prosperous age

"In provinces such as Huguang and Sichuan, due to the lack of cooperation from the local chieftains, the land survey in some prefectures and counties has not yet been completed."

In his office as Grand Secretary, Zhang Juzheng once again summoned several cabinet ministers to discuss the land survey. After consulting with Wei Guangde, he also called Liu Shouyou, the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Liu Shouyou was initially quite worried about being allowed to participate in cabinet meetings.

After all, he was just a personal guard commander; when would he ever be qualified to participate in cabinet meetings?

However, after Wei Guangde told him about the meeting's contents, he had a better understanding of the situation.

In essence, setting aside the reports from local governments, the Jinyiwei (Imperial Guard) needed to understand the main reasons why the prefectures and counties were delaying the completion of the land survey in these provinces.

Local officials' rhetoric often reveals to cabinet ministers that there are hidden reasons, but they know very little about the actual causes.

Zhang Juzheng believed that the Embroidered Uniform Guards possessed secrets that those below dared not speak of.

"Just tell me directly which chieftain is unwilling to cooperate with the imperial court's land survey, and what their relationship is with the local government."

When Zhang Juzheng heard Liu Shouyou still using the local reports, he only embellished the local version, changing "the ignorant people do not understand the court's good intentions and are being educated" to "the chieftains are not cooperating".

Interrupted by Zhang Juzheng, Liu Shouyou immediately lowered his head and replied, "Yang Yinglong, the Pacification Commissioner of Bozhou, governs five departments and seven clans, and his influence is distributed in Sichuan and Guizhou provinces."

The Yang family of Bozhou had long harbored rebellious intentions towards the imperial court; their members were inherently suspicious, ruthless, and bloodthirsty.

"and many more."

At this point in Liu Shouyou's speech, Zhang Siwei suddenly interrupted, saying, "Yang Yinglong was awarded a flying fish robe last year for presenting seventy large, fine timbers to the court. Do you think he harbored rebellious intentions all along?"

The Ming Dynasty now needs high-quality timber to build palaces and pavilions, but the timber in the Han Chinese-populated areas has long been depleted, and only the southwestern chieftain territories can still produce it.

Actually, Dongfan Island and Luzon also have timber, but the superior timber was reserved by the navy for building warships.

Bozhou was actually the later Zunyi in Guizhou, but at this time it was placed under the jurisdiction of the Sichuan Provincial Administration Commission.

"A secret agent once reported that the Yang family had ruled Bozhou for generations, and their power was deeply entrenched, and they had long harbored rebellious intentions."

Yang Yinglong repeatedly told his subordinates that the Sichuan government troops were weak and inexperienced in battle, and that if they raised an army, they could easily annihilate them and then occupy the entire Sichuan province.

Taking advantage of the difficulty of advancing through the Shu roads, we can force the imperial court to accept our offer and grant us the title of king, thus allowing us to dominate the region.

Liu Shouyou came prepared this time. He had previously reviewed the data on the local chieftains in Sichuan, Guizhou and Hubei, and had a clear understanding of them.

Many chieftains in Huguang were dissatisfied with the imperial court's land survey because these fields belonged to them, and they had been paying tribute to the court every year according to the original agreement.

What does the amount of land one owns have to do with the imperial court?

Although they have indeed reclaimed a lot of land over the years through their clansmen and by employing Han Chinese, they believe that since they reclaimed this land, they should not pay taxes on it.

Paying taxes based on the actual amount of land they owned would be tantamount to breaking their agreement with the imperial court.

Although the Ministry of War eventually mobilized the Huguang garrison and forcibly completed the survey of most of the Tusi's lands, there were still those who were dissatisfied.

Because the chieftains belonged to the same type of people, they usually maintained close contact.

There are still two chieftains in Huguang who refuse to allow the government to conduct a land survey, citing the fact that Bozhou has not conducted a land survey.

Their two families have close ties with Bozhou, so they naturally know the details.

Similarly, several chieftains in Yunnan were also affected. Mu Changzuo, the Duke of Qian, was dissatisfied because his own land had also been surveyed, so he did not mobilize troops to forcibly enter those chieftains' homes.

Behind the scenes, it's possible that Yang Yinglong was involved, or that Mu Changzuo secretly instructed him.

They dared not openly oppose the imperial court's decrees, but they could still engage in some underhanded tactics.

