Chapter 548: Striking Liu Chengzong Twice

Liu Chengzong sent word from Nangqian to the various tusi of Kangning Prefecture, inviting them to a banquet at the official fort and asking everyone to lend him grain and money.

He was not, in truth, someone fundamentally opposed to aristocracy; he could accept that people were divided into ranks in society, and that the achievements one made determined the standing one's descendants would be born into — and precisely because he accepted this objective reality, he had never been inclined to give tusi a pleasant face.

For a person stands in the world by ability; birth is, and is only, one part of ability. People of different births inevitably face different aids and hindrances in their future prospects, so if two people, one aided and one hindered, reach the same station, then beyond question the commoner's overall ability apart from birth must be far greater than the noble's.

Conversely, just how useless must that noble be?

Of course, that was only one reason he looked down on nobles; the other reason was much the same — because these nobles had not been enfeoffed by him.

Nobles or tusi are all created by someone's enfeoffment; in essence it is a system of incentive and exchange — you render me meritorious service, I grant you land. None of the tusi in Kangning Prefecture had been enfeoffed by him, which meant these people had done nothing for him; they were utterly worthless to the Marshal's Command.

So in essence, in Liu Chengzong's view, when he proposed borrowing grain and money from the tusi under Kangning Prefecture's rule, he was not begging the tusi; rather, he was bestowing upon them an opportunity to demonstrate loyalty and earn merit.

And an absolutely superb opportunity at that.

He would repay it, with interest — borrow ten, repay thirteen. It was just that, relative to a ten-year repayment term, the interest was a little low.

But conversely, his promise to repay the debt, and to do so over ten years, meant that this tusi territory would at the very least continue to exist under the Grand Marshal's rule for another ten years.

Was there any better deal under heaven than this?

At any rate, for the largest tusi within Kangning Prefecture, Muya, the tusi of Changhexi, this was the finest bargain under heaven!

As if possessed, the moment he met Liu Chengzong's envoy and heard that the Marshal's Command wanted to borrow grain and money from the tusi, he set out that very day. Braving the locusts swarming wildly across Kangning Prefecture, he raced on fast horses to Nangqian to ask whether it was true, and upon receiving Liu Chengzong's personal affirmative reply, he grinned like a great fool.

Liu Chengzong did not say much more to him either; after all, he knew in his heart that Muya was a tusi he had dealt with before, who had provided him military support in the past — even now, Wasi, the headman of Changhexi, was still serving as a Colonel in Xie Erhu's Mongol Brigade.

Muya would certainly support his policy.

Still, he underestimated the scale of Muya's support.

Liu Chengzong summoned the various tusi; once the order reached each locality, none of the greater and lesser tusi still present in Kangning Prefecture dared delay. One after another they braved the locust swarms and set out on the road to audience — it was just that no one else made the journey with Muya's mad haste.

Two days after Muya reached Nangqian, several tusi and headmen arrived in succession, and the rest were all on the road. With everyone not yet assembled, Liu the Lion did not discuss serious matters; he merely received the tusi and headmen one by one, carefully learning about conditions in their territories over the past two years.

Only at this point did Muya's escort troops belatedly arrive.

Not only were the escorts slower than their master, they were an extraordinarily huge contingent. At their head was Muya's steward — the father of Marshal's Command Mongol Brigade Colonel Wasi. The old man brought along the old licentiate Yang Wanchun from the itinerant merchant hostel and four hostel ajia. Behind them, the armored native soldiers alone numbered over a hundred riders, escorting and transporting seventeen large carts, which were led by the Marshal's Guard cavalry into the official fort's courtyard.

In the third-floor sunroom of the official fort, the various tusi whispered among themselves, clearly stunned by Muya's speed.

Muya was not like the tusi of Kangning Prefecture. Those who still remained within Kangning Prefecture were all minor tusi; their ancestors were at most native chiliarchs or chiefs of rank-6 headman offices, and the largest among them were rank-5 pacification commissioners or punitive commissioners. With an ancestor like that, one could lord it over the old Kangning Prefecture.

Muya was different. First, he was a neighbor. Although he had earlier dispatched the steward's eldest son Wasi to lead troops in battle for the Marshal's Command, Changhexi had no connection to Kangning Prefecture, because his official post under the Great Ming was Pacification Commissioner.

