Chapter 302: Porters

On the second day of the second month of the fifth year of Chongzhen, Liu Chengzong stood on the west bank of the Dadu River wrapped in a large robe, gazing out at the boundless expanse of cultivated land, worry churning in his heart.

Sowing was to begin in just one more month. He had obtained enough seed from Muya, but not enough hands to farm the land.

Even if Zhang Yuanheng's work went perfectly smoothly, the Songpan Guard banner troops could not cross the marshlands before the fifth month at the earliest, and recruiting Sichuan commoners through merchants would likely take until around then to show results.

He had already made up his mind: if there was truly no other way, the cultivated land here would be sown by his escort soldiers, and once the commoners arrived, it would be rented out to them under a permanent tenancy arrangement.

Just as Liu Chengzong was fretting, across the very shallow Dadu River, he spotted two enormous figures halted on a grassy flat.

Both figures stood roughly a zhang tall, square and blocky, with stick-like protrusions jutting from them — a truly astonishing sight.

Liu Chengzong walked a stretch further along the riverbank before he could make out that those two bizarre-looking shapes were actually two porters carrying wooden furniture on their backs, taking a rest.

Because both men appeared to have their hair tied up in topknots, he dispatched a squad of cavalry to cross the still-unswollen Dadu River and invite the two over.

The two porters were terrified. When they first saw the cavalry crossing the river, they tried to flee, but two legs could not outrun four. Left with no choice, they drew the wooden poles used to prop up their loads, intending to resist, only to discover that wooden poles were no match for swift horses and light blades. Only then were they brought over.

Neither man was particularly tall, but both were extremely solidly built, thinly clad with sun-darkened skin. The moment they arrived, they prostrated themselves: "Sir, we know not what crime we humble men have committed?"

Yo, the moment Liu Chengzong heard that manner of speech, he knew these two had dealt with government troops plenty of times before.

The term "sir" had existed since the pre-Qin era, originally meaning simply a superior or the head of all officials. As times changed and more forms of address for higher-ranking officials emerged, the word gradually sank down into the military.

Apart from direct subordinates addressing their superior officer as "sir," it was commonly used to address military men whose rank and official standing were unknown.

"No need to be afraid. I am Liu Chengzong. I called you over merely to ask some questions; I will not harm your lives." Liu Chengzong said, "What are your names, where are you from, and where are you headed with those loads on your backs?"

The two men exchanged a glance, both faces blank with bewilderment at the unfamiliar name Liu Chengzong.

One of them said, "We humble men are Hu Xiao and Wang Dong, both porters from Mingshan County in Yazhou. We have been hired to carry these tables and chairs to Dajianlu. We beseech you, sir, to grant us passage and allow us two to enter Lucheng."

"Mingshan County, Yazhou." Liu Chengzong mentally recalled the map of Muya. "That's over three hundred li from here, isn't it? The furniture you're carrying looks far from light. How many jin?"

"Over two hundred jin." The two men stood slightly hunched. Hu Xiao, the one who had spoken first, put on an ingratiating expression and said, "Not three hundred — two hundred and some li."

Over two hundred jin, over two hundred li.

Liu Chengzong sized the two men up and asked, "How much do you earn for one trip?"

"Two mace. Two mace per man." Hu Xiao glanced at Wang Dong and said, "We might run into big jobs like this two or three times a year. The rest of the time, we push a wheelbarrow together, just barely enough to scrape by and feed our families."

Liu Chengzong nodded slowly. Both men were sturdily built, strong and powerful, but one look told him they were no soldiers.

Human strength comes in many forms. Those skilled at drawing bows have broad shoulders and wide backs. Laborers like these, on the other hand, typically have plank-like builds — sometimes so straight-backed that their shoulders and hips are the same width.

Their physiques were truly all muscle, with almost no fat. Such a body type cannot endure hunger — or rather, a body type like this is itself the product of hunger.

