Chapter 551: Sharp Tools

In the first month of the eighth year of the Chongzhen reign, Liu Chengzong brought his large family back to the Marshal's headquarters in Lanzhou.

He had stayed seven days in the new city for the New Year. Apart from taking his wives out hunting one day, he was not idle the rest of the time and even secretly did something of no small significance.

On the morning of the tenth day of the first month, as he was having breakfast with his parents and wives in a side hall, a Feathered Forest Cavalry rider announced from outside: "Grand Marshal, several volumes of books have been delivered from Xining."

"Got it. Put them in the study and go eat quickly."

It was not that Liu the Lion was particularly considerate of his subordinates; his schedule was simply packed. Today, the Dragon King Temple on the west bank of the river mouth by the Huang River was completed, and he had to go meet the Dragon King, lay out the upcoming precautions and the rewards and punishments. In the evening, he still had to distribute relief in Xigu to the disaster victims suffering the lean spring season. The Feathered Forest Cavalry could only get one full meal this morning; after that, they would have to eat dry rations on the road.

In truth, Liu the Lion did not believe in such things, but respecting the people's faith was the bedrock of the Marshal's headquarters. If the common people needed it, it had to be built, and he had to go.

The common people did not necessarily all believe either. After all, where wasn't there a Dragon King Temple? The previous Dragon King Temple in Hehuang had been smashed by angry mountain folk because it failed to rain last year, which was why the Marshal's headquarters had built a new one.

Liu Chengzong felt that the common people smashing the Dragon King Temple was a bad thing and had already reprimanded them: When you ask someone for a favor, you must use both carrot and stick. If you only use the stick and directly smash someone's Dragon King Temple, how will you pray for rain in the future? Is that any attitude to ask for a favor?

So today, he not only had to meet the Dragon King, but also apologize to him.

Apology aside, the rewards and punishments had to be clearly laid out in advance. If the weather was favorable, needless to say, he, Liu Chengzong, would personally go to the Dragon King Temple to offer incense. He would kowtow if he must, bow if he must, and the incense would never cease, supporting Lord Dragon King. Even building a bigger temple would not be a problem.

But if you take the benefits and don't do the work, then let's get the ugly words out of the way first.

This Dragon King Temple was built right at the river mouth where the lower reaches of the Huang River enter the Yellow River, a specially chosen site with very low terrain. If the Dragon King sent too much rain and caused a great flood, the deluge would wash his Dragon King Temple away first.

If it didn't rain when it was supposed to, then to be perfectly honest, you'd be dragged out to dry in the sun as you should be. If the clay-bodied, gold-painted statue cracked in the sun and it still didn't rain, Liu the Lion would have a large executioner's blade placed inside the Dragon King Temple and chop your dragon head off.

Our Marshal's headquarters does not keep idle gods!

As for relieving the disaster victims, that was even more Liu Chengzong's duty. After two locust plague invasions last year, the autumn harvest, if not a total loss, was mostly damaged. If the common people could not get through this New Year well, Liu the Lion would have trouble in his rear for the coming year.

Xining Prefecture implemented a tax law of land equalization and grain purchase, along with military farm colonies. This normally greatly aided the Marshal's headquarters, but when trouble struck, it also placed higher demands on the headquarters' administrative capacity.

Last year's summer harvest was very good, but the autumn harvest was reduced by more than half. Xining Prefecture bought nothing. Only the military farm colonies, located in the Yaoshui River basin, avoided the locust plague and could still supply one hundred fifty thousand dan of stored grain. But this grain and fodder had barely warmed the Marshal's headquarters' hands before it had to be taken out to relieve the common people.

The Prefect of Xining, Yang Dingrui, after calculating, prepared to use one hundred sixty thousand dan of rice and grain, and one hundred twenty thousand taels of silver to provide relief for Xining Prefecture. This sum of money and grain was not much to speak of; divided among the common people of Xining and Lintao prefectures, it was not even one dan of rice and one tael of silver per person.

