I'm really not doing business

Chapter 1019 One can calculate accounts clearly, but not people's hearts.

Ye Xianggao had a sense of weariness about him, lacking the vigor of youth. He always thought things through carefully, which was a common trait after spending so much time in the court. This was also why Li Chengliang was always at odds with the governors.

The metaphysical, impractical, and morally lofty scholar-officials could never understand Li Chengliang's logic in doing things.

Li Chengliang has killed someone again. He is stirring up trouble from within and without, instigating infighting among the various Yi tribes, causing chaos and unrest for everyone. He is also killing innocent people to claim credit for his crimes. However, he kills people without allowing them to grow their hair, which is rather cruel.

Li Chengliang could never understand the thoughts of these scholar-officials; it was as if he was missing a screw.

These damned barbarians killed Li Chengliang's generals and soldiers, and not only could Li Chengliang not fight back, the governor even asked Li Chengliang to send another envoy to negotiate? What is this if not insane!
If they refuse to grow their hair back, it means they refuse to be governed by the king, refuse to submit, harbor ulterior motives, and are traitors!
Local officials and officials appointed by the imperial court often clashed on issues such as morality, policy implementation, and political stance.

When opinions clash, even a few words are unnecessary. As time goes on, the conflict intensifies, and the dispute between Li Chengliang and the governor will soon reach the emperor's ears.

In the eyes of the imperial court, the contradictions and conflicts between Li Chengliang and the governor could easily be interpreted as Li Chengliang amassing military power and seeking independence. In order to avoid being criticized, Li Chengliang inevitably amassed military power and fostered bandits, ultimately creating a vicious cycle.

This is how the crisis of Li Chengliang's growing military power came about in the early years of the Wanli Emperor's reign.

Hou Yuzhao's solution was actually quite foolish: he simply reclaimed wasteland to increase grain production, turning Liaodong agriculture from a deficit into a slight surplus, and then used the surplus to continue reclaiming wasteland.

By expanding territory, farmland, and mountain products, the incremental output is used to mask the fatal contradiction between the central and local governments, and problems are solved in the process of development.

The imperial court saw the continuous development of Liaodong and affirmed Li Chengliang's contributions. Li Chengliang's ambition to expand the territory by holding military power was now given a plausible reason to persuade the officials in the court.

Ultimately, under the overall framework of development, the imperial court and the Liaodong region sought common ground while reserving differences. The imperial court granted Li Chengliang a hereditary marquisate in exchange for him leaving Liaodong, thus preventing Liaodong from truly sliding into the hands of regional warlords. Li Chengliang, having made contributions to the expansion, did not need to worry too much about being discarded after his usefulness was over.

"Order all counties to prepare for burning the wasteland," Ye Xianggao gave his advisor another order.

"Prefect Ye, isn't this burning of the wasteland a matter for discussion? This... this..." The clerk was startled, never expecting that the usually refined and easy-going Ye Xianggao would issue such a cruel order.

"Too slow. When the bandits attack, we'll wipe them out. Some of the seemingly compliant locals are actually colluding with these uncivilized ones. There's no way to guard against bandits for a thousand days if you're a thief yourself. We can't stop them. Give the order." Ye Xianggao thought carefully but still insisted on giving the order.

As a newly appointed official, he made three bold moves. The first was to relocate the prefectural capital; the second was to strictly enforce the highly controversial order to allow people to grow their hair; and the third was to actually set fire to the place.

"I know what burning the wasteland means, no need to remind me. If the court holds me accountable, I will take full responsibility and issue the order." Ye Xianggao explained, seeing that his advisor still had something to say.

As the autumn wind whistles and the grasslands turn yellow, every autumn, the Ming Dynasty's imperial guards would set out beyond the Great Wall to burn the wasteland, creating a barrier that would deter the grassland people from moving south. However, prolonged burning would exacerbate desertification of the grasslands. This policy had been in place for nearly two hundred years.

Burning wasteland was not just a tactical measure, nor was it just a single fire; it was a whole set of policies including burning wasteland, poisoning water sources, clearing forests by logging, burning mountains, closing markets, and expelling barbarians.

After the peace negotiations in the fourth year of the Longqing reign, the Ming Dynasty honored its agreement with Altan Khan and abolished this practice.

