Chapter 831: Sage, You Really Are a Living Immortal!

In the Rende Palace of Kaijing, Murong Xinzhang looked around with some displeasure, truly unable to understand how these Goryeo people's brains were even wired.

They called it a palace, and with its blue tiles, white walls, red pillars, and flying eaves with bracket sets, it did look the part — but could you people not have built the thing a little taller?

As a result, every time Murong Xinzhang entered a doorway he had to lower his head, and the feeling was about the same as crawling through a dog hole.

With a long sigh, the Great King Murong, having ducked into a tiny little room, began writing his memorial.

At the same time he made up his mind: Kaijing did not need so many dwarf palaces. He would tear down the Shouchang Palace, the Shoude Palace, and this Rende Palace, then move the materials over to the Manwoldae.

Of all the palaces in Kaijing, the one Murong Xinzhang was most satisfied with was the Manwoldae.

This palace sat at the foot of Mount Songak, on high ground, with lofty halls, broad grounds, a great parade field for reviewing troops, and a polo field. Its layout had been done by Chinese craftsmen from Wuyue, and it gave him a warm feeling of having returned to his homeland.

Historically, the Manwoldae of Wang's Goryeo was built on a grander scale than even the palaces of the later Joseon dynasty, and could be counted as the finest palace on the entire peninsula.

Although it gradually fell into disrepair during the Joseon period for lack of the resources to maintain and restore it, it still remained on a considerable scale right up to the early days of the Korean War.

Then the scum of humanity, the American soldiers, arrived.

These illiterate hooligans first bombed the main hall of the Manwoldae indiscriminately, and then, in order to build barracks, simply used bulldozers to flatten all the other buildings of the Manwoldae that had not been destroyed.

In Murong Xinzhang's memorial, he mainly reported three matters. First, he intended to denounce Wang Geon, as well as the former Goryeo Great Kings Wang Mu and Wang Yo, and the current Great King Wang So, as traitors who had taken a thief for their father, and to abolish the Goryeo state name.

The second matter: originally Murong Xinzhang and Zhang Zhao had discussed and planned to slaughter all the great clans of Goryeo, high and low, to the last person.

But after deeper investigation, Murong Xinzhang believed that the Goryeo great clans used Tang pronunciation, and could be considered to have made a passable study of Confucian literature, so they were a group that could be assimilated.

At present, neither the Great Zhou nor the peninsula was very rich in population, so killing them all in one go would still be something of a waste.

Therefore Murong Xinzhang planned to take the great majority of the twenty-seven Goryeo great clans — a full thirty thousand or more people — and transport them by sea to the Central Plains, asking Father Sage Zhang to disperse and resettle them.

Naturally, after these thirty thousand or more people were shipped back, he also wanted Zhang Zhao to transfer three hundred households of Confucian scholars well versed in the classics, histories, masters, and collected works to Goryeo, to carry out the duty of civilizing the barbarians.

Hmm, writing up to this point, Murong Xinzhang himself felt a little embarrassed. Three hundred households of educated people — this was asking for the moon!

In the present Zhang Zhou, a great prefecture governing seven or eight counties and several hundred thousand people might have only one or two hundred households of scholars, and as for those thoroughly versed in the classics, histories, masters, and collected works, there might not even be thirty households.

But Wang Pu insisted that Murong Xinzhang write it this way. Ask an outrageous price, settle for what you can get — what if they actually agreed?

The third matter was a request for the bestowal of a state name and for the removal of the overlord's headquarters.

Now Murong Xinzhang had already broken away from the territory of the traditional great dynasty with its unbroken golden realm. His title of Prince of Liaoyang Commandery, which belonged to the rank of a meritorious vassal, ought to be upgraded to that of a Great King of an outer vassal state, and his government should also use a state structure rather than an overlord's headquarters.

Since every civil official around him had his own tasks to attend to, Murong Xinzhang could only write the memorial himself. He wrote until both hands ached, when his personal guard officer and cousin Murong Xinzhen came in escorting several women.

