Chapter 2523: Proposal of Raising Troops
"You've seen me. Speak."
"Many Ming officials and gentry abuse their power to bully the common folk—seizing farmers' fields during times of natural disaster, accepting property entrusted by others to evade taxes, encroaching upon sand flats to reclaim new land. The wealthy have paths connecting their vast estates while the poor have not enough ground to plant an awl. These corrupt practices have accumulated for so long that reversing them seems impossible. Emperor Chongzhen shows no concern for the people's survival. Though the Central Plains have suffered years of drought and famine, he continues to increase the Liaodong Supplies tax, driving refugees to rise up across the land. Our Great Song understands the suffering of the people. Upon returning to the Divine Land, we shall practice benevolent governance and reform the accumulated abuses of the previous dynasty. On the fifteenth of this month, a lecture on the New Policy for Land Tax and Land Reform will be held in the auditorium of the Guangzhou National Demonstration School. Old Master, please attend without fail, so that you may educate your clan's children and help them avoid violating the new laws."
"Preaching New Policy" again. Chen Zizhuang's heart sank.
One of the Australians' favorite methods of tormenting the gentry was holding these endless "lectures" and "meetings" every few days. Worse, they demanded the head of household attend personally. If the patriarch was unwilling to come, at least the eldest son or grandson had to appear—they absolutely refused to accept a nephew or concubine-born son as a substitute. Whether you wanted to listen or not, you had to be there. A single lecture could consume half a day or more. The gentry complained bitterly about this ordeal. Those who failed to appear faced fines of tens to hundreds of yuan—a sum that stung considerably now that their incomes had plummeted.
They held the knife; he was the meat on the cutting board. However reluctant, he could only bow his head.
"What new policy does the Great Song have this time?"
"The detailed rules haven't been announced yet. Generally, it concerns land tax, land consolidation, and new laws."
"Tell me, Mr. Lv—how do the laws of the Great Song differ from what came before?" Chen Zizhuang asked.
The question gave Lv Yizhong pause. The differences between the two systems were too numerous to explain in a sentence or two. After a moment's thought, he said, "In short, everyone is equal."
Chen Zizhuang suppressed his emotions. "Very well. I understand. I will certainly attend the meeting. Mr. Lv, you may take your leave."
Lv Yizhong produced two notification letters, left one copy, and had Chen Zizhuang sign the other before departing with it. Only then did Li Suiqiu and the others emerge from hiding.
Chen Zizhuang read the notification aloud and recounted what Lv Yizhong had said. Li Suiqiu mentioned that the Tax Bureau had recently ordered him to report his income, joking that the Senate might as well be called "Ten Thousand Taxes"—a pun on the imperial salutation "Ten Thousand Years." They all understood this was yet another means of suppressing the gentry.
Since taking the city, the Australians had refused to recognize Ming dynasty titles. Exemptions from corvee labor and tax privileges for xiucai, juren, and jinshi—all abolished. No one entrusted property to them anymore. Without this gray income, taking up honest work was unthinkable. They couldn't possibly work in this life; they could only survive by collecting rent from their land. But the "New Land Policy" the Australians had recently begun promoting left them deeply unsettled.
The new land policy had already been gradually implemented in the "security zones" surrounding Guangzhou. For the gentry, it was nothing short of a devastating blow from an entirely different dimension.
Land surveys prevented them from hiding assets. Once the progressive land tax took effect, families with large holdings either had to divide their estates or sell off land. With ordinary people owning their own fields, tenants became harder to find, forcing landlords to lower rents. Fewer poor folk were willing to sell themselves into bondage, and the slave tax made it impossible to maintain large households of servants to lord over others. The economic foundation of the gentry landlord class would crumble entirely. And if a legal system treating everyone as equals followed—wouldn't that mean a superior committing a crime would be punished the same as a junior? The younger generation would no longer fear the authority of their elders.
Li Suiqiu read the Australians' newspapers regularly. Nearly every issue carried reports of corruption in Ming officialdom or officials driving the people to rebellion. Though these new policies damaged his interests severely, he had to admit that the world's wealth was largely concentrated in gentry hands. The Australians extracted wealth methodically; they could fill the national treasury without provoking popular revolt. His friend from the Fu Society, Huang Zongxi, had also criticized the "laws" since the Three Dynasties as merely "laws of one family"—the emperor's family—calling them "unlawful laws" and advocating their replacement with "laws of the world."
A thought flickered unbidden through Li Suiqiu's mind: What if the current Emperor adopted these methods... But he immediately recognized the absurdity. Such measures would sever the very roots of imperial authority. Not implementing them meant waiting for death; implementing them meant hastening it. Either path led to destruction. How bitterly ironic.
"Truly, they are removing the firewood from beneath the cauldron. These Kun thieves are digging up the scholars' very roots!" Chen Bangyan shook his head with a heavy sigh and stepped forward to address Chen Zizhuang. "Master Qiutao, this is the very essence of 'using barbarian ways to transform the Chinese.' The Kun thieves press us with great urgency. Within three years, the words of the sages will vanish from Lingnan, and a foundation built over a millennium will be destroyed in a single day."
Chen Zizhuang's own emotions churned. To rebel meant certain defeat. To remain passive meant sitting in a besieged city of sorrow. But he was a seasoned man, and he shook his head at Chen Bangyan. "Mr. Yanye, your loyal heart can be seen by the sun and moon themselves. But today, time, terrain, and popular support are all against us. An uprising would only add to the meaningless sacrifice."
"Success or failure lies with Heaven!" Chen Bangyan replied. "Whether we match the enemy depends on Momentum!"
