Chapter 335: The Cracks in the Eggshell

Until the end of the year, Liu Chengzong was busy preparing for the New Year.

This New Year was not merely a New Year. On one hand, he had to prepare for an eastward military campaign. To ensure the suddenness of the strike, Xining Guard and Zhenhai Battalion would remain in place for now, serving as the second-line reinforcements after the attack.

But west of Gulf Bay, full mobilization was underway. The forces of Yang Yao, Wang Wenxiu, Zhong Hu, Wei Qian'er, Dai Daozi, Huang Shengxiao, Xie Erhu, Ahai Daiqing, Basang, and others — every camp was selecting soldiers and readying weapons.

On the other hand, he had to send out invitations to numerous chieftains, asking them to bring their families to Gulf Bay for the New Year. This was also Liu Chengzong's prerequisite for selecting collaborators.

Those willing to come pay him New Year's respects could then discuss future cooperation, and he would pick out collaborators from among the many chieftains. Those unwilling — well, each serves their own master; seeking loyalty, they would get loyalty.

Just as these two-pronged preparations were proceeding at a furious pace, Liu Chengzong received news from Gansu. Camel bells had already rung out along Qinghai Lake. The little master of the Three Tribulations Society, a scarf wrapped around his face to block the windblown sand, had returned to report on his work.

Haixi County provided escort all the way from the Qilian Mountains, delivering this little creature reeking of camel straight into the Marshal's Manor.

The illustrious number-two figure of the Three Tribulations Society in Gansu was pressed down by Tianbao, his short crop of hair held firmly, and tossed into the bathtub. A bout of vigorous scrubbing followed, accompanied by a string of miserable shrieks.

The dozen or so Gansu deserters who had accompanied him stood in the Marshal's Manor, looking at each other in bewilderment.

They had always thought that the Sixteen Dharma Master of the Three Tribulations Society was an immortal reincarnated, a divine child of rare wisdom — someone who understood everything at such a young age, and who could endure long treks like a veteran soldier. They had assumed this trip to the Marshal's Manor was a diplomatic mission.

How... how come it felt like the Sixteen Dharma Master entering the Marshal's Manor was just like coming home?

Not long after, they saw the Sixteen Dharma Master emerge, changed into ill-fitting new clothes, his short-cropped head wiped clean but still a little damp, gnawing on a milk-sugar tiger.

Behind him was a young officer of commanding presence, who stepped forward and clasped his fists to the group: "Brothers, you have toiled to escort my little brother here. Liu has prepared modest wine and food; please rest for a few days."

After that, guards led them away. Only then did Liu Chengzong reach out and measure Sixteen's height against his own hand, then beckoned him toward the main hall.

Sixteen gnawed on the milk-sugar tiger made by the cook Liu Chengzong had brought back from Dajianlu, following step by step into the hall. Only after sitting down did he put the candy aside, placing both hands on his knees, waiting for Liu the Lion to speak.

Liu Chengzong looked at Sixteen and let out a laugh, understanding that the child hadn't seen him in over two years and was a little shy around strangers now. "You've grown six or seven inches. Good. How have things been in Gansu? That Monk Wang — has he treated you poorly?"

Little Sixteen quickly shook his head. "Brother Lion, Teacher Wang has treated me very well, taught me many things... though I've taught him many things too."

As he spoke, Sixteen pulled out a letter and handed it to Liu Chengzong. "This is the letter Teacher Wang asked me to write for Brother Lion. Please, have a look."

Liu Chengzong unfolded the letter with a cheerful smile, thinking that Wang Ziyong's letter was most likely asking for some money or grain. Given the scale of Wang Ziyong's operation, it wouldn't cost much — hardly a major matter.

But the contents of this letter were not what he had imagined. The smile on Liu the Lion's face gradually faded. The letter said that Ningxia had just finished fighting a battle, and soon Gansu would be fighting one too.

