Chapter Ninety-Two: The Sovereign’s Use

Yue was only a deputy commissioner of pacification in Huaixi, a jinshi graduate of the Muslim and other-ethnic gentry, hardly a man of great standing. His rank was naturally worlds apart from that of Taiping, the left chancellor of the Southern Yuan provincial administration of Huainan, so when Taiping casually replied, "I am still the chief administrator of the Grand Council in Yangzhou," he turned Yue's envoy away at once.

But Fu Shou, as the Grand Censor of the Jiangnan regional inspection office, held a position only slightly below Taiping's. More than that, he was a Muslim of true aristocratic pedigree; in status he was no less distinguished than He Weiyi, that Han Chinese gentleman of great lineage. The envoy he sent was equally blunt: "Chancellor He, the realm has ordered you to hold Yangzhou and command the armies of the southeast. The regional inspection office now stands on the brink of disaster. If Jiqing falls, how can Your Excellency hope to remain untouched?"

"Taiping" and "He Weiyi" were two entirely different identities. Taiping was a genuine Mongol noble of great birth, whereas He Weiyi was merely a Han man with a pedigree. This was precisely the trouble Taiping always faced whenever he served as chancellor.

Although he spoke Mongolian even better than Chinese, had been raised from childhood in Mongol ways, and even possessed a true Mongol name, a Mongol noble appointed to office still had to work alongside He Weiyi. Yet in the end he had Han blood in his veins, and there were always Mongol aristocrats and Muslim-Mongols eager to dig up evidence that he was colluding with Han and southern peoples to plot mischief.

Taiping therefore had no choice but to reveal the real situation: "I know the Grand Censor Fu is in great difficulty in the Jiqing route, but the court placed me in Yangzhou to command the garrison there precisely so that we might restore the maritime transport at all costs."

Unlike in the Ming dynasty, the Great Yuan, from the beginning of its reign, depended entirely on the transport of grain by sea. Each year millions of shi of grain were shipped from Jiangnan to the north; in the best years, as much as three and a half million shi had to be sent northward from Jiangnan. This was the source of the slogan voiced during the Han and Song Red Turban uprising: "Poor Jiangnan, rich beyond the passes to the north." Yet it also created the north's immense dependence on Jiangnan for money and grain, including both North China and the northeast.

After Fang Guozhen attacked Liujiagang in the thirteenth year of Zhizheng, this maritime supply route, truly the lifeline of the Great Yuan, was severed completely. Though men of great pedigree like the He family would always live in splendor, the capital of Dadu had now reached the point where people were nearly starving to death.

Many Mongol nobles could not understand that before the maritime transport existed, Dadu and Shangdu had always been full of song and revelry, and whenever the emperor was in a good mood, the common people among the Mongols could receive untold amounts of gold, silver, coin, grain, and provisions. So why was it that merely returning to the conditions of the dynasty's early years suddenly left every ten-thousand-household commandery and thousand-household commandery on the verge of bankruptcy?

But the problems the Great Yuan now faced in the north were not merely that it was about to go bankrupt. The Yuan dynasty's rule in the north had been built on the foundation of massive supplies of money and grain from Jiangnan, and once those supplies were cut off, the north had already fallen into a full-scale crisis of governance.

The court had no way at all to solve the comprehensive famine and fiscal emergency. Even loyal ministers of the Great Yuan such as Chahan and Li Siqi had to keep territory, money, and grain firmly in their own hands. The court did not care about the small matter of people starving to death. If this condition in which the state was no longer a state continued, the Great Yuan was doomed to perish.

That was why the Mongol-Yuan nobles had sent Left Chancellor Taiping to Yangzhou to restore maritime transport. Even if they could no longer send three million shi of grain to Dadu every year, so long as they could fill a gap of one or two million shi, that would still count as the good old days in the memory of the Mongol aristocracy.

The envoy sent by the regional inspection office was deeply disappointed. "Since maritime transport is to be restored, then the immediate priority is to clear the Red Turban bandits from the Jiangdong Circuit. If Jiangdong is not cleared, then even if maritime transport can be restored, it will be nothing more than a fleeting bloom!"

In truth, the regional inspection office could not understand at all how maritime transport was to be restored while Jiqing was already lost. Though the Jiangdong Circuit supplied only part of the maritime grain, once Jiangdong fell to the Red Turbans it meant the entire southeast had sunk into war. Yet Taiping gave an unexpected answer: "The key to restoring maritime transport lies in two people. The first is Fang Guozhen!"

The raid on Liujiagang in the thirteenth year of Zhizheng may be called a classic campaign in the history of ancient naval warfare. Fang Guozhen, at a trivial cost, burned several thousand sea-going vessels, forcing the Yuan court to suspend the maritime transport that had lasted for decades. So whenever one spoke of restoring sea-borne grain shipments, Fang Guozhen was an unavoidable name.

The envoy from the regional inspection office could not help sneering. "Chancellor He, the second person you mean cannot be Zhang Shicheng of Gaoyou, can it? Are you trying to doom Jiqing and the entire southeast?"

Now he finally understood: He Weiyi was trying to sacrifice the regional inspection office and Jiqing in order to pacify Zhang Shicheng. As long as the Red Turban army took Jiqing, the alliance between the Red Turbans of Chuzhou and Zhang Shicheng of Gaoyou would inevitably collapse, and then pacifying Zhang Shicheng would indeed be a fairly good choice.

But the premise of all this was the sacrifice of the regional inspection office and Jiqing. At last the regional inspection office understood why He Weiyi had remained motionless ever since arriving in Yangzhou!

Chancellor Taiping flatly denied this baseless speculation. "Though this chancellor may be muddled, I am not so foolish as to place my hopes in a rebel like Zhang Shicheng. The second key figure in restoring maritime transport is Zhao Junyong!"

Zhao Junyong?

The regional inspection office had not expected He Weiyi to be even crazier than imagined. If pacifying Zhang Shicheng would bring utter ruin to the regional inspection office, then pacifying Zhao Junyong would be nothing short of courting death.

What sort of man was Zhao Junyong?

Within the Han and Song Red Turban regime, Zhao Junyong was practically on the same level as Liu Futong and Du Zundao.

It was Zhao Jun who, with eight desperadoes, seized Xuzhou and sparked the second great wave of the Xusong Red Turban uprising. Chancellor Tuotuo personally campaigned against Xuzhou and captured only Zhi Ma Li, while Zhao Junyong slipped away to Haozhou. Guo Zixing and Sun Deya of Haozhou were both subordinates of Zhao Junyong and could only receive him with the utmost deference, whereupon Zhao naturally became the master of the house and roamed at will across the Huai and Yangzi regions.

Even now, the Red Turbans of Chuzhou were only one branch within Zhao Junyong's larger faction. At present, the greatest threat to Yangzhou and the Province of Huainan was neither the Red Turbans of Chuzhou nor Zhang Shicheng, but Zhao Junyong's faction. Moreover, within the Longfeng regime, plans had already been made to hand over the entire establishment of Huainan Province to Zhao Junyong.

Was He Weiyi now talking of pacifying Zhao Junyong not like seeking a tiger's aid?

The regional inspection office had a hundred, a thousand reasons for condemnation surging to their lips, but He Weiyi gave his own reasoning with exceptional clarity: "Rather than pacify Zhao Junyong, it would be better to let him sit down and talk properly with Zhu Yuanzhang and Liu Yi!"