Just as the activities of Wang Chonggu and the Jin people, such as driving horses to destroy nests and usury, are rarely recorded in historical records, only a few words can be used to speculate about them, and the cruelty of burning wasteland is mostly mentioned in passing.

Especially after the Longqing Peace Treaty, the Ming Dynasty's second campaign against Anda, and the establishment of the Suiyuan Kingdom, the practice of burning wasteland was gradually erased from historical records.

That's how people are; they have bad memories. In twenty or thirty years, everyone will gradually forget that burning the wasteland is a memory from a long time ago.

Now, Ye Xianggao has brought it out to accelerate the expansion of Jilin and other places, in order to cooperate with the imperial court's policy of relocating people and to completely occupy Liaodong, a place that would become the birthplace of the dragon under the change of heaven, so as to prevent any changes.

"Yes." The clerk obeyed.

With the decree to burn the wasteland issued, Ye Xianggao's reputation will likely be on par with Ling Yunyi's.

The reason Ye Xianggao issued this order was actually quite simple: if the situation in Jilin continued to be so 'intimate,' countless children would end up like him, born in dry latrines.

Since there is a ready-made way to accelerate the Ming Dynasty's rule over Liaodong, and since someone must be the culprit, why can't it be me?
Ye Xianggao flipped through documents from various places. In Jilin Prefecture, he gained a deeper understanding of a saying: "Never underestimate the destructive power of the wishful thinking of those in power."

The previous governor of Jilin returned to the interior in disarray, having once ordered the extermination of weasels.

The proverb "A weasel paying New Year's greetings to a chicken is not without ulterior motives" is widely known. The prefect of Jilin thought that the chickens that the people had worked so hard to raise had been taken away by weasels, which was simply outrageous. So he ordered the extermination of the weasels.

Soon, something unexpected happened: rats became rampant.

The Academy of Natural Sciences sent three PhDs in agronomy, who finally completed the explanation. Weasels are called "Huang Daxian" or "Guardian Deity" in Liaodong, but few people could explain why. The agronomy PhDs explained the origin of this folk custom.

Weasels are omnivorous and extremely ferocious, eating almost anything. However, their main food is rats and rabbits. Agricultural scientists dissected hundreds of weasels and determined that a single weasel can eat three thousand rats and field mice a year, and these three thousand rats consume nearly two thousand kilograms of grain annually.

Where there are many weasels, there are few rats, and people lose less grain. Over time, although people don't know why, they still regard weasels as guardian spirits or great immortals.

Upon assuming office, Ye Xianggao immediately rescinded the order to hunt weasels.

This kind of wishful thinking by meat-eaters is extremely destructive.

The previous administration served for four years, during which herders, farmers, and hunters killed tens of thousands of weasels, causing a potential rat infestation throughout Jilin. As a last resort, Liaoning captured 3,000 weasels and released them into Jilin.

The reason we don't let stray cats roam freely is that cats are not suitable for Liaodong. The winters in Liaodong are really too cold, and stray cats would freeze to death in the winter.

The previous administration also made a wrong decision: to disband the camp.

In Jilin Prefecture, land reclamation was carried out using the camp system, where all land was collectively owned by the camps, and all land reclamation permits were issued to the camps, not individuals.

Thirty percent of the harvest from the camps had to be handed over to the Liaodong Garrison, while the remaining seventy percent went to the camps. Due to the lack of an accountant, the distribution among the camps was simple and crude: regardless of size, it was divided equally among the people.

Hou Yuzhao and Li Chengliang certainly knew that this system was bad, because age didn't count, and the children couldn't do much work. Infants couldn't work, and women did less work than men. Wouldn't the cunning farmers want to have more children to get a share of the grain? Even girls had to be raised?

This was actually Hou Yuzhao and Li Chengliang's goal: to encourage people to have more children to populate Liaodong. There were still too few Han Chinese in Liaodong. Although four million Han Chinese seemed like a lot, there were far too few in such a vast land as Liaodong.

This system had been in place for eighteen years, but due to the lack of an accountant, it quickly developed flaws, namely that each camp had a few clever people.

These clever people think simply: "If I don't work, I can still eat the same food, so why should I work so hard?"

