Chapter 196 Another Decision

In the spring of the ninth year of Jianyan, during the Lantern Festival, Zhao Guan officially declared on Phoenix Mountain that he was still putting the country first, and wholeheartedly adhered to the grand strategy of the Northern Expedition… Of course, among the common people in the southeast, the rumor was that Zhao Guan, wielding his sword and composing poetry, had intimidated the powerful households… But regardless, shortly after the Lantern Festival, the most important part of Zhao Guan's southern tour, the tax reform centered on never increasing taxes and merging the Ding into the Mu, officially crossed the most difficult mountain and achieved a phased victory.

The most culturally rich, and also the core of the so-called southeastern region, the Liangzhe and Jiangnan East circuits officially completed the Tuduan (registration of unregistered households) and land survey work targeting the powerful households. The relevant reforms were first completed among the powerful households.

And also during the spring plowing season, Zhao Guan, still stationed on Phoenix Mountain, issued another official decree, pointing out two major events… The first was a clear decree to the chief executives and senior officials of the Secret Pavilion in Tokyo, as well as the commanders and commanding officers of the Imperial Guards in various places, which finally finalized the final military expansion plan.

The decree was clear and unambiguous: military expansion would begin immediately, and by autumn of this year, the Imperial Guards' Front, Rear, Left, Right, Central, Cavalry, and Naval armies must reach their full strength of 300,000!

Although the decree did not reveal the final number of personnel, it could not be concealed from those who were interested—judging from the logistics and the scale of conscription in various places, the vast majority of the newly added personnel were still assigned to Han Shizhong's Imperial Guards Left Army, Wu Jie's Imperial Guards Rear Army, Li Yanxian's Shanzhou-Hedong Army, which was actually in charge and nominally belonged to the Imperial Guards Central Army, and Qu Duan's Imperial Guards Cavalry Army.

Obviously, this official had finally made up his mind to open up the situation from Hedong's strategic location.

Everyone had expected this for a long time, after all, it was an objective need of military strategy, but this deadline showed that Zhao Guan's determination for the Northern Expedition remained unchanged, and the original timetable had not changed either.

In other words, with Zhao Guan's visible 'success' in this southern tour, the pace of the Northern Expedition was getting closer and closer.

In fact, Zhao Guan's second decree was to formally promote tax reform on a large scale in the southeast.

This second decree, together with the document from Lu Yihao, the envoy to the southeast and the strategist of Liangzhe Circuit, was sent to various surrounding prefectures and counties in the southeast, requiring the Jiangnan West, Lianghuai, and Fujian circuits to carry out similar reforms after the spring plowing.

In the decree, Zhao Guan almost frankly pointed out that the original intention of this reform was that the Jingkang Incident led to the emptiness of the national treasury, and there was no money or food to support the army and the Northern Expedition, so taxes were increased in the southeast and Jingxiang; and although the tax increase in the southeast and Jingxiang had made indelible contributions to national stability and the upcoming Northern Expedition, it had also increased the burden on the poor at the bottom; and since ancient times, when people could not make a living, they would rebel, with Fang La in the past and Zhong Xiang in the present, one after another, which must be taken seriously.

Therefore, on the occasion of the Northern Expedition's grand strategy about to be completed, it is necessary to complete the financial reform in the southeast region with the heaviest taxes, so that the people at the bottom can have a chance to breathe, before further plans can be made.

Now, the Liangzhe and Jiangnan East circuits have all implemented reforms, and there are generally observable results, indicating that this matter is indeed feasible, so it should be promoted in the remaining four circuits to reassure the people and stabilize the country.

As for anyone who dares to harbor selfish motives and abandon public affairs, use their power to perfunctorily deal with local problems, or even procrastinate and resist openly or secretly, they will be severely punished and executed without mercy.

As soon as the decree was issued, and with the official gazette of Tokyo and the temporary ten-day publication of Phoenix Mountain being distributed to the world, the country was in turmoil for a time, and everyone was frightened.

