Chapter 3 1. Bandit change: the law of blood reward and its deduction

What do bandits, bandits, warlords and various violent groups live on?By blood.Blood pay is the reward for violence, just as wages are the reward for labor, interest is the reward for capital, and ground rent is the reward for land.However, violence does not directly participate in value creation, and the value of blood rewards depends on the value of the goal of struggle.If the object of violence is a person, such as kidnapping, its value depends on the willingness and financial resources of the person concerned to avoid disaster.This is the law of blood reward.During this process, people's core calculation is: for a certain amount of survival resources, how much risk of casualties can be taken?To what extent can you damage yourself as a resource demander?This principle is simple to say, but it can draw many amazing conclusions and explain many puzzling historical phenomena.

In the twelfth year of Zhengde in the Ming Dynasty (1517), on the fifth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, Wang Yangming, the governor of South and Jiangxi, reported to the emperor the results of the Jiangxi suppression of bandits. The daily life of bandits was mentioned in the letter. Wang Yangming said that after the thieves found out the news that the government was training troops and preparing to attack, they "sent all their family and women's belongings to the densely forested place in the mountain village. The strong and strong thieves would go down the mountain to farm during the day and escape to the mountain village at night."

When I read this sentence, I was surprised at first, and then wondered: Bandits also cultivate land?Why do bandits farm?I imagined a series of gradients: professional bandits at one end, professional farmers at one end, and in between there were numerous combinations, combinations of production and robbery: bandits who lived by robbery gradually became farmers who lived by farming.So, what determines this proportional relationship? In 1922, American pastor Anton Lundin was kidnapped by Henan bandits. After he was released, Pastor Lundin wrote about the bandits: Pastor Lundin had a good impression of the bandits, but:

Pastor Lundin's description of bandit law enforcement is very true.It can be seen that in their own territory, bandits crack down on crime more severely than the police.I imagined another gradation series: pure villain at one end, pure tribune at the other, with many combinations in between, combinations of protection and harm.So, what is it that determines this combination? Whether it is protecting the people or harming the people, violent groups are pursuing the maximization of blood rewards. (Ming) Gu Shanzhen recorded in "Ke Dian Shu": In the seventh year of Chongzhen (1634), Zhang Xianzhong was defeated by the government army and rushed back to Shaanxi from Yilong, Sichuan. Some people stayed in the mountains and continued to be bandits.These bandits use Tongjiang, Dazhou, and Bazhou as their lairs, "the people who are kidnapped will be held accountable for ransom. When the seeds are planted, the troops will be gathered and retreated temporarily, and they will come back after the harvest. They think that if people do not cultivate, they will not be able to plunder." .”

This passage is very clear: The reason why the bandits don't disturb the farmers' cultivation is because there is something to grab. The premise of robbery is that there are things to grab; the premise of kidnapping hostages for ransom is that the hostages have the financial resources to pay the ransom.As the law of blood reward says, the cost of a hostage's life is determined by the willingness and ability of the person concerned to pay the ransom.Under the same risk and cost conditions, the richer the hostage, the wealthier the robbery target, the higher the income from kidnapping and robbery.Conversely, the poorer the object of robbery and kidnapping, the lower the income from robbery.If it is so low that the gains outweigh the losses, the bandits can't do it.

According to this principle, we can make inferences in five directions according to the law of blood reward. The first hypothesis: In order to pursue the long-term maximization of blood rewards, bandits are willing to establish an order to protect the plundered objects. Hou Shaoxuan is a well-known uncle of Paoge in Sichuan, and he has close contacts with bandit leaders.He wrote in "Army and Bandits in the World of Guanghan Bandits": I don't know the local price level at that time. I just look at it from the perspective of land rent or land tax. "One mu of rice is planted, and one bucket of grain is paid after the autumn harvest." The tax rate set by the bandits is between 5% and 10%. A Confucian style of taxation.How should this money be quantified?Judging from the source, this is a substitute for robbery, which can be regarded as blood payment.From the perspective of form, if the system established and maintained by violent groups is regarded as the germ of "law", blood rewards are reflected in system benefits, or "legal rewards."From a functional point of view, after the bandits charge a fee, they assume the responsibility of maintaining law and order and fighting against foreign bandits, and sometimes kill a few illegal brothers to show their credit. The money is a bit like a public tax.