Which chieftain in Yunnan wasn't afraid of the Mu family? They were the ones who held the reins of power.

However, Liu Shouyou dared not mention Yunnan, so he drew his attention to Yang Yinglong.

In any case, judging from the messages sent back by the spies, Yang Yinglong was indeed a hidden danger, repeatedly saying that the strength of the imperial army was weak and that victory would be easy.

By taking Sichuan and blocking the mountain passes, Sichuan can withstand the siege of hundreds of thousands of government troops.

The Sichuan and Chongqing region still has vast tracts of fertile land, which can be used to support an army. Therefore, after the court's repeated attacks have failed, it will inevitably make peace in order to maintain its dignity.

As for the local officials dispatched by the Ming Dynasty, they were not unaware of the Yang family's attitude towards the court. However, given that such an incident had occurred in their jurisdiction, the court, following established practice, would inevitably send troops to suppress it.

What was the final outcome of the encirclement and suppression?
In any case, turning a blind eye is the best option; the real priority is to bribe those in power and get transferred away from this troublesome place as soon as possible.

Given the strength of the surrounding garrison troops, if they had forced the Yang family to rebel, how could they fulfill their duty to defend the territory? They were not going to live or die with the city.

The Ming Dynasty was relatively lenient towards civil officials, but its punishments for losing cities and territories were extremely severe.

No one would take their own life lightly, so they all chose to cover it up and try to transfer themselves away.

In the duty room, Liu Shouyou had already explained the basic details of the Yang family of Bozhou. The Yang family and their subordinates had a population of over 100,000, which could be used to form an army of 30,000 to 40,000 men.

Of course, this number would also include all the soldiers of the Yang clan who were capable of fighting. If they lost, it would mean the sacrifice of several generations, making it almost impossible for the clan to continue to reproduce.

So, even with a discount, if 20,000 to 30,000 people are sent out, the tribe can still have about 10,000 people left, barely enough to keep the tribe from shrinking.

As for the surrounding officers and soldiers, in reality, the number of officers and soldiers in the southwestern provinces was only tens of thousands on paper.

The Ming Dynasty dispatched troops from the southwestern provinces, mostly recruiting soldiers. They gathered these local chieftains, with each person contributing a small amount to raise several thousand or even tens of thousands of troops, along with a small number of government troops.

Yang Yinglong saw the weakness of the imperial court's rule in the southwest region because of this. As long as he could persuade the other chieftains to remain inactive, it would be almost impossible for the imperial court to quickly eliminate his forces with its small number of troops.

On the contrary, the actual strength of the officers and soldiers was reduced, and their combat power was also weak, making them extremely likely to be killed by him.

Despite the fact that the elite Sichuan Army had followed Li Chengliang into Burma, those were the elite troops from various garrisons.

After returning to Sichuan, they dispersed back to various local garrisons, with only a small number of them being stationed in Chengdu Prefecture as part of a larger force, which is hardly worth mentioning.

What are your thoughts on the Yang family of Bozhou?

After listening to Liu Shouyou's report, Zhang Juzheng did not express his opinion, but looked at the other three.

Shen Shixing spoke first, “In my opinion, it is better to follow the method of Huguang and mobilize troops from Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan to surround Bozhou so that the court officials can complete the land survey.”

Forcing the Yang family to rebel is ultimately not a good thing; the best strategy is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

With Shen Shixing stating that he would refer to the old precedents of Huguang, he believed that as long as Yang Yinglong was subdued, the remaining chieftains in the southwest region could be dealt with in the same way.

We'll take them down one by one, and defeat them one by one. No one should dare to truly break ties with the imperial court.

Subsequently, Zhang Siwei expressed the same opinion.

After all, no civil official likes fighting. Wouldn't it be better to complete their term of office peacefully and smoothly? Why risk their lives to do things?

When it was Wei Guangde's turn to speak, he did not react, but instead lowered his head to think, showing no intention of responding.

In fact, at this moment, Wei Guangde was recalling the events of the Bozhou rebellion from his memory. If it had happened before, Wei Guangde would not have remembered it at all if Liu Shouyou hadn't mentioned Bozhou.

The Three Great Campaigns of the Wanli Emperor may not be clear to most Chinese people, but Wei Guangde happened to have read about them.