If one lazybones appears in a village, soon a whole bunch of lazybones will appear, and these lazybones will band together to bully honest farmers.

The previous prefect felt this was not working, so he directly ordered that land reclamation permits be approved and issued directly to individuals.

For more than a decade, the barbarians have lost their influence, and the land has been largely stabilized. From any perspective, this decree seems perfectly reasonable, as this has been the way things have been done in the heart of the Ming Dynasty for many years. However, problems arose during its implementation.

The barbarians were indeed no threat, but the wolves, wild boars, tigers, and bears still roamed in packs. These wild beasts harassed the villages, and the militia of the camps, who were both farmers and soldiers, were responsible for hunting them down.

With the disbandment of the camp, the camp's farmland was no longer collectively owned; each family managed their own land. Some of the militia members became farmers, while others joined the army directly. Without the militia members hunting, these wild animals became the camp's number one enemy, coming and going as if in an empty land.

Thus, the land reclamation was approved and distributed to the camp collectives again, rather than individuals. Of course, the lazy men in the camps also had a place to go. Some were forced to join the army, while others were directly packed up at the Jilin Shipyard, loaded onto ships, and sent to Southeast Asia.

There's a children's rhyme in every county of Jilin: "Slap your head, and you've got it; slap the table, and it's settled; slap your chest, and it's done; slap your thigh, and it's ruined; slap your bottom, and you're gone."

This nursery rhyme is about the previous prefect of Jilin, who simply packed his bags and left a mess for Ye Xianggao to clean up.

Sometimes, the imperial court issues decrees based on the wishful thinking of those in power. When these somewhat muddled orders reached Jilin, the Jilin prefect, who should have argued for the matter, chose to carry them out.

For example, in the seventeenth year of the Wanli reign, the imperial court issued an edict to Liaoning and Jilin, requiring these two places to build Liaoning University and Normal School. This was originally a great thing for the Dinghai education system, but this policy was suitable for Liaoning but not for Jilin.

Liaoning was originally Liaoyang Military Commandery, under the jurisdiction of Shandong Provincial Administration Commission. Since the Hongwu era, after two hundred years of imperial rule, three million of the four million Han people in Northeast China lived in Liaoning. Liaoning had the foundation to build universities, normal schools, and three-tiered schools, while Jilin did not.

Even if the school were built, aside from the waste of money and resources, what scholar would come to teach in such a godforsaken place?
The biggest problem with this order is that it was built in Jilin County, not Changchun County. Jilin County has a population of only 30,000, while Changchun has a population of 100,000. Jilin County does not have enough people to support so many schools.

However, the previous prefect of Jilin carried out the plan and built a normal school in Jilin County, not in Changchun.

It's somewhat like Liu Shunzhi, the prefect of Xuzhou. Faced with the choice between protecting the canal transport and protecting people's livelihoods, Liu Shunzhi told His Majesty that almost all the problems in Xuzhou Prefecture before were caused by protecting the canal transport, which led to chaos due to meticulous and complete execution of orders from superiors.

Therefore, Jilin needs Ye Xianggao to engage in a power struggle with the imperial court, but in this process, it is also important to be careful not to be exploited by local officials.

If you were to ask Ye Xianggao whether it's easier to be an official in the central government or in a local government, Ye Xianggao personally would say it's easier in a local government, because no matter how badly he performs, he can simply leave.

He was a Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations), a Shujishi (a probationary official in the Hanlin Academy), and a member of the emperor's faction, a protégé of the emperor. He was the "heavenly man" that Yan Shixuan mentioned. As long as he didn't hand over Jilin to the foreigners, at most he would just be transferred to a remote area to continue accumulating experience.

A month later, His Majesty the Emperor's decree arrived in Jilin Prefecture, authorizing the relocation of the prefectural capital to Changchun County, and also providing 200,000 taels of silver for relocation expenses, instructing the prefecture not to cause excessive disturbance to the local area.

The fact that the emperor gave 200,000 taels of silver shows that the court also hopes that Liaodong can continue to develop, continue to reclaim wasteland, accommodate more people, and provide more agricultural surplus.

From this point on, Ye Xianggao's position in Jilin Prefecture was unshakeable.