Pacification Commissioner was the highest of the native offices, and those who held this post were usually formidable figures — like the Pacification Commissioner of Bozhou, Yang Yinglong, or the Acting Pacification Commissioner of Shizhu, Qin Liangyu.

Those minor tusi were still mulling over how much grain and money to lend Liu Chengzong. After all, their territories all lay within his jurisdiction, and Grand Marshal Liu was no kindly soul — refusing to part with a single hair might cost them their lives, yet truly lending him their entire family fortunes was something they could not bear to do.

And now here was Muya with such boldness, hauling the grain and money over on the spot, which thoroughly shook the minor tusi.

Liu Chengzong himself thought, This Muya truly lives up to being a tusi who runs hostels — he has brains and guts, knowing there was profit to be made, and he actually hauled the goods over before even confirming whether the matter was true.

He was already beginning to wonder: had Muya brought seventeen chests of gold, or seventeen chests of silver? Most likely silver, because seventeen chests of gold was too much — Muya probably did not have that kind of wealth.

But reality proved he had thought too much.

"Grand Marshal, what's in the carts is not money or grain." Muya smiled broadly, pointing at the seventeen carts halted in the courtyard, then counting on his fingers, said, "It's account books. The account books of the entire Changhexi, Yutong, Ningyuan, and other regions Pacification Commissioner's Office are all here."

"Account… account books?" Liu the Lion was immensely disappointed, thinking, You bastard, you've come to cry poverty to me? With seven parts bafflement and no good humor, he said, "What did you haul your account books to my place for?"

Muya was equally helpless. Ever since Liu Chengzong's northern campaign, he had been in Kangning, working on Liu Chengzong's behalf to propagate the civilizing influence of the kingly way — hiring licentiates and scholars from Dajianlu to compose many stories, engaging painters to paint everywhere, dispatching over a hundred ascetic monks to travel among the common folk in Kangning Prefecture and even Ü-Tsang, everywhere proclaiming the Grand Marshal's meritorious deeds in dispatching troops to sweep away heterodox views, expel demons and monsters who wrought endless evil, and subdue demons and eradicate fiends.

Although his rank was Pacification Commissioner, his location at a key trade node on the Tea Horse Road meant his lifestyle was unlike those tusi keen on seizing territory.

After all, Muya was a merchant and trader who invested in hostels; he did not live off agricultural production. Relying on Dajianlu alone, he could support an army to guard his home, and therefore not only harbored no designs on most of his neighbors' lands, but also did not fear locust swarms descending on his territory.

After all, apart from the two trade nodes of Shenbian and Lengbian on the eastern bank of the Dadu River, the other tusi's territories were all chicken ribs to him — farming could not yield much grain, and the population was sparse. Besides, even if there were people and grain, they meant little to Muya; how could the profits from farming compare to the boarding and lodging fees at the core node of the Tea Horse Trade?

No, he should not call them chicken ribs — that was far too discourteous.

Clients — they were all clients of Dajianlu.

But he was terribly afraid that the locust swarms would devour all his neighbors' grain — terribly afraid — because his largest neighbor was Liu Chengzong.

This neighbor was fine in every way, except that he feared hunger, and when hungry, he would go mad.

So for Muya, there was simply no choice. Hearing that Liu Chengzong was hungry, what else could he do? Send food.

"Grand Marshal, the moment I heard the Marshal's Command wanted to borrow money and grain, I had them gather the accounts of the entire Changhexi Pacification Commissioner's Office — population, native troops, money, grain. I ask the Grand Marshal to inspect them."

Liu Chengzong was just walking down from the official fort with Muya; hearing this, he truly paused in surprise for a moment.

He had indeed wanted to borrow money and grain, but why bring over the account books for Changhexi's land, population, and troops?

In the space of that brief pause, he had already led Muya and the others out of the official fort. The hostel ajia from Changhexi immediately stepped forward with the accounts and saluted, while the old licentiate Yang Wanchun launched straight into account-reporting mode, laying bare every last detail of Changhexi's assets in a single torrent.

