Chapter 1240: Teach Them a Hard Lesson

"... The farmland and the farming households are our foundation. There must be a red line here — no one, no matter who, is allowed to cross this red line. Once it is crossed, our footing becomes unstable!" When Zhao Jin said this, many were puzzled as to why he used the term "red line," but everyone agreed with the principle: with grain there is no panic, without agriculture there is no stability — this is a maxim of wisdom.

By the time Zhao Jin proclaimed himself General and the Xuzhou Zhao Camp was renamed the Zhao Family Army, word of the court's plan to jointly suppress Xuzhou had also reached this side. Zhao Jin and his comrades naturally knew of it somewhat earlier than the public, but when the people of Xuzhou and the surrounding areas learned the news, their reaction was nowhere near as strong as last time. Over at He Village, no one moved away or moved back. Some wealthy households did send servants out onto the streets to look around, but seeing everything was as usual, they paid it no further mind.

According to word from the prefectural magistrate's yamen, when Xuzhou Prefect Tong Huaizu saw the official dispatch, he merely sneered and tossed it aside, said "Absurd" to the aide beside him, and then busied himself with checking the account books. These days, Tong Huaizu and his aide had jointly invested in a winery, specializing in shipping liquor from Xuzhou back to their hometown. The profits were extremely rich, and he now had little inclination to busy himself with government affairs.

That said, Tong Huaizu had no government affairs to deal with anyway. He had even lost the desire to resign from office. He had attempted resignation several times, but the Fengyang Grand Coordinator's office gave no response whatsoever. When he asked a friend to inquire at the Ministry of Personnel, no reply was given either. Tong Huaizu thus saw the situation clearly. Over the years, he had also figured out the way Zhao Jin's side did things, so he simply settled down peacefully. He even bought a residence in He Village and would go stay there from time to time.

At present, the situation for local officials in Xuzhou and the areas under Zhao Jin's effective control was all very delicate. They had no need to worry about their safety — as long as they did not engage in any petty schemes, the Zhao Family Army could not be bothered with them. The delicacy lay with the court and their superiors. From top to bottom, their existence had been ignored, yet their existence was perpetually maintained. It was rather like when a prefectural or county official's term expired, but no order for transfer, promotion, or even retirement ever came — only a simple official dispatch would arrive, all bearing roughly the same words: "Retain for one more term." The court could not govern these places, yet still had to maintain this semblance of presence, so it could only resort to such a senseless and shameless method.

This move by the court not only failed to cause panic within the areas controlled by the Xuzhou Zhao Family Army, but instead threw the officials and people of Henan, Northern Zhili, Shandong's Denglai Garrison, and the Jiangbei prefectures of Luzhou, Anqing, Chuzhou, and Hezhou in Southern Zhili into great terror. They all began relocating elsewhere in droves. More interestingly, some even moved into the areas under Xuzhou's control.

The price of tribute grain began to plummet, but Xuzhou's vigorous demand quickly stabilized prices. The merchants in Qingjiangpu and Jiangnan at first habitually began to worry, because as soon as fighting broke out, the tribute grain transport would inevitably be severely affected. The grain trade was manageable thanks to Xuzhou's strong demand, but what about the other goods being shipped north? Yet this worry was merely a habitual reaction. Everyone knew the solution, and this solution was even simpler and cheaper: take the sea route.

If you were willing to ship goods directly to the capital, the Yu family's sand junks were available for hire. If you could not be bothered with the trouble, you could send the goods directly to Clam Port or Haizhou Harbor. The sea merchants there had more silver than they knew what to do with and could swallow any amount of goods. Whether shipped overseas or sent to Tianjin, the profits were rich either way.

Under such circumstances, many of the great merchants of Qingjiangpu were secretly gripped by dread. That Qingjiangpu could be so prosperous, could become the financial and commercial hub of the realm, that they could possess the fortunes they had today — it all depended on this canal. Yet now, reliance on the canal was growing less and less. Tribute grain transport was beginning to shift to sea transport. Where, then, did their future lie?

The Trade Office where Zhou Xuezhi worked understood this mentality perfectly. This very mentality was a key reason why the great merchants of Qingjiangpu and Yangzhou had repeatedly participated in hostility against the Xuzhou Zhao Family Army. The Trade Office employed no coercion or bribery, but simply reasoned with them: what sea transport could replace was merely the shipment from Qingjiangpu to the capital. But the various trade routes passing through Xuzhou to Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and even the southern part of Northern Zhili — these sea transport could not replace.

Xuzhou, which had already become a regional core, needed the vast quantities of goods that converged in Qingjiangpu. The most convenient transport between Xuzhou and Qingjiangpu was still the canal waterway. Once the Salt Transport Canal was completed, Qingjiangpu would remain the financial and commercial center of the realm, and by then this Qingjiangpu would be the hub connecting Xuzhou, Haizhou Harbor, and all parts of Jiangnan.

Whether everyone believed it or not, business in Qingjiangpu was still fairly brisk for the time being. Grain was either sold locally or shipped north on tribute boats, and then boatload after boatload of goods set out from Qingjiangpu, shipped to Haizhou Harbor and Clam Port, and returned as silver. The goods were carried off by the sea merchants. The merchants of Qingjiangpu had always thought themselves peerless under heaven, but this time they learned there were heavens beyond the heavens. The purchasing power of the sea merchants seemed inexhaustible — no matter how many goods were shipped over, they could swallow them all. Only at this point did those great tribute-transport merchants, whose vision had been fixed solely on the canal, realize that the market was not limited to the realm of the Great Ming.