So, what exactly is the money collected by the bandits?I thought the money was made up of two parts.Part of it is public taxation, or the value of public goods, such as the cost of maintaining law and order.The other part is legal remuneration—one of the existing forms of blood remuneration, that is, the overcharged part that exceeds the value of public goods.Expressed in a concise formula: all taxes = value of public goods + legal remuneration (blood remuneration).Reverse this formula to get the definition of legal remuneration: legal remuneration = all taxes - value of public goods. This formula applies not only to the world of bandits, but to the royal empire as well.All the taxes and fees of the empire, after deducting the value of the public goods, the remainder is legal remuneration.

For example, although we don’t know how much Chinese people are willing to spend to hire an emperor, we know that the American people hired President Clinton with an annual salary of 200,000 US dollars, and the Russian people hired President Putin with an annual salary of 33,000 US dollars. The emperor, such as Chongzhen and his empress, who were quite frugal, had 16,872 taels of silver per year for the daily food expenses of just two people, which was more than 520,000 US dollars converted according to the grain price.China's wages and prices are relatively close to those of Russia. Even if the food expenses of President Putin's family accounted for 30% of the total income, and they ate 10,000 U.S. dollars (83,000 RMB) a year, the Chongzhen couple (not counting their children and concubines) ate It was 52 times that of others.Based on this, the 10,000 U.S. dollars eaten by the Putin family can be regarded as the food expenses of the first family that the people are willing to pay, and it can be regarded as a reasonable public expenditure, while the extra 510,000 U.S. dollars eaten by the Chongzhen couple should be regarded as legal remuneration .

The value of the so-called public goods, in the bandit world and the age of empires, can only be roughly estimated based on the "shadow price" - public expenditure under a democratic fiscal system.Maintaining public safety and building water conservancy roads and bridges always cost money, and they are also needed by the people.As providers of public services, officials also deserve their salaries.The work of the emperor or the president is complicated, with great responsibilities, and of course they should enjoy high income.However, the emperor eats 52 times more than the president, and this expenditure cannot be explained from the perspective of the value of public goods.Even without talking about democratic finance, as the big boss, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty gave his most senior employees a salary of only 1,044 shi rice per year, or about 22,000 U.S. dollars.Considering the tax-free factor, it is not far from President Putin's annual salary, which is equivalent to half a month's food expenses for the Chongzhen couple.

The so-called legal remuneration is composed of two parts in the imperial system. One is the "extra-salary" income of the royal family and nobles, that is, the income that Chongzhen has more than Putin or Clinton; the other is the income that officials grab through unspoken rules.The "extra-salary" income of the royals and nobles is similar to the shareholders' income, which is that they or their ancestors died in exchange for the blood and sacrifice of the world.The unspoken rule income of officials is similar to the extra income of agents, which is obtained from private transactions in the process of exercising agency rights. Although this kind of gray income is not so legal, it cannot be counted on the emperor.In order to maintain the order that is beneficial to their own interests, to protect the legal remuneration and reduce the workload, the royal aristocracy had to hire agents, and also had to tolerate the cheating of agents and the unspoken rule system established by them.The most effective way to eliminate unspoken rules is to allow victims to supervise and control officials, while letting sheep supervise or even control sheepdogs is very dangerous and may lead to changes in the world.As Lao Tzu and Han Fei said, the rewards and punishments of officials and ranks, like the army, are "the sharp weapon of the country and should not be shown to others."In order to ensure that the blood-stained country never changes color, the control power must be firmly in the hands of the shepherd, even if the unspoken rules flood into a monstrous flood.