Choktu Taiji had wanted to do many things, and many things he never accomplished before his death. But in the third month after he died, this Khalkha Taiji had ultimately managed to accomplish one thing after all... the Chahar Khundulen had come.

Wang Ziyong's information came from border soldiers who had joined the Three Tribulations Society. The Chahar Khundulen had been at Guihua City in the summer, and by autumn had already run to the frontier outside Yulin to clash with Hong Chengchou in battle, leaving behind over a thousand heads.

After that, he drove a hundred thousand head of people and livestock in a mighty procession, tramping across the sands and riding past the border wall, clashing fiercely with the Ningxia border army, leaving behind another thousand-odd corpses as he cut straight across Ningxia. He was currently halted outside the frontier at Liangzhou in Gansu, seemingly preparing to clash fiercely with the Gansu border army.

Gansu was actively preparing for war. Wang Ziyong's original intent in having Sixteen write this letter was to give the Marshal's Manor some advance warning, in case the Gansu border army feinted and struck south.

The moment he read this letter, regardless of whether Wang Ziyong's intelligence was accurate, Liu the Lion became extremely cautious.

He understood the Great Ming border army, and he understood the Mongols.

Khundulen's route of advance was easy to understand. That Ahai Daiqing who had surrendered had long ago told him that Choktu Taiji wanted to summon Ligdan Khan — he just hadn't taken it seriously.

Liu the Lion didn't mind Khundulen driving his herds over. The Mongols couldn't beat the Ming army to begin with, and Khundulen couldn't possibly beat him either.

If the Mongols could ever beat the border army, wouldn't they have at least dropped by Beijing to wish the Chongzhen Emperor a happy birthday?

However, there were two things in this letter that Liu Chengzong could not understand.

First, Khundulen had been madly slamming his skull against the Great Ming border wall the whole way. This irrational behavior could not be explained away as performance art.

Second, Khundulen had clashed with the border army at a very high frequency along the way. Crossing three sections of the border wall, he had fought two battles, and even seemed to want a third.

Sitting in the hall, Sixteen watched Liu Chengzong's expression shift, utterly perplexed, and offered reassurance: "Brother Lion, the northern barbarian Tartars are outside the frontier at Liangzhou. They can't break through the Gansu border wall. It's fine."

Liu Chengzong set down the letter and sighed. Meeting Sixteen's worried gaze, he let out a laugh, then shook his head with certainty. "I'm not afraid of fighting him. He's fleeing, and he's out of food."

This conclusion of his stemmed from the heads the border army had taken. On a battlefield, only the victor gets the chance to clean up. Mongol forces also had the custom of carrying away their dead, so taking heads from the Mongols had always been the most difficult.

Usually, when the Ming army clashed with Mongol forces, the ratio of casualties inflicted to heads taken could reach two or three to one, even ten to one.

The Yulin border army could not possibly have killed over ten thousand of Khundulen's followers. If that were the case, Khundulen probably wouldn't have dared to keep heading west. The only other possibility was that he had not gathered up the corpses.

That meant he was marching in great haste and great panic. And repeatedly slamming against the border wall indicated a lack of rations — he had to use plunder to make up for the military supplies needed for the long westward migration. This also indirectly showed that the source of Khundulen's panic did not come from the Great Ming, and was still some distance away from him.

The source of Khundulen's terror was almost ready to name itself: the Later Jin's Hong Taiji.

How to describe his feelings at this moment? Liu Chengzong didn't know either. If he had to say, all he could feel was his own regret.

The Mongols under his command were either Tumed or Khalkha. One had a feud with Khundulen over seized lands; the other viewed Khundulen as a heretic in matters of faith. In any case, neither paid any heed to this Great Khan.

It was a pity Khundulen was a pauper — otherwise he could consider crossing the Qilian Mountains to rob the man. Even more regrettable was that he himself was also a pauper; otherwise he could consider recruiting the starving Chahar tribes into surrender.

