Chapter 805: Lifting the Mists of History

At Jinling Prefecture, outside the Jiankang Palace, another group of so-called commoners who had come to weep and plead left in disappointment. Zhang Zhao felt not the slightest ripple in his heart.

Of those who could come weeping and pleading outside the Jiankang Palace, how many could be true commoners? Even if there were true commoners among them, most had been stirred up by the local great clans.

Otherwise, true commoners — never mind knowing where the Jiankang Palace was — would count as well-informed if they even knew how to get from their village to the county seat.

And the root cause of all this was that Zhang Zhao had begun touching the cake of the great families of the Southern Tang and Wuyue.

To put it bluntly, these two states, the Southern Tang and Wuyue, even counting rulers who could be considered capable sovereigns like Li Bian and Qian Liu, were on the whole extremely crude in governance — or rather, their administrative power had simply never reached downward.

What the Southern Tang occupied was Huainan, Jiangdong, Jiangxi, and the northern part of Jiangnan — that is, most of later Jiangsu, all of Anhui and Jiangxi, plus a portion of Hubei.

In such top-tier fertile land of the Tang and Song, the registered households of the entire state numbered less than five million, and the land still paying taxes on the books was only fourteen million mu.

This was simply a joke — less than three mu per person. Considering the per-mu yields of this era, and that large numbers of powerful households needed to live well while the mighty clans occupied more fields than they should.

Then wouldn't that mean that of these five million people, close to four million at the very least were landless tenant farmers?

Then were the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds I, Sage Zhang, saw in Jinling Prefecture, Yangzhou Prefecture, Zhenjiang Prefecture, and other places — that dense population, that prosperous commodity economy, that developed handicraft industry — all fake?

As for the Southern Tang officials explaining to him that commercial taxes accounted for a very large proportion of the Southern Tang's tax revenue, and even bringing out ledgers from past years as evidence, Zhang Zhao simply sneered at it.

Without a considerable amount of high-grade and top-grade farmland, how could so many people be fed?

Without so many people, how could such a developed commodity economy appear?

Without such a developed commodity economy, where the hell would you collect all that commercial tax from?

I, Sage Zhang, don't even need to look to know there must be a great deal of trickery in this. All that talk about commercial tax being high was just to fool Li Jing.

No — they couldn't even fool Li Jing. He simply had no way and no ability, so he could only hold his nose and accept it.

Wuyue was much the same. One must understand that the present Wuyue was not merely the later Zhejiang — it also had the two super-wealthy prefectures of Suzhou and Songjiang, plus Fuzhou.

Moreover, in the years from the late Five Dynasties to the early Northern Song, Wuyue had not known war for decades. Several generations of Qian kings built waterworks, opened up wasteland, and encouraged production — it was a paradise amid the chaos.

Among them, Hangzhou Prefecture was famed as the scenic crown of the southeast, the metropolis of the Three Wu, the richest place under heaven — the foremost prefecture of the southeast.

Suzhou Prefecture went without saying. Though slightly inferior to Hangzhou, it was at this time also a top-grade prefecture with streams of people flowing like weaving.

Yet for such a land of wealth, the figures Zhang Zhao obtained showed only 2.17 million registered households and less than six million mu of farmland.

Zhang Zhao vaguely remembered that in the time of Second Brother Zhao — less than thirty years later — after Wuyue surrendered its territory, the Zhao Song officials conducted a population survey and found that in Hangzhou city, host and guest households together numbered over 81,000, and in Suzhou city, host and guest households together numbered over 39,000.

And this was only a rough result obtained because the Northern Song did not carry out a fine-grained census in Wuyue; the actual numbers should have been higher.

But in the materials Zhang Zhao now held, Hangzhou had only a little over 21,000 households, and Suzhou had just passed 7,000.

And this was with host and guest households surveyed separately, with host households making up the overwhelming majority. In less than thirty years, no matter how much people bred, the population could not have increased four or five times.

Hmph! It seems someone thought that because Sage Zhang had long been in the Central Plains, he did not know the southeast had already developed — and so they competed with the state for households and farmland.

Punishable. Truly, very punishable!

The enraged Sage Zhang directly ordered the various personal armies and the imperial guard to seal off the three prefectures of Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Zhenjiang, and to audit the population under military law.

In the end, Hangzhou city was found to have 54,300 households and over 267,000 people.