Let's continue with the first guess.This speculation can also explain Li Zicheng's changes. In the beginning, Li Zicheng burned, killed and looted all the way during the period of "rogueism". "The Chronicle of Ming History" said: "At the beginning, Zicheng Liu robbed Qin, Jin, Chu, and Henan, attacked and plundered half of the world, but he was happy with dogs and robbers, so he burned and slaughtered barbarians." Later, he won several big victories in a row. Li Zicheng "swept across Henan, with millions of people, and he thought that the world could not compete with him." He felt that he might win the world, so he regarded Jiangshan as his own territory.So the behavior changed drastically. "Under the city, the thief Qiu did not commit any crime. Zicheng ordered: Killing a person is like killing my father, and whoever rapes another person is like cheating my mother." Is Li Zicheng the leader of the thieves, or the leader of the division of benevolence and righteousness?This question is not easy to answer.In fact, Li Zicheng has always been a good leader of the violent group.As the leader of a violent group, Li Zicheng is always pursuing the maximization of blood rewards.Rogues burn, kill and loot, pursuing the maximization of one-time blood rewards; after entering the city without committing crimes, they pursue the maximization of long-term legal rewards for conquering the world. The second hypothesis is opposite to the first hypothesis: In order to maximize the short-term blood reward income, legal violent groups can also degenerate into bandits. In 1918, Xiong Kewu served as the governor of Sichuan, held a meeting for the whole army, and established the defense zone system of "preventing and paying" for the troops of all factions.In the words of Liu Wenhui, a great warlord: "At that time, the defense areas controlled by Sichuan soldiers were all independent kingdoms. Economically, they could get whatever they wanted and do whatever they wanted, so everyone desperately fought for the city and land. The Sichuan warlords fought for 16 years, mostly for this reason." Liu Wenhui used the term "independent kingdom".At that time, the situation in Sichuan was quite similar to that of the Warring States Period. The leaders of six or seven violent groups were fighting for hegemony in this land.Each warlord has the right to set up systems, appoint officials, and collect taxes in its own defense zone. Without the approval of the warlords in the defense zone, the decrees of the central government cannot take effect.However, due to the fierce competition, the owners of the defense area changed frequently, and the degree of stability was not as stable as that of an independent kingdom, nor that of a princely territory, but rather like a gangster's territory. Liu Wenhui said, "In his own defense zone, he levied miscellaneous taxes exorbitantly, what people got, what he got, and he didn't care about the people's poverty... For a period of time, in desperation, he went so far as to increase his income from opium." The warlord Chen Guangzao said: "Military expenses are generally collected from land taxes. If the regular tax is insufficient, pre-collection will be made. In one year, five or six years of grain taxes will be collected in advance. By 1935 (the 24th year of the Republic of China), the pre-collection of land taxes in some places had already reached the Republic of China. It has been more than a hundred years. In addition to the pre-collection of land taxes, it is common to grow opium, collect tobacco money, set up opium dens, and collect red light donations. Each military defense area also set up water and land checkpoints to collect aisle taxes. " In addition to pre-requisition, the specific method of exhausting the pond to fish is also supplemented by land tax.According to a survey of 15 counties in Sichuan in 1934, land tax surcharges included 26 items such as tuition fees, county annals, quilts, and preparations. What is the difference between the behavior of these warlords and bandits?Compared with the bandits in the same place at the same time, the warlord's looting seems to be more ferocious.After all, the bandits have no "pre-request" or "addition", lest they will exhaust their resources and cut off their future financial resources.The warlords just pursued "fishing out of the river".This is not a question of morality and status, but a question of rewarding interests.Since defense areas often change hands and implement the policy of killing chickens and taking eggs, the consequences may not necessarily be borne by themselves, and they can still strengthen their strength now.Implementing the policy of raising chickens to lay eggs may not be able to eat eggs in the