Immediately afterwards, after the spring plowing was over and the decree was issued, Tokyo once again sent an envoy to Phoenix Mountain to greet the official, request the official's return to the capital, and report on the major and minor affairs experienced by the court since the official's southern tour last year, as well as the results of the chief executives' joint judgment in the Secret Pavilion, requesting the official's review.

However, Zhao Guan publicly issued another decree, on the one hand, praising the several chief executives and all the important officials of the Secret Pavilion for their hard work in staying in Tokyo, and for handling matters properly; on the other hand, he publicly replied that he would continue to stay on Phoenix Mountain, waiting for the implementation of the new policies in the surrounding circuits, to prevent chaos in the southeast.

It also had a bit of an attitude of enjoying the pleasures of this place and not thinking of Shu.

The authorities in Tokyo had no choice but to maintain smooth communication between the two places, while striving to put pressure on and assist the local authorities, repeatedly urging them to cooperate with Zhao Guan's financial reform, and sending supervisory officials to inspect the local areas, as well as sending people to the nearby Lianghuai to assist in the establishment of public pavilions.

In this way, Zhao Guan remained in the southeast to oversee the situation, and then, from late spring onwards, gradually entering summer, as the surrounding circuits began to implement the new policies, situations emerged as expected.

For example, the Lianghuai Circuit, whose economic volume was not inferior to that of Liangzhe and Jiangdong, and which was considered northern from the south and southeastern from the Central Plains, did not experience any serious resistance behavior as imagined in this process.

This was not only because Wang Gui's Wuwei Army was stationed between the Jiang and Huai rivers, but also because the people of Lianghuai had witnessed the events in Jiangnan across the river, and were mentally prepared for it.

In addition, Lianghuai was still relatively close to Tokyo, and had always been politically obedient to the central government, and belonged to the core ruling area of the imperial court. The envoys of the Lianghuai Circuit and the officials close to the people in large prefectures such as Yangzhou, Shouzhou, Bozhou, and Luzhou were also mostly confidants directly appointed by the chief executives of the imperial court or Zhao Guan, so the implementation was extremely effective.

However, the most important point was that the Jingkang War had personally affected the Huai River area, there was displacement in Huaibei, and Huainan had also jointly supported the operations on the Huai River… Moreover, Huaixi and Huaidong were both former garrison areas of the imperial guards. Han Shizhong and Zhang Jun's official positions when Zhao Guan was stationed in Nanyang were the Pacification Commissioner of Huaixi and the Pacification Commissioner of Huaidong respectively… From the beginning, the gentry and people of Lianghuai understood the authority of the imperial court and the power of the imperial guards.

What's more, before the new policy, there was also the implication that the imperial guards would be expanded to prepare for the Northern Expedition?

Under such circumstances, how dare Lianghuai really cause trouble?

However, as the saying goes, extremes meet.

Although there were no obvious acts of resistance in Lianghuai, some things were done too excessively, especially in Huaixi, where local officials harassed and even took the opportunity to exploit local wealthy households… And this situation, after the establishment of public pavilions in Lianghuai, quickly aroused backlash. The local powerful households, using the public pavilions as an organizational form, contacted supervisory officials, and even directly sued Tokyo, targeting the local government.

For a time, the two sides were at loggerheads, and there was a pile of messes.

It can only be said that Liu Dazhong was right on the mark that day, and a situation had already begun in Lianghuai where powerful households were using the public pavilions to compete with the government.

If this continues for a long time, I am afraid that structural problems will form.

In comparison, the Jiangnan West Circuit was more straightforward.

In Pengli Lake (later Poyang Lake), there were figures who combined witchcraft, local bullies, and water bandits who contacted each other to rebel, falsely claiming to be Zhong Xiang and Yang Mo, calling themselves the Great Sage Equaling Heaven, and quickly swept through several prefectures and counties, and also shouted slogans to go down the river, break through Phoenix Mountain, and capture Zhao Guan alive. At the same time, the southern region of Qianzhou, which had finally stabilized but had a tradition of rebellion, also began to cause trouble, and the Qian bandits appeared for the third time after the Jingkang period.