First, the territorial maps of each subordinate pacification office, then the properties and lands of Dajianlu, then Changhexi's stored grain and silver, as well as inventory accumulated over more than two hundred years, and finally, the population and troop numbers of the Changhexi Pacification Commissioner's Office.

It was only at this moment that Liu Chengzong realized there seemed to be a slight discrepancy between his and Muya's understanding of wealth.

In Muya's eyes, wealth was not merely money and grain, but also population, land, income, armor and weapons, and troops.

Muya even intended to lend three thousand troops to Liu Chengzong.

Liu the Lion thought to himself, Who wants to strip you of military power? Troops eat grain. In the eyes of the surrounding tusi, they might be a rare asset, but in the Marshal's Command, they are a liability.

Yet despite this, Liu Chengzong still scrutinized Muya with fresh eyes. "You're lending me your troops and your people — do you not want Changhexi anymore?"

Ultimately, even though Muya was the person among the southwestern tusi who had met him the most times, it was still only a handful of meetings. Before this and the northern campaign, the Marshal's Command's power had not undergone earth-shaking change; it had merely fully taken the Hexi Corridor, its foundation grown more solid.

Even if he personally proposed that the tusi lend out all their money and grain, that was in reality a policy aimed at the tusi located within Kangning Prefecture, and had nothing to do with tusi outside Kangning Prefecture like Changhexi and Jinchuan. To him, Changhexi was more an ally than a subordinate.

Liu Chengzong was very curious: what exactly made Muya show such tremendous boldness, to actually stake his tusi inheritance of several centuries on him?

But this was merely Liu Chengzong's own thought; he had no idea what he signified in Muya's eyes.

In his eyes, there were only four kinds of people: court officials, minor chieftains dependent on others, independent chieftains, and his own people. Muya belonged to that relatively stable type of independent chieftain, so he was willing to cooperate with Muya.

Yet in Muya's view, the matter was entirely different. In Muya's eyes, the people of this world were mainly divided into two kinds: restless tusi, and law-abiding tusi. He himself was a law-abiding tusi, and Liu Chengzong fell into neither of these two categories.

He did not count as human.

Because tusi were the group with the strongest sense of feudal hierarchy. If a tusi regarded himself as human, then his subjects were not human, but small domesticated animals; if one insisted on treating subjects as people walking the earth, then the tusi was the eternal sun shining light and heat upon the territory.

So to Muya, Liu Chengzong was neither a tusi, nor a native subject under a tusi's rule, and his identity was also different from the figures who had commonly appeared in the southwest over the past several centuries — a ruthless character contending for the realm.

The southwest had not lacked men who harbored ambition; it was just that the geography was too awkward. It was very hard for a separatist power's great army to march out of Sichuan, but not nearly so hard for a unified dynasty's great army to march in. The relatively closed environment suppressed people's ambition.

Liu Chengzong and Muya said nothing, but the minor chieftains behind them were all stunned.

The Changhexi Pacification Office had laid bare its entire family fortune for the Marshal's headquarters to examine without the slightest reservation — this chieftain domain could be called enormously wealthy!

Only at this moment did people understand why Muya had someone bring the account books, because in terms of gold, silver, and stored grain alone, the Changhexi Pacification Office might not count as rich.

Counting the ornaments and utensils used by the clan's womenfolk, their wealth amounted to no more than three thousand taels of gold and over eighty thousand taels of silver; grain, no more than a little over one hundred twenty thousand dan — this was certainly not poor, but it could not sustain the Changhexi Pacification Office's grand scale, and that was because Muya's expenditures were huge.

To deal with the Dongbu Hanhu Pacification Office to the north and their hereditary enemies Shenbian and Lengbian, Changhexi had long maintained four thousand native soldiers, an enormous expense, so the money and grain entering the storehouses were naturally pitifully little... in fact, the reason they had been able to save up this much grain in recent years was because Liu Chengzong had taken away a thousand Changhexi native soldiers under Wasi's command.

The bulk of Changhexi's property consisted of immovable assets and livestock, including thirteen Guozhuang trading houses, two iron-chain bridges, thirteen thousand qing of cultivated land, over ten thousand head of livestock, more than four hundred shops, and even two crude salt wells.

