Chapter 549: Changing Flags and Banners

With Muya staking the entire Changhexi Pacification Commissioner's Office on Liu Chengzong, the chieftains and nobles of Kangning Prefecture gained a full appreciation of Liu Chengzong's strength.

The thing is, it's a bit laughable — the vast majority of chieftains under the Marshal's Office in Kangning Prefecture had no real understanding of the Marshal's Office. Changhexi, holding a crucial trade node and supporting many Sichuan licentiates in its trading houses, was aware of the northern situation despite being in the southwest.

The chieftains under Kangning Prefecture, however, were isolated and ill-informed. They had basically offered tribute out of courtesy when the Marshal's Office campaigned south, never experiencing any bitter fighting. Later, when Xining and Kangning Prefectures were established, their territories were enveloped within, and they naturally submitted.

But after submitting, they still stayed within their own little fiefs. Even when the Marshal's Office issued decrees, it was only for minor matters like building roads and bridges at their doorsteps, never touching their core interests. Yet behind the scenes, misunderstandings existed on both sides.

Liu Chengzong had always harbored malice toward the chieftains — this was no secret.

The chieftains, naturally, were full of wariness toward him in return. This malice and wariness came about naturally: harboring malice yet still allowing the chieftains to exist showed that he had no way to deal with them at this stage.

This malice and wariness did not exist only under Liu Chengzong's rule.

The chieftains under the Great Ming thought the same way, because everyone harbored malice toward chieftains. It had nothing to do with personal grudges — the chieftain system inherently stood in opposition to centralization of power. The natural result of this waxing and waning was the replacement of chieftains with regular officials. It was only natural.

In truth, Liu Chengzong's bit of malice toward the chieftains was not particularly harsh.

Take the Shizhu chieftain for example: Qin Liangyu, a woman, managing the chieftaincy was actually not an isolated case — it was done deliberately.

In the twenty-second year of Wanli, the Shizhu chieftain was still Qin Liangyu's father-in-law, Ma Douhu. The Wanli Emperor opened mines, and Ma Douhu opened mines in Shizhu. Later, he was investigated for losses and banished to serve beyond the passes. The heir, Ma Qiancheng, was imprisoned. The one managing Shizhu was Ma Douhu's wife, Lady Qin.

Later, the Ma clansmen besieged Lady Qin to seize the seal of office. The Pacification Office scraped together ransom money and only then got Ma Qiancheng released to inherit the chieftaincy. Less than two years after his release, Ma Qiancheng and Qin Liangyu were ordered to fight the Japanese pirates. After returning from the pirates, they were ordered to suppress the Bo rebellion, where they took the Nanchuan route and achieved the highest battle merit — only then did he earn himself a sliver of breathing room.

In the end, Ma Qiancheng offended the eunuch tax commissioner Qiu Chengyun and was thrown into prison. At the time, he contracted a summer plague, and with no treatment available in the prison, he died.

After his death, the court felt that Ma Qiancheng had not really committed any crime, so they still retained the hereditary post of Pacification Commissioner. Since the heir was still young, his wife Qin Liangyu managed the chieftaincy affairs.

Had Qin Liangyu been the slightest bit more extreme after her husband died from a wrongful imprisonment, she would have been another Yang Yinglong.

The court wanted the chieftains to rebel — it was waiting for them to rebel.

Liu Chengzong was the same. It was just that this time, he was going to be disappointed.

In just three short days, Liu Guoneng reported to the official stronghold with a face full of delight: "Grand Marshal, great joy!"

"What, have the grain and funds the various chieftains can lend been tallied?"

Liu Chengzong raised his eyebrows. Seeing Liu Guoneng's beaming expression, a sudden ominous premonition rose in his heart: "Kangning's three Pacification Offices, over a dozen Recruitment Offices — of the hereditary native officials, how many are willing to lend their family assets? Half?"

These titles — Pacification Office, Recruitment Office — were all old names long since abandoned. When the Tumed Mongols entered Qinghai during the Jiajing reign and cut off the vital route to the court, the Great Ming lost its governing power over all the chieftains in Qinghai-Tibet. By the time Liu Chengzong campaigned south, the Kangning region was a landscape of native kings everywhere.

Even now, within Kangning Prefecture, there were still over two hundred who retained hereditary native official titles. Liu Chengzong's idea was to take this opportunity to borrow seventy to eighty thousand shi of grain and seventy to eighty thousand taels of silver from these two-hundred-odd native officials.

