Chapter 1703: A Study of Great Han

Frequent disasters made the people of Xuzhou as tough and bellicose as the frontier peoples of the Ming Empire — fearless of death, never accumulating permanent property, and revering martial prowess. This folk tradition was one of the factors that enabled Zhao Jin to organize a powerful army.

The lack of defensible terrain was a disadvantage for defense, but if one maintained the offensive, it became an advantage — a force of considerable size could be mobilized at any time. Once Zhao Jin possessed a force worth fielding, he could threaten the Ming Empire's source of revenue to the east — the Lianghuai salt fields — and seize the vast wastelands there. These wastelands existed to supply the salt fields with the wild grasses used to boil brine. This tract of wasteland, twice the area of Xuzhou, became Zhao Jin's earliest domain. There he established plantation colonies, gathered up the Ming Empire's disaster refugees, made them his slaves, and had them produce grain for him. He then turned these slaves into his soldiers, artisans, and even officials.

The Ming Empire placed extreme importance on the gentry, but this importance became a blight upon the empire itself. It sought to rely on the gentry as an extension of its political power and so granted them all manner of privileges. However, under the management of civil officials who themselves came from the gentry class, these privileges devolved into a situation of rights without responsibilities.

The gentry pocketed the benefits, while all duties and obligations fell upon the common people. This led to an extremely vicious cycle. Before Zhao Jin seized the realm, this vicious cycle had nearly destroyed the Ming Empire's foundation and was about to cause total collapse. Treating the gentry class as partners and allies in governance led to such disastrous results — a lesson anyone can see clearly.

The Ming Empire's military class was also a joke. Over two hundred years of history, brilliant generals were few and far between. The garrison troops and hereditary officers everywhere became parasites feeding on the system. They understood nothing of military affairs, yet turned into landlords who swallowed up military farmland. This class was no different in essence from the gentry — all were wastes who only siphoned benefits, created no value, and bore no responsibility.

With neither civil nor military sectors reliable, and the class the imperial house relied on as partners being in essence the destroyers of governance, the Ming Empire's end was foreseeable. Under this vicious cycle, the common people, constantly squeezed and ravaged, lived in utter misery and were forced to leave their homes and wander, bankrupt and homeless. The populace with nowhere to go had an official designation in the Ming Empire: "drifters." The official attitude toward drifters was cold, usually driving them away or ignoring them, and even resorting to armed suppression and slaughter.

The drifters included many from the impoverished classes, who had no resistance whatsoever to tax fluctuations and natural disasters. But there were also many yeoman farmers, whose resistance was not much stronger than the former. Their land and family property were also targets for annexation by local strongmen. Ironically, if tax fluctuations and natural disasters intensified, small and medium landlords would also go bankrupt and lose their homes. Within this stratum were gentry, and the military households of the guard posts — that is, the Ming Empire's military serfs — were likewise part of the drifter population.

With the addition of educated elements and military personnel, drifter groups full of resentment toward the system often became enormously destructive forces — to say nothing of the fact that everywhere in Great Ming, there existed sinister cults with malicious intent.

From the time Zhao Jin took up arms until he unified the realm, the enemies he personally fought in most battles and wars were drifters and cult groups. After Zhao Jin's organization grew powerful, many battles no longer required his personal participation…

As is widely known, Zhao Jin's second empress, Lady Mu Shulan, was the Holy Maiden of the Smelling Incense Sect, also called the Church of Huaxia Orthodoxy — a position akin to that of a pope or patriarch. Today's Smelling Incense Sect differs little from Buddhism or Daoism in doctrine, while its organizational structure closely resembles the Jesuit order but is more advanced. Now, the Smelling Incense Sect's teachings spread openly everywhere with the Great Han Empire's conquests. But in the Ming Empire's time, it was a textbook evil cult that existed to amass wealth and serve the ambitions of schemers — yet several of this cult's major operations were destroyed and ruined by Zhao Jin.

We are not here to discuss the entanglements between Zhao Jin and the Smelling Incense Sect, but to expound on a larger topic: Zhao Jin grew powerful through these battles that involved drifters again and again. The reason they involved drifters is that behind every major drifter uprising, there was always the shadow of a cult.

The drifters themselves had little combat capability. Large drifter populations would plunder the villages and towns along their path, and drifter deaths would spawn epidemics — that was the extent of the destruction they caused.

A disorganized mob of drifters was negligible before a militia or regular army with even a modicum of organization and relatively good equipment. But that was under normal circumstances. When a cult was involved, it was entirely different. Take the several operations the Smelling Incense Sect participated in as examples: during the drifters' movement, an extremely brutal selection process was carried out. Horse bandits, bandits, and fugitive soldiers were absorbed as a backbone, and standard-issue weapons were provided as equipment. In the end, it would become an operation where a small core of elite armed men coerced a large mass forward. Such a situation was already very close to what the Ming Empire called a "great army."