Suzhou city had over 18,400 households and more than 110,000 people.

Zhenjiang city had over 16,500 households and more than 97,000 people.

The moment the figures came out, my Sage Zhang's head nearly exploded with rage.

These dogs dared to underreport population by two or three times even in great cities and metropolises — then in the county towns and the countryside, need one even say it? Wouldn't they just take off straight into the sky?

And so, while Hezhong and the plateau were locked in battle, and Bai Congxin slaughtered over a hundred thousand people in one go, I, Sage Zhang, was not idle either — he too was dealing with people.

As for officials, Pei Yuan could not be touched for the time being, so Zhang Zhao summoned He Ning to Jinling Prefecture on the pretext of discussing state affairs.

Coming together with He Ning were Wei Renpu, Tao Gu, Zhao Pu, and other civil officials of the younger generation.

As well as large numbers of personnel skilled in calculation and well-versed in the Zhang-Zhou land tax laws and regulations, drawn from the Zhangtai Academy of the Secretariat and the Qionglin Academy of the Department of State Affairs.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao had one more trump card — the Brocade Guard Fine Audit Office.

This was a financial and tax audit body personally controlled by Zhang Zhao, staffed with large numbers of Sogdians from Anxi and Hezhong. One could say their specialty matched the task perfectly.

These men were built around the core of the adopted-son army Zhang Zhao had formed back in Anxi.

In those years, Zhang Zhao had taken in more than three hundred orphans from Anxi, Hezhong, and Suyab who had lost their parents.

Of these, several dozen without much talent were gradually weeded out and became ordinary people, and over a hundred more of average ability were sent out to serve as minor civil and military officials in various places.

Only the remaining one hundred thirty-odd were personally taught mathematics by Zhang Zhao, using the mathematical knowledge he still remembered from later times, along with the mathematics books of this era.

These people now had no other special abilities, but in finance and taxation, they possessed a considerable standard of skill.

A few years ago, when there were problems with the Hexi Trading Company's ledgers, it was they who uncovered them in a surprise audit. Now that they had been transferred to Jiangnan, they were just the right tool for the job.

To be honest, by my Sage Zhang's side, there was still a slight lack of a ruthless character like Second Brother Zhao.

Of the two people currently usable, Pei Yuan's position was already too high, and he could not easily be moved.

Zhao Pu had still read too little. Although in matters of grand policy he performed well by virtue of his extraordinary talent, in the work further down, the finer and more detailed work, he still could not satisfy Sage Zhang.

Judging from the actual results in history, Second Brother Zhao was a ruthless, utterly unscrupulous man, yet one who saw into people's hearts, excelled at borrowing strength to strike, accomplished great things at small cost, and could even build political frameworks.

Hmm, as long as this man was not put in command of troops, his talent was still quite good. Though he was a bastard in history, with some tempering in this time and space, he would still make a fine candidate for minister.

But for now, Pei Yuan could not be moved, and Zhao Pu could only count as half a man, so there was nothing for it but for me, Sage Zhang, to act personally.

And at his side there were four "good helpers" he could use.

Li Jing, Sun Cheng, Han Xizai, Li Quanjin.

Why were they good helpers?

Very simple. For Li Jing, if he had been able to mobilize the full national strength of the Southern Tang, Zhang Zhao could not have fought so easily.

One must understand that the Southern Tang's size was roughly equal to the Zhang-Zhou realm after excluding Hexi, Longyou, Guanzhong, Shu, Hunan, and Hubei.

And because these six regions such as Hexi and Longyou were far away or newly conquered, when Zhang Zhao campaigned against the Southern Tang, apart from Hubei, the other places could not count as much help.

In that case, if Li Jing could have mobilized the whole nation's strength the way Zhang Zhao did, one could not say the Zhang-Zhou realm could not have destroyed the Southern Tang, but it absolutely would have been very difficult.

Now tell me — with Li Jing about to go to the Eastern Capital to live as a retired guest, could he not hate those worms below him, and not want them to be struck just as hard by the iron fist as he himself had been?

Li Quanjin was also easy to understand. After he defected from the Later Jin to the Southern Tang, he had served successively as Military Governor in various places, and had endured endless cold looks from these Southern Tang local factions.

And because he also knew the real situation in every region, having him act as a guide would make it possible to pinpoint the resisters inside the Southern Tang with great precision.

