Chapter 128: Treading on Wu Zetian’s Sore Spot

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A commodity economy—a commodity economy means using the power of the market to drive the development of agriculture, industry, and commerce.

Only by breaking these shackles could handicrafts achieve scale, while agricultural production advanced toward greater efficiency.

Some might say, “If food production falls behind and everyone goes into business, who will work the fields?”

Nonsense. How likely was such an extreme situation to arise? It was impossible for everyone to abandon farming and go into trade.

Besides, everything supports and complements everything else. Every advance in civilization requires a driving force.

To put it plainly, people are driven forward by necessity. When the bridge is reached, a way across will appear!

It took wheat a very long time after entering the Central Plains to replace the relatively low-yield millet, allowing Qin to profit and unify the Six Kingdoms.

You could say wheat appeared at precisely the right moment, but you could not deny that the needs of society at the time drove its rapid spread.

By the time of the Great Tang, the low efficiency of agriculture once again led the curved-beam plow to replace the straight-beam plow.

Likewise, you could say that the curved-beam plow appeared at exactly the right time—or that the needs of production forced agricultural tools to keep improving.

Look further ahead: the prosperity of commerce under the Great Song, the arrival of Champa rice, the population limits of the Ming and Qing dynasties and the introduction of crops from the Americas, not to mention the food crises of modern times and the hybrid rice developed by the Great Druid Yuan.

These might be called the good fortune of their eras, but they were equally the result of their eras’ needs forcing agriculture to advance.

Believe it or not, if thirty million runaway households stopped farming and there was not enough food to eat, Champa rice would have stormed into the Central Plains two hundred years early.

Besides, Champa is part of the Great Tang now!

If the Great Tang still could not solve its problems even after developing Champa rice, then the maritime merchants soon to sail overseas would not be bringing spices and glassware back home. Crops from the Americas would arrive on the battlefield at once.

And if that still was not enough, then as long as commerce grew large enough to sustain social development, and as long as Tang technology had sufficient time to advance, hybrid rice ought to appear.

Wu Ning understood it all now. The hundred-odd thousand words that came before had merely been groundwork. No matter how cleverly he played the game, at most he would only increase the old empress’s tax revenue and give her a few more bargaining chips in the court struggle.

But the runaway households were different. That was the true problem, the crux of the matter—or, to put it another way, the Great Tang’s most vulnerable point!

Empress Wu’s ability to govern had been inherited from Emperor Taizong, Li Shimin, and her methods and style closely resembled his. Yet she had never been able to surpass Taizong, nor make the Great Tang greater than it had been during his reign.

But if she could solve the problem of the runaway households—something that both Taizong and Gaozong had been powerless to resolve...

Well... even if Wu Zetian’s reputation in the eyes of her contemporaries and later generations still could not equal that of Emperor Taizong, it would certainly rise by an entire level!

That was the source of Wu Ning’s confidence—the reason he dared tease the old empress and even threaten her.

The old lady was still unwilling to kill him. She was counting on that scoundrel Wu the Ninth to help her create a miracle!

...

Huh?

Champa rice?

Wu the Ninth thought to himself, How would I know about Champa rice? Champa rice is wonderful stuff. At a critical moment, it can even save lives...

But that was getting off track.

Returning to the matter of expanding the commodity economy, let us imagine this: if the Great Tang’s runaway households and land-consolidation problems had existed under the Great Song, would they still have been problems?

The Great Song could never have suffered from runaway households!

The peasants who lost their land would not have needed to flee. A prosperous urban economy could easily absorb vast numbers of landless laborers.

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Land consolidation was even less of a problem. Not long after the founding of the Great Song, the severity of land consolidation had already nearly caught up with that of the late Tang.

Because of its high degree of urbanization and its ubiquitous petty commerce, the Great Song had become a rich, fat carcass dripping with wealth.

But what about the Great Tang?

Once a peasant lost his land, he had nowhere to go.

He might not even have a means of survival. Even without land, he still had to pay taxes. Making a living on his own was impossible, because the townspeople did not want him, and there was no sound market environment to support a second attempt at entrepreneurship. Apart from fleeing his native place and becoming an unregistered household dependent on the landlord class, he had no other choice.

And there were twenty or thirty million people!

If twenty or thirty million people ran to the estates of landlords, all they would do was provide the landlords with even more cheap labor, prompting them to seize land with still greater frenzy.

But if the Great Tang opened its markets and drove those twenty or thirty million people into the towns, could it become as wealthy as the Great Song?