Chen Zizhuang asked, "Things have come to this—there is only one fight?"
Everyone understood the situation clearly. The Kun thieves had gradually tightened the noose around their necks. In another three to five years, the gentry who had once commanded wind and rain would be reduced at best to ordinary wealthy men. At the slightest sign of disobedience, the destruction of their families would be a matter of moments.
"If we're to start an uprising, we must have a strategy." Kuang Lu, who had always been fond of military affairs, responded immediately.
"Raising troops means certain death. Do you gentlemen truly have this determination?" Chen Zisheng sneered.
"Raising troops now would indeed be suicide," Chen Bangyan said. "For the present, we can only lie low and await developments. The Court has lost two provinces; in time, it will inevitably take action. We must accumulate our strength and wait for the opportunity to respond."
"I fear that before the court reaches any decision, we will have already been reduced to commoners!" Li Suiqiu smiled bitterly. "What will we have left to respond with then?"
"Not so. After the Kun thieves burned the Wuyang Courier Station, I wrote to the County Magistrate proposing the establishment of Longshan Fort village militia to defend our homeland. Like the Loyalty Battalion, some of our militia were reorganized by the Kun thieves. Among them are my own students—loyal and righteous men, every one. Many Lingnan gentry have suffered encroachment by these thieves. They fear only the Kun thieves' military force; their hearts remain with the Great Ming and can be rallied as allies. Even if we don't raise righteous troops now, we should build broad connections. Once our loyal men have learned the Australian methods of warfare and the time is ripe, we will surely overthrow these overseas barbarians!"
Chen Zizhuang responded immediately. "Since the Kun thieves intend to force us to sell our land through taxation, we might as well take the hint. Sell what must be sold—the silver obtained will serve as pay for soldiers fighting against the Kun."
"We sit in a besieged city of sorrow, not knowing when the Emperor's heavenly troops will descend..." Kuang Lu sighed. He had returned from the capital not long ago and knew the court's chaotic state all too well. "Unless powerful figures in the court push strongly, I fear this matter won't be resolved for three to five years."
"Naturally, we'll have support at court—but we cannot rely on the court alone," Chen Bangyan said. "Someone will arrive from the capital soon. Since you gentlemen are kindred spirits and pillars of our Southern Yue, I will naturally introduce you when the time comes..."
In Guangzhou City, within the conference room of the Political Security Bureau, another Intelligence Exchange Meeting was convening.
Since the Triad Grand Alliance incident at Caohe, the Political Security Bureau had internally concluded that a large-scale riot was highly likely to occur within the old Guangzhou Prefecture in the near term. Relevant work had therefore accelerated. Today's meeting focused on a key issue: the gentry.
After the Senate had moved north to Guangzhou, they had fought wars, suppressed bandits, dealt with plague, handled witchcraft cases—all while engaging in a battle of wits with the city's gentry. The Senators juggled ten thousand matters daily. Those figures who hadn't caused much trouble in ordinary times naturally received little attention. Yet every dynasty produced individuals famed for their integrity, and the Three Loyalists of Lingnan were precisely this type. Although they hadn't yet openly broken with the Senate, dust doesn't sweep itself away. Various signs indicated these men were more or less active behind the scenes.
Though time and space had shifted, a person's temperament and the social education they received remained unchanged—which meant their choices when facing the tides of history wouldn't change either. Some Senators believed these men could be influenced and pacified, but Wu Mu disagreed. If they were people who could be pacified or bought, they wouldn't have raised the banner of opposing the Qing in the original timeline. Besides, the Great Qing's treatment of the gentry had been far gentler than the Senate's.
Lin Baiguang flipped through the materials in his hand. "So the 'Two Loyalists' among the Three Loyalists of Lingnan have met. What about Zhang Jiayu?"
Mu Min replied, "The title 'Three Loyalists of Lingnan' was bestowed by later generations—it doesn't mean these three men had any connection at present. This should be Chen Bangyan's first meeting with Chen Zizhuang. Zhang Jiayu is only twenty-two by nominal reckoning this year, a full twelve-year cycle younger than Chen Bangyan, Li Suiqiu, and Kuang Lu, and twenty years younger than Chen Zizhuang. Moreover, Zhang Jiayu's grandfather and father were both commoners, and his home is in Dongguan. He moves in different circles than the wealthy and powerful Guangzhou families like the Li, Chen, and Kuang clans. Originally, he should have become a juren this year, but with our arrival, his credentials will freeze at the level of xiucai. In other words, he's unlikely to enter this circle of wealthy elites. His future path holds great uncertainty."
Wu Mu spoke up. "I heard Du Yibin spotted Zhang Jiayu on the flower boat during the collective wedding. Later, Fatty Cui arranged to meet Brother Zhang at the Temple of the Five Immortals and filled his head with new ideas. He's young, receptive to new concepts, and personally capable. Apparently he's already joined the Shen'ao Learning Society that Du Yibin established—many intellectuals seeking to join us have applied for membership. We still lack educated men, especially intellectuals like Zhang Jiayu who are willing to embrace new ideas. Rather than letting him follow Chen Zizhuang and the others into trouble, we should put him to work for us. It also helps create division in their ranks."
"Didn't Li Suiqiu also go to the Temple of the Five Immortals?" Liu Xiang asked. "Seems Fatty Cui's charm wasn't enough—he couldn't bend Li to our side."
Lin Baiguang set down his materials. "Li Suiqiu is already in his thirties. You can't view him through twenty-first century eyes. Don't you know that historically, when Chen Bangyan wrote to the thirty-three-year-old Zhang Jiayu, he addressed him as 'Old Master'?"
(End of Chapter)