A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 425 Sikong is the True Bodhisattva

Yunzhou, Xuchang City.

To the west lies the Ji River, to the south the Wen River, to the southwest lies the smaller Dongting Lake, and to the northeast stretches the foothills of the Tai Mountains. Between these distant and nearby waters lies a vast plain.

This fertile land was once dotted with villages, green fields, crisscrossing paths, wisps of smoke rising from chimneys, busy villagers in the fields, the sounds of roosters crowing and dogs barking, and cattle and sheep grazing.

"When the Zhou king enfeoffed the people, this place was the State of Xuju, which, together with the States of Ren, Su, and Chuanyu, was known as one of the four states of the Feng clan. The Zhou king enfeoffed them to establish their states by the Ji River to worship the spirits of their ancestor Taihao and the god of the Ji River, in order to serve the Xia people."

Outside Xuchang City, on the banks of the Ji River.

Liu Lancheng, the governor of Zizhou, said to Sheng Yanshi, the Duke of Ge, the general manager of Bozhou, "Therefore, this Xuchang city is also known as the old city of Xuju. During the Northern Qi Dynasty, Dongping Prefecture was abolished, and Xuchang County was moved to Sucheng. Wuyan County was merged into Xuchang County. In the sixteenth year of the Kaihuang era of the Sui Dynasty, the seat of Xuchang County was moved back to Xuchang City from Sucheng."

Xuchang City, connecting Puyang and Caozhou to the west and Yanzhou to the east, was a vital transportation hub and a strategically vital location fought over by military strategists.

"Steward, look at this stone bridge over the Ji River. It was built during the Kaihuang era and is over forty zhang long. It can be compared to the Zhaozhou Stone Bridge."

"This place used to be really good. There's a saying that goes, 'In Dongping Prefecture, nine out of ten years there's no harvest, but when there is, the harvest is enough to feed the whole country.'"

Although Yunzhou has a fertile plain, the nearby Dayeze is also known as the Little Dongting Lake. It is frequently flooded, especially since the chaos of the Sui Dynasty. No one has paid attention to repairing or protecting the dikes. Whenever there is a flood, the people are displaced and have to leave their homes to beg for food.

Sheng Yanshi looked at Xuchang City.
He was ordered by Li Yi to lead troops to join Jiang Shan in the campaign, while Wang Bo, the governor of Qizhou, and Liu Lancheng, the prefect of Zizhou, also led troops to provide assistance.
He defeated the rebel army several times within Yunzhou and successively recovered several cities.

Now the troops are at the gates of Xuchang City, the seat of Yunzhou Prefecture.

At this time, the general guarding Xuchang City was Zhang Qingte, a native of Jibei. He had been a warlord who had carved out a territory since the end of the Sui Dynasty. He was also a famous opportunist who had repeatedly switched allegiances. He had served under Li Mi, Yuwen Huaji, and Dou Jiande, and had also served under Wang Shichong and surrendered to the Tang Dynasty. Now he had returned to Dou Jiande and joined forces with Xu Yuanlang to attack Yunzhou.

"The commander has instructed us not to attack the city by force. If the enemy defends the city and puts up a stubborn resistance, then we should surround it without attacking." Accompanied by generals Jiang Shanhe and Liu Lancheng, Sheng Yanshi observed Xuchang City for a long time.

They tried to persuade him to surrender and even launched a probing attack on the city.
Zhang Qingte resisted fiercely.

Sheng Yanshi planned to follow Li Yijun's orders to besiege the city without attacking, and to attack any reinforcements.

However, with tens of thousands of troops gathered at the foot of Xuchang City, the consumption of food and supplies is also considerable. "General Manager Wang, we need to trouble you to requisition food and supplies."

The Qizhou General Administration governed five prefectures: Qizhou, Jizhou, Zouzhou, Dongtaizhou, and Tanzhou.

"Prefect Liu, I trouble you and General Wang to lead troops north to recapture Jizhou."

Sheng Yanshi and Jiang Shanhe's troops continued to besiege Xuchang City. If Xu Yuanlang, the governor of Yanzhou in the east, came to their aid, they could besiege the city and attack the reinforcements.

"Li Sikong has already personally led his troops into Yanzhou, we must also step up our efforts."

Wang Bo and Liu Lancheng readily agreed. Both of them had started their own uprisings at the end of the Sui Dynasty and had experienced ups and downs in recent years. Now they were determined to stick with the Tang Dynasty, so they naturally had to perform well this time.

···
Located in the southwest of Yanzhou, in Jinxiang County.