Liu Chengzong needed strong, capable men like these, so he spoke up: "Two mace a trip. Can either of you farm?"

Hu Xiao and Wang Dong exchanged a look and shook their heads. "We rent some fields, but farming won't feed the children."

"The land in Sichuan is good. Still can't support a family?"

"Can't support one. The rent is split sixty-forty. The harvest goes to the old master first, and what's left goes to the imperial court, then to the county yamen, and come festivals and New Year's, we still have to send a pig's leg or a live chicken to the old master's household."

Hu Xiao shook his head and said, "Truth be told, it's even more grueling than earning porter's wages."

Liu Chengzong did a quick mental calculation based on Hu Xiao's words. After paying land tax and levies out of that forty percent share, what remained in hand from one mu of land's harvest was likely less than a tenth.

Sichuan's land tax was notoriously heavy — heavy mainly because Sichuan had no poll tax. Having endured the great wars of the early Yuan dynasty, not one in ten of Sichuan's common folk survived, and ever since, it had remained a place of vast land and sparse population.

Thus, Sichuan's poll tax was directly folded into the land tax by the authorities, making the tax owed per mu of land higher than in other provinces.

Under such circumstances of the era, although porterage was grueling labor with meager income, it could minimize expenditures to the greatest extent. After all, in Sichuan, not paying land tax meant not paying the poll tax either.

With one decreasing as the other increased, working as a porter even earned somewhat more than being a tenant farmer.

Liu Chengzong was silent for a long while. After a pause, he asked, "Where you come from, are there many people like you? I mean people with no land, who aren't tenant farmers."

Liu Chengzong himself was unaware of it, but to Hu Xiao's ears, these words were actually quite terrifying.

This place was West of the Long River. The two men had seen soldiers scattered among the fields and field edges here, and after asking just a few questions, he was now asking whether there were many landless people back in their hometown.

What thoughts ran through the two men's minds?

It was very easy to draw unfavorable conclusions — such as detaining them to be fed as soldiers, or wanting to attack Yazhou and make them act as inside agents.

At this point in time, the common folk of Sichuan were perhaps more unwilling to become soldiers than ever.

Unless under extreme conditions like the great drought in Shaanxi, every man has his own aspirations. It was rare for everyone to want to be a soldier and eat army rations... what's more, at this critical juncture for the Great Ming, becoming a soldier truly did not guarantee you would get to eat those rations.

Sichuan had seen warfare for many, many years. Those willing to be soldiers had already become soldiers. Those who still had not by now mostly had no such ambition.

Hu Xiao and Wang Dong had no such ambition. The moment they heard Liu Chengzong's words, which seemed to suggest he wanted to keep them as soldiers, their heads shook like rattle-drums.

Liu Chengzong saw at once that the two had misunderstood and laughed. "I don't mean to keep you two as soldiers. See this land here? It's all cultivated land. The harvests are certainly poorer than Sichuan's, but there's a lot of it, and there are no taxes here — only half the harvest as rent. Would you like to come and farm it?"

Troubled expressions crossed the two men's faces. "This is the land of the West of the Long River chieftain. Are there corvée labor duties?"

"No corvée. If I need you to do work, I will pay to hire laborers. There will be no unpaid conscript labor. And you needn't worry about safety either."

As he spoke, Liu Chengzong patted the shoulder of an escort soldier beside him. "If you come here to rent fields, they will be the ones protecting you. None of the surrounding chieftains or tribal folk will dare bully you. If anything bad does happen, I will demand justice on your behalf."

The two men understood his words clearly, but the expressions they directed at Liu Chengzong held some fear... they were guessing at his identity. He sounded as though he did not take the surrounding chieftains seriously in the slightest.

"My name is Liu Chengzong, from Yan'an Prefecture in Shaanxi. You should be able to ask about me when you return to Yazhou. I can resolve any problem for you. Here there is both cultivated land and virgin land waiting to be cleared. However much land you can farm, I will rent you that much. However many people can come, I will take that many. If you rent land, I will find you plow oxen. There is just one condition."