As it happened, between two paupers who didn't know where their next meal was coming from, only mutual contempt could exist. Finding common ground was very difficult.

Liu Chengzong tossed the pauper north of the Qilian Mountains to the back of his mind, switched to a better mood, and asked Sixteen, "It seems the Three Tribulations Society has developed well in Gansu. Quite a few border soldiers have joined?"

At the mention of this, Sixteen lifted his head with great pride and, like a little adult, clasped his fists. "Brother Lion, the Three Tribulations Society already has four Judges, ten Earth Gods, forty-seven Great Lang Heads, forty-seven Great Vanguards, and over eight thousand seven hundred brothers."

Judges, Earth Gods, Lang Heads, Vanguards?

Liu Chengzong could only understand that last part — the over eight thousand seven hundred brothers. But he did not rush to express amazement at this huge number. He simply asked, "These Judges and Earth Gods — what do they do?"

"A Judge oversees two Earth Gods, like a local magistrate. The Earth Gods are all locally respected elders. The Greater and Lesser Lang Heads are the brothers' leaders. Those who lead fewer than a hundred brothers are Lesser Lang Heads; those over a hundred are Great Lang Heads."

Sixteen explained each in turn, then added, "Every Lang Head has a Vanguard beside him — the most formidable person among all the local brothers. It might be a Squad Commander or Platoon Commander from a guard post, a Squad Leader or Company Leader from a military camp, or it might just be a common soldier, or not even a soldier at all."

This could not help but draw a look of admiration from Liu Chengzong. All these positions in the Three Tribulations Society were designed to let localities run autonomously. Almost any time Wang Ziyong said to raise the banner of revolt, wherever the society's brothers were numerous, they could rebel on the spot and pull together a peasant army in the blink of an eye.

But that was about it. Sixteen said that although their society's brothers were now quite numerous, over half were solitary elderly people. Among the young, more than half were village women and children. To rise up in Gansu, they would still need to wait two or three more years.

Originally, Wang Ziyong had planned to come in person to Gulf Bay this New Year to pay his respects to Liu Chengzong, but because Khundulen was encamped outside the frontier at Liangzhou, Wang Ziyong could not get away, and so had sent Sixteen back instead.

Liu Chengzong found this odd. "Khundulen is outside the frontier at Liangzhou. If there's war preparation, it's the Gansu frontier that's preparing. What's Monk Wang so busy with?"

Sixteen was astonished, as if the answer were obvious. "War means people die. The society's brothers have to train funeral teams, prepare a few more squads. When the time comes, the dead get sent back by the disabled. Those with money get buried — we can earn a little. Those without money get buried as a good deed. We prepare some brothers to keep the elderly who've lost their beloved sons company, look after disabled veterans, and expand the society's brotherhood a bit."

That single statement gave Liu Chengzong a thorough understanding of how Wang Ziyong's Three Tribulations Society operated. They turned no one away, accurately identified the needs of the poor and satisfied them, and used the lowest cost to earn people's identification.

This stirred a great sense of crisis in Liu Chengzong, but the source of the crisis was not Wang Ziyong. It was that this kind of sectarian society — call it White Lotus or whatever teaching — could never be completely stamped out.

As long as the eggshell has cracks, it will attract flies.

Liu Chengzong felt he had to gain a deeper understanding of this mode of operation, so he asked, "How do you get military officers to join?"

Sixteen smiled, counting on his fingers. "A Squad Commander has ten soldiers. Three desert, seven remain. The squad soldiers all suffer. If one joins as a brother, then four or five, even all seven, become brothers."

"If all seven squad soldiers under a Squad Commander have become brothers, can he still not become a brother?"

Sixteen's tone was full of childishness, yet it conjured a terrifying scene in Liu Chengzong's mind — as if a plague were spreading unchecked across the land of Gansu.

Liu Chengzong sighed. "Then how do you hold onto power and keep other leaders from seizing it?"