But it was not a small sum either. Liu Chengzong was the only person under heaven at this very moment who could produce this amount of money and grain and spend it on the common people.

It was not that Liu the Lion was a great philanthropist; he simply had no choice. The Marshal's headquarters' tax law was different from anywhere else. Essentially, this monster relied on land distribution to shatter the influence of clans, landlords, and nobles, banned smuggling to leave the common people isolated and helpless, further used silver to buy grain and collect the grain from the people's hands, and finally used goods manufactured by the Hundred Workshops Bureau to recover the spent silver.

This system allowed him to support a massive army with a relatively small population and produce a huge amount of military supplies. But the consequence was that when trouble arose, he had to manage it, because the result of the common people's isolation and helplessness was caused by him. The more power he took from the people, the more things he had to manage.

A system is a machine where all key components work well together. If one part breaks, the machine stops running. If left unmanaged, the system breaks down.

At the dining table, Liu Xiangyu saw how secretive he was acting. Once the meal was nearly finished, he asked, "What books did Xining send over?"

Liu Chengzong smiled. "Father, come take a look with me. It's a treasure."

The two went to the study together. As soon as Liu Xiangyu entered, he saw the red cloth bundle on the table. Opening it, he found several thread-bound volumes and immediately frowned.

Because these volumes were all the same, printed from carved woodblocks. The cover featured an exquisitely painted snowy plain and great river, titled The Hexi Chronicle of Loyalty, Righteousness, Wisdom, and Valor. It baffled Old Master Liu. "This is... an illustrated serial?"

Liu the Lion smiled and nodded, also picking up a volume to flip through. As he looked, he said, "I wrote the story script and specially hired an artist to draw the illustrations. The artwork is quite good... Father, what do you think of this?"

The story script was indeed written by him, so the plot was very familiar. He merely checked the quality of the artwork, nodded with satisfaction, and asked Liu Xiangyu for his opinion on the matter.

Liu Xiangyu did not understand.

In his view, Liu Chengzong should be focusing his energy on more meaningful matters. These were troubled times, and the dignified Grand Marshal was actually writing story scripts—you're not even a scholar who failed the county exam!

Of course, even at the very least, backgrounds from the imperial examinations like county scholar, provincial graduate, and palace graduate had long been meaningless to Liu Chengzong. In times of peace, the exams were a means to co-opt talented scholars, giving these people a chance to rise and preventing them from rebelling. That was why the exam questions became increasingly obscure and abstract.

But now that the Great Ming was at a moment of life-or-death crisis, the Chongzhen Emperor's palace exam questions were extremely pragmatic, precisely to select talents who could reverse the times... Those talents, even the top scholar, how could they compare to his second son!

Last year's palace exam questions spread far and wide, and Liu Xiangyu knew of them. Chongzhen asked eight questions: the improper conduct of the scholar-officials; the heavy troops at Guan, Ning, Deng, and Jin defending against the barbarians; the rampant spread of roving bandits and how to soothe the people and supply the army; the failure of military farms and salt laws to show real results; the withholding and embezzlement of military rations, warhorses, and funds; how to operate beyond the borders against the combined threat of sea bandits and northern barbarians; how to reverse and eliminate the frequent floods and droughts; and why the separation of civil and military officials was unbreakable.

His Majesty Chongzhen could be said to have thrown out all the doubts in his heart. These eight questions were each a heavy bomb, aimed at selecting a talent capable of managing the heavens and earth.

Wasn't this a joke? Who could answer such questions in a two-thousand-word exam paper?

The people who could solve these eight problems would never attend the palace exam in the first place, because without exception, they were the problems themselves.

Hong Taiji was himself one of the problems. He could solve several others, like the improper conduct of the scholar-officials, by playing the Eight Banners card and cutting them down effortlessly.

Liu Chengzong was also one of the problems himself. Issues like the combined threat of sea bandits and northern barbarians did not exist; they were all very obedient nobles of the Grand Marshal's headquarters, united around the Great Khan Liu. How could they be a problem? As for the other issues, apart from floods and droughts being unsolvable, the rest were not big problems either.