This sum was not much to them — in fact, it was quite small — because in his expectations, he had never planned to borrow from every single one. It would be enough if just half were willing to lend. Liu Chengzong even hoped it would not exceed half.

Because for the other half, he intended to use those chieftains' family assets to settle the debt — pulling off the magnificent feat of robbing Peter to pay Paul while cutting out half the chieftains.

So the moment he saw Liu Guoneng's delighted expression, Liu the Lion thought to himself: this is bad. Borrowing was probably going far more smoothly than he had imagined.

Sure enough, Liu Guoneng flipped through the documents and said cheerfully: "All thanks to the Grand Marshal's profound prestige in Kangning Prefecture. Two hundred and twenty-seven native officials enthusiastically lent their family assets. As of now, the colossal sum of one hundred seventy-four thousand three hundred taels of silver and two hundred thirty-four thousand eight hundred shi of highland barley flour has been signed for. It can all be delivered to Kangning Prefecture before the new year!"

Having said this, Liu Guoneng presented the documents and added: "And this doesn't even count the one hundred thousand taels of silver and one hundred twenty thousand shi of rice put forward by Native Pacification Commissioner Muya. There is even one native battalion commander, one native company commander, and fourteen native platoon commanders who donated their entire family fortunes. With such resources, Grand Marshal can set your mind completely at ease. When it comes to disaster relief next year, your humble subordinate will handle everything perfectly!"

It was a joke — with this enormous sum in hand, Kangning Prefecture had just obtained four years' worth of revenue in one go, making it richer than Xining Prefecture to the north. Mere disaster relief was a trivial matter.

Just the assets Muya put forward — one hundred thousand taels of silver — the Chongzhen Emperor would dare to use that to relieve the entire Shaanxi. Relieving one Kangning Prefecture would be child's play for him.

What did raising this sum in Kangning Prefecture mean? Take the Great Ming's Bo campaign as an example: pooling the strength of three provinces, mobilizing two hundred seventy thousand troops, fighting for half a year — military expenses exceeded two million taels. Yet they had raised assets worth six hundred thirty thousand taels in a single Kangning Prefecture, and that was not even counting the value of goods beyond the grain and funds lent by the chieftains.

What caught him off guard, however, was that Liu Guoneng discovered Liu Chengzong was not nearly as happy as he had imagined upon hearing this news. He even seemed a bit... a bit troubled?

"Grand Marshal, is this... not a good thing?"

Liu Chengzong slowly shook his head, not going into detail on the matter.

He found it hard to describe his state of mind at this moment. This sum was equivalent to the entire Marshal's Office's military expenditure for a year. No one could stand before such an enormous fortune and remain utterly unmoved.

But this was not how his plan was supposed to go!

That one Muya would do this was not strange. But for over two hundred hereditary native officials to all do the same, and some even donating their entire family fortunes — had they all gone mad?

Liu Chengzong was already pondering how he was going to repay the debt. From now until the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Kangning Prefecture would have to pay out ninety thousand taels of silver every year to repay the chieftains... That figure was nearly catching up to Kangning Prefecture's total annual fiscal surplus.

This dealt a considerable psychological blow to Liu the Lion. After all, he had never intended to repay the money himself from the start.

Taking from the chieftains and using it for the chieftains — that was the direction things were supposed to develop.

Yet since things had come to this, he did not want to spout any sanctimonious nonsense about having gotten a bargain. He simply let out a long breath and said: "Since the grain and funds are already sufficient, preparations for next year's internal disaster relief and external military operations should begin early. No matter what, Kangning now has full granaries and can mitigate the locust plague's harm — that is ultimately a great good thing. As for the matters of the next ten years, we will take them slowly as they come."

Liu Guoneng, belatedly, caught on: the Grand Marshal was feeling the pressure of repayment because the borrowed grain and funds were too much.

Liu Guoneng immediately cupped his fists and responded: "Grand Marshal, rest assured. With this sum of grain and funds in hand, your humble subordinate now has a clear idea of the family assets of the chieftains at Shenbian, Lengbian, and the Lhasa River. This month, I will dispatch scouts to the Ü-Tsang, Dongbu Hanhu, and other Pacification Offices to gather intelligence for deploying troops next year."

"Mm. The borrowed grain and funds must be repaid, and the chieftains' heirs must also be sent to Xining to be placed in excellent positions within the army. I estimate that by the time you finish this campaign..."

Liu Chengzong thought for a moment, then said to Liu Guoneng: "We should be able to go home."