Late at night, Li Yi had a strange dream. He felt himself being lifted up by a colorful cloud, soaring into the sky and drifting leisurely westward. He sat on the cloud, looking down, and saw the earth and mountains reflecting each other, flowers blooming in profusion, grass as green as a carpet, people living in peace and contentment, smoke rising from village chimneys, roosters crowing and dogs barking—a truly peaceful scene.

Upon waking from the dream, Li Yi felt a deep sense of loss.

As they marched along, they saw endless sandstorms, withered trees and dry grass, and few people. Many villages were already dilapidated and abandoned, and there were even corpses exposed in the wild, with no one to collect them.

In early summer,

During the lean season, many people are still peeling tree bark and digging up grass roots to eat.

On the road, one could see refugees from time to time, like walking corpses.

Jinxiang County was located within the territory of Yanzhou. Since the chaos of the Sui Dynasty, Xu Yuanlang had gathered a crowd and raised an army, occupying several prefectures from Langya County in the east to Dongping County in the west. He had also accompanied Li Mi in attacking Luoyang City and followed Xu Shiji in seizing Liyang Granary.
He was said to have 20,000 armored soldiers under his command.

However, the Yanzhou region under his rule was more dilapidated than other places.

Many villages are in ruins, large tracts of farmland are abandoned, and large clans rely on fortified villages and settlements to survive.

After passing Baizhuang,

This is a fortified village built by the Bai family, which looks much smaller than Wuji Fortress in Yusu Township, but the Bai family has dealt with bandits and soldiers many times thanks to this fortress.

Once troops pass through the area, the Bai family will gather the clansmen, villagers, tenants and others living below the fortress to take refuge in the fortress for defense. If they encounter a large group of troops, they will send some money and food, but if they encounter a small group, they will shut their doors and ignore them.

After the soldiers and bandits left, he went out of the fort to continue farming, but life was hard and he struggled to make ends meet.

When they saw Li Yi leading his army past, they were filled with fear.

To their surprise, the army was well-organized, did not trample the crops, and did not even damage the houses outside their fortress.

Only a few knights arrived, informing us that the approaching force was the royal army of the Tang Dynasty.

The title of the general who commanded the troops was so long that it was astonishing.

The Bai family patriarch is over seventy years old and has served as an official in the Northern Qi, Northern Zhou, and Sui dynasties, so he is quite knowledgeable.

"Inspector General of the Army and concurrently Inspector General of the Palace Attendants, Minister of War, General of the Banner of Wannian Circuit, Pacification Commissioner of Henan Circuit, Left Vice Minister of the Grand Secretariat of Shaanxi East Circuit, Governor-General of Luozhou, Prefect..." The old clan chief softly recited this long list of titles. "I heard that this Minister Li is only eighteen years old this year?"

"I heard he's not even nineteen yet."

hiss!
In the main hall of the fortress, a collective gasp rippled through the crowd. He hadn't even reached adulthood yet, and he had already risen to such a high rank.

The key point is that this person is not a member of the royal family; he rose through the ranks by meritorious service. Two years ago, he remained steadfast in guarding Hedong, and last year he swept across Shannan and Henan with unstoppable momentum.

I never expected them to come and conquer me personally.

"Open the fortress gates and follow me to greet Minister Li."

“Ancestor, there are so many soldiers outside. If each of them takes a bite, our fort’s food will be gone. Why don’t we send some food out?”

Old Bai's hair and beard were completely white, and his face was covered with age spots. He was old and his days were numbered. But based solely on what he had heard about the new policies that Minister Li had implemented in Henan, and Qiu Haowufan, whom he had personally witnessed marching the Tang army from the fortress wall today, he was still able to save his life.
He knew that destiny was with the Tang Dynasty, but times had changed.

The gates of Baibaozi Fortress opened.

Old Bai, along with a group of his clansmen and fellow villagers, came to the front of the military camp to pay their respects.

Old Bai also brought some food.

It is shaped like a broken hemp rope, green in color, and has a pleasant fragrance.

"These are seasonal delicacies that can only be enjoyed for half a month each year." Old Bai presented a basket of millet.

In the camp, the officers and soldiers were all familiar with this food; in fact, it was a kind of emergency food during times of food shortage.

At this time of year, the wheat is turning slightly yellow, and the grains are becoming plump, but it's still some time before it's fully ripe.
During the lean season, when food was scarce, the people had nothing to eat.
They would then process the green wheat into millstones for emergency use, because this food needs to be milled, hence the name "millstone".

After the green wheat is harvested, it is first hulled, then stir-fried, dried, and peeled. Finally, it is ground on a stone mill, and each grain of green wheat is ground into strands.
Because it is made from cooked wheat kernels, it can be eaten directly after being ground, and it has a slightly sweet taste with a lingering aroma.