Regarding the rapid collapse of the Ming Dynasty in the late Wanli period, many people regard the Three Great Campaigns as an important reason for the Ming Dynasty's downfall. They believe that the campaigns exhausted the Ming court's financial resources, causing them to gradually relax their control over Liaodong due to economic difficulties, thus allowing Nurhaci to take the opportunity to grow stronger.

The Three Great Campaigns of the Wanli Era refer to three large-scale military operations launched during the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty in the northwest and southwest border regions and Korea.

These are the Ningxia campaign in which Li Rusong quelled the rebellion of the Mongol leader Bo Bai, the Korean campaign in which Li Rusong and Ma Gui resisted the invasion of the Japanese regime led by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and the Bozhou campaign in which Li Hualong quelled the rebellion of Yang Yinglong, a chieftain of the Miao region.

These three major battles consolidated China's territory and maintained the Ming Dynasty's dominant position in East Asia, but at a huge cost.

In particular, during the two wars to aid Korea, the Ming Dynasty sent nearly 100,000 troops and spent countless amounts of food and supplies.

The Battle of Bozhou was the longest and most peculiar of the wars, leaving a deep impression on Wei Guangde.

According to the article at the time, the Yang family of Bozhou began to have a falling out with the Ming court in the 18th year of the Wanli reign, and in the 24th year of the Wanli reign, they raised the banner of rebellion and provoked a war.

Did the Ming court swiftly dispatch troops to quell the rebellion?
No.

The Ming court truly took this rebellion seriously in the 27th year of the Wanli reign.

Because when the local authorities reported this matter, they only said that the local chieftain had rebelled and that troops were being mobilized to suppress him.

The rebellion was brought to the attention of the Wanli Emperor because by then most of Sichuan had been occupied by the Yang family, the Sichuan governor was powerless to reverse the situation, and the Yang family's rebel army even besieged Chengdu Prefecture. It was no longer possible to cover it up, so he asked the court for help.

Therefore, in the twenty-seventh year of the Wanli reign, the Ming court mobilized more than 200,000 troops from Huguang, Guizhou and other places to quell the rebellion.

In four months, Li Hualong led his troops to capture Hailongtun, the last stronghold of the Yang family. Yang Yinglong committed suicide, and the Bozhou Campaign came to an end.

It is evident that the Bozhou Campaign itself was not large in scale, but due to the actions of the local government, it took several years to quell.

If we start from the point where Yang Yinglong refused to obey orders or commands, this continued for ten years.

And the cabinet was completely unaware of this during this period?
Wei Guangde was reluctant to believe it, and whether the Wanli Emperor knew about it was hard to say.

It's quite bizarre that a small matter could escalate into a decade of chaos.

What if we send troops now and wipe out the Yang family cleanly and decisively?

Wei Guangde was already calculating this matter at this time. The fact that an army of 200,000 men completed the suppression of the rebellion in four months showed that the fighting strength of the Yang clan chieftain's troops was actually worrying.

Of course, the large number of officers and soldiers was also one of the reasons.

"Do the Embroidered Uniform Guards have any concrete evidence that Yang Yinglong is disloyal?"

Wei Guangde suddenly asked.

Zhang Juzheng was still holding his teacup, waiting for Wei Guangde to speak. Upon hearing what he said, he almost dropped the teacup.

He could sense a murderous intent in Wei Guangde's words; was he planning to kill someone to establish his authority?
An idea popped into Zhang Juzheng's mind: he actually preferred to resolve the matter through coercion, rather than going to war.

Eliminating a chieftain is a minor matter, but it will further alienate the Ming Dynasty and the chieftains in the southwest.

However, Wei Guangde knew that the Yang family would become a major problem for the court in the future, so it was better to eliminate them as soon as possible.

However, Liu Shouyou was in a bit of a predicament. The so-called solid evidence was irrefutable proof that Yang Yinglong had plotted a rebellion.

But besides killing people, he really had nothing else to do.

What he said wasn't fabricated by the Embroidered Uniform Guard; he did say it, but without witnesses, it's not considered solid evidence.

Moreover, even if those who were present at the time were captured and confessed, what could be done if Yang Yinglong stubbornly denied it?
People outside the court would say that the court was trying to frame someone, and that they could always find a pretext.

