The will of the people could be put to use.
This was exactly what Ling Jing felt upon hearing the Inner Attendant’s joyful report.
The ever-increasing problem of land annexation was a thorny issue that every feudal dynasty had to face in its later stages. Mishandle it, and the dynasty would collapse.
Since the current level of productivity could not possibly see significant growth in the short term, the only way to address land annexation was either to increase income, cut expenditures, or both.
The Original Emperor had chosen to cut expenditures.
Unfortunately, the scope of the Original Emperor’s drastic reforms was limited only to the four provinces surrounding the Capital. When he tried to extend it further, exhaustion claimed him—one bout of illness, and he was gone.
Though the Original Emperor’s methods to curb land annexation in the nearby provinces were blunt and merely treated the symptoms rather than the cause, the outcome was... Even after the original host had been an idle and incompetent ruler for years, and even if Qin Jingzhou hadn’t transmigrated here, the people of the Capital and its surrounding provinces would still have supported him.
It had to be said—young people who had never received an education and knew nothing but farming were everywhere. In today’s Great Zhou, these young men, who could only do hard labor, struggled to make enough even to feed themselves, let alone support their families.
They could only continue living with their parents and siblings. Even after marrying and having children, several generations were crammed together as one large household.
Qin Jingzhou and Ling Jing could see the truth clearly: left unchecked, in three generations or less, land annexation would return in the four neighboring provinces.
So, their solution was to enlist some of the youth into the army, send some to participate in infrastructure projects, and have the rest go to the burgeoning workshops—in other words, into the factories.
Sure enough, just as Ling Jing had predicted, the will of the people could be used. Very soon, the two of them noticed young men were eager to become soldiers, somewhat willing to help build roads and dig canals, and least enthusiastic about working in the factories.
The two exchanged glances—well, it was much the same in their own hometowns, after all.
Incidentally, the quality of the new recruits was very pleasing. They simply hadn’t been fully trained and hadn’t yet seen the battlefield. The more pressing issue, of course, was that the horses they ordered had not yet arrived.
Come spring, when all the foundational work was complete, Qin Jingzhou assembled two large mercenary corps and, taking with them spices, dyes, blended cotton-wool cloth, and several ready-made medicines provided by Dian Lanyu for diabetes, hypertension, colds and coughs, asthma, and special trauma care, took a journey to the Western Regions and the Northern Steppe.
The natural conditions in the Western Regions could not compare to Great Zhou’s, but they had mineral wealth.
As for the various tribes on the Northern Grasslands, they had cattle, horses, sheep, and medicinal herbs that were scarce in Great Zhou.
By early autumn, both mercenary corps returned. The one that journeyed to the Western Regions brought back fifty thousand taels of gold and two hundred thousand taels of silver, while the one from the Northern Steppe returned with tens of thousands of head of cattle, horses, and sheep—the procession stretched for several miles.
Not-so-clever tenant farmers rushed to the Imperial Highway to see the spectacle and returned to whisper to friends and family, saying their horizons had been broadened again.
The smarter ones gathered their families to discuss whether it was possible to invest their savings, originally set aside for buying land, into a draft ox or some wool-bearing sheep.
The hardworking farmers, meanwhile, followed the Prince’s Household steward’s example to tend their fields, now using fertilizer and learning to apply pesticides. Even though the weather this year was neither particularly favorable nor stable—especially with several downpours just before the harvest—the yield was more than double that of last year.
The steward had promised in spring that if there was a surplus in the harvest over the previous year, half of that surplus would be given to the Imperial Grandfather. If there was no increase, nothing more would be taken. Now, looking at grain stores and cellars piled high, the farmers were filled with joy—not only would they gladly give half to the Imperial Grandfather, but they felt so grateful they’d offer it all if asked.
But when they excitedly went with the clan elders and Li Chang to the steward to offer extra tax, the steward repeated, as the Imperial Grandfather had said, that a promise is a promise. Only half, not a coin more. If they kept asking, no fertilizer and no pesticide next year.