No!

Because the Tang was not that fat, wealth-soaked carcass known as the Song. It had more than wealth alone.

It would become a lion, its entire body packed with muscle—fiercer than it was now!

So lift the curfew and maximize the hours available for commerce. Abolish the walled wards and designated markets, get the townspeople of the Great Tang moving, and let merchants go directly to the common people.

First, commerce in the towns had to be brought to life. Once it developed to a certain scale, it would naturally absorb the runaway households and employ them as cheap labor.

As commerce expanded further, the landless commoners would naturally find opportunities within it. At that point, if the court supplemented the process with lenient policies, landless peasants could transform into a new urban force. They could recreate their own value and regain hope of survival.

Of course, the Great Tang was ultimately not the Great Song. It could not simply copy the Song on the surface. Many details remained unresolved, and implementing these eight words recklessly would not necessarily make the nation rich.

That was why Wu Ning had written only eight words.

The specifics—what needed to be done, and what supporting policies and conditions were required—would have to be discussed in detail with Princess Taiping.

As for how long that discussion would take...

Don’t rush me, all right?

This is difficult. Even all the talent gathered in your capital could not solve it, could they? Let me take my time...

Of course... those eight words were not the end of it. There was still Champa rice... and other things besides.

...

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Time passed, and the New Year was over.

In Fang Prefecture, March, converted into the Gregorian calendar used by later generations, was already late April and approaching May.

Spring had arrived even earlier in the Jinghu region. The weather was warm, the flowers were blooming, and all living things were awakening.

The year before, Wu Ning’s cellar had allowed the people of Downhill Hollow to taste the sweetness of profit. Before the New Year, the families had discussed converting all their irrigated and dry fields into vegetable plots. That way, they would not even know how much more their income would increase during autumn and winter.

Those clansmen who owned more land had already bought additional farm tools before the New Year, swearing that they would work with all their might once spring arrived.

Unfortunately, plans could not keep up with change.

The busy farming season had begun long ago, but no one was cultivating the land in Downhill Hollow anymore. The weeds in the fields were nearly a foot high, and everything lay abandoned.

Who the hell was still farming now? Burn charcoal instead!

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By now, Downhill Hollow and Chen Family Village had a total of seventeen charcoal kilns, all operating at full capacity day and night.

That was not all. Another twenty kilns were under construction in the two villages. In about half a month, they too would be ready for full production.

Compared with the enormous profits from black bamboo charcoal, who still cared about a few turnips and cabbages?

...

The story began more than two months earlier.

After the Lantern Festival, Qin Miaoniang’s father, Qin Wenyuan, set out under official decree for exile in Yi Prefecture.

Ordinarily, it would not have been a significant matter. Even crossing the mountain ridges, Fang Prefecture was only four or five hundred li from Yi Prefecture. But Wu Ning was the old man’s future son-in-law, after all, so naturally he had to see him off.

And he could not send him off empty-handed.

Following his principle of “doing it while he was at it,” Wu the Ninth paid a high price to hire a caravan and sent his future father-in-law ten thousand pounds of charcoal for the journey, so the old man could use it at his leisure along the road.

Qin Wenyuan did not refuse. After all, he had a twenty-percent share in the business.

Of course, he still gave Wu Ning a thorough scolding before setting off, and only then did he depart with satisfaction.

...

About twenty days after the old man left, Qin Fu, who had gone specifically to serve Lord Qin, returned. The moment he opened his mouth, he demanded thirty thousand pounds of black bamboo charcoal from Wu Ning.

Wu Ning was terrified.

Damn! Was his charcoal really selling that well?

Judging by the dates, twenty days was barely enough for Qin Fu to make the round trip.

What did that mean?

It meant Lord Qin was incredible! Had he sold out the moment he arrived?

Heh...

Wu the Ninth had been overthinking it.

Lord Qin had not sold out the moment he arrived. He had given everything away the moment he arrived!

According to Qin Fu, as soon as his father-in-law reached Yi Prefecture, the old man immediately began acting as a generous benefactor, handing out charcoal for free.

From the prefectural officials to the wealthy households, he used his charcoal to cultivate connections.

He had given gifts to everyone from top to bottom in Yi Prefecture.

The market had not been opened, but Lord Qin had certainly made a name for himself.

Everyone in Yi Prefecture with even the slightest social standing knew that a “charcoal seller” had come from Fang Prefecture.

A decent fellow, too. He went everywhere handing out black charcoal.

.......