Chapter 490 - Census and Catching Vagrants

Fu Yousan's household suffered devastating punishment. The entire farmstead was confiscated—land, grain, livestock, and people alike—and an equivalent area of registered Fu family fields was seized as well. The village's former wealthiest man found himself reduced to fewer than fifty mu, barely the holdings of a middling peasant household.

Not long afterward, Fu Yousan went mad. His fortune lay in ruins, and with it collapsed his patriarchal authority. The resentment his three sons had accumulated over years of oppression finally erupted. With no inheritance left to pursue, none of them paid any further attention to Fu Yousan's tyrannical posturing. Fu Erzhuang and Sanzhuang simply took their wives and children, departed Meiyang Village, and traveled to Bairun City to seek employment as workers. Fu Yizhuang abandoned the old man in the backyard, providing only the bare minimum of food and drink while otherwise ignoring his existence.

For Fu Buer, the land verification yielded tremendous benefit. The collapse of the Fu Yousan household elevated him to the throne of the village's wealthiest man. Moreover, following Wu De's instructions, Wang Ruixiang had been directed to cultivate new interest groups within the village as cornerstones of the emerging regime. A rural small landlord like Fu Buer—willing to embrace new ideas and possessed of strong ambition—represented an ideal target for recruitment. Accordingly, great favor was shown to him. Not only was his banquet invitation accepted, but at the celebration, it was announced that the county yamen would present him with a plaque reading "Devoted to Public Service and Law-Abiding." Fu Buer's face flushed with excitement—such an honor was rare indeed, perhaps enjoyed by few in the entire county.

Beyond honor, there were more tangible rewards: Wang Ruixiang issued a special permit exempting him from one year of Divine Society service fees.

Fu Buer's standing in the village soared immediately. The villagers came to regard him as the Australians' representative in the community, and he quickly became a man whose word carried weight. He also became, of course, one of the transmigrator group's most devoted local agents.

Subsequent surveying work in neighboring villages proceeded far more smoothly. News of Meiyang Village's events spread rapidly. Everyone now knew the Australians possessed "iron birds" soaring through the sky with "Thousand-Li Eyes" that missed nothing. Many who had concealed holdings during the declaration period grew deeply uneasy.

Wang Ruixiang capitalized on this anxiety, dispatching teams everywhere to publicize the "voluntary surrender" policy. Any household that had concealed land during the self-declaration phase could secure leniency by coming promptly to the work team to "confess broadly." Those discovered through investigation would not merely forfeit the concealed land—double the amount would be seized.

The moment this announcement spread, an endless stream of households descended upon the work team's station to "surrender." Wang Ruixiang found this deeply satisfying. No longer did he need to venture out to thunder and threaten those wretched souls—the work was mentally exhausting. Now he could focus on another priority: the census.

Exactly how large was Lingao County's population? This was a question no one in the county could answer with confidence. According to the Yellow Registers retrieved from the Household Office, the county contained 6,231 registered households, of which 4,795 were civilian households. The remainder consisted of military households, corvée households, horse station households, and various other categories, each bearing different tax and labor obligations. The total recorded population stood at 33,282, with males accounting for more than two-thirds and women numbering barely over 4,000.

This figure strained credulity. While local population was admittedly sparse, daily observation suggested numbers far exceeding the official count. Clearly, a substantial number of "hidden households" existed.

Wu De specifically consulted Zhou Qi on the matter. Zhou Qi confirmed their suspicions: numerous hidden households existed, primarily to evade taxes and labor service. As for the population figures in the county yamen's records—they were essentially worthless. The numbers published in these Yellow Registers were statistics from the seventh year of Zhengde.

"Ever since the Single Whip Method was implemented during the Wanli reign, with grain taxes collected and transported by officials rather than through the li-jia system," Zhou Qi explained, "these Yellow Registers have served no practical purpose. Supposedly they are revised every ten years, later supposedly every year, but since the records are useless for either tax collection or conscripting labor, the Household Office simply copies the previous year's numbers and makes rough estimates." He flipped to several registers at the back for Wu De to examine. Remarkably, one bore the date of the tenth year of Tianqi—clearly "pre-fabricated." This administrative approach elicited a rueful laugh from Wu De. Certain bureaucratic pathologies, it seemed, were truly inherited across dynasties.

"I see." Wu De nodded. "It would be wise to restore these Yellow Registers properly."

"Yes, yes," Zhou Qi agreed, privately wondering what purpose restoring the Yellow Registers could possibly serve. The system had long been a mere formality.

With Zhou Qi's experience, he could not yet grasp the significance of a genuine census. Another crucial institution the transmigrator group planned to establish—the household registration system—likewise required a census as its foundation. The Ming Dynasty's household registration system had once been rigorously maintained, but by this era it had deteriorated into shambles. The transmigrator group intended to transplant a system that had proven effective in another timeline.