Unlike Ye Xianggao, Xiong Tingbi's predicament stemmed primarily from his own lack of experience, while Xiong Tingbi's difficulties arose mainly from the dire state of Japan. The Iwami Ginzan is divided into three parts from the top to the bottom of the mountain.

The mountain is the city of Shanbuki, where the silver mine is located. The main business is mining silver and smelting silver using the ash-blowing method. The entire area is about 5 miles long.
The residential area on the mountainside, with Rongquan Temple as the head, consists of dozens of roads that can only accommodate one horse-drawn carriage at a time. Both sides of the mountain road are lined with wooden houses. About 12,000 Japanese slaves live here and are engaged in silver mining.
At the foot of the mountain is the Iwami Silver Mine Administration Office, also known as Iwami Castle. This administration office was a product of the fighting between Oda Nobunaga and Mori Terumoto. It was established in the name of the Japanese Imperial Court to manage the Iwami Silver Mine and the distribution of silver. It was also a military camp and the residence of the Imperial Court officials.

When Qi Jiguang conquered Shijian Yinshan, he conquered these three mountain fortresses.

The Iwami Ginzan garrison only had one thousand troops. Further west of the administrative office was the Jinman Castle, a small town with only 72,000 mu of land. Jinman Castle was very small, with a perimeter of no more than ten li and a small population. The entire Iwami Ginzan area had only 50,000 people.

Renwan City is located by the sea, and there are only four berths on the shore. It is a small dock, mainly used for transporting silver back to the Ming Dynasty.

Xiong Tingbi was in the castle tower of Iwami Castle. He managed all the Ming Dynasty's controlled areas along the coast, from Izumo Castle to Nagato Castle.

Within the controlled area, the land was distributed according to the equal land system. The samurai and famous landowners were all hanged and their bodies were sunk at sea. All the land was given to the Japanese who had come to surrender.

Xiong Tingbi promoted the equal-field system because Japan had a large population and limited land. Without equal-field distribution, there would not be enough agricultural surplus to support the large number of miners at the Iwami Silver Mine.

Xiong Tingbi had also considered using the methods of the Westerners: people? Where are there any people! They are all slaves, and if they die, they are just thrown into a mass grave.

The cost of doing this was the constant harassment from the barbarians, which conveniently allowed them to continue capturing slaves without having to search for them elsewhere.

Xiong Tingbi's reason for using the equal-field system instead of slavery was neither due to lofty morals nor sympathy for the Japanese. It was simply because he had calculated that every soldier stationed in the Ming Dynasty was a precious asset, and the same way he had taken them to Japan, he wanted to take them back with him. This was the fundamental reason why Xiong Tingbi did this.

Within the territory under the actual control of the Ming Dynasty, the security was far better than that of the chaotic Japan. All private fights were prohibited here, and anyone carrying a weapon would be killed.

It's no wonder that the rebellious Japanese regarded this place as a sacred site; it was truly too peaceful.

The ban on private fights is a legacy left by Xiong Tingbi's previous misguided approach.

When Xiong Tingbi first arrived at Ishimi Castle, there was no order or bureaucracy whatsoever. It was a chaotic mess, and Xiong Tingbi was the one in charge. He came up with a system that regulated people by specifying which foot to step into the door first, in order to control the Japanese.

Xiong Tingbi called this method the command method.

Whatever he says goes. What is planted where, how much grain each person eats each day, where to reclaim wasteland today, where to build a mountain city tomorrow—as Mr. Zhang's last disciple, Xiong Da, whom His Majesty the Emperor speaks of, the Ming army will not disobey his will, and the Japanese have no right to disobey.

However, this method of instruction quickly became ineffective. He was a genius, and following his plan and instructions, the Ming Dynasty's controlled area quickly gained order, but his computing power soon became insufficient.

It's not that he couldn't do the math or make clear instructions and plans. This long and narrow area under the actual control of the Ming Dynasty had only one manufacturing production besides agricultural production: silver mining. It was a very simple economic model.

He can calculate accounts clearly, but he can't understand people's hearts.

For example, if there are 200 jin of grain and 50 jin of meat every day, and they are distributed among 100 people, then each person should receive 2 jin of grain and half a jin of meat per day.

But the reality was not like that. He gave the instruction to divide the work equally, but people did not follow his instructions completely.