One Pengli wizard and water bandit, and one Qianzhou Miao village bandit, one in the south and one in the north, immediately formed a scale in Jiangxi.

Of course, the imperial court was really prepared this time. Wang Gui of the Wuwei Army immediately went upstream along the river, entered Pengli Lake via Jiangzhou, and at the same time, Guo Zhongxun's reserve soldiers of the Imperial Guards did not hesitate to immediately set out from the northern part of Qianzhou and launched the second campaign to encircle and suppress the Qian bandits.

What's more, as early as the end of spring, Liu Qi's army had begun to gradually disperse northward in the name of letting the soldiers take leave to return to the Yellow River, but waited for orders in the Chizhou area without crossing the river. At this time, they directly assembled and went west.

As a result, the former spent seventeen days, and the latter spent twenty-three days, and the two rebellions were directly resolved before the arrival of midsummer.

Then, Liu Qi's troops really went north to return to the Yellow River, and Wang Gui's troops also directly returned north after the war to await orders. As for Phoenix Mountain, it opened its doors to Guo Zhongxun's troops who had pacified Qianzhou… Guo Zhongxun's 10,000 troops were carefully selected and eliminated, half of the weak soldiers continued to stay in Qianzhou, and the other half took advantage of the situation to turn to Hangzhou and gather in front of the imperial carriage.

Of course, with the complete end of the military clean-up work, the Tuduan (registration of unregistered households) and land survey in Jiangxi naturally also unfolded completely and forcefully.

As for Fujian Circuit, it was different from both Jiangxi and Lianghuai.

First of all, Fujian Circuit, like Lianghuai, had witnessed the reforms in Liangzhe and the southeast, and was equally aware of the situation. Moreover, the literati in Fujian at this time generally had extremely high achievements. Almost every prefecture had famous literati who could call on their villages and even plan and prepare early. At the same time, don't forget that Fujian Circuit was the most severely exploited by the population tax, and Zhao Guan's new policies were the most liberating for them.

However, precisely because Fujian was crisscrossed by mountains, the local clan forces in this place were almost uniquely powerful in the era.

All kinds of situations ultimately led to an unexpected direction in the new policy reform in Fujian Circuit—the problem was not how the powerful households resisted the state, nor was it the intense conflicts between the government and the public pavilions, and there were not many real rebellions. The problem was that huge regional conflicts arose between different places due to land survey and Tuduan (registration of unregistered households) issues.

What are land survey and Tuduan (registration of unregistered households) for? Of course, it is for the fair distribution of tax quotas.

However, when the results of the land survey and Tuduan (registration of unregistered households) were compared with the original total amount according to the region, and inevitable differences arose, those more or less differences, coupled with the unchanging total amount due to the promise of never increasing taxes, led to a considerable number of people believing that they had encountered unfairness.

Those who had less to pay naturally felt that they had overpaid for hundreds of years, and those who had more to pay naturally felt aggrieved.

As a result, conflicts often arose between prefectures and prefectures, between cities and villages, between cities and cities, and between villages and villages over the distribution of tax amounts of several hundred strings, dozens of strings, or even several strings or several coins.

And this kind of dispute could still be mediated and allocated between the prefecture level and the city, or it could still be handled with official documents, and the decisions of superiors could still be listened to. However, as the upper and middle levels gradually smoothed things over and the differences were delegated to the grassroots level, especially when they reached the village level, they suddenly went out of control due to the emergence of large-scale armed fights.

This was certainly an extremely serious problem, and its destructiveness was no less than the rebellion in neighboring Jiangxi before. But precisely in the face of this situation, everyone above and below did not know how to deal with it for a while… First of all, everyone was just fighting internally, not really raising flags to rebel against the Song Dynasty, and they didn't even touch the county seat. You can't say that you directly transfer Guo Zhongxun and Yang Yizhong's troops to suppress them, right?

