Early in the morning, Yao Xishui and Yun Puzi escorted Li Yu, whose physical condition was extremely poor, toward Guangde Fortress first.
Zhang Ping and Feng Yi had left early in the morning for Langxi to see Gu Zhilong. Han Qian left Zhao Wuji to lead the cavalry camp in coordination with the five thousand elite troops under Lin Haizheng’s command to rest and reorganize at Nantang Fortress. In the morning, he wrote a letter and dispatched it via secret courier at maximum speed to Yueyang. Before noon, surrounded by his guard battalion, he rushed back to the ruined Guangde City without stopping, catching up around dusk with Yao Xishui and her party who had left in the morning, about six or seven li west of the ruined Guangde City.
Han Qian slowed his pace, holding the reins, riding parallel to the carriages carrying Li Yu, Yun Puzi, and Yao Xishui.
Although the Chishan Army’s dependents had withdrawn south of Jieling Mountain at maximum speed, the evacuation into the Fuyu Mountains was not proceeding quickly, nor could it be too hasty. At this time, around the ruined Guangde City, there were still large numbers of temporary camps set up everywhere, filled with ragged, sallow-faced women and children.
Although village officials took the lead, with members of the women’s camp and youth camp scattered among and organized into units with the dependent slaves, the various shabby camps large and small could maintain basic order without descending into chaos. But the weakness brought by long-term hunger, the exhaustion brought by long journeys, and the confusion about the future—or rather, numbness—were all immediately apparent.
Upon entering the ruined Guangde City (Guangde Fortress), Yun Puzi also saw that the Chishan Army’s Third Division troops stationed inside and outside Guangde Fortress had such crude armor and weapons. Most of the soldiers were ragged and quite frail, utterly incomparable to the most elite Chishan Army First Division, and also significantly inferior to the Chishan Army Second Division under Division Commander Gao Shao.
This directly reflected the scarcity of the Chishan Army’s material supplies.
The difficult predicament Han Qian faced was actually more severe than they had imagined.
Just as Li Yu had said, the Qiuhu Army truly couldn’t become so disheartened just because Han Qian had led them by the nose a few times.
Ten years ago, Guangde City had been destroyed by the flames of war. The rammed earth city walls had countless breaches smashed open by trebuchets that very year. After the county was abolished, no one repaired the city walls. After all these years of wind, sun, and torrential rain, they had become even more dilapidated and ruined, like sections of earthen mounds overgrown with dense weeds, with forest birds occasionally taking flight.
“Lord Han’s use of strategy truly ranks among the top three to five. Consider how thoroughly satisfying the Chuzhou Army’s great victory at Jingshan Nunnery was, yet they still don’t dare test Lord Han’s actual strength.” Yun Puzi couldn’t help but strike up conversation with Han Qian as they entered the city.
Han Qian smiled faintly, having no intention of engaging with this former监军使 (supervisory commissioner) of the Shengzhou Military Commissioner’s Office. The meaning behind Yun Puzi’s words was nothing more than saying he was bluffing—fierce in appearance but weak inside, actually vulnerable at the first blow.
If they wanted to think this way to make themselves feel better, he’d let them.
Inside the ruined city, the people living and surviving there had not abandoned it. Over these years, quite a few houses had been newly built. The population density was not as great as before, and vegetable gardens had been cultivated in the open spaces. Mulberry and jujube trees planted along the streets and alleys that could still be traced to their former appearance were now thick with green shade, cicadas and insects loudly chirping.
The residence arranged for Li Yu’s convalescence belonged to a wealthy household that had already fled with their entire family before the Chishan Army arrived. The three-courtyard compound appeared elegant among the surrounding streets and alleys. In the courtyard stood a several-hundred-year-old ginkgo tree. In midsummer, the courtyard remained shaded and cool, not at all sweltering.
Han Qian bid farewell at the front of the compound after delivering Li Yu there. Li Yu struggled to prop himself up and said: “Defeat lies in the hearts of the people, and so does success.”
“The Prince speaks most truly,” Han Qian said, cupping his hands.
Yao Xishui looked suspiciously between Li Yu and Han Qian, unable to guess what subtle points they were exchanging.
