After completely eliminating the resistance forces near Sanhuang County that opposed the Rebel Army, Li Chang’an didn’t relax at all. On the contrary, he sped up his operations.
After all, to him, occupying a piece of land was just the first step in realizing his ambitions. The true journey of a thousand miles had only just begun.
Although the Yaoqing Imperial Court was currently corrupt, it had not yet reached the point where everyone would kick it while it was down. Under these circumstances, one could imagine how difficult it would be for Li Chang’an to succeed in his rebellion.
Li Chang’an had to seize every single window of opportunity for growth!
After taking stock of the captured provisions and wealth, Li Chang’an pushed aside all objections and began distributing land and food to the common people around Sanhuang County.
Any citizen of Sanhuang County willing to farm could receive land and grain, distributed on a per-person basis.
The land technically still belonged to the Rebel Army, but they would only collect a ten percent tax on the grain harvest each year. For people accustomed to landlords and gentry who would casually levy taxes of thirty, fifty, or even eighty percent, this was practically no different from being given it for free.
Floods, plagues, famine...
It seemed to be a year fraught with disaster.
But for the common folk living near Sanhuang County, these were just the sort of calamities they had to face once every eight or ten years.
Many had even experienced it before. Their senses were long since numb.
"Among the people, only one in ten owns land; nine in ten are tenant farmers. With only a single autumn harvest per year, the yield from a plot of land is small—perhaps three sacks of grain at most, and often little more than one.
Yet the rent demanded by a landlord can be as high as a sack and a half, and is never less than nearly a full sack.
A tenant exhausts his strength for a year, paying for the land’s upkeep out of his own pocket, only to be left with a pittance after the harvest. It gets to the point where he pays his rent one day and must beg for a loan the next."
This was the true reality of life for the people at the bottom.
Now, what shocked the common people the most was that after the natural and man-made disasters, they received no aid from the Government Office. Instead, they received generous gifts from a band of ’rebels’.
’Could it be that Heaven had finally opened its eyes and taken pity on us, a bunch of mud-legs?’
Right up until the day the grain and land were distributed, the common people were still in a daze.
They felt that everything before them seemed unreal, suspecting they might still be lost in a beautiful dream conjured up on the brink of starvation.
Not until their bellies were filled with grain.
Not until new crops were planted in the soil.
Only then did the common people truly taste the sweetness of reality.
At the same time, Li Chang’an’s status in the hearts of the people around Sanhuang County instantly soared to an incredible height.
He was like the parents who had given them a second life!
An overwhelming tide of gratitude washed over him.
Because they learned that Li Chang’an was a half-disciple of the old Daoist, the people gave him the title ’Taiping Daoist Monarch’.
Some people even placed statues of Li Chang’an in their ancestral halls, where he would receive daily offerings of Incense and worship.
In the same year, the Rebel Army began to recruit soldiers.
However, they had only just put out the news, and recruitment had not yet formally begun. The common people who heard the message rushed over almost overnight, lining up to join the Rebel Army.
Seeing the long lines of people spontaneously forming at the recruitment station, it wasn’t just the Rebel Army soldiers who were stunned; even Wang Su and Lü Changning couldn’t help but gasp.
In this day and age, the common people avoided the Government Office like the plague, let alone a rebel army that was usually no better than bandits and robbers.
Normally, they would stay as far away as they possibly could.
They were terrified of getting involved.
This sight of people ’spontaneously lining up to join the Rebel Army’ was something that, if they hadn’t seen it with their own eyes, they would have sooner believed Li Chang’an had hired shills. They would have died before believing it was real.
Looking at the silently waiting lines of people outside, Wang Su’s face flushed, and he couldn’t help but exclaim, "Excellent. Excellent! Truly excellent! Chang’an is truly someone destined for greatness!"
Because his methods were still a bit too ahead of their time.
In the beginning, even Wang Su hadn’t quite understood Li Chang’an’s purpose in distributing grain and land to the common people.
’With land and grain, we could have easily recruited soldiers and bought horses to rapidly expand our power. The desperate commoners who couldn’t survive would have had no choice but to join the Rebel Army.’
’That way, we could have both saved the people and strengthened the Rebel Army. It would have been a win-win!’