It was reasonable that the Ming elite soldiers were required to take eight catties of grain and two catties of meat every day. After all, the Ming elite soldiers were the ruling class, and this was where they had to take more, because Xiong Tingbi needed them to maintain stability.
On the other hand, there were the Japanese who distributed these rations. These Japanese managers each took four catties of grain and one catty of meat, which was quite reasonable. The managers were in charge of distributing the rations, and taking more than their share was simply inhuman.
There are also the kiln workers who need to mine. They also need to eat more and take more. If they don't eat meat, they can't do heavy physical work. Whether it's mining silver or refining silver, they need strength. Each of them has to take 3 catties of grain and half a catty of meat. If they can't mine enough silver, they will all be waiting for the wrath of the Ming emperor.
The majority of the Japanese, who did farm work, often had to wait until the higher-ups had taken their share before they could receive their grain. They only had forty catties of grain left, so it was fair and open to them to receive it on a first-come, first-served basis.

Of the hundred men, about 11 were Ming Dynasty soldiers, Japanese managers, and miners. These 11 men would take 160 catties of grain and 50 catties of meat, leaving only 40 catties of grain to be distributed to the Japanese who did farm work.

Even so, the remaining 89 Japanese farmers were further divided into different classes.

Suddenly, the simple model of distributing two jin of grain and half a jin of meat to each person could no longer be implemented.

Xiong Tingbi's command system failed not because of unfair distribution, but because of the fact that after the Ming Dynasty conquered this area, the total population of the seven cities was less than 30,000. As peace gradually settled down, the population from Izumo to Nagato increased rapidly to 440,000.

With so many people, and Xiong Tingbi only having two advisors, plus another one who was in charge of the silver mine, it was very difficult to issue orders.

Unable to calculate it clearly, Xiong Tingbi stopped calculating and directly changed the method, which was the equal-field system.

As long as the required amount of silver was paid each year, Xiong Tingbi could do whatever he wanted. He could change his orders at will, and everyone had to obey.

Xiong Tingbi's Equal Field Law was a great success, and his taxes were very low. The policy of "three public and seven private" meant that 30% of the harvest went to the administrative office, and the remaining 70% was for the people's use.

Because the previous samurai and landowners had all been sunk at sea, the land equalization law and taxes could be carried out in accordance with his plan. The Japanese in charge would of course come up with various pretexts, but it was still much better than most places in Japan, after all, Japan's tax rate was: eight public and two private.

Xiong Tingbi had several troubles.

The first issue is the spread of the Blissful Religion. Even with Xiong Tingbi's severe crackdown, the Blissful Religion still inevitably spread in, because these seven cities have a large number of brothels, which are Japanese brothels and prostitutes, and this is one of the main ways the Blissful Religion spreads its teachings.

Secondly, there were the poor material conditions. There were not many things that could be produced in the controlled area. Items such as cotton cloth, writing brushes, ink, paper, books, silk, wool, spices, and salt all had to be supplied by the Ming Dynasty. Most of the silver from the Iwami Silver Mine was exchanged for these things.
Xiong Tingbi also tried local production, but the cost was higher than the price of goods from the Ming Dynasty arriving at the port, and in the end, all of these efforts came to nothing.

Once the Iwami Ginzan silver mine is depleted, the complete economic collapse of the controlled area will become inevitable.

Thirdly, there were too many vagrants. Since the implementation of the equal-field system in the controlled areas, the unstable situation and frequent wars in Japan led to countless vagrants wanting to seek refuge with the Ming Dynasty.

However, the controlled area has limited carrying capacity. Although they are all cheap laborers, cheap laborers also need to eat. Obviously, the controlled area cannot support so many people. Xiong Tingbi had to order that vagrants be prohibited from entering.

At this time, the Mori samurai had a brilliant idea and started to do business with Japanese slaves, which meant capturing all these Japanese vagrants and sending them to Nagasaki.

Regardless of who the vagrants were, as long as they were delivered to Nagasaki in headcount, they could be used as payment for goods from the Ming Dynasty.

The areas under the actual control of the equal-field system did indeed become a sacred place in Japan, and they certainly deserve to be called sacred places. They were peaceful, beautiful, sunny, had everything they needed, and were full of hope.