Sun Cheng and Han Xizai were even more suitable, because the two of them were northerners who had fled south — that is, they had gone from the Central Plains to the Southern Tang.

Although they held high office, they had no deep-rooted interests within the Southern Tang that needed looking after.

Moreover, the governing ability of these two men was fairly good, and having long served as officials in Southern Tang politics, they were thoroughly familiar with conditions at every level.

As long as they were willing to serve and assist Zhang Zhao in his operations, the results would absolutely be twice as great with half the effort.

That said, Li Jing and Li Quanjin were easy to deal with — getting their cooperation was just a matter of a single word.

But Sun Cheng and Han Xizai were different. The loyalty these two felt toward Li Jing, or toward the Southern Tang, was by no means feigned.

Historically, when Sun Cheng was sent as an envoy from the Southern Tang to the Later Zhou, Guo Rong treated him extremely well and often personally bestowed gifts upon him, but the moment Sun Cheng was asked about the Southern Tang's true condition, he shut his mouth and would not answer.

In the end Guo Rong lost his temper and said that if he would not speak, he would be executed — yet Sun Cheng merely straightened his robes and cap, bowed toward the south, and said: "Your servant repays his country with death."

He showed not the slightest hesitation, and until death he never lowered his head by half an inch. The hardness of his backbone was plain to see.

And now, ever since Li Jing had offered up his territory, these two had pleaded illness and stayed behind closed doors. Zhang Zhao had summoned them several times, and each time they had turned him away — clearly refusing to cooperate.

Zhang Zhao leaned back somewhat wearily on a long reclining chair. The commoners now coming to the palace gates to lament and plead actually proved that the posture he had struck had made the great clans of the Southern Tang and Wuyue feel some danger, but it had not yet reached the point of wounding them to the bone.

To put it simply, their action was half genuine pleading — and half a threat.

One could imagine that if Zhang Zhao truly moved against them, the troubles that followed would only multiply, and he would be even more in need of helpers like Sun Cheng and Han Xizai.

Otherwise, if the whole affair were managed by men from the north, they would not understand local conditions, nor would they necessarily be so upright, incorruptible, and diligent. Most likely it would only produce two outcomes.

First, there would be basically little progress — they might deal with a few small fry or one or two who stuck their necks out, but they could not change the fundamental situation.

Second, it would throw the southeast into turmoil, stir up large-scale popular opposition, and in the end still require military force to pacify.

Whichever of these two outcomes occurred, both would run completely counter to Zhang Zhao's grand plan of quickly harnessing the resources of Jiangnan to complete the eastern expedition against Japan.

From behind came the soft sound of footsteps, followed by the gentle touch of small fists kneading his shoulders.

Without turning around, Zhang Zhao knew it must be Zhou Xian, the elder sister. On an ordinary day, Zhang Zhao might have teased her a little, but right now he was in no mood at all.

For a brief moment, Zhang Zhao very much wanted to put a blade directly to the necks of Sun Cheng and Han Xizai, force them to work, or simply kill them outright.

But on reflection, he knew he could not do that. Setting aside whether work done under the threat of a blade would be reliable, even from the standpoint of public morals, he could not act that way.

Although Sun and Han made Zhang Zhao feel as if a fishbone were stuck in his throat — even somewhat disgusted — these men were genuine, true-hearted loyal ministers.

You yourself have preached loyalty and righteousness for over a decade, and then because someone refuses to cooperate, you cut them down with a single stroke — would that not be telling everyone plainly that all of Sage Zhang's past propaganda was false?

If, from top to bottom at court, the future were filled with ministers who sold out their sovereign the moment a powerful enemy arrived and waited for high office and rich rewards from the new dynasty, how could Zhang Zhao ever sleep soundly?

These two men's effect on Zhang Zhao was negative, even revolting — but from the perspective of the whole realm, they were loyal ministers worthy of respect, moral exemplars of what it meant to serve one's lord.

Therefore, not only could Zhang Zhao not treat them harshly, he had to show great respect and appreciation.

Perhaps it was young Zhou Xian's gentle kneading that cooled Zhang Zhao's head. After a bout of calm reflection, the Sage realized that to move loyal ministers like these, he would have to start with the thing they cherished most — their reputations.

And so, after careful deliberation, Zhang Zhao began sending people to their doors every two days to invite the two men to come out and take office.

