Chapter 334: Equalizing Grain and Buying Off Taxes

Huang Cheng stood before the main gate of the Marshal's mansion. The cold wind cutting through the valley swept over the walls and struck at his collar. Even wrapped in a short jacket so grimy its original color was lost, his stand-collar autumn shirt was nowhere near enough to keep out the chill.

His gaze moved to the two stone lions at the mansion gate, then to the clean granite steps, and finally dropped to the thick cloth shoes with his big toe poking through.

Those paste-layered, thousand-sole cloth shoes were already caked in mud.

The armored warrior at the gate urged him on. Huang Cheng steeled himself, slipped off the cloth shoes, placed them beneath the lion pedestal by the gate, and stepped barefoot up the stone stairs.

Tianbao watched this farmer from the east and did not tell him that, by regulation, no one was permitted to leave anything before the Marshal's mansion gate.

He knew the Grand Marshal would bestow a pair of shoes upon this farmer — perhaps cowhide boots, and perhaps more than just a pair of boots.

Sure enough, not long after the farmer entered the front hall, a guard came out, fetched a set of padded clothes and leather boots, and went back inside.

Tianbao smiled. Both hands tightened the wide sash at the waist of his earth-toned arrow-sleeve long jacket, his left hand pressing the saber hilt while his right slipped into the cross-collar jacket's bosom for warmth.

Liu Chengzong and Liu Chengzu, who had returned with him to Ju'er Bay, sat in the hall watching this farmer named Huang Cheng. Liu Chengzong raised a hand. "Change into these. Then sit and talk."

On this return from Xining, he had brought back three men. The most important among them was this Huang Cheng, because according to his father, all the people who had come from Nianbo to beg for grain looked to Huang Cheng as their leader.

Huang Cheng was a poor man, and also a man of considerable nerve — not quite neither servile nor overbearing, but he dared to act.

Daring to act was already considerable nerve. In the Marshal's mansion, even a summoned Xining chieftain might not dare to move.

Huang Cheng put on whatever clothes and boots he was given. In a flash, he stripped himself stark naked in the hall, donned brand-new earth-yellow cross-collar right-lapel inner shirt and trousers, pulled on black padded pants with leg wraps, bound the wraps tightly, stepped into cowhide boots, and put on the arrow-sleeve long jacket. Only then, after performing a salute, did he seat himself properly.

Watching the way he bound his leg wraps, Liu Chengzong nodded inwardly. The movements were practiced — he had indeed served as a soldier.

Liu Chengzong was willing to meet Huang Cheng neither because of his poverty nor because he commanded the people's trust, but mainly because the man's life story had stirred Liu the Lion's curiosity.

He had discovered he possessed a constitution that attracted unlucky wretches.

He asked, "You were a horse corvée household. Your family had land, and the horses ruined you?"

Huang Cheng shook his head and answered truthfully, "It wasn't entirely the horses' doing. Mainly, I held a grand funeral for my father and sold the family land."

Liu Chengzong nodded slowly. Being a horse corvée household in the Great Ming was eight lifetimes of wretched bad luck, but for Huang Cheng, that was nothing — he hadn't rebelled over it.

Liu the Lion asked again, "After selling the land, you became a post-station runner?"

"Yes. At the time, the Datong Horse Post's relay horse had died and they were short of horses." Huang Cheng nodded. "I offered the last horse my family had to the post station, and that's how I got in."

Liu Chengzong glanced expressionlessly at his father's letter on the table, then continued, "You served as a post runner for four years. After the court dismissed you, you went to become a soldier?"

"No. I idled at home for half a year, then helped out for three months as a short-term laborer at my neighbor Squire Li's place. His family was my family's old employer. They grew over two hundred mu of alfalfa, and when it came time to process the hay they needed hands. Back when my father was alive, he always went over to help."

After Huang Cheng finished, Liu Chengzong asked, "Three months of labor — what were the wages?"

"I get hungry easily. Squire Li fed me three meals a day." Huang Cheng's smile was blissful. "Who needs wages... Later, when Gaodianzi was recruiting soldiers, I borrowed two taels of silver from the good squire and became a soldier."