But expecting a single palace graduate to solve this was unrealistic. This was not an exam; it was making a wish.

Last year, the Emperor finally selected an old top scholar who had failed the metropolitan exam for ten years, named Liu Lishun. Originally ranked two hundred seventy-third, he was personally chosen as the top scholar by Chongzhen. His answer contained nothing of substance; not one of the eight problems was solved. It was all correct but empty words, perfectly fitting His Majesty Chongzhen's simple and crude fantasy, which counted as a successful wish.

This matter could not be blamed on the old top scholar for lacking talent. Anyone who fought their way to the palace exam was a great talent capable of managing the heavens and earth, but human ability was limited. The Chongzhen Emperor's eight problems were simply not something any single person could solve.

Old Master Liu's expectations for his second son were too high. Now, seeing Liu the Lion actually putting his energy into making illustrated serials, he frowned and said, "Lion, your father knows you like reading, but now is not the time. You should look into when to give yourself a promotion in rank."

Liu the Lion chuckled at this. What his father meant by giving himself a promotion was the matter of taking a royal title.

Before the New Year, Yang Qi had sent over multiple long letters concerning the war in the southern desert. The intelligence was extremely detailed. The Marshal's headquarters compiled this intelligence into a book, gaining a much clearer understanding of the Later Jin's strength.

The armies of the Three Khans of the northern desert fought several battles with the Mongol troops of the Kharchin and Khorchin. The Southern Desert Command had few direct engagements with the Later Jin army; only He Huchen's unit fought a battle against Kong Youde's unit, which could be considered a sound thrashing of Kong Youde.

But that was all. The Later Jin army was in a hurry to retreat and was pursued everywhere by the Ming troops who had sortied beyond the passes. The Southern Desert Command, in order to seize spoils of war, instead fought several battles with the Ming troops who came out later.

The northern desert army mobilized on a grand scale but seized no spoils. The Tumed of the southern desert successfully rebelled against the Later Jin but suffered excessive losses from internal strife. The Kharchin tribe was frightened away, losing all their camp tents and military supplies. The Later Jin army lost troops and horses and returned empty-handed, though they had the face-saving achievement of breaching three Ming cities deep in the interior.

The Ming army chased the Later Jin and obtained quite a few heads, but their spoils were taken by Yang Qi, losing both face and substance.

As for Yang Qi, he plundered the belongings of the Kharchin and the Ming army but failed to achieve his mission of engaging the Eight Banners. Yet he also had to settle one hundred thousand northern desert troops and face the resentment of the Great Ming border armies. The subsequent cleanup work was also very troublesome.

Overall, this was a campaign where every faction failed.

Of course, if one insisted on finding a victor who pulled chestnuts from the fire, there were some. The Ming generals who achieved merit in field battles and city defense were all rewarded after the war. Among them, the one who shone brightest was the Pingyang Assistant Regional Commander, Fu Renxi.

In truth, the role Fu Renxi played in the war was not greater than that of the Zhongquan Battalion defending Longmen Garrison. They had fought the Eight Banners head-on and cremated over a thousand corpses, though they themselves also lost more than half their men... But actually, this was the best method for the Ming army to deal with the Eight Banners. Victory or defeat did not matter; just seize the opportunity to trade one for one, or even two for one. Gloriously trade away twenty thousand, and the Eight Banners themselves would become afraid of battle.

But His Majesty Chongzhen only liked things that boosted morale.

Killing over a thousand of the enemy while the Zhongquan Battalion itself suffered fifteen hundred casualties did not boost morale.

Fu Renxi lost over a hundred of his own men and killed over six hundred of the enemy. Never mind whether they were armored men or not—that boosted morale!

Old Master Fu went directly from an interior provincial Assistant Regional Commander to Acting Assistant Commander-in-Chief, was honorably promoted to Vice Commander-in-Chief of Datong, and even received a hereditary Brocade Guard Centurion title for his descendants. It was like a holiday for him.

