As for the follow-up matters, the Grand Secretariat could arrange those.

But would the Grand Secretariat bother? The answer was, of course, no. That old fox Wen Tiren had kicked the ball to Zhu Cilang and naturally wouldn't help him clean up the mess. Who knows where he was listening to music and watching plays with Zhu Chunchen.

Zhu Cilang first sent people to the Ministry of Revenue, asking them to allocate some silver for disaster relief. The Ministry of Revenue said it was very difficult, but considering that this His Highness had gifted the Ministry of Revenue one million taels of silver, they finally squeezed out ten thousand taels of relief funds.

Ten thousand taels of silver might be enough for tens of thousands of refugees to drink porridge for a few days. But after the porridge was gone, what then? How to arrange for them afterward—that was the most important question.

The refugee problem had existed in every dynasty, persisting for thousands of years without being eradicated. Before coming out, Zhu Cilang had also reviewed many archives to see how each dynasty had dealt with refugees.

During the two Han dynasties, the court adopted measures of restriction, suppression, repatriation, control, and pacification, mainly registering refugees in other relatively stable places, or building cities and establishing commanderies and counties to settle them.

But this approach was aimed at large-scale refugee movements, with most being repatriated. The result was that a great number of refugees died on the road back home, many of those registered elsewhere were reduced to servitude, and even more joined peasant uprisings and rebelled.

During the Sui and Tang dynasties, those in power were somewhat more enlightened and adopted emergency measures, such as opening granaries to distribute grain, abolishing oppressive taxation laws, and reducing rents and levies, in order to save the ruling crisis. Although these measures had some effect, on the whole they achieved little, and the phenomenon of displacement continued to occur repeatedly.

In the Song dynasty, large numbers of refugees were recruited into the official army, which resulted in the phenomenon of "superfluous troops."

In the mid-Ming, refugees were dealt with through strict household registration management, dispersal, and suppression. In particular, the Jingxiang refugee uprising happened precisely because the official army's slaughter was too heavy, driving the refugees to rebel outright.

In fact, the causes of refugees were nothing more than two kinds: natural disasters and man-made calamities. If the two were combined, they would inevitably produce the scene of "scorched earth for a thousand li, a million refugees, and bandits swarming like bees," shaking the foundation of the state's rule.

For example, during the Chongzhen reign, it was the result of the two combining, and that was why the Great Ming collapsed. Of course, the reasons for the Ming dynasty's fall were not limited to these alone.

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