"Hm?"

Liu Chengzong frowned and double-checked the letter, then asked, "But you were a deserter from Zhenhai Camp. Gaodianzi is in Nianbo."

"Yes."

Huang Cheng nodded and glanced at Liu Chengzong with an odd expression. "It was fine at Gaodianzi at first. Later I was transferred to Zhenhai Camp. It was too far from home, so I ran."

In truth, the reason he had been transferred from Gaodianzi to Zhenhai Camp back then was precisely because Liu Chengzong had led his army into the He-Huang Valley. And the reason Huang Cheng could desert and return home as if nothing had happened was also because Xining City was under Liu Chengzong's control, cutting off east-west communications, so Zhenhai Camp never pursued the desertion.

"And after that? When you got back, why didn't you turn bandit?"

Huang Cheng, sitting not far from Liu Chengzong, had spoken with righteous confidence in tone and expression all along. Only at this question did hesitation show on his face, and his voice gained a trace of bitterness. "No horse."

He shook his head. "Other people can get by. I can't. I'm just stupid."

In truth, Huang Cheng had been just one step away from turning bandit. He had even worked out the whole plan.

Those fortified hamlets and stockaded villages were beyond him. He had to start small — first steal two horses, then call up the deserters from his village to waylay travelers, rob a merchant heading to Ju'er Bay to trade at the Marshal's mansion. With money comes grain, with grain comes men, and with men he could grow bigger and stronger.

So he had tucked a fodder knife into his clothes and crouched in a neighbor village horse corvée household's haystack for three days, just to steal one horse.

It could only be done at night. During the day, there were always people around the hamlet. If discovered, escape would be hard, and even taking an arrow or a slash would mean serious trouble.

But for three whole days, that old man went barefoot into the fields by day, and at night, ignoring the bed inside his house, slept in the stable the entire time.

Whenever the horse got hungry, it would nudge the old man awake with its big head. The old man would shuffle along in his toe-poking cloth shoes, stoop over, muttering to himself, and go chop fodder.

Huang Cheng listened to three days of muttering. Unless that horse could understand human speech, he probably knew more about the old man than anyone else in the world.

The old man wasn't actually old in years. It was just that his wife had died in childbirth delivering their second child, and his only surviving child had grown to six before dying of smallpox. He never took care of himself — his home a mess, himself a mess. He aged fast and looked like an old man, but in truth he was barely past forty.

Since the year his wife died, no one had made clothes or shoes for him anymore. That was why he never wore shoes to the fields — those shoes were only for keeping his feet warm while sleeping at home.

The old man treated that horse better than his own son, exactly the way Huang Cheng's father had been when he was alive. But the horse his father had raised like that, day and night, Huang Cheng had handed over to the post station in exchange for a post-runner's post.

Until the fourth morning — it was Qingming — the old man went out. Huang Cheng did not steal the horse.

He tidied up the house, drew two full vats of water from the well, patched the holes in the window paper with mud, and used the fodder knife to chop and stack all the old man's hay. He worked until dusk. Only when he reached the gate did he discover the old man had locked it up tight.

Huang Cheng was tired and hungry from all the work, and now blocked by the gate. He thought to himself, this broken home doesn't have a damn thing — even an old rat would leave here wiping its tears — what the hell is there worth locking up?

Then his eyes fell on that big head in the stable. He went up and gave it two hard slaps, stunning the horse. I've been served by others for years — I've never suffered this kind of abuse!

The horse screamed, baring its teeth. From the look on its face alone, Huang Cheng knew it was cursing him.

But hearing the horse curse, Huang Cheng felt better inside. He sighed, tossed the cavalry boots issued by Gaodianzi Camp and his mandarin-duck battle jacket — inside and outside worn to a single color — onto the old man's bed, kicked on those toe-poking cloth shoes, and vaulted over the wall and fled while the horse cursed and swore.

He hadn't even had time to rest at home when Squire Li, hearing he was back, rushed over to collect the debt. But seeing him in this getup — so poor he was nearly pawning his pants, and still clutching a fodder knife — the squire said forget it. Come work at my place to pay off the debt, I'll feed you — no sense risking murder and robbery over a couple of meals.