Each time they refused, Zhang Zhao's rewards were a little greater than the time before. By the fifth refusal, the reward had reached five hundred strings of cash — a sum of considerable weight.

This put Sun Cheng and Han Xizai in an unbearable position, because Zhang Zhao's method would make outsiders think they were only pretending to be loyal ministers on the surface while actually haggling over the price. If they refused the five hundred strings, others would most likely say they thought it too little.

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Sun Cheng had originally wanted to simply accept the five hundred strings and distribute them to the poor commoners of Jiankang, but no sooner had he voiced this proposal than his entire household of more than thirty people, including his old wife, stared at him in terror.

In particular, Sun Cheng's old wife, Lady Gao — the daughter of Gao Pian, the Prince of Huainan, whose name had once resounded throughout the realm — had an exceptionally bone-deep memory of the misery that followed the ruin of a family. She spoke to Sun Cheng bluntly.

"The present Sage treats you and Han Xizai with such favor that even in the Zhenguan or Yonghui eras, it would have been considered extremely lenient.

If you simply decline, that is one thing — but if you were to distribute the rewards to the commoners, that would plainly be spitting in the sovereign's face. It would also be showing outsiders that, compared with the loyalty you display, you care more for your own reputation.

If you insist on giving the rewards to the commoners, then first kill your wife and children, cut off all retreat, and thereby demonstrate your loyalty!"

Sun Cheng was stunned by his ordinarily gentle old wife, Lady Gao, and for a long while said nothing.

Clearly, the reason he dared resolve to be a loyal minister was that he believed an emperor like Zhang Zhao would not slaughter his whole family just because he stubbornly held his neck stiff.

This magnanimity of mine, Sage Zhang, has won the acknowledgment of the entire realm.

On Zhang Zhao's side, once he saw that Sun and Han dared neither openly refuse nor accept the rewards — that they had somewhat lost their nerve — he immediately summoned Zha Wenhui, a man he had previously looked down upon, to the palace for an audience.

Previously, the two factions in the Southern Tang court had fought with extreme ferocity. Zha Wenhui was of the faction aligned with Song Qiqiu, and had been locked in direct confrontation with Sun Cheng's faction for nearly ten years. The moment Zhang Zhao summoned Zha Wenhui, the rest of Sun Cheng's faction could no longer sit still.

Sun Cheng's in-law Li Deming rushed to the Sun residence that very night and said to Sun Cheng: "The former sovereign has already surrendered, and his treatment is generous, with the dignity of a prince. Yet you, sir, insist on posturing here as a loyal minister — do you mean to bring harm upon the Prince of Wu?

Moreover, men like Zha Wenhui have never possessed any virtue. Once they seize power, if the Sage remains in Jinling, all is well; but the moment the Sage returns north, the commoners of Jiangnan and Jiangxi will surely suffer at their hands!"

What "the commoners of Jiangnan and Jiangxi will surely suffer at their hands" — clearly, if Sage Zhang were truly pushed into heavily employing the Song Qiqiu and Zha Wenhui faction, it was the people of Sun Cheng's own faction who would surely suffer at their hands.

Ah, people! They are always bound tight by the great net of society — entanglements everywhere, interests at every turn.

Sun Cheng's original intention had indeed been to be a pure and loyal minister, and after the Southern Tang's fall, never to serve in office again.

But the court is like the jianghu — once you have entered, how could you possibly wash your hands in a golden basin and leave without paying any price?

Left with no choice, Sun Cheng drank himself into a wild stupor, and afterward had no alternative but to submit a memorial to Zhang Zhao. Although it said, "Your servant is dull-witted and unworthy of being employed by the Emperor," Zhang Zhao understood what it meant.

He therefore personally issued an edict praising the loyalty of Sun Cheng, Han Xizai, and a whole group of Southern Tang ministers, and also ordered Li Jing to write to them personally, urging them to come out and serve the new dynasty.

When Li Jing personally wrote, "The cycle of Heaven turns, and it is fitting that the Sage Zhou arose in Helong. I myself am willing to yield up the state altars for the nation — why must you cling so stubbornly?" — at that point, this drama of how to display loyalty reached its end, and its most fitting conclusion.

Zhang Zhao had displayed his magnanimity, Sun Cheng and the others had displayed their loyalty, and Li Jing had also made a small showing of himself. It could be called a triple win.