But if you only count them as vicious cases and let the local government try them, I'm afraid that won't work either… Because, this kind of grassroots armed fight is chaotic and protective, where do the cases and criminals come from? And what is the use of the few constables in the county government in front of hundreds or thousands of armed youths in the villages? What kind of enforcement power do they have?

Therefore, everyone above and below watched helplessly as Fujian Circuit fell into a strange overall chaos because of this matter.

For a time, Zhao Guan, who had previously been complacent because of the obedience of Lianghuai and the quick resolution of Jiangxi, was also dumbfounded on Phoenix Mountain, and could only hurriedly follow Li Gang's suggestion to send Xu Jingheng, Liu Dazhong, Fan Zongyin, Mei Li, and others as the 'Investigation Team on Behalf of the Emperor' to various places in Fujian to mediate, and hurriedly asked officials from Fujian in various places… Those who were close directly returned to Fujian to maintain stability, and those who were far away had to quickly write letters to go back to guide them.

But to be honest, at this time, this official had already sensed that something was wrong, because he could probably see that the problem in Fujian Circuit was not only the most unexpected, but also actually the most serious and the most difficult. Because first, its scale was far beyond imagination, and almost the entire grassroots level in Fujian was in chaos; second, the place where the incident occurred, or rather the class in which it occurred, was simply an area that the central power of this feudal era could not effectively reach… In other words, he, Zhao Guan, simply had no way to use his strength.

In fact, it was true.

As a series of reports from all sides turned back, they all stated that this bewildering grassroots turmoil in Fujian not only seriously delayed production, but also caused drastic social unrest and created a series of local conflicts.

What was even more fatal was that by the time Zhao Jiu received the message that the local situation in Fujian was gradually stabilizing, summer was almost over… And this meant that the summer tax collection work in Fujian Circuit had been severely damaged on a large scale.

Even the autumn tax could not be guaranteed!

And don't forget, why did Zhao Jiu make a southern tour and carry out this reform? Wasn't it just to unite people's hearts before the Northern Expedition, so that the people in the south could be a little more stable before the Northern Expedition and stand side by side to the north?

Then why could he carry out the Northern Expedition?

Wasn't it just because he saw this fiscal budget and estimated that it would be in place this year?

But now, you can't collect the entire summer tax of a circuit, and even the autumn tax can't be collected. Not to mention that Jiangxi has also been affected to a certain extent. Then what are you going to use to carry out the Northern Expedition?

And is Jiangnan stable or not?

This turmoil fundamentally shook Zhao Guan's entire strategic line.

Poor Zhao Guan, since his debut, has prided himself on suppressing warlords, sweeping away rebellions, recovering the Central Plains, overthrowing the Two Sages, shooting Wanyan Loushi with arrows, forcing Yelu Dashi, taking over Xixia, opening public pavilions, connecting the Western Regions, establishing original schools, extracting gold from the mouths of Japanese emperors, earning silver from Korean Confucian officials, asking Dali for copper mines, engaging in rice production in Nan Yue, fighting side by side with Yue Fei and Han Shizhong, and talking and laughing with Li Gang and Lu Haowen… Turning around, he could also count crows on Phoenix Mountain, make black dragon boats to sweep West Lake, wield his sword and compose poetry to suppress the southeast, beat up powerful households and despise Taoists at the martial arts conference, but he never expected that he would suddenly fall headlong into the local brawls in Fujian.

It was simply a great joke.

But this was not the end. As summer was about to pass, and just as the turmoil in Fujian was gradually stabilizing and Zhao Guan was hesitating whether or not to return to Tokyo, another bad news… or rather a visible phenomenon appeared.

Zhao Guan saw clearly on Phoenix Mountain that the entire southeast began to rain heavily in late summer and continued to rain.