Liu Chengzong said, "It must be fast. The time for sowing is almost upon us. If people don't come soon, all this good land will be wasted."

Once they understood that Liu Chengzong did not intend to detain them here but would allow them to return to Yazhou, the two men's spirits lightened considerably. Only then did they begin to consider Liu Chengzong's proposal of renting land.

What kind of person is the most hated in any trade? Someone like Liu Chengzong — waging a price war with no bottom line.

Even a landlord who was a great benefactor for ten lifetimes could at most change the rent split to forty-sixty in the tenant's favor, but no landlord could alter the levies imposed by the county yamen, much less the land tax of the imperial court.

And here was Liu Chengzong — a straight fifty-fifty split, no taxes collected, rent as much as you wanted, and plow oxen provided with the land. To a landlord, this was simply impossible.

Even if a tenant farmer's head were made of stone, he would have to give this serious consideration.

Though the terms were exceedingly good, it still meant leaving one's home and native land. There were far too many things to weigh in between.

Hu Xiao and Wang Dong took their leave of Liu Chengzong, shouldered their heavy furniture, and headed for Dajianlu. Liu Chengzong, impatient with how slowly they walked, fetched two mules and had them ride back instead, urging them to bring people to him within a month so that farming could begin.

The two men returned to their hometown, collected a single silver bean from their employer, and after asking around everywhere, finally learned just who Liu Chengzong was.

The two men gathered a large extended family of relatives and several dozen porters from the porterage trade, set up a battle formation, and talked over where to go from here.

Someone said Liu Chengzong was a rebel, suggested they should just report him to the authorities, let the officials go capture Liu Chengzong — there would probably be a reward in silver for it.

Later, someone actually went to the county yamen in Mingshan County, Yazhou to file a complaint, but the magistrate was so terrified he was trembling, and had the accuser arrested instead… That man looked like a complete fool.

The magistrate of Mingshan County was named Gao Yi, a native of Beizhili, who was very well-informed about the great chaos in Shaanxi.

Because in his youth he had a good friend named Jiang Yingchang. The year Liu Chengzong breached Heshui County, Magistrate Jiang Yingchang of Heshui wrote to Gao Yi, mentioning the Shaanxi peasant revolt and Liu Chengzong, and also reminding him that if the situation grew unstable, he should drill the county's able-bodied civilians to guard against bandits.

At the time, Gao Yi's reply to Jiang Yingchang was utterly carefree — he even mocked Jiang Yingchang, saying: This Mingshan County where I serve has nothing to fear from roving bandits at all, because it's surrounded entirely by tusi chieftains; there are far too many terrifying people around.

The Dongbu Hanhu of the Dong tribe, the tusi Gao Jitai of Tianquan, the Six Commands Pacification Commissioner Yang Zhiming — which of them is easy to deal with? If a peasant army fought through layer after layer of obstacles to reach him, drilling any number of able-bodied civilians would be useless.

And then Liu Chengzong actually came. Truly a case of dreams shining into reality.

The magistrate's mind was battered into mush by the news. He had half a mind to summon the two porters to the yamen to ask about the situation — Liu Chengzong was clearly in Qinghai, how could he have come to Sichuan?

Magistrate Gao Yi's attempt came up empty. The runner sent to find the porters returned to report that the men could not be found. Not just those two porters — every single porter in the county seat and their families had vanished. In an instant, the county was short several hundred people.

This threw Magistrate Gao into a panic. Mingshan County placed no emphasis on drilling able-bodied civilians, and even the three shifts of yamen runners, since there was usually little to do, had never been recruited in large numbers. When real trouble came, he could not even muster a single squad of mounted constables.

With no other choice, Gao Yi could only borrow over thirty servants from the households of clerks belonging to several prominent clans, and give chase on fast horses.