Watching the carriages of Li Yu’s party enter the residence, Feng Liao, who had come out of the fortress to welcome Han Qian and had accompanied them in delivering Li Yu to the residence, said with considerable emotion: “The Prince sees most clearly indeed. It’s a great pity his physical condition is so poor—I fear he won’t survive this summer and autumn. Otherwise, in the current chaotic times, the future prospects of the Li clan would be immeasurable! This is truly Heaven’s misfortune for the Li clan!”
Han Qian smiled faintly, not picking up Feng Liao’s conversational thread. He listened as Feng Liao, Ji Xiyao, Zhou Chu and others reported on the situation at Guangde Fortress during the days he had been away.
Guangde City had been destroyed in the eighth year of Tianyou by the flames of war between the Chuzhou Army and Prince Yue Dong Chang’s forces. Afterward, Guangde county had been abolished.
The main region of old Guangde county was located between Fuyu Mountain and Jieling Mountain, with a depth of about sixty li.
Apart from the high hills on both sides, although the valley between the two mountains was extremely broad, covering an area of over 1.5 million mu, as extensions of the mountain ridges on both sides—or perhaps because it was located on a terrain fold belt—this area was especially uneven. Throughout the valley, low hills of varying heights from ten-some meters to thirty or forty meters stretched endlessly, or ravines and gullies several meters or ten-some meters deep crisscrossed densely throughout the valley interior.
This meant that in this large expanse of seemingly flat valley, there was very little land that could be cultivated.
Although ancient Yue people had lived and multiplied here as early as before the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, over these two to three thousand years, current preliminary estimates showed only about two hundred thousand mu of arable land. Including local magnates and landlords, slaves, tenant farmers, and small independent farmers, the entire territory had approximately only twenty-five thousand people.
Xuzhou county had a population of about thirty thousand people. The population scale of southwestern jimi prefecture-counties like Chenzhou and Sizhou was even smaller—some had populations of only ten thousand or so. But in the land of fish and rice south of the Yangtze, old Guangde county’s population scale was considerably small.
Therefore, after Guangde county seat was destroyed, the court simply divided old Guangde county between Langxi and Anji counties, saving the expense of rebuilding the ruined Guangde City.
After Han Qian gained control of all of old Guangde county territory, his first step was to have Feng Liao and Ji Xiyao temporarily administer Guangde county affairs.
Although so many women, children, and elderly were being evacuated to Fuyu Mountain, this didn’t mean leaving them unattended. In fact, several times more meticulous care was needed for these elderly, weak, women and children than before, to avoid large-scale famine and epidemics.
This required people skilled in administrative affairs like Feng Liao and Ji Xiyao to invest even more energy to cover all aspects without too many gaps. At the same time, Han Qian also had Feng Liao and Ji Xiyao begin preliminary land distribution work in old Guangde county.
Fulfilling his initial promise of land grants to conscripted slaves who enlisted was one aspect. Avoiding by any means possible the Chishan Army’s degeneration into a refugee army by having a foothold was another aspect. But most importantly, under the current extremely harsh material supply conditions, maintaining cohesion among the people and ensuring morale didn’t plummet required giving everyone hope of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
The enlisted slaves were so weak, so vulnerable, so ragged—yet they also had an advantage easily overlooked by the world: these lowest, most humble slaves, as long as they were given hope, possessed an endurance, tenacity, and fearless courage beyond ordinary people’s imagination.
This was what Li Yu meant by “defeat lies in the hearts of the people” and “so does success.”
As long as Han Qian ensured the Chishan Army’s morale remained cohesive, even if the Chuzhou Army and Anning Palace fought each other bloody, he could temporarily ignore it.
However, land distribution was extremely complex—by no means as easy as imagined.
The fields and residences of those magnate families who had fled could of course be directly confiscated, but this only amounted to about thirty to forty thousand mu of arable land—completely insufficient for universal land distribution to the Chishan Army soldiers and their dependents.
The interests of original residents also needed to be maintained to avoid intensifying conflicts with the locals. They even needed to further win the support of small and medium landlords and lower-class poor farmers in the area.
The considerations here were extremely deep.