However, the holy land was also a huge trap; all the Japanese vagrants who came there turned into Japanese slaves.

Xiong Tingbi remained unmoved. He came to Japan not to save the Japanese people. His purpose from the beginning was clear: silver, Japanese slaves, and prisons.

His duty was to keep Japan firmly under control within the impregnable walls of the Ming Dynasty, to act as a nail driven into Japan, to ensure that Japanese pirates would no longer harass the Ming Dynasty, to ensure that there would be no large-scale Japanese pirate raids, and to safeguard the maritime trade environment of the Ming Dynasty.

The fate of the Japanese was none of Xiong Tingbi's concern.

"The equal-field system is indeed the solution of the Japanese. It depends on whether the Japanese can grasp it." After finishing processing the official documents in his hand, Xiong Tingbi looked at the Japanese people walking around outside the governor's pavilion. It looked so prosperous. Carriages came and went day and night. Houses were connected to houses and shops were connected to shops.

All that is beautiful is but a fleeting dream. Once the Iwami Silver Mine is depleted, everything will come to an abrupt end, and that will happen in the not-too-distant future.

Silver production is gradually declining, from 1.5 million taels at the beginning to 1.43 million taels now, and it will continue to decline year after year. This is not a management problem, but rather because some of the more than 600 inter-mining tunnels have run out of silver to mine.

His Majesty prescribed two remedies for Toyotomi Hideyoshi: isolationism and land redistribution.

In practice, both of these methods could have brought order to Japan from chaos, but Toyotomi Hideyoshi simply couldn't do it. If he had been of one mind with the people, he might have been able to do it, but he clearly didn't care much about them.

"His Majesty has issued an imperial edict." The advisor handed Xiong Tingbi a sealed box containing the imperial edict.

Xiong Tingbi examined the sealing wax and the seals of the post stations along the way. This secret box was sent from the capital to Tianjin Prefecture, sailed from Tanggu Port, transited through Jeju Island to Tsushima Island, arrived at Nagato Castle, and was then delivered to Iwami Castle.

He opened the secret box and saw the emperor's edict.

His Majesty the Emperor told Xiong Tingbi about the important events that had occurred in the Ming Dynasty this year, especially Zhang Juzheng's high-pressure purge of the party and the growth of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, which were related to the long-term stability of the Ming Dynasty's officialdom.

The emperor also inquired whether the silver mines could deliver the full amount of silver to the Ming Dynasty this year; secondly, he inquired about the amount of military equipment and goods needed in the controlled areas, to be transported together in April of the following year; finally, he asked Xiong Tingbi for his opinion, asking if he was willing to lead the elite troops selected by the Ming Dynasty to Edo.

"Is your duty to run away?" Xiong Tingbi scratched his head.

His Majesty instructed him that if he was unable to do so, he should lead these three thousand elite soldiers to escape from Edo Castle and return to the Ming Dynasty. These soldiers were also those who had performed well in the training exercise of breaking up the enemy lines and were able to break up without dispersing.

This was an attempt by the Ming Dynasty to intervene more deeply in Japan, to plant a deeper seed, and to make the Japanese shogunate feel like it had a bone stuck in its throat.

The encroachment has never stopped.

Xiong Tingbi's current official position is Acting Attendant, a fifth-rank official, but it is an irregular posting, a special position for a specific person. If he were to be transferred, he would become the Edo Shogun, Vice Censor-in-Chief and Governor of Edo, becoming the youngest fourth-rank official in the Ming Dynasty at the age of twenty-four.

Without hesitation, he clearly answered His Majesty that he was willing to go to Edo and become the Shogun and Governor of Edo.

For Iwami Ginzan, reaching the Junta area was enough. Further down the line, this place wouldn't support him to go any further or make any more plans. In Edo, on the contrary, he could have more room for development.

As for fleeing, he did not believe that Toyotomi Hideyoshi or Tokugawa Ieyasu were capable of forcing the Ming capital garrison to flee, even if the Ming elite troops numbered only three thousand.

The Ming Dynasty's capital garrison was a new type of army consisting entirely of firearms and line formations. The Ming Dynasty still lacked development in the field of modern army formations, but it still showed a generational lead over the Japanese army, which was still in the era of cold weapons.

(End of this chapter)