But what he never, ever expected — the porters did not come back, and the thirty-odd mounted servants did not come back either. This matter vexed Magistrate Gao so badly he was utterly frantic, wishing he could slap his own face right there in the yamen's main hall.

Why on earth did I have to stick my nose into this idle business? It was perfectly fine — a few porters leaving was no big deal. Now look what's happened: he owed the clerks over thirty horses. If they insisted he repay them, it would mean three years as magistrate for nothing.

Magistrate Gao was by no means an incorruptible official, but neither was he an excessively greedy one. Work that needed doing, he did diligently; work that didn't, he shirked. Gifts that were proper to accept, he accepted; those he dared not accept, he declined.

Sometimes he was a good man; sometimes he was a real piece of work.

As for his family wealth, it was not a vast fortune, but thirty-odd horses — if he gritted his teeth, he could afford the compensation… But there was a problem: Magistrate Gao was a cultured, refined official who never accepted hard gold or silver from anyone.

Now Gao Yi was sick with regret. When he actually needed money, his house was full of pots and vases and trinkets, none of which he could sell.

The world's most top-tier intelligence organization is the old men and women sunning themselves at dusk. The old men handle affairs of state; the old women handle personal relationships. Twin swords combined, even the Brocade Guard of the Great Ming Emperor has to step aside.

If Magistrate Gao dared send someone to sell the pots and vases from his house today, tomorrow the old men and women would spread it through every lane and neighbor. Besides, thirty-odd horses was truly no small sum — he could not bear to pay that money.

For this reason, Mingshan County specially dispatched three yamen runners, dressed in plain clothes, to go to West of the Long River, on official business under the pretext of investigating the bandit situation.

In Gao Yi's mind, a complete fantasy of the future had already taken shape.

The utterly vicious and desperate Shaanxi famine refugees were now brainwashing and training the Sichuan porters, handing out blades, spears, cudgels, clubs, axes, battle-axes, hooks, and tridents, and were about to attack the county seat at any moment.

Yet on the western bank of the Dadu River, what unfolded before the eyes of the porters and servants was an entirely different situation.

That bandit chief called Liu Chengzong was not vicious at all. Apart from being powerfully built, his speech and manner were no different from a scholar in the city. He deeply sympathized with their plight and warmly welcomed their arrival.

Taking advantage of the time while Hu Xiao and Wang Dong ran back to Yazhou, Liu Chengzong planned out cultivated land and uncultivated land on the western bank of the Dadu River, dividing the contiguous tracts into small individual plots.

In some places there was less cultivated land and more uncultivated land, so the plots allocated were larger; in other places there was more cultivated land and less uncultivated land, so the plots allocated were smaller.

Everyone was divided by household. Even bachelors who had not yet married were likewise allocated land corresponding to one household, because Liu Chengzong said: once the farmland is settled, the bachelors will naturally marry, and then they too will be a household.

To encourage the common people who had been allocated tenant fields to grow more grain, Liu Chengzong brought out the Marshal Tongbao coins sent from Nangqian and told them: grow grain, and when the season comes, it will be purchased by officials from Luhuo County or Dajianlu.

Grain prices fluctuate with the weather. If there is no natural disaster, then one dan of grain exchanges for eight hundred standard cash or four hundred zhe'er cash. When there is a natural disaster, the government's grain purchase price will be raised somewhat, giving the grain-growing common people a bit more in return.

These measures greatly steadied the hearts of the Sichuan common people who had just arrived in a strange new place.

But immediately after, Liu Chengzong's guards, with the help of the native soldiers from West of the Long River, began building a fortress on the western bank of the Dadu River in an area with convenient transport, making the common people, whose mood had just relaxed, suddenly tense up again.

They did not even make it to sowing the fields before the hearts of the immigrants from Mingshan County were set at ease.

Because the fortress-building workforce had gained three new members — familiar faces: the yamen runners the Mingshan County magistrate had sent to pursue them.