Before such a force, the self-defense capabilities of mere villages and towns and the official armed forces of county seats were negligible. The several uprisings stirred up by the Smelling Incense Sect — had Zhao Jin not appeared — would have all caused enormous destruction and shaken the Ming Empire's rule over the southeastern lands.

Of course, after the drifters were defeated by Zhao Jin, they inflicted even greater and more far-reaching destruction upon the Ming Empire's rule. This is what we shall discuss next.

For various reasons, the prefectures of Huai'an and Fengyang, which bordered Xuzhou, were both enormous in area. Moreover, these two prefectures were mostly flat terrain. Their combined plain area was roughly equal to the plain area of coastal provinces like Fujian and Zhejiang. Yet neither Huai'an nor Fengyang had a population commensurate with their land area, so vast tracts of wasteland existed.

Zhao Jin's repeated victories did not mean the enemy was slaughtered. In reality, once the cult organization's armed force was routed, the drifter mass had little combat capability left to speak of. Even without the cult's coercion, large drifter groups could be "defeated" merely with food and resettlement.

Victory brought Zhao Jin large numbers of captives, and this population perfectly filled the manpower shortfall of Xuzhou.

Zhao Jin's repeated victories brought him immense prestige. Although he held no official title whatsoever, in reality Zhao Jin very early on became the true protector of Xuzhou and the surrounding region.

Given his strength, obtaining an official title would have been simple, yet Zhao Jin firmly declined. This is also proof that he had a plan. From this perspective, Zhao Jin harbored the intention of replacing the Ming Empire very early on. He was unwilling to accept a title because he was unwilling to be constrained by such a title.

Returning to the main topic, Zhao Jin's immense prestige and power made the officials and private citizens of neighboring regions hold him in extreme awe. They often responded to his subtle and low-key encroachments with tolerance. Some did begin to resist, but these people were met with swift and resolute strikes.

Zhao Jin's seizure of these "ownerless" wastelands was not predatory, but rather a sharing of benefits. He was willing to release a portion of the dividends. Compared to the inefficient operations of local landlords and merchants, the benefits Zhao Jin brought them were often greater than what they ceded. This rapidly expanded the ranks of Zhao Jin's supporters.

Another point: even when Zhao Jin possessed overwhelming power, he never acted brazenly. All seizures of land and wealth had official sanction, and all killings and strikes were kept as secret as possible. Although these seizures and killings were known to all, in the official narrative they were all legal, and no one could bring charges. As long as appearances were maintained, no one dared bring any charges.

Zhao Jin exhibited almost none of the ostentation and vanity typical of young men. Many heroes and bold spirits had stumbled over this, but Zhao Jin did not. At an age when he should have been flamboyant and restless, he maintained a composure that only the elderly possess.

Many researchers believe this quality came from Wang Zhaojing's father, Wang Youshan, or perhaps partly due to Dong Bingfeng's father, Dong Jike. One of these two was a rare high-ranking civil official in Xuzhou, the other a mid-ranking military officer. They possessed rich experience in officialdom and society and could have offered Zhao Jin such advice. But these theories are not entirely convincing, because at that time, Wang Youshan and Dong Jike, as subjects of the Ming Empire and vested interests, had no reason whatsoever to harbor disloyalty toward the Ming Empire.

One must understand that Zhao Jin's actions at that time had already gone beyond the scope of amassing wealth and were de facto separatism.

The muddle-headedness and incompetence of the Ming Empire's government were fully reflected in Zhao Jin's encroachments. The reaction of the local bureaucracy was: since no actual interests had been violated, since the cities were still under their control, and since the local influential figures had no reaction, then nothing had happened — why make unnecessary trouble? Besides, everyone benefited from this. The drifter crisis was resolved, and gray income increased substantially. Why stop it?

Under such circumstances, Zhao Jin successfully achieved separatism in the Ming Empire's heartland. The method he used appeared no different from the Ming Empire's guard-post system, yet he utilized this population with extreme efficiency. More crucially, Zhao Jin established vast industrial and commercial enterprises — brewing, ironworks, textiles, shipbuilding, salt, and so on and so forth. These enormous workshops on one hand created colossal wealth for him; on the other hand, the laborers working in the workshops were trained and accustomed to discipline. The best among them would become the backbone of Zhao Jin's system, while the rest would form a qualified foundation.

As we all know, the Great Han Empire is a pragmatic empire. It holds classical texts in contempt, while highly esteeming the study of administration and the study of industry and commerce, which tradition disdained. The civil and military officials of the Great Han Empire's first generation mostly came from Zhao Jin's workshops, and in legal principle, most were once Zhao Jin's "slaves."

These refugees, abandoned by the Ming Empire, would otherwise have died worse than pigs or dogs, their wives and daughters with any hint of beauty sold like livestock. But because Zhao Jin took them in, they had food and warmth, and then within the new system, they found their own wealth, status, and value. Naturally, they were utterly loyal to Zhao Jin and became the most solid foundation of the Great Han Empire.