The woman in front had looks that could only be counted as above average, but even the loose-fitting padded skirt could not conceal her extremely voluptuous figure, especially those perfectly round buttocks — simply exaggerated.

Of course, this woman was not the disgustingly exaggerated huge-breasted, huge-bottomed type of later European and American white women, but rather a kind very much in line with human aesthetics. How to put it — every part of her perfectly hit that ideal of beauty which humanity esteems for the sake of propagating the species.

Healthy, natural, strong.

Murong Xinzhang nodded with great satisfaction. This was the queen of the Goryeo Great King Wang So, Lady Huangfu.

Er, actually, Lady Huangfu should also have the surname Wang. She was in fact Wang Geon's daughter, and Wang So's full younger sister.

The reason she was called Lady Huangfu was that the Wang clan practiced internal marriage, so daughters basically all took their mother's surname, to make them easier to distinguish.

Otherwise all the wives of the Wang clan's sons would be called Lady Wang, and wouldn't it be completely impossible to tell them apart?

This Lady Huangfu had another identity: her maternal grandfather was the Defender of Kaijing — that very Huangfu Weiyuan who had pretended to faint on the city wall to avoid being the one to hand over the capital, and thus took the blame in the history books.

At the same time, she was also the cousin of Huangfu Zhao, who had insisted on dying for the country when Wang So was captured.

This woman was indeed very healthy, and her fertility was quite formidable.

She and Wang So were full siblings, and such unions generally have difficulty producing offspring, and Wang So's own fertility probably also had some problems.

This led to the historical situation where Wang So, with his own niece, Lady Lin of the Qinghe Palace, and the palace woman Lady Kim, who was not related by blood, failed to produce any descendants. Only Lady Huangfu, several years later, bore Wang So two sons and three daughters.

And apart from the second son dying young, the other four children were all successfully raised. More importantly, not a single one was mentally abnormal, nor were any born misshapen.

This — if Wang So had not been cuckolded — Lady Huangfu's fertility was truly terrifying to the point of explosion.

The other two women were Lady Lin of the Qinghe Palace, Wang So's own niece, and Lady Kim, who had no title yet and was only called a palace woman.

Both had fine looks, and Lady Kim's appearance was especially outstanding. To win a place in the Goryeo royal house, where internal marriage predominated, without astonishing beauty, it would have been impossible.

Murong Xinzhang waved his hand. He himself had very strong self-control in this regard, and besides, he knew how to behave. He would not be like Sage Zhang in the old days in Hezhong and Tianzhu, where before his uncle the Son of Heaven had even enjoyed himself, our Sage Zhang had already gotten to the little loli sisters.

"Take these three women and the other noble ladies of the Wang clan, add some beautiful palace women from the palace, make up a hundred people, and send them all to the Imperial Father."

Upon hearing this, Murong Xinzhen immediately drove away the surrounding guards and instead selected palace servants of the Rende Palace to serve as escorts. Since these were to be presented to the Son of Heaven, outsiders naturally could not be allowed to touch or look at them carelessly.

As soon as he went out, Wang Pu came in with several civil officials.

Wang Pu was holding a thick stack of statecraft plans. Murong Xinzhang rubbed his sore, tired eyes with a headache. "Wenbo, don't show them to me. Just say it directly."

Wang Pu nodded and began: "If the Great King wishes to hold this country, relying on the single word 'kill' cannot make everyone submit.

Your servant has heard that at present great numbers of common people are in extreme panic, abandoning their fields and taking their wives, children, and elderly to hide in the mountains — too many to count."

Murong Xinzhang knew this was an inevitable development. Goryeo had been controlled by the various great clans for several hundred years, and the common people under their rule did not know who the Great King of Kaijing was; they only knew who the master over their heads was.

Under such circumstances, among the common folk, whatever those clan members who had luckily escaped extermination said, they believed.

When the great clans said the Zhou army was coming to kill them all, the common people believed it too, and with the language barrier on top of that, it was even harder to explain clearly.