Sales and distribution at the Xuzhou market were equally flourishing. Merchant caravans of ox carts, horse-drawn wagons, and camels crossed the Yellow River from Shanxi and Shaanxi, then returned fully laden. These goods were not only sold to Shanxi and Shaanxi, but also went to the steppes beyond the frontier and to various places in the Western Regions.

Everyone knew a great war was coming, yet business was not affected in the slightest. In fact, the surge in military demand from the Xuzhou forces had allowed everyone to make a solid fortune. In comparison, the Great Ming court relied mainly on requisition and conscription. Well-connected great merchants could indeed obtain large sums of silver from the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Revenue, but those without backing or connections suffered heavy losses. As it happened, there were now merchants from Northern Zhili fleeing into Xuzhou...

Of course, the merchants in Jiangnan, while continuing to do business as usual, were simultaneously agitating the partisan factions in the capital to wage war against Xuzhou. Better to seize this territory from the Xuzhou strongmen, or hand it over to their own people to control, than to make their fortunes within it. That way, there would be no need to pay so many fees, and they could sit back and collect money. The Trade Office's attitude toward these people was also quite calm: as long as you do business according to the rules, we will never stand in the way of your making a fortune. After all, no matter how much these great merchants earned, not a single copper cash of it went to subsidize the court or the government troops.

Along with the flourishing commerce and trade, the various workshops in Xuzhou were also expanding and hiring workers, running production around the clock. In Guide Prefecture and the lands near Kaifeng Prefecture, regardless of whether they were hostile to Xuzhou or not, many fields had begun planting cotton. Xuzhou provided the cotton seeds and sent personnel to instruct on cultivation, and even deliberately paid deposits upfront. No matter how one calculated, it was far more profitable than growing grain. Large numbers of laborers from Henan poured into Xuzhou's various workshops.

But in contrast, the Zhao Family Army's agricultural land estates felt a shortage of manpower for the first time. At the very beginning, there had been many people and little land. The harvests they grew could not sustain even basic subsistence, and they had to rely on outside imports. Later, as land increased and people grew more numerous, the harvests became better and better. Not only could they be self-sufficient, they could also supply the outside, and there was even surplus labor for spinning and weaving. But the able-bodied young men were selected to serve as reserve soldiers, regular soldiers, and militia; those with various skills became craftsmen; not a few were recruited to work as laborers; and those with talent and courage were selected to serve as estate heads, managers, and so on.

At the same time, the territory under the Zhao Camp's control was still expanding. Yanzhou Prefecture in Shandong and Fengyang Prefecture in Southern Zhili were both vast in area, yet Yanzhou Prefecture was sparsely populated due to famine and war, and Fengyang Prefecture, because of the Central Capital and other reasons, was likewise underpopulated. Both places could only be described as vast lands with few people. The estate workers under Xuzhou's control were already becoming somewhat insufficient when distributed across these areas.

The various commercial firms under Cloud Mountain Trading and the Trade Office had been continuously recruiting estate workers for land reclamation from neighboring provinces, but in the past two years, there had been no famines or civil disturbances in the surrounding regions. For common folk reluctant to leave their native soil, as long as they could survive, they would not abandon their homes and wander far away. The earthquakes in Jiangnan and Jianghuai also did not bring in much population, because those areas were wealthy and prosperous, with a strong capacity for self-recovery. As for Liaodong, the various places like Pi Island had only just opened their ports, and the court was adopting this posture of war — not to mention that the Zheng family's great fleet had yet to be sorted out, so the transport and recruitment of people had ground to a halt.

Having enough land but not enough people to farm it — this was a persistent worry for Zhao Jin and his comrades. Without sufficient population, without sufficient grain, it would be trouble for future growth and the stability of their foundation. Therefore, the most urgent matter at present was to maintain the growth of the population under their direct control.

"... Recruiting the Liao refugees is the most critical. Beyond that is capturing prisoners..." Everyone shared this consensus. To achieve this, there was only one way: war.

Since the court wanted to launch a major offensive, then it was not Xuzhou presumptuously provoking conflict. No one would think Xuzhou was bent on rebellion. What the realm now saw was this: Xuzhou had made no arrogant demands — no demand for official posts, no demand for territory, not even a demand for money. Yet despite such low-profile conduct after a great victory, the court was determined to raise troops.

The officials and scholars of the Great Ming mostly supported the court's action. How could a wicked local despot, not knowing his place, dictate terms to the court? If this went on, where would the dignity of the state be? Where would the rules be? If others followed suit, would not chaos erupt everywhere? But in the areas that would serve as the battlefield and its surroundings — the southeastern part of Northern Zhili, the entire province of Shandong, the northwestern part of Henan, and the greater part of Jiangbei in Southern Zhili — the gentry and commoners alike were extremely resentful. They thought to themselves: the court truly does not know what is good for it. The Zhao Family Army, after such a great victory, still preserved such face and restraint for the court — so why does the court have so little self-respect? Must it bring disaster and calamity upon the localities again?

"... The eunuch faction is finished, so now the pure-stream faction comes. Once we smash the pure-stream faction as well, no one will dare come provoke us again. This time, we must bring out sufficient strength to teach the court a lesson, and also let all under heaven know our power..." Zhao Jin declared in a ringing voice within the council hall.

He spoke with solemnity, yet the expressions of the several people present in the council hall were very strange. Wang Zhaojing, Ji Xiang, and Liu Yong exchanged glances, all unable to suppress their laughter. Ru Hui coughed lightly. In the end, Wang Zhaojing said with a smile, "Big Brother, haven't you always said to keep a low profile and be restrained? Why the big fanfare now?"

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