Based on the practice of surveying land and reforming land taxes in Xuzhou, as well as the general framework Han Qian had set a few days ago, Feng Liao and Ji Xiyao and others had drafted a proposal, waiting for Han Qian to return to Guangde Fortress for further deliberation and refinement.
Besides confiscating the fields and residences of fled magnates, for other people remaining locally who were already landlords of various sizes possessing fields and residences, the draft decided to guarantee their private ownership of existing fields and residences. Slave household base status would be abolished throughout the territory, but hiring tenant workers and servants for labor and service would be permitted. Poll taxes and miscellaneous levies would be rolled into land taxes, with any additional grain requisitioned being borrowed in the name of the Chishan Army.
The fields and residences of magnate households that could actually be confiscated amounted to about forty thousand mu of land and two thousand housing units.
Since Guangde had mostly dry land, for real land grants, each household would need to be granted about fifteen to twenty mu to barely maintain a family’s subsistence. This actually meant that of the nearly fifty thousand dependent slave households that had joined them, at most only one-twentieth of the population could receive land grants in old Guangde county.
Of course, most importantly, this gave exemplary hope to the enlisted soldiers who had joined them.
Besides the confiscated fields and residences that could be utilized, there were still large amounts of undeveloped land resources between Fuyu Mountain and Jieling Mountain.
This was mainly because over the past thousand years, the population growth in Jiangnan East Circuit had not yet reached the point of overcrowding.
Additionally, it was mainly because the plains along both banks of the Yangtze River were sufficiently broad with abundant land resources.
Even if new land resources were to be developed, first one could develop the tidal flats along the Yangtze River shore, second one could develop the tidal flats along Taihu Lake’s shores, and one could also develop the coastal tidal flats continuously extending eastward with sediment deposits.
All of these were more time-saving and labor-saving than reclaiming hillside terraced fields. The reclaimed land would mainly be paddy fields, with more abundant grain production than hillside terraced fields.
Particularly east of Guangde lay the fertile plains on the southeastern shore of Taihu Lake.
However, under the current conditions of old Guangde county, Han Qian needed to reclaim hillside terraced fields on those low hills of ten-some to thirty or forty meters high. Deep within Fuyu Mountain and Jieling Mountain, there were also small, undeveloped valley basins that could be reclaimed.
So much tedious preliminary work needed to be done, and progress would be quite slow.
Fortunately, although Xuzhou’s excellent armor and weapons couldn’t be transported over on a large scale—the Chishan Army’s thirty thousand soldiers were severely lacking in armor and weapons—from plundering Lishui, Pingling and other places, iron farming tools were relatively sufficient. Even if local magnates and aristocratic clans were harsh in their exploitation, they still had to provide the lowest-level slaves with sufficient tools to engage in production.
Everything had to be advanced step by step. As long as the soldiers and dependents who had once struggled at the very bottom could see hope, could see the light, the Chishan Army’s morale would not disintegrate.
Of course, besides reclaiming hillside terraced fields, utilizing surplus labor by organizing production of more other primary industrial products that could be traded for grain, cloth, salt and such from the outside world (not through plunder) was also a core means of production-based self-rescue.
In addition to the hundred-some master craftsmen and engineers who had already advanced east with Ji Xiyao, the next batch of reinforcements Xuzhou sent to Guangde would also primarily consist of master craftsmen and engineers.
Guangde county also needed to extensively establish rural patrol inspectorates to govern village fortresses within its territory and deep in Fuyu Mountain, combining the traditional rural village service system with the practice of patrol inspectorates implemented in Xuzhou, implementing a rural official system at the village level that integrated military and civil administration, combining production with combat readiness and training, to strengthen the reclamation of new fields, strengthen the construction of mines and workshops, and more importantly strengthen the protection of women and children evacuated into the mountains.
After the meal, Han Qian took the draft proposals by Feng Liao and Ji Xiyao and revised them under lamplight. He didn’t extinguish the oil lamp until dawn, having dozed at his desk for a moment. Hearing voices in the courtyard, he raised his head to look out the window and saw Wang Jun wearing a water-green jacket and skirt. Her pale face in the morning light was as pure as fresh snow, but she was being blocked outside the courtyard by guards at that moment.
Han Qian rubbed his face and signaled the guards to let Wang Jun through.