At present, most of Murong Xinzhang's several hundred thousand subjects were still in the Liao lands. It was impossible to have them move south amid the chaos of war, and even if they came, without half a year it would be very difficult to restore production.

Besides, if all the Goryeo people ran away, who would his tens of thousands of warriors lord it over?

"Wenbo must have a solution. Speak quickly!" Having understood the current situation, Murong Xinzhang asked directly.

Wang Pu had originally advised Murong Xinzhang on this question, but now that they had actually arrived and seen the specific conditions, it certainly needed some revision.

"Your servant believes we should still rely on the power of the Buddhist clergy. Our people do not speak the language, their customs differ, and we do not know the geography of Goryeo, so for the time being we cannot control the localities.

But Buddhism has flourished here since the time of the great dynasty, and the eminent Indian monk Shilifoluo and others are also willing to convert to the Six Dharma Sect. They have gone deep into every region and enjoy considerable prestige, so we might as well ask them to assist and cooperate.

In addition, the system your servant and the Great King discussed — of granting noble titles and establishing fiefs below the county level — should also be brought out now. First, it can boost morale, and second, it can quickly establish a foundation for governance."

What kind of system the vassal state should adopt was not only discussed by Murong Xinzhang and Wang Pu, but was proposed and designed by Zhang Zhao, and debated by the civil and military officials and prospective officials of the three top think-tank institutions of Zhang Zhou: the Luan Tai Zhaowu Academy, the Zhang Tai Qionglin Institute, and the Shangshu Hanlin Academy.

The specific method was this: in the prosperous regions of the peninsula, such as the Han River plain where Kaijing and Hanseong were located, and the Nakdong River plain where Fushan and Ulsan were located, direct rule by the Great King would be implemented.

In these good places, Murong Xinzhang would enfeoff meritorious subjects to the number of fifteen thousand households.

Each household would have several hundred mu of first-rate paddy fields, with especially low taxes, and the only requirement would be to protect the king — more or less a strengthened version of the fubing system.

For the rest of the places that were not particularly wealthy, they directly adopted the Zhou Son of Heaven's method of enfeoffment to found states, enfeoffing the meritorious officials below them.

Those with the highest merit were enfeoffed as marquises, directly administering a county, and within that, according to the size of their merit, ranging from over five thousand households to eight thousand households.

If each household were calculated at an average of five people, then even a marquis of the lowest rank could govern twenty-five thousand commoners and the corresponding land.

The next rank down was enfeoffed as an earl, also administering a county, but such counties had only between three thousand and five thousand households.

Below that there were viscounts, from over one thousand households to three thousand, and barons, ranging from over five hundred households to eight hundred.

The lowest rank was called Patrol Inspector, starting from one hundred households, that is, five hundred people, up to five hundred households.

Apart from the Great King's permission, they were not subordinate to one another.

After such an enfeoffment, the entire political structure and even the administrative divisions of Goryeo would be changed.

Only after such changes could the monks represented by Shili Fuluo cooperate with the vassals under Murong Xinzhang to pacify the localities.

When Murong Xinzhang sent out his memorial, Zhang Zhao was on an inspection tour of Xuchang, Nanyang, and other prefectures.

By this time, apart from the Southern Han and the Jinghai Army, the original territory of the Great Tang had basically all been recovered.

Zhang Zhao had moreover adopted Song Qiqiu's strategy of linking childbearing to land taxes, restoring and promoting production, so the appearance of the countryside had greatly improved.

Even before this policy was introduced, the Zhang Zhou court had twice issued orders stipulating that in households with a girl of normal intelligence and without disability, if she had reached sixteen and had not yet married or been betrothed, her father was to be dragged to the yamen and put in the cangue for public display for half a day.

It was enforced once a month. If after three times or more she still could not be successfully married off, then the government would forcibly arrange a marriage.

And in order to increase the number of marriages, Zhang Zhao had also specially ordered the county magistrates everywhere to strictly control the scale of betrothal gifts and dowries, absolutely forbidding these two things from preventing a rapid increase in population.