Liu Guoneng had originally just been standing attentively at his side, noting down Liu Chengzong's instructions. But the instant he heard these words, his whole body jerked upright, his eyes widening in disbelief: "Go... go home?"

"Yes. Some time ago, the Ming court sent a message, reproachfully asking what the Marshal's Office meant by pointing its blade directly at Jingning Subprefecture. They can't even hold their own land, yet they dare to reproach me."

Liu Chengzong turned his head with a disdainful laugh, then said with a serious expression: "However, I truly do not know what this is about. I wrote to ask Wang Wenxiu. The reply should arrive soon. If our army's blade has already reached Jingning and we have taken all of Longxi, then crossing Long Mountain is only a matter of days."

Liu Guoneng nodded heavily, saying nothing, only clenching his fists.

In truth, going home was the wish of the soldiers who had followed Liu Chengzong in fighting their way out. For Liu Guoneng himself, going home or not did not really matter.

His entire clan had been uprooted and brought along when Liu the Lion ran into Qinghai. Now they were settled all over — Haixi, Haibei, Heka, even Nangqian. Some held government posts, some served in the military. Wherever their power and influence lay, that was their home.

If you really stripped everyone down to commoners and packed them back to Yan'an Prefecture, people would not be happy about it.

But the Marshal's Office being able to fight its way back home meant many things to Liu Guoneng. For instance, it meant the Marshal's Office had thoroughly seized control of Longxi and was no longer a remote, minor separatist regime that could easily fall apart. At the same time, it also meant the Marshal's Office would have the capability to seize the realm, and the Grand Marshal... would become a true dragon.

Just as Liu Chengzong set foot on the road to Beishan, Wang Wenxiu's letter arrived from Gongchang Prefecture.

The developments of the matter once again exceeded Liu the Lion's imagination.

Before this, he had always assumed it was Wang Wenxiu, responsible for guarding Lintao, who had dispatched troops eastward and thus captured Gongchang Prefecture, where the court had stationed heavy troops.

According to Liu the Lion's thinking, he was unwilling to expand territory at this moment. So in the letter sent to Gongchang Prefecture to inquire, he showed no enthusiasm for the capture of Gongchang.

Because the court was currently at war with the Later Jin, and stabbing them in the back would be dishonorable; the common people were struggling against the locust plague, and stirring up the calamity of war at this time would also be unrighteous — though, of course, honor and righteousness were only secondary. The most important thing was that at this very moment, the Marshal's Office had an army passing through Ningxia and currently in the desert south of the Gobi. If the Great Ming was provoked, Yang Qi would be an isolated force.

He never expected that Wang Wenxiu's reply, sent from outside Gongchang City, also showed no enthusiasm for expanding the territory to Gongchang Prefecture. Quite the opposite — he was very troubled.

The cause of the matter was indeed somewhat related to the Marshal's Office's army.

Not long after the locust plague began, Wang Wenxiu received orders from Liu Chengzong to guard against Ming forces. He promptly dispatched Staff Officer Yang Chengzu as the vanguard commander to garrison Weiyuan County, using a small force of shock troops to seize Shouyang Pass on the southern bank of the Wei River, taking the western gateway to Gongchang Prefecture.

Colonel Wei Qian'er also advanced his troops the same day, leading his main camp to occupy Jin County east of Lanzhou, taking command at the Neiguan Encampment, steadying the formation for Shi Xiang's Lintao Brigade at Chankou, and making a show of force aimed at Anding and Huining counties north of Gongchang Prefecture.

Chankou in the northwest of Gongchang Prefecture, the Neiguan Encampment in the west, and Shouyang Pass in the south were three critical locations.

Of these, the north and south routes were the two key official highways from Lintao to Gongchang, and also the sites of narrow, treacherous passes.

The Neiguan Encampment, during the Hongwu era, was a vital node on the Silk Road, connecting directly to four counties and eight townships. It possessed the flattest and most fertile valley farmland in all of Gongchang Prefecture, and was also a major commercial hub and dry-land port in the Longzhong region, named after the Neiguan Encampment established there by Prince Su, Zhu Ying.

Of course, in this period of widespread locust plague, those two hundred thousand mu of farmland at the Neiguan Encampment had become irrelevant, and a commercial hub on the front lines was hardly worth mentioning. What remained most critical was its strategic position, reaching Anding County to the northeast and Longxi County to the southeast.

With the perilous passes north and south and this one vital point linked in a line, it meant the Marshal's Manor's forces occupied a third of Gongchang Prefecture, able to advance and attack or retreat and defend, successfully seizing the initiative for the entire Longxi theater.