After this, many former Southern Tang ministers who shared Sun Cheng's sentiments began coming forward one after another to serve the new dynasty.

There was one point, however, on which Sun Cheng and the others had guessed wrong.

Zhang Zhao's summoning of Zha Wenhui was by no means merely to provoke them and apply a bit of pressure. Zhang Zhao genuinely intended to make use of men like Zha Wenhui.

Because Zhang Zhao had discovered that among the so-called Five Ghosts of the Southern Tang, reviled by later generations, men like Song Qiqiu, Feng Yansi, and Feng Yanlu actually possessed quite good abilities, and their personal character had no great flaws — there were even aspects worthy of praise.

Song Qiqiu in particular: historically, he had been forced by the Southern Tang court to be killed by his own family, and was posthumously given the ignominious title "Choumiu." The Book of the Southern Tang also called him a great treacherous minister.

But in reality, Song Qiqiu was a man of formidable ability. Not only was he skilled at political strategy, he was even more skilled at economics and finance.

That Jiangnan, Jiangxi, and Jiangdong under Southern Tang rule were the wealthiest regions in the realm was not the achievement of men like Sun Cheng and Han Xizai, but the achievement of Song Qiqiu.

In terms of personal virtue, Song Qiqiu could even be called nearly flawless.

In his early years his family had fallen on hard times, and when he could not even afford to eat, a private prostitute surnamed Wei, admiring his learning, used the money from selling her body to support Song Qiqiu in his studies.

Song Qiqiu said at the time that once he achieved fame and success, he would surely marry Lady Wei.

If it had been an ordinary man, once he truly rose in the world, he would certainly have avoided her at all costs — and in this chaotic age of war, it would not even be surprising if he had her killed to silence her.

But Song Qiqiu not only married Lady Wei as promised after achieving fame and success — what was even more astonishing was this.

Lady Wei had been a private prostitute, and the years of selling her body had damaged her health so that she could not bear children. Song Qiqiu not only did not divorce her, he did not even take a concubine. Having no heir, he adopted his nephew, and for his entire life Lady Wei was his only companion.

So Zhang Zhao refused to believe that a man of such ability, and so flawless in his private virtue, could truly be worthless in politics and statecraft.

Zhang Zhao first ordered the Brocade Guard to secretly gather information on Song Qiqiu's daily words, deeds, and past conduct, then summoned Zha Wenhui, and after that summoned Feng Yanlu — all to determine just what kind of man Song Qiqiu was.

Once he put it all together, Zhang Zhao understood: apart from the virtues above, Song Qiqiu's flaws and his lack of emotional intelligence were equally "dazzling."

The man had a fiery temper, loved to seize power, found fault with every colleague he laid eyes on, and felt that no one under heaven was his equal. He was utterly lacking in self-awareness — or, to put it another way, he had no sense of his own place.

For he actually believed that Li Bian's success was owed entirely to him, and therefore Li Bian ought to trust him the way Liu Bei trusted Zhuge Liang. Whenever anything did not suit him, he threw a tantrum.

He even ran his mouth wildly, saying that if Li Bian should ever pass away, then he, Song Qiqiu, would be the only man who could, like Zhuge Liang, shoulder the burden of guarding the orphaned heir.

Uh, old friend — a man like Liu Xuande, who rose from the humblest origins, held fast to benevolence amid the chaos, showed real loyalty and consideration even as emperor, and could open his heart to his ministers with genuine sympathy — in all these thousands of years, such men are not exactly nonexistent, but there are only a scant few of them.

If Li Bian had Liu Xuande's ability and magnanimity, he would have truly restored the Great Tang long ago — how could he have ended up founding only a tiny Southern Tang!

And so, historically, when Song Qiqiu reached the hands of Li Bian's son Li Jing still in this same sorry state, he thoroughly enraged the petty-minded Li Jing.

To the point that in the end, Li Jing not only insisted on his death, but also gave him the posthumous name "Choumiu" — the utmost insult. It is truly not the least bit strange.

Zhang Zhao was amused. Right now he needed someone to assist Pei Yuan in revitalizing the economy of all Jiangnan, Jiangxi, and Jiangdong.

Li Jing could not make use of Song Qiqiu, but I, Sage Zhang, can still find a way to polish him up a bit and then put him to use.

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