The farmers relented at this.
In a word, in the Capital’s outskirts and in the neighboring four provinces, the households living relatively near the Capital now had enough for their families for the coming year and, nearly without exception, a little extra cash to spare.
So it was that farmers who had saved up started considering buying a draft ox or several sheep.
All in all, in the year that Qin Jingzhou and Ling Jing transmigrated, the Capital and surrounding four provinces weren’t just thriving. The place looked every bit the picture of a peaceful golden age.
Everyone knew that ordinary conscripted soldiers, born into commoner families, fought either to survive or to defend their home. In either case, they could be depended upon to give their all.
That year, as autumn drew to a close, the second and third Fate’s Sons’ families joined forces with several noble families, and in name raised three hundred thousand troops. They headed north to “eliminate the demon consort and cleanse the Emperor’s side,” where they were stopped for a full month in the southern-most county town of the four provinces bordering the Capital—the gateway on the march to the Capital itself.
As for why they only managed to hold the line for a month, it was simply because, after a month, Jiang Tongqing arrived with a main force of one hundred thousand elite Imperial Guards to bolster the defense.
To be fair, the nobles’ coalition was capable enough to build siege equipment and did not lack military prowess to the point they couldn’t break the county's defenses, if they were willing to go all out. But with conflicting goals, and hurriedly cobbled together for the sake of overthrowing Emperor Jiang Jingzhou, before the critical issue of “dividing the spoils” had been settled, nobody wanted to truly exert themselves. They preferred to posture, to act snide, even to drag others down whenever they could.
Put plainly, once they saw that all the officers, civilians, and defending troops inside the county town were in high spirits and refused to surrender, no one wanted to be the first to butt heads with this hard target.
The result was that not only did the nobles’ coalition fail to break through the tough defenders, real trouble soon arrived.
With no way out, the various families hastily decided to each send one vanguard army to test Jiang Tongqing’s actual strength before making any further moves.
But this makeshift vanguard army, barely stronger than a rabble, fell apart almost instantly when they clashed with the real elite Imperial Guards. With only just over ten percent casualties, the whole force scattered and fled.
Jiang Tongqing, presiding over the Middle Army, could only shake his head at the sight. He had suspected they might be incompetent, but never expected they’d be this feeble.
What had the southern noble families been doing all these years? They bled the people dry, but as Noble Consort put it, was this all they had?
No wonder His Majesty and the Crown Prince wanted to deal with the southern nobles first.
Mind racing, he exchanged a glance with his deputy general and the messenger at his side.
If you do not pursue and defeat the enemy at a time like this, you might as well go home and farm sweet potatoes.
As a result, the collapse of this vanguard force sparked a chain reaction, and soon even the coalition’s Middle Army could not maintain formation.
It should be said that Jiang Tongqing’s force of one hundred thousand was a true army of war-hardened soldiers. The support troops hadn’t even arrived yet.
And of the coalition’s so-called three hundred thousand troops, fewer than a hundred thousand were actual soldiers. The other two hundred thousand included only about one hundred thousand support troops, but even then, they could not compare at all to Great Zhou’s own well-trained support forces.
So when the coalition’s Middle Army broke ranks, the rest didn’t need describing—it was everyone for themselves now. Just run.
The next day, while making his rounds through the camp, Jiang Tongqing spotted an old acquaintance among the dejected prisoners: none other than the second Fate’s Son.
When news reached the Capital, Qin Jingzhou was in the Qianqing Palace, Ling Jing at his right hand, memorials at his left, their son Xuan Qing lying in his lap, and Tuan Tuan, fast asleep, curled up in Ling Jing’s arms.
Qin Jingzhou set aside the memorial papers and signaled the messenger Inner Attendant to wait a moment. He gently pinched Tuan Tuan’s chubby cheek with his left hand, then said offhandedly to the Inner Attendant, “Since you’ve caught him... let him keep Wei Guangmei company. Castrate them both.”