With things thus, whether or not to start fighting was now up to them... Liu Chengzong certainly did not want to start a fight with the court at this moment.

It was not that he worried about being unable to win; anyway, the Ming court's army in Longxi at this time was still those few old friends: Zhang Yingchang, He Renlong, Yang Yanchang. The three of them were on excellent terms, already literally beating each other to a pulp.

Besides, with Yang Yanchang and Ren Quan'er there, the government troops on that side were practically playing with their cards face up. For the Marshal's Manor, there was fundamentally no military difficulty at all.

But the Marshal's Manor's main energy was, after all, focused on exterminating locusts in Hexi. In Liu the Lion's view, although seizing territory in Longxi at this time would be easy, it brought many troubles and great risks.

Capturing land was meaningless; what mattered were people and land, but both people and land required management and mobilization to be turned into strength. The dozen or so counties and districts of Gongchang Prefecture and Qinzhou in Longxi held a population of up to a million. Taking the cities and merely dispatching officials and capable clerks to equalize land and manage the regions would consume a very large portion of their talent reserves.

Not to mention, under the current circumstances, taking over a city meant immediately mobilizing the population to exterminate locusts. Otherwise, the more territory they occupied, the greater the risk that the Marshal's Manor would explode from the locust plague.

Unfortunately, heaven does not always grant one's wishes. Liu Chengzong could control the Marshal's Manor, but he could not control Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, and the Ming government troops.

Because the locust plague had erupted suddenly, the alliance conference the Marshal's Manor had envisioned could not be completed. The various rebel kings, unable to remain trapped in the mountains, all surged eastward to attack Qinzhou, directly threatening Guanzhong. Their target was Xi'an Prefecture — a Xi'an Prefecture without a prefect.

In the past, the vacancies among Ming officials were a leftover problem from the Wanli era, but now the vacancies among Shaanxi officials were because no one dared to come. Thus, the position of Prefect of Xi'an had remained perpetually vacant.

However, as Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, and the other fifteen battalions of the people's army attacked toward Qinzhou, the Ming army likewise made mobilization deployments, transferring Zuo Liangyu and Tang Jiuzhou under the command of Henan Grand Coordinator Xuan Mobiao, and Deng Qi's division garrisoned at Xunyang, to march their forces into Guanzhong.

These three renowned generals, upon entering Xi'an Prefecture, immediately seized Fengxiang Prefecture, blocking the key route into Guanzhong. The people's army, under the leadership of Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng, then turned toward the northern mountains and entered Jingning District. In a short time, they captured Qinzhou, Jingning, Zhuanglang, Longde, and other counties, their military edge threatening the city of Pingliang Prefecture.

Within Pingliang Prefecture city now resided not only two princes, but also a Cao Bianjiao, left behind in the mansion by the Prince of Han to breed offspring.

The Prince of Han, whose heavenly lineage genetic improvement plan had been interrupted, was terrified by the peasant army's large-scale advance on Jingning District. He immediately summoned Zuo Liangyu, Tang Jiuzhou, Deng Qi, and the other armies, ordering them to expel the peasant army that had entered Jingning District.

Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng refused to fight them. They attacked cities and seized territory, then turned back to Qinzhou and Gongchang Prefecture. The meaning was very clear: if you want to fight us, you'll have to go through the Marshal's Manor first.

At this critical juncture, Deng Qi's division, which had been out of Sichuan for five years, fighting every month without being allowed to return home, had dwindled from a six-thousand-man army during the Jisi Incident's royal relief campaign to just over two thousand men. The Sichuan troops mutinied and plundered Jingning District once more.

The government troops then also withdrew from Jingning District, falling back to Fengxiang Prefecture to hold the strategic passes and reorganize their forces.

With such upheaval occurring in a short time, successive great battles had reduced Jingning District to barren wasteland. The county magistrate and acting magistrates changed three times in a single month. The acting magistrates put forward by the local gentry and common people, in order to save their own skins, convened the village gentry for a council and reached a conclusion:

The only person in their vicinity with the ability to protect the region, pacify the region, prevent the peasant army from wreaking havoc, and also deter the government troops from daring to enter, was Liu Chengzong.

Wang Wenxiu had not attacked Jingning District, but atop the three cities of Jingning District and in every village that had survived the ravages of war, great banners of red background with black borders and black characters were planted, upon which were clearly written three large characters: Marshal's Manor.

Good afternoon!