Huang Cheng brooded over it the whole night. If you said his luck was bad, everyone he met was good. But if you said his luck was good, his reincarnation skills were indeed rather lacking.

Good, but not good enough. Bad, but not bad enough.

Huang Cheng felt the problem still lay with himself. He hadn't seized the chance to be a soldier at Zhenhai Camp, and even when turning bandit, he lacked the black heart and ruthless hand to rob an old man, nor the ability to raid fortified hamlets and stockaded villages.

And besides, he was so poor he hadn't even reached the level where anyone would bother to cheat or despoil him.

If his luck were just a bit worse — if some wealthy merchant or high official came along and bullied him relentlessly — perhaps he would have flown into a rage and set foot on the path of crime.

At the very least, even if he couldn't bully others, he could have knocked the sleeping old man out cold in the stable with one punch, and by now he'd be a bandit chief riding a tall, fine horse.

But as it happened, his life was stuck.

Huang Cheng never became a bandit. He worked a few more months at Squire Li's place, until Grand Commander Liu went to war in Huangnan and the Great Court massed troops at Hekou. Grain prices in the He-Huang Valley rose faster than he had fled from the old man's house.

Squire Li could no longer afford to keep him.

Huang Cheng knew when to take a hint. When grain was cheap, being supported by someone else was a kindness his abilities could hardly repay. Now that grain prices had soared so high, if he ate another three months of the squire's grain, the cost would be enough to buy a man's life. He could never pay it back.

Goodman Li tried several times to keep him from leaving but couldn't. Knowing he meant to go out and make a living, Li gave him another two taels of silver and a few jin of dry rations for the journey before finally letting him leave home.

Huang Cheng grinned. "As I was leaving, Goodman Li even said, times are hard right now, it's good to go out and try your luck — if you can't make it, just come back, there's food at home. So Marshal, you don't need to give me rations. I'm here to borrow rations for someone else. I can figure something else out."

Liu Chengzong nodded slowly and smiled. "This Goodman Li treats you quite well."

"He does." Huang Cheng nodded. "Everyone for ten villages around knows his good name. He's a certified student, a learned man. He always said he was afraid that if he didn't look after me, my father down below would blame him."

Liu Chengzong laughed, and the hidden nervousness in Huang Cheng's heart melted away. Mimicking the voice, Huang Cheng said, "Master, I worked myself to the bone for you half my life — how could you not care whether my Cheng-wa lives or dies?"

But this line did not draw a laugh from Liu Chengzong. On the contrary, the smile on Liu Chengzong's face slowly faded. "Where you come from, do all the great households and landlords relieve the common people like this? Are there none who grow rich at the expense of others?"

"How could there be none? There are good men everywhere, and evil men everywhere too. But I never met any." Huang Cheng shook his head. "Those people all stay inside their fortified manors and walled compounds. They wouldn't even bother to come bully me."

Liu Chengzong showed no particular reaction to this remark. He was merely gauging the difficulty of sending troops east. Once he had learned from Huang Cheng everything he wanted to know, he had someone take Huang Cheng to the manor's porridge kitchen to eat.

Liu Chengzu shook his head. "If that's how it is over there, it will be difficult."

Liu Chengzong smiled. "What does elder brother mean by difficult?"

"Difficult in every way." Liu Chengzu was puzzled by his younger brother's ease. "From what I heard him say, there aren't many landlords to the east. Rob the rich to feed the poor, and we'll end up hurting good people by mistake..."

Liu Chengzu hadn't finished when Liu Chengzong waved a hand and cut him off. "Brother, we aren't roving bandits fighting across northern Shaanxi anymore. This is no longer robbing the rich to feed the poor."

Liu Chengzu said nothing, gesturing for him to go on.

"First — if we stripped every landlord in He-Huang bare, would that solve our grain problem?"

Liu Chengzu was first puzzled, then thought it over carefully, and finally said, "It would at least carry us through to next year's autumn harvest."

