Chapter 249: Grasping the Money Bag, Watching the Empty Bellies

After all, he was a seasoned veteran of officialdom. Chen Qiyu surely understood that occupying the high position of Governor-General of the Five Provinces, while also commanding the Northwest Camp and holding the imperial sword of authority, every move he made would inevitably be under the watchful eyes of officials.

This memorial could not simply be a report of victory — otherwise Chen Qiyu would not have gone to such lengths to stage both an open memorial and a secret one.

The Emperor now held all power firmly in his hands. All memorials were first presented by the Office of Transmission to the Winter Warm Pavilion, then sent back from there to the Grand Secretariat and the various ministries for draft rescript and deliberation. This did not conform to ancestral precedent, but at this moment, no one with any sense dared court death by objecting.

After all, the Emperor genuinely killed — and not only killed, but after the killing would have the Eastern Depot and Embroidered Uniform Guard investigate your ancestors eighteen generations back, ruin your reputation, and make it so you could not even die an upright remonstrating minister, but could only die bearing the name of a traitorous villain.

Though it was called deliberation, in truth the Emperor had already decided everything on his end. Sending it down was merely going through the necessary procedure — essentially having the ministers carry out what had already been settled.

At this point, someone might ask whether anyone would dare defy the Emperor and simply refuse to carry it out.

Though the seventeenth and eighteenth years of Chongzhen were separated by only a single year, the court had undergone earth-shaking changes. The Emperor had conducted a vine-and-melon purge, executing at least several hundred officials. Even if you added yourself to the count, it would have no real effect on the delivery of his decrees — there were plenty of lackeys below waiting to obey orders.

Even so, Chen Qiyu's position truly had its peculiarities, and he could not afford to be anything less than cautious.

The establishment of the Northwest Camp was not merely a matter of preventing the roving bandits. The Northwest Camp recruited only new soldiers, not guard station troops. Add to that the court's decision last year to override all objections and abolish the ancestral system of hereditary military households farming military land that had stood since the Hongwu era — this made many people's imaginations run wild.

Recruiting soldiers but not hereditary military households, and abolishing the system of military households farming garrison land — what was Chongzhen trying to do?

Link these matters together, and even a fool could understand seven or eight parts of it. Clearly there was no good intention behind it. Since last year, he had been eyeing the guard stations, and it looked like he was seeking an opportunity to abolish all the guard stations nationwide in one stroke.

Of course, this was still only speculation. The Emperor's heart was a needle at the bottom of the sea — who could say what would actually happen in the end? Perhaps he might change his mind at the last moment. But one point could already be confirmed.

The current Emperor had been dissatisfied with the guard stations for a very long time. After all, the guard stations were genuinely nothing but money-pits that harmed people. After several hundred years, they should have been eliminated long ago.

If this contradiction were not resolved, there would never be peace of mind. And once the court set its sights on the guard stations, the vast communities of hereditary military households everywhere would inevitably face changes unprecedented in three hundred years.

When the military households changed, the number of people and matters affected would be enormous.

From the military officers above the households, to the local landlords, to the financial magnates above those, and the court officials those magnates had supported for years — when that time came, from top to bottom, not a single person would escape.

The moment the guard station system was touched, it would be a nationwide reform.

In other words, the most important significance of Chen Qiyu's Northwest Camp was that the court had begun trying not to use guard station troops as its main force. And once Chongzhen's trial in the Northwest Camp proved successful, he would immediately establish a Northeast Camp, a Jiangnan Camp, and various other camps.

Once these camps were built, the court would have no use for guard station troops in war, and the policy requiring them to farm military land would also be abolished. Then what use would there be in keeping the guard stations? Naturally, they could be disbanded as a matter of course.

At first, Chen Qiyu could never understand why the Chongzhen Emperor had given him such great authority. Was it merely for suppressing bandits? Now he understood — the Emperor was thinking far ahead, already planning to reform the ancestral system.

This was a massive undertaking. One slight misstep meant falling into irredeemable ruin. The Emperor wanted to gamble, and in a moment of excitement, Chen Qiyu had carelessly fallen into the Emperor's trap, becoming the vanguard of this reform.

By now, Chen Qiyu understood, but it was too late. Once you became the vanguard, trying to walk away clean was no easy matter.

The success or failure of the Northwest Camp affected the interests of countless people, and Chen Qiyu was thus put on the fire. He knew full well that the moment this memorial was submitted, virtually all the bureaucrats and landlords in the capital would get word of it.