Sixteen froze for a moment, as if he had never considered this before. After thinking for a long time, he said, puzzled, "Before the uprising, there's no need to guard against others. After the uprising, there's still no need to guard against others."

"How so?"

"Before the uprising, only we have the full roster of all the Judges, Land Chiefs, and Vanguard leaders. Everyone fears the court finding out, and if the court finds out, everyone has to rise up."

After saying this, Sixteen looked at Liu Chengzong and grinned. "After the uprising, who can beat the Gansu border army? They'd all have to run to the Marshal Manor anyway. Still no need to guard against others — without the two of us, no one gets in."

Damn it all.

Liu Chengzong shook his head with a bitter smile. So he himself was just a tool for Wang Ziyong to hold power.

"Alright, since you're back, enjoy yourself in Juer Bay for a while. Head to Gansu after the New Year — there's nothing urgent there anyway." Liu Chengzong thought for a moment, then said, "When you go back after the New Year, I have something I want you to ask Wang Ziyong."

Although Wang Ziyong's Three Tribulations Society seemed immensely destructive, they still only possessed destructive power. They could hardly pose a threat to a normal regime. Even the Marshal Manor didn't count as a normal regime, but at least it had stronger organizational power than the court in Gansu. If anyone tried this in Juer Bay, they'd likely be wiped out within two days.

Where in Juer Bay would unrelated people be running around freely? Everyone had to collect rations to eat. Let alone a disciple of the Eternal Venerable Mother wanting to help someone visit a grave — even if the Jade Emperor himself showed up, he'd be registered as an idle outsider and made to honestly go hungry nine meals out of three days under Liu Chengzong.

So for now, this Three Tribulations Society posed no threat whatsoever to a low-level polity like the Marshal Manor. Instead, it posed a great threat to the court's high-level design with a collapsed grassroots in an administrative division like Gansu.

Since there was no threat, it had to be used. Liu Chengzong planned that when Sixteen returned, he would have him talk to Wang Ziyong about the private salt dealers. The Marshal Manor had more high-quality refined salt than it could use, and Gansu had a larger population than the Hehuang Valley. As long as the price was slightly lower than official salt, dumping it there would be profitable.

The grain-equalizing tax-buying scheme he intended to implement would require a great deal of money. Even if he took the entire Hehuang Valley, sealed it off, and issued his own Lion Notes, he would still need a large reserve fund to prevent a run. The silver he currently had on hand, even counting silverware, was less than five hundred thousand taels.

Even counting the gains from seizing Hehuang, it would probably only be around a million taels.

Their salt had to be converted into wealth and goods.

However, the conversation with Sixteen had indeed greatly broadened Liu Chengzong's thinking. In the future, when he implemented the township collective system in the Hehuang Valley, he would also need to pay attention to caring for marginalized people like widows and orphans.

On one hand, he had to ensure that every commoner who tilled the land had their own fields — dividing a stretch of land, with part as private plots and part as communal land.

On the other hand, he had to prevent farmers from losing their land again after it was distributed, and also bind farmers and herders together into a single force, so they could withstand risks that a single smallholder could not bear.

Every township should have its own community school, community doctor, and water conservancy. And the Marshal Manor should also have a department, with subordinate agencies specifically responsible for selecting seed grain, breeding stud horses, and promoting new planting techniques and new crops.

In Liu Chengzong's current vision, this mode of production should be very effective at curbing land annexation, but its drawback was also glaringly obvious... whether it became good governance or bad governance depended entirely on the quantity and price at which the Marshal Manor purchased grain.

This was extremely complex work, and it directly determined whether this mode of production could endure long-term or even be rolled out nationwide, or whether it would merely serve as an expedient measure when crisis arrived.

After all, for Liu Chengzong, the primary problem to solve was, under the current conditions where the total food supply could not satisfy everyone eating their fill and eating well, relying on equalizing measures to combat starvation.

Simply put, he might have to make five hundred and eighty thousand people go hungry, in order to prevent eighty thousand people from starving to death.