’Giving it all away for free... wasn’t that just saving the people at our own expense?’
Although the old Daoist had a heart for helping the world and saving its people, he was not a naive idealist. On the contrary, he could distinguish between ideals and reality.
A person who is unable to give anything up can gain nothing.
If the Rebel Army failed, the people of the Central Plains would continue to live in the hellish depths under Yaoqing rule, and disasters like the flood in Sanhuang County would happen again and again.
’So what if you act like the Buddha today, cutting off your own flesh to feed an eagle, and save a few people?’
’You’re not a true Immortal. You can put out the fire in front of you, but you can’t extinguish the disaster in the distance!’
On the contrary, this kind of approach—treating the symptoms but not the root cause—would not only harm themselves but the common people as well.
But now, after seeing this crowd of people spontaneously flocking to support the Rebel Army, Wang Su was finally beginning to understand.
...
At the same time, the formalization of the Rebel Army’s training was also put on the agenda.
Li Chang’an prepared to forge a Taiping army that had faith, strength, and strict discipline. To this end, he personally formulated the Rebel Army’s training programs and code of conduct.
Xiong Er, as Li Chang’an’s first trusted subordinate in the Rebel Army, was responsible for its implementation.
In the first month of year 241 of the Yaoqing King Calendar, Li Chang’an was eight years old. Thanks to his continuous organization and optimization, the internal structure of the Rebel Army had gradually stabilized.
And he could finally find some time for other things.
He began to pore over every Cultivation Techniques Secret Manual and historical document he could find, attempting to create a set of Martial Arts Techniques suitable for the vast majority of ordinary people to practice.
On the Celestial Yang Continent, from ancient times to the present, the Martial Dao had always been in the hands of a select few, used as a tool to consolidate rule and increase privilege.
The current Imperial Court, in particular, was even more cruel and oppressive toward the martial practitioners of the Central Plains than previous dynasties had been.
And what Li Chang’an wanted to do was not only to break the monopoly that the gentry and powerful clans held over land and wealth, but also to shatter the absolute control that the Martial Artist Families had over the Martial Dao.
’In short, as a Reincarnator, if I want to continuously defy fate, I have to break free from my shackles again and again—to think what no one before has dared to think, and do what no one before has dared to do!’
Just as things on Li Chang’an’s side were developing in full swing, the Yaoqing Imperial Court finally made another move.
The neighboring Qingpu and Pingdong Counties gathered thirty thousand elite troops to surround the Rebel Army in a pincer attack, seemingly preparing to extinguish them in one fell swoop.
Fenzhou Prefecture City went a step further, placing Li Chang’an’s name and identity on the Imperial Court’s kill list with a bounty of ten thousand taels of silver.
However, what puzzled Li Chang’an was that the Imperial Court didn’t seem to intend to send troops for a direct confrontation. They had merely blocked the few roads leading in and out of Sanhuang County, but made no further substantial moves.
Nevertheless, the Imperial Court’s successive troop movements in such a short time still attracted a great deal of attention. The name Li Chang’an was also delivered into the hands of dignitaries and influential figures throughout Fengzhou Prefecture.
...
The direct consequence of this series of events was that even before the Imperial Court’s troops had made a clear move, Li Chang’an had already endured several assassination attempts by assassins from the Jianghu.
The most ridiculous part was that one night, three different groups of assassins arrived at the Three Yellow County Magistrate’s Office at the same time.
After discovering that Li Chang’an was actually an eight-year-old kid who hadn’t even hit puberty, the three groups of assassins started fighting amongst themselves.
After all, in their eyes, Li Chang’an was just meat on a chopping block, an easy target.
Although they didn’t know why the Imperial Court had placed such a high bounty on a little kid, there was plenty of sordid business within the court. As long as there was money to be made, they couldn’t be bothered to care about the details.
When he saw the three groups of assassins arguing endlessly over how to split the bounty, even starting a deadly brawl right there in the County Magistrate’s Office,
Li Chang’an was so amused he laughed. He intervened, saying, "Gentlemen, there’s no need to fight. Since you’ve all come here today, you can choose one thing to leave behind: either the Martial Arts Techniques you’ve learned, or your own lives!"
...