If he reported only to the Emperor, it would be equivalent to confirming the matter himself. At the very least, he had to submit a copy to the Grand Secretariat — otherwise even the officials of the various ministries and courts would have complaints.

At this time, in the Grand Secretariat's signing room, facing south sat Chief Grand Secretary Wei Zaode and Second Grand Secretary Jiang Degjing, with the remaining grand secretaries arrayed to left and right. Because the signing room did not have that many seats, the later-arriving officials could only stand behind the grand secretaries.

For these people, the so-called report of victory was merely an appetizer. What truly touched their nerves was what was to be deliberated afterward.

According to Li Chun, the seal-holder of the Directorial Palace who had just come to deliver the message, the Emperor had approved a few memorials and then gone to Jingyang Palace. While saying this, Li Chun had kept chuckling without stop.

Indeed, that palace had not housed a consort for many years. Because the location was cold and desolate, and also remote, any consort assigned to live there would basically exhaust every effort to move away.

Over time, Jingyang Palace had become the second cold palace within the harem.

Though this Soft Consort was a woman of foreign origin, this matter showed she truly had her own abilities — she had actually managed to keep the Chongzhen Emperor from going to Kunning Palace for several days in a row, instead going to rest at Jingyang Palace at every opportunity.

Now that the Emperor had gone to the distant Jingyang Palace, though the area around him was full of depot and guard agents, at least his demeanor could relax somewhat, and the ministers could begin their arguments in an orderly fashion.

Li Chun had not come merely to tell the ministers where the Emperor had gone — his main purpose was to deliver a message.

"Edict to the Ministries of Revenue, War, and other offices:

I have reviewed the memorials from the Ministry of Revenue and other offices requesting the release of silver from the privy purse. How could I not deeply cherish the frontiers and begrudge releasing the funds? But I consider that the various expenditures of state and military have always had their established systems. In the ancestral dynasties, great armies and great campaigns were all dispatched and provisioned by the outer court. Even in my imperial grandfather's time, when pacifying Ningzhen, campaigning against Bozhou, and driving out the Japanese pirates, no request for privy purse funds was ever heard. Now in the Chongzhen era, the accumulated silver in the treasury is limited, and the expenditures of the inner court are incalculable — it was never intended that regular allocations should answer external emergencies.

Since the eastern troubles began and the army was raised, the Ministries of Revenue and War have proposed no long-term plans, but at every turn request the privy purse. In this critical seventeenth year of peril and survival, where are the Liaodong troops?

As for the troops said to be supplied by the privy purse — when requesting funds, they use alarming words as coercion; when spending, they squander at will. Recruits are not sought for quality and strength, defenses do not match the strategic situation. Expenditure is prodigious, yet results are scarcely seen.

Moreover, the old Liaodong troops had an establishment of seventy thousand, but now they no longer obey dispatch and have become the private army of San Gui in the east of Liao. The old pay was nearly seven hundred thousand, and with each addition of thirteen thousand new troops, the annual pay rose to over five million. And since Liaoshen fell, how many of the officers and troops west of the river have truly served the state with loyalty?

The troop numbers do not match the records, and when they do not return to the court's command, they claim the passes are afflicted and do not come. If all the Liaodong troops were present, into whose pockets would the pay silver go?

I have also heard that in the fifteenth year, over two million in reward silver was sent to Shaanxi, with the strategy of suppressing bandits. Yet the soldiers bearing arms received not a drop, while civil and military officials filled their private purses halfway, adding to the fault of my own ignorance. The surplus accumulated in the northwest was also delivered into the bandits' hands — what benefit was there in that?

Whenever I think of this, I am filled with grief and rage. Now I see the various offices waiting for the release of treasury silver, and I fear it will be as before. What benefit is there in releasing more?

Now the northwest faces a critical war situation, and treasury funds must be personally released by me. From this day forward, any expenditure of even a fraction from the privy purse or the national treasury requires my personal approval. The depot and guard will oversee all officials — any who embezzle from the privy purse or the national treasury shall have all nine generations of their families executed, with absolutely no leniency.

I have thought back and forth, ever mindful of the weight of the state, and have resolved to establish granaries in four locations. Eastward they may reach the garrison lands of Ji, westward as far as the twin passes of Ning and Gu. In the four locations of the capital, Nanjing, Datong, and Jining, the granaries must be filled before the end of the year."