In fact, in early summer in April, the southeast had already begun to have a little too much rain. At that time, some local officials told Lu Yihao that the silk production this year might be slightly damaged.

But it was only slightly, not a disaster. And right now, it was similar… Saying it was a disaster was a bit alarmist, but this round of rain did affect the autumn harvest in Liangzhe Circuit.

This made Zhao Jiu rarely panic, and it also made Lu Yihao panic, and local officials also panicked… Because everyone was not stupid, they all knew that the imperial guards would have 300,000 troops after autumn, and they all knew that the summer tax in Fujian Circuit had gone wrong. What if the autumn harvest in the southeast suffered a disaster?

In a panic, some people couldn't hold their breath and took the initiative to report to Zhao Guan, suggesting that Zhao Guan worship heaven and earth and pray for sunny days.

Zhao Jiu tore up this memorial on the spot.

About less than a day after tearing it up, the rain in West Lake was still falling, and an envoy from Tokyo arrived on a routine visit… Throughout the ninth year of Jianyan, envoys would arrive every month, and they were generally senior officials of the Secret Pavilion at the level of Vice Minister… This time was no exception. It was Liu Hongdao, the Vice Minister of the Ministry of War and the Director of Waterways.

But to be honest, Liu Hongdao was responsible for the Yellow River issue. At this time, unless there was something important within his duty, there was no need to come as this envoy… Sure enough, after arriving at Phoenix Mountain, meeting Zhao Guan, and explaining all kinds of affairs in Tokyo and local military affairs, he first mentioned a troublesome matter.

"The Yellow River waterway?" Zhao Jiu frowned.

"Yes." Liu Hongdao responded seriously. "Specifically, the waterway around Shanzhou, there is a pillar in the middle of the river… Not referring to Li Dutong, but a real pillar in the middle of the river…" (Li Yanxian's nickname was 'Pillar of the Mid-stream'.)

"I know… Haven't there been problems in the past?" Zhao Jiu looked at the drizzle outside the old palace with his hands behind his back, and interrupted the other party impatiently.

"I didn't say there was a problem, but now that we are preparing for the Northern Expedition, a large amount of military supplies is being transported to Guanxi, and the river channel there is inevitably a bit stretched." Liu Hongdao still responded seriously.

"That's true." Zhao Jiu nodded repeatedly. "There's no way around it…"

"Actually, there is a way." Liu Hongdao quickly continued to explain. "Before I came, Minister Hu of the Ministry of Works discussed it with me… In fact, we can rebuild the plank road in the Yellow River from the Tang Dynasty… The area around Shanzhou happens to have both the north and south sides of the Yellow River in our hands, which is completely feasible."

"But how long will it take to build a plank road?" Zhao Jiu frowned even more.

"If we use gunpowder, it can be done quickly." Liu Hongdao responded earnestly. "We have tried it in Tokyo before. Drilling holes and using medicine can completely blast rocks and open roads… But a large amount of gunpowder must be decided by the official, so we came here specifically… Official, if we can quickly open up the plank road, not only can military supplies arrive in Guanxi in time, but also during the war, we can speed up the transportation of materials from the southeast to the Hedong battlefield. It is related to the smooth logistics, and I think it is still worth it."

Zhao Jiu instinctively opened his mouth to speak, but for some reason, he hesitated for a moment and did not give a reply. Instead, he was distracted by something and stood silently inside the door, looking at the old palace in silence.

However, looking out of the palace at this time, Phoenix Mountain with its lush vegetation, the Leifeng Pagoda with its distant posture, and the misty West Lake were all shrouded in the summer rain.

Zhao Jiu knew in his heart that it was time to make a decision again… But this time the decision was really extraordinary, it was really important, so that even though he thought he had made all kinds of preparations, he still hesitated and shrank back before the event.

ps: Thanks to the rabbit for the cute, thanks to the watermelon for the cute, thanks to Narbu for the cute, and continue to wish everyone an early New Year.