It's delicious served cold with garlic sauce, or stir-fried with eggs.

However, it is not easily digested and should not be eaten in large quantities.

Furthermore, milled wheat is made from unripe new wheat and is only used as a last resort in an emergency. Eating milled wheat is somewhat wasteful of food.

Old Bai brought Li Yi some millet, partly as a seasonal treat, but also as a subtle way of indicating that Baibaozi was short of food.

The millet grains that Lao Bai brought were all freshly milled, still warm and fresh, and smelled very rich in wheat aroma. They were indeed quite fresh to eat directly.

Li Yi let all his generals try it.

While eating, I chatted with Lao Bai about the local situation over the years and how many people live in Baibaozi now.

Old Bai kept recounting the hardships of the times.

"Famine, bandits, and rampant banditry—in ten years, nearly half the population has been lost." Old Bai said that fortunately, there was a Xiaoyun Temple nearby, where they could borrow grain when things got tough. Although the interest rate for borrowing money and grain from the temple was high, it was still good that someone was willing to lend them grain to survive during the famine.

Li Yi inquired about the situation at Xiaoyun Temple.

In the past ten years, the temple's land holdings have increased more than tenfold, and the number of monks, lay slaves, and tenant farmers has also increased significantly. In recent years, the people have struggled to survive, while Xiaoyun Temple has been expanded several times.

It must be said that Xiaoyun Temple truly stood out in this chaotic world. Taking advantage of the turmoil, they lent grain and money at exorbitant interest rates, then seized the land of the people, and even forced them to become slaves and tenants of the temple.

However, many people were grateful, because compared to the bandits, rebels, or even warlords who directly plundered, at least they had a way to survive.

Baibao also relied on Xiaoyun Temple, and often borrowed money and grain to get through famine.

Li Yi obtained a lot of useful information: Baibao had no surplus grain, but Xiaoyun Temple was quite wealthy, especially with a considerable amount of stored grain.

Most of the nearby Tunpu villages that hadn't yet gone bankrupt had already become vassals of Xiaoyun Temple. They worked hard to cultivate the land, but most of their earnings ended up in the temple's hands. Some even couldn't repay their debts and interest, so they had to mortgage their land to the temple and become tenants, while others even became slaves.

If Xiaoyun Temple were raided...
Li Yi temporarily abandoned that idea; his primary target this time was Xu Yuanlang.

However, borrowing some money and food from them is not a problem.

Li Yi asked Lao Bai to deliver a letter to Xiaoyun Temple, inviting their people to come over for a meeting and to borrow a few thousand shi of grain.

"The summer harvest will be here soon. How much wheat will you harvest this year?" Li Yi asked Lao Bai.

Old Bai immediately sighed, "This year there was a spring drought and a lack of water, so the wheat didn't grow well. Now there's also a famine, so we had no choice but to cut a lot of unripe green wheat early to make millet and fill our stomachs."
"By the summer harvest, one mu (unit of land area) will probably only yield seven or eight dou (unit of dry measure), but the grain owed to Xiaoyun Temple still needs to be repaid. It's a 'borrow one, repay two' policy; considering the portion the monks who handle it will take, we actually have to repay two and a half dou for every one we borrowed. And when we borrowed one dou, we only received nine sheng (unit of dry measure)."

This is only a loan for six months, which is equivalent to borrowing nine bushels of wheat. After six months, two and three bushels will be returned.

But in addition to repaying the grain to Xiaoyun Temple, we also had to pay taxes to Jincheng County. Besides the regular taxes, there were also additional levies. In short, after the summer harvest, after repaying the grain and paying the taxes, there was basically nothing left of the harvested wheat, and we had to continue borrowing grain to make ends meet.

After each crop is planted, some land has to be used up. In any case, the land is becoming less and less, and the family members are also becoming fewer and fewer.

But there is nothing to do.

"I was ordered to pacify Henan, quell the rebellion, and restore people's livelihood. There are also policies on lending. The monthly interest rate for private loans shall not exceed six percent, the accumulated interest shall not exceed twice the principal, and no interest shall be allowed to be recouped and used to generate further interest."

Loans must be entered into with a contract and registered with the government. Loans that violate this policy will be punished, and may even result in the confiscation of illegal gains.

"I will send someone to review Xiaoyun Temple's lending operations. Any monthly interest exceeding 6% will be cancelled, and for past debts, the interest shall not exceed one time the principal."

I will review their loans over the past three years, and any overcharged interest will be refunded to you in the form of grain.

Old Bai was stunned. Could there really be such a good thing?

This young Li Sikong is a true bodhisattva!
(End of this chapter)