In addition, apart from unmarried girls, widows under the age of thirty were also not permitted to remain in widowhood; widowed women over thirty but under thirty-six who wished to remain in widowhood had to have the village elders report to the county office, and be approved by the County Magistrate.

In our Great Zhou, not marrying and bearing children is the second great crime after defaulting on taxes. Are you afraid or not?

And in actual implementation, the phenomenon of adding layer upon layer of extra requirements was all too common.

The laws Zhang Zhao discussed with the various participating in governance officials were relatively gentle and took every aspect into consideration.

But by the time they reached the County Magistrates, basically every year the number of newborns in the county, the number of newly married couples, how many widows were urged to remarry, how many widowers to remarry, and so on, had all been specifically quantified.

Now most of the County Magistrates, county vice-magistrates, and clerks of Zhang Zhou had basically all become matchmakers and birth-promotion team members, and a frenzy of marriage and baby-making had swept the entire nation.

Zhang Zhao had come to Xuchang Prefecture this time specifically to bestow rewards upon a couple.

I, Sage Zhang, looked at the man on the left who habitually hunched his back, lean and wiry, with rough hands and big feet, a typical farmer.

As for the woman in the distance awkwardly chatting with the Empress and always seeming about to slide to the ground, she was even more petite and delicate; who knew how she could be so fertile.

In sixteen years, this couple had together borne twelve children, seven boys and five girls, and raised ten of them.

One must know that I, Sage Zhang, had only been stabilizing the realm and restoring a certain degree of law and order for five or six years.

When this couple's eldest son was born, the Later Jin had not even been established yet. Who knew how they had the courage to keep having children in such a chaotic period.

After a period of adjustment, the woman over there no longer went weak in the legs and wanted to lie on the ground; instead, with a proud look on her face, she was imparting her experience in bearing and raising children to the Empress and the assembled consorts.

She even declared quite smugly that she could still do farm work at seven or eight months pregnant, could deliver a child by herself without a midwife, and could walk immediately afterward, and so on.

This ability made Empress Cao Yanxi, who had borne only two sons and one daughter and was now having difficulty conceiving again, as well as a group of consorts with few children, so envious that their eyes turned red.

At this moment, the gap in status between them vanished; in woman's most primal duty, this farm wife had surpassed them all.

In this era, the duties of men and women were still relatively simple: men were responsible for laboring to support the family, and when external enemies came, for protecting their families with their lives; women were responsible for managing most of the household affairs, and of course the most important KPI was whether they could bear children.

Zhang Zhao was also discussing farming matters with the man. Don't think that I, Sage Zhang, could barely tell the five grains apart before transmigrating; after arriving in this era, I have become thoroughly familiar with agriculture.

Once asked about things the farmer was familiar with, the man became much less reserved and earnestly discussed them with Zhang Zhao.

He even, after hearing Zhang Zhao describe how he had performed the plowing ceremony incorrectly, seriously corrected Zhang Zhao's farming mistakes.

From the look of it, if there had been a hoe at hand, he would have wanted to give the Zhang Emperor a hands-on lesson.

Farming peoples are always this persistent when it comes to farming matters.

At this moment, the man forgot all distinctions of rank; the Zhang Emperor was humbly seeking instruction, and even simpletons like Man Xiong and Dunzhu, who understood nothing of farming, wore expressions of grave seriousness.

But when Zhang Zhao asked whether there was enough grain to eat, the man's expression began to turn a little awkward.

"This old fellow will not tell lies in front of everyone. Originally, thanks to everyone's kindness, our family was allotted fifty mu of permanent land and two hundred twenty mu of oral-share land, but it is still a little... not quite enough to eat."

Zhang Zhao looked at the half-grown boys not far behind the man, foolishly and cheerfully watching Zhang Zhao and the whole party, running back and forth without stopping.

And at one youth who had already grown up, who understood the gravity of the situation and was desperately trying to stop the half-grown boys from running wild, and nodded with deep empathy.