That fellow Yang Qi, after the battle, led his troops to Shahukou to play the victim, claiming the Later Jin army had fled out of fear of him, but the Ming army had sortied beyond the passes to seize his spoils. He planned to have a major showdown with the Ming army on the Datong border. The newly appointed Fu Renxi, unaware of the details, led his troops to the border and sent envoys to lock horns with Yang Qi.

Once the two sides talked, the first words out of Fu Renxi's mouth were about how grateful he still was to Grand Marshal Liu back in the day.

Yang Qi figured they were on the same side, so he dejectedly led his troops away. Fu Renxi even received an imperial commendation for this matter.

Of course, Yang Qi, the Three Khans of the northern desert, and even Ombu of the Tumed were all subsequently commended by the Emperor for sending troops.

Even if the Chongzhen Emperor had been more muddle-headed, he could see by now that Liu Chengzong was genuinely helping him deal with foreign enemies. With Yang Qi's army stationed in Monan, the Later Jin forces' range of activity would be confined to the area beyond Shanhai Pass and the Ji Garrison's borders, preventing them from spreading to the Xuan–Da border region.

Besides, he had always harbored the desire to recover the Hetao. Now that the Hetao had been retaken by Liu Chengzong, and the Monan Protectorate was so far from the Qinghai Marshal's Headquarters with poor communication between them, this was an opportunity — if he could just win Yang Qi over, wouldn't the Hetao return to him?

At this critical juncture, the Chongzhen Emperor did not even care about the loss of territory in the northwest.

He even wanted to reward Liu Chengzong... mainly because he had noticed that this Liu the Lion, having stirred up such chaos in the northwest, striking here and there, had somehow beaten the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of War from furrowed brows into beaming faces.

Since the fourth year of the Chongzhen reign, the court's tax revenue had entered its most difficult period. There was warfare everywhere and disaster everywhere, so tax collection had gone very poorly, with a completion rate of only thirty percent.

After all, the entire province of Shaanxi was a major tax delinquent and could not possibly pay in full; the grain collected in Gansu was eaten up by the Gansu border troops before it even needed to be shipped out — they even had to go back to the Ministry of War to demand more grain.

With Liu the Lion stirring things up like this, cutting Gansu and Lintao–Gongchang out of the picture, the court's tax completion rate had actually risen to forty percent. Performance had improved.

And from the Chongzhen Emperor's perspective: His Majesty's tax revenue had shrunk a tiny bit, but expenditures had shrunk a huge amount, and the surplus had actually increased — hey!

But in the end, he was not so thick-skinned as to actually reward Liu Chengzong. The thought merely turned a circle in his mind before he let it drop.

For Liu Xiangyu, what concerned him most about the letter Yang Qi had sent was that Hong Taiji's army could enter and exit the Xuan–Da region, driving Han soldiers into battle without harming his own foundation — this meant that Liu Chengzong's dispatch of Yang Qi to contend for supremacy in Monan had ruined Hong Taiji's grand plans.

The struggle between the two sides over Monan would now grow even fiercer. They had to break through to Ningxia as quickly as possible and send support to the Monan Protectorate.

To continue acting under the titles of Qinghai Grand Marshal and Daiqing Khitan Khan would be somewhat improper in name and reason.

Liu Chengzong understood his father's meaning, but he had no intention of declaring himself a king or an emperor. Declaring kingship held little significance for him, and declaring an imperial title would be putting the cart before the horse. He even wanted to urge Hong Taiji to hurry up and proclaim himself emperor.

As long as the Chongzhen Emperor lives, I find fault with every single thing about him. But if you, Hong Taiji, would lend a hand and send the Chongzhen Emperor off on his dragon journey to heaven, then I, Liu the Lion, would instantly transform into the sword of the landlord class — as the Great Ming's most loyal and virtuous general, raising a righteous army to avenge my sovereign and father!

Faced with his father's bewilderment, Liu Chengzong said with a beaming smile, "Father, why not open this picture book and take a look? I intend to use this to establish a Communications Office. It will be a sharp weapon for us when we enter and take control of Guanzhong."

Good afternoon!