As for Yang Yinglong's brutality and bloodthirstiness, the local government was cleaning up his messes. Moreover, this crime was a serious one if taken seriously, but in the southwest region, it didn't seem like a big deal for a chieftain to kill his clansmen or some commoners.

"You dare to say that in the cabinet without any evidence?"

Seeing that Liu Shouyou did not answer for a long time, Wei Guangde immediately turned hostile and said.

"Grand Secretary Wei, this Yang Yinglong harbors rebellious intentions. In fact, officials in the southwest all know this. The court can issue a document to inquire with the Imperial Inspector of Sichuan and Guizhou."

As for irrefutable evidence, the fact that his pacification commissioner's office stored swords, spears, and armor cannot be considered irrefutable evidence.

Liu Shouyou said with difficulty.

Tusi (chieftains) were also officials, especially Xuanweishi (military commissioners), who naturally had their own armed forces.

The local chieftains of the Ming Dynasty were disobedient and frequently rebelled. This was not only due to the greed of civil officials, but also because of figures like Yang Yinglong, who looked down on the weak fighting power of the government troops.

At this moment, Wei Guangde was quickly calculating in his mind what the court would do if he forcibly suppressed Yang Yinglong, and whether the chieftains in the southwest would feel insecure, as this was related to the stability of the region.

Eliminating Yang Yinglong now would indeed avert a war, but its impact would not be underestimated.

"The Yang family has ruled Bozhou for many years, and their power is deeply entrenched and should not be underestimated."

Bozhou is located between Sichuan, Guizhou, and Hubei, far from the capital's influence. It is surrounded by mountains and rivers, and its terrain is treacherous. If anything were to happen, it would be troublesome.

"Brother Uncle, the imperial court has long intended to select a local chieftain to implement the policy of replacing local chieftains with centrally appointed officials. Why not choose Yang Yinglong's Bozhou?"

Wei Guangde said to Zhang Juzheng.

In fact, the Tusi policy of the Ming Dynasty was a continuation of the Yuan Dynasty. Although it rapidly expanded the territory, its disadvantages gradually became apparent.

“They must be granted titles and honors, and then they will be easy to control, so they will run errands and obey orders.” If the court makes numerous demands for their services, then “they will become anxious and start to cause trouble, relying on their merits and taking advantage of their mistakes, and their intrusions will become even more severe.”

The Ming court officials had long been aware of this, but they often pondered it carefully, hoping to find a safe and reliable solution.

The Tusi system was abolished during the reign of Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty.

In the fourth year of the Yongzheng Emperor's reign, the Yunnan Governor Ortai submitted a memorial proposing the reform of the system of local chieftains and their replacement with centrally appointed officials, stating: "The greatest calamities in Yunnan and Guizhou are none other than the Miao and Manchu tribes. To pacify the people, we must first subdue the barbarians. To subdue the barbarians, we must reform the system of local chieftains and their replacement with centrally appointed officials."

"Wenwu has long resided in the provincial capital, and no one dares to cultivate the fertile land for four hundred miles."

The various ethnic groups along the Lancang River in southern Yunnan were "a close threat to our heartland when there is no trouble, and a distant ally to foreign countries when there is trouble," and from the Yuan to the Ming dynasties, they were "truly a scourge on the border."

Ortai believed that if the change of course was done properly, "it would surely be effective wherever it was directed, and would truly benefit the Yunnan-Guizhou border defense for generations to come."

It was this memorial that made Emperor Yongzheng determined to abolish the Tusi system and establish direct imperial administration, using a large army to force the Tusi to submit, thereby achieving long-term stability in the southwest.

The chieftains in the southwest had caused trouble many times, so Wei Guangde had naturally spoken with Zhang Juzheng and proposed a policy of reforming the chieftain system. Zhang Juzheng was taken aback when Wei Guangde brought up the old issue again.

The "reform of local chieftainships" essentially meant abolishing the original hereditary system of chieftains and establishing administrative institutions such as prefectures, states, and counties in these areas under the direct administration of the imperial court, appointing non-hereditary officials with fixed terms to manage them.

Wei Guangde's meaning was clear: he wanted to abolish the Tusi system in Bozhou and implement the policy of replacing Tusi with centrally appointed officials, using this as a pilot program. Zhang Juzheng had no choice but to give it serious thought. (End of Chapter)