Implementing a new household registration system would inevitably require establishing a grassroots administrative structure—a prolonged undertaking consuming vast quantities of manpower and resources. To rapidly assess the county's population status and advance the next phase of the population development plan, the Executive Committee decided against an immediate countywide rollout of household registration. Instead, they would conduct a census first. For this purpose, they created a population card system. Registration was individual. Each card recorded only name, birth date, gender, education level, ethnicity, occupation, and residence. Every card bore a unique twelve-digit number, laying the groundwork for a future identity card system. Originally, photographs were to be affixed, but since mass printing of photos remained impractical, fingerprint collection was substituted. Based on the collected cards, village-level population registers would be compiled for reference.

The census in Meiyang Village and several neighboring villages was nearing completion. Leveraging the fearsome reputation of the "Iron Bird" and "Thousand-Li Eye," this census proceeded with remarkable smoothness. Not a single person dared evade registration. Rumor held that anyone who failed to register and was spotted by the Thousand-Li Eye would be seized for "labor reform."

In truth, the Thousand-Li Eye had observed other things. During aerial reconnaissance to investigate Meiyang Village's concealed fields, Wang Ruixiang had discovered additional features in the imagery: temporary shacks and small cultivated plots scattered deep in the hills. In one photograph, he even glimpsed a ragged, unkempt man staring upward, mouth agape in astonishment.

"Vagrants, is it? Not an easy existence, hiding in such remote places." Wang Ruixiang muttered to himself as he plotted the distribution of shacks on the map. He would provide this to Huang Ande and task him with leading a team to "catch vagrants."

So-called "catching vagrants" constituted another dimension of census work. "Vagrants" in the county referred to two distinct categories. The first consisted of foreign refugees scattered across the wilderness, eking out survival by reclaiming small patches of wasteland. Most of these refugees originated from the Fujian and Guangdong coasts, with some from Vietnam. To evade government taxes and corvée, they dispersed into uninhabited hill country and mountains, clearing tiny plots to grow minor crops. They passed their days without adequate clothing or sufficient food, barely scraping by. When opportunity presented itself, they also stole from nearby villages or banded together for robbery.

The second category comprised the "loafers" common to every larger village—individuals engaged in no honest labor, subsisting on petty theft. Some also colluded with bandits for "major business" such as robbery and kidnapping.

The transmigrator group held that permitting this situation to continue was, first, a waste of labor, and second, a source of social instability. Therefore, concurrent with the census, a unified operation was conducted to collect and arrest both types. The former would be processed through immigrant procedures and distributed to communes; the latter would be exiled to labor reform camps for compulsory hard labor.

"Quite a considerable number of 'black people' out there." Wang Ruixiang studied the speckled marks on the map, wondering how many more such settlements remained undiscovered. Some had been located during reconnaissance operations by long-range exploration teams and special recon units, but the undetected ones surely represented the majority. The number of population cards registered in Meiyang Village alone exceeded Household Office figures by approximately eighty—across hundreds of villages in the county, how many such unregistered households might there be? Lingao's population potential, it seemed, was far from exhausted.

"Ensure you capture every last one," Wang Ruixiang instructed, holding Huang Ande's gaze. "You have only ten men. You cannot afford to alert anyone during the arrests, or they'll scatter, and the operation becomes considerably more troublesome. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!" Huang Ande replied crisply. He already had a draft plan for capturing them—surprise attack tactics. During his time as a Ming soldier, he had heard veterans who served in Liaodong speak of their fears: first, open field battles; second, serving as night sentries. Standing guard on enemy towers in pitch darkness, if Tartars crept up silently—one either lost one's head or was taken alive.

In the NCO training program, he had mastered new weapons and new tactics that neither the Ming army nor the Tartars possessed. Huang Ande was eager to test these Australian surprise attack methods and see how effective they truly were.

After receiving his orders, Huang Ande assembled his squad. He currently served as an infantry squad leader; his deputy was his longtime comrade Qian Duo. Qian Duo possessed mediocre abilities—adequate in all respects—and had attained corporal rank as deputy squad leader largely through seniority as the army expanded.

Conducting a pre-battle meeting before any action—assigning tasks, discussing details, boosting morale—these were standard procedures in the Australian army. Huang Ande had initially considered them superfluous. Soldiers simply needed to charge in formation with swords and spears, did they not?

He discovered that the Australian military particularly valued "subjective initiative" in soldiers and junior officers. While emphasizing obedience to orders and discipline, they also expected personnel to develop independent views on how to fight more effectively and the capability to handle unexpected situations.

Over time, he came to appreciate the benefits. In any circumstance, soldiers knew what they should do—rather than standing dumbfounded or scattering in a panicked swarm.

(End of Chapter)