To this answer, Liu Chengzong neither agreed nor disagreed. He simply pressed on. "Then what if we also had to distribute grain to the common people? If we give it to the common people, how do we guarantee the autumn harvest yields enough grain to last until the autumn after? The problem in He-Huang isn't that we have no grain."

He spread both hands. "This year the weather has been favorable. The court's closure of the passes only means grain from outside can't get in. He-Huang's grain production hasn't changed. The problem is us."

Chen Shiwen had said that He-Huang had five hundred thousand Han, Tibetan, and Mongol commoners. This year's local grain output hadn't changed much, yet the population had swelled by a full eighty thousand. Grain from outside couldn't get in, and the Marshal's Manor, to avoid starvation, had bought up every last grain on the market — so much so that people to the east were going hungry.

For this reason, Liu Chengzong said, "Even if we stripped every landlord bare, we'd still face a grain crisis next year. Who would we rob then? Don't tell me this year anyone with over five hundred mu is a landlord, and next year anyone with over two hundred mu is a landlord?"

As he spoke, Liu Chengzong himself laughed, then uttered a word that seemed utterly unrelated. "Power."

Truth be told, Liu Chengzu felt he was struggling to keep up. "Hm?"

"I mean, the purpose of this campaign is power. Inciting people like Huang Cheng to rise up and plunder the great houses is only the means. My purpose is power."

Liu Chengzong raised a hand and wagged it. "It's not because this man has two hundred mu of land that I want to rob him. It's not because that great clan's land, divided evenly per household, doesn't amount to much that I'll leave them alone. And it's certainly not because a village head who can do evil and wield power in the countryside has neither land nor grain that I'll let him off."

"I understand what you mean now."

Liu Chengzu nodded slowly, following this line of thought. "Then this campaign has to start from Xining. Reclaim all local power, just as every dynasty did at its founding — under the banner of robbing the rich to feed the poor, with the lure of equalizing land and abolishing taxes, smash the gentry, the clans, and the native chieftains?"

Liu Chengzong's eyes burned with fervor. He nodded firmly. "Exactly!"

But Liu Chengzu only grew more perplexed. "Yet as you just said yourself, given the total farmland in He-Huang, apart from the tens of thousands of mu we've reclaimed ourselves, there will still be a grain shortage later on."

"And I've never thought equalizing land and abolishing taxes was a good solution. We talked about this long ago..." Liu Chengzu's face showed difficulty. He shook his head. "Every failed regime has done this."

"Right. Every failed regime did this — and every successful one did too. I think the problem isn't with equalizing land and abolishing taxes. Adapt to local conditions. There has never been a law that lasts ten thousand generations, nor a realm that endures ten thousand ages. It can serve for one stage, but not forever."

Liu Chengzong made a slicing motion in the air with his hand as he spoke. "Equalizing land is easy. But the year after you equalize it, the land is unequal again. What we've always talked about is curbing annexation — that is, curbing the creation of landlords. But does one hundred mu make a landlord, or two hundred mu? If two hundred mu makes a landlord, what do you call someone with one hundred ninety-nine mu?"

"Abolishing taxes is easy too. But after taxes are abolished, what does the Marshal's Manor use to support its troops? What does it use to build roads, raise bridges, and construct waterworks?"

Liu Chengzong answered his own questions. "So my thinking is to equalize grain and purchase taxes... Using He-Huang as the foundation, reclaiming all local power is the first step. Registering households and dividing them into townships and wards is the second."

"Each township will form a unit and be assigned four officials: one local, elected by the common people; one from outside, selected by the government; one official appointed by the Marshal's Manor; and one military officer chosen by me. Additionally, elect twenty farming-and-herding erudites and centurion captains to lead the local common people in unified planting and herding, with merit recorded according to labor."

"Across all of He-Huang, the Marshal's Manor will centrally plan all planting and herding. All agricultural and pastoral products will be uniformly priced. Forty percent of the harvest will be distributed locally according to labor; sixty percent will be purchased centrally by the Marshal's Manor. Markets will be established along the valley lands, under unified management."

Liu Chengzong spoke with fervor, as if a new era were dawning. But once he finished, his momentum ebbed by half. "This matter is of immense importance. I must get Chengyun back at once."