These properties did not all belong to Muya, but the people who owned these properties belonged to Muya, so in Muya's mind, these things were also his to lend to Liu Chengzong.

With this kind of wealth and power, if you put Muya anywhere else — for instance, the counties of Kangning Prefecture before Liu Chengzong's southern campaign — he could fully have declared himself king and hegemon; the core military strength of the Bili King Donyo Dorje was not even as large as Muya's.

Of course, if he were somewhere else, Muya could not have amassed so much wealth either.

"Changhexi... Marshal, to be perfectly honest, Changhexi is simply too safe."

These past two years, Muya had already discovered that maintaining troops was of little use to him. Maintaining troops had always occupied the largest chunk of his expenditures; in the past, threats were everywhere, but now he found that as long as he kept Liu Chengzong well looked after, Changhexi's security had no worries whatsoever.

Because Changhexi was already surrounded.

Thanks to the self-preservation plan of leasing three five-hundred-qing plots to the Marshal's headquarters back then, to Changhexi's west lay Luhuo County of Kangning Prefecture, and to the north, east, and south were three five-hundred-qing plots leased to the Marshal's headquarters — now, the people living on these one hundred fifty thousand mu of land were the Songpan Guard banner troops, who had essentially cut off all of Changhexi's enemies.

These banner troops had a very strong drive for expansion, recruiting Sichuan banner troops and fighting their way to thirty-six guards in the southwest; Muya's own territory had no conflict with them whatsoever, and on the contrary had established long-term trade cooperation, so now Changhexi was absurdly safe.

Whoever wanted to deal with him would either have to cross blades with those highly motivated Songpan banner troops, or would have to fight Liu Chengzong twice — once when marching out and once when withdrawing.

Liu Chengzong's territory was also notoriously vast in area; Muya still had no idea who Liu Chengzong's neighbors on the other side of his domain were. There might exist someone in this world capable of crossing straight through the Marshal's headquarters to strike Changhexi, but there certainly did not exist anyone who could cross straight through the Marshal's headquarters to strike Changhexi and then make it back alive.

As for Liu Chengzong attacking him, that was even less worth thinking about.

There were many people in the world more formidable than Muya, but Muya had yet to hear of anyone who could withstand Liu Chengzong's offensive.

Since he could not withstand it, he might as well give whatever was asked — with a good attitude, at least Liu the Lion was still saying "borrow."

Muya simply gave up all pretense and laughed: "Marshal, I've done the math. I can now produce sixty thousand taels of silver and eighty thousand dan of grain to lend to the Marshal's headquarters. If you transfer the three thousand native soldiers into the Marshal's army and take them with you, I can produce seventy thousand taels of silver and one hundred ten thousand dan of grain and fodder to lend to the headquarters. I can recruit native soldiers again, and the annual interest the headquarters pays me would be enough to support a small force of five hundred men — more than enough to guard the house and courtyard."

Liu the Lion thought to himself, You've certainly worked out a fine bargain. Calculating it out, it was indeed so: the annual interest alone came to over two thousand taels of silver and over three thousand dan of grain, more than ample to support a battalion commander, and for the next ten years the Marshal's headquarters would essentially be paying for Muya to maintain troops.

But he had no intention of going back on his word. As long as they weathered next year's locust plague and gave Kangning Prefecture a chance to catch its breath, the tax revenue from developed cultivated land would fully cover this interest. As for whether there would be more locust plagues or droughts after that, it did not matter.

He had to get through the famine year right in front of him first.

Liu Chengzong laughed: "You want me to pay for your troops — easy enough. Changhexi's army will belong to me, and you can just sit tight in Dajianlu. But I'll need you to draft a declaration of war next year."

As he spoke, Liu Chengzong patted Muya on the shoulder and led him toward the banks of the Zhaqu River.

Muya's eyes widened: "A declaration of war against whom? Marshal, you're not asking me to declare war on the Great Ming Emperor, are you?"

"Not to that extent. A declaration aimed at the Emperor doesn't need you to write it. Changhexi declares war on Shenbian and Lengbian. You don't need to do anything — the Marshal's army will fight across the Dadu River. Once it's done, the money and grain go to me, the land goes to you."

Good morning!