Half-grown boys eat their fathers poor. Sage Zhang knew how much a boy of ten or so could eat; when he was fourteen or fifteen, he measured his food by the basin.

With six or seven half-grown boys in this family, plus the father and mother and several small children, at the standard of this time of medium-grade land yielding one hundred seventy or eighty jin per mu, even adding wild vegetables, wild fruits, and the occasional game meat, fish, and shrimp, it could not possibly be enough.

After thinking it over, Zhang Zhao said to the County Magistrate of Changge County, Xuchang Prefecture, behind him: "His eldest daughter, second son, and third son are all almost of age. We specially approve that from now on, for families like this, permanent land and oral-share land may be applied for in advance."

The Changge County Magistrate hastily agreed, while the man was still somewhat dazed and had not quite reacted. Zhang Zhao thought again: the children were still young, and though the land had been allotted, they probably could not farm it all, so he beckoned for the Supervisor of the Lesser Treasury, who managed the imperial private property, to come over.

"Select one bullock from Our estate and bestow it upon this good fellow. Otherwise, with so much land, his family cannot farm it all."

Only then did the man understand what Zhang Zhao was doing. As if waking from a dream, he was about to kneel, but Zhang Zhao quickly caught him and held him up.

"No need for excessive courtesy. It is precisely because there are pure-hearted people like you under Heaven that We have sufficient taxes and warriors to campaign against the disloyal!"

These words were quite practical. Even in later ages, when the means of production were extremely abundant, the demographic dividend was an extremely important strategic resource for a nation, even a decisive one, let alone in this era.

The Supervisor of the Lesser Treasury was also a man who knew how to handle things. Seeing that Zhang Zhao intended to set an example and bestow favor, he immediately cupped his hands and offered a suggestion:

"Sage, this year's plowing is already finished. If we bestow a bullock, they will still have to tame it and fatten it up, which would actually increase their burden.

It would be better to directly bestow a cow with a calf. The cow is gentle-tempered, and with a little care it can still plow next year, only with less strength than a bull. The calf, raised until next year, will be almost two years old, and with some training it can also begin plowing."

Before the Supervisor of the Lesser Treasury had even finished speaking, the man dropped to the ground with a thud and gave the Supervisor a grand salute, crying out: "Great kindness from you, sir! Even tying grass and holding a ring could not repay it!"

A bullock is not an animal so easily driven; the stronger it is, the worse its temper.

And they have feelings too. If you do not raise it properly for a while to build a bond, getting it to obey your commands is extremely difficult; it might even prefer to send you flying with a horn.

Moreover, in this era, fattening up an ox was no easy matter either.

But a cow with a calf is much better. The cow is gentle and easy to raise, and can plow too, just with a bit less strength. The calf, raised for a while, can help out a little by next year, and being raised from youth, the bond is deeper and it is easier to drive.

Most importantly, cattle, like people, can miscarry or have difficult births, so a cow that has never calved carries great uncertainty, while a cow in her prime childbearing years that has already calved is far better.

For the man's family to receive a cow that can calve smoothly — in the village, that was a treasure bowl that produced wealth!

For just a little money, you could get a strong calf every two years or less.

Very often, a farming household that owned a healthy cow had, in good times, the very capital for building a family fortune. That was why the man was so overcome that he wanted to kneel before the Chamberlain for the Palace Treasury.

Once Zhang Zhao learned these details, he agreed on the spot, then laughed at himself. Sure enough, all that about plowing rituals and the emperor personally tilling the soil was still more theater than substance.

Still, this was a fine opportunity. After Empress Cao Yanxi and the assembled consorts rewarded the woman with ten bolts of cloth and two pieces of jewelry, Zhang Zhao sat down with the farmers from the surrounding villages right there in the farmhouse courtyard and chatted about everyday matters, urging them to produce more and bear more children.

In truth, Zhang Zhao hardly needed to urge them at all. The household and their neighbors were already watching with eyes red with envy.

If they had known that having more children meant not only paying less tax but also getting a cow with a calf and other rewards, they would have long since had eight or ten of them.

Just then, from the south and the north at the same moment, two courier squads arrived, pheasant feathers stuck behind their caps.

Zhang Zhao first beckoned the southern courier to approach. "An urgent report from the Fujian Branch Secretariat. Branch Secretariat Liu Zaisheng and Provincial Surveillance Commissioner Liu Congxiao report to the Sage."

"In Zhangzhou and Quanzhou, the Champa rice has had a great harvest. After three years of trials, Champa rice yields a steady five shi per mu on top-grade fields, four shi four dou on middle-grade fields, and three shi seven dou on low-grade fields. Zhangzhou and Quanzhou can support three crops a year."

The Tang shi varied considerably from period to period. After Zhang Zhao established Zhang Zhou, he fixed the official shi at about one hundred and ten catties of later times, never to be changed.

This therefore meant that in Zhangzhou and Quanzhou, top-grade fields could produce five hundred and fifty catties, middle-grade fields four hundred and eighty-four catties, and low-grade fields four hundred and seven catties.

Of course, these figures were certainly the total yield from three successive crops. But even so, per harvest, low-grade fields could still yield around one hundred and thirty-five catties.

That may not look like much, but the per-crop yield of Champa rice on low-grade fields was already very close to the yield of ordinary middle-grade fields.

Moreover, because the per-mu yield differed little between top, middle, and low-grade fields, this meant Champa rice did not need to compete with other crops for fertile land.

Another advantage was that it was quite drought-resistant. A rice that could withstand drought was simply the finest of genetic traits.

At the same time, historically Champa rice could be grown in places south of Henan. Northern Song records show it could be planted in places like Ruzhou, and the yield was not bad.

Even if Henan could not grow three crops a year like Fujian, reckoning by two crops, low-grade fields could still yield two hundred and seventy-one catties per mu.

Compared with the current yield of one hundred and twenty or thirty catties per mu on low-grade fields in Henan, that was already more than double, was it not?

With such a huge difference in yield, along with advantages like ease of planting and drought resistance, did it still matter that Champa rice had no fragrance, tasted bad, was coarse and hard to swallow, and was described as far inferior to the sweetness of millet?

It did not matter in the least! No matter how bad it tasted, no matter how often historical records noted that people were unwilling to eat it, it was still better than grass roots, tree bark, and guanyin clay.

When Zhang Zhao received this memorial and saw the shi of Champa rice that had come with the courier, he trembled with excitement.

Excellent! With Champa rice, Jiangnan, Jiangxi, Fujian, Liangguang, and even Shandong and Henan could all plant it on a large scale.

With such an ample food supply, his plan of using Xia rulers over Yi subjects could actually be carried out.

Once the surrounding farmers understood what had happened, they all stared at Zhang Zhao with shining eyes, gazing at the Emperor with boundless reverence.

"The Sage is truly a divine immortal from heaven! With rice like this, humble folk like us will never go hungry again."

Empress Cao Yanxi, hearing this, was also moved to tears. Leading the civil officials, military officers, palace attendants, and eunuchs, she slowly prostrated herself before Zhang Zhao. "A heaven-born Sage who saves the myriad people! Your subjects offer congratulations to Your Majesty!"

"Ha ha ha ha!" Zhang Zhao laughed wildly several times. History had much to say about Champa rice, but only by being here in person could one truly feel the impact it brought.

Amid his loud laughter, Zhang Zhao picked up the urgent report from the north. It was from Murong Xinzhang.

Cao Yanxi asked with concern, "Is it a victory report from Xinzhang'er, sent from Haidong?"

Zhang Zhao scanned it quickly, handed the memorial to Cao Yanxi, and then said lightly, with feigned nonchalance, "The little ones have broken the enemy. It was within my expectations all along."

But no sooner had he spoken than the Sage Zhang, feeling light all over as though treading on cotton, missed his footing and nearly pitched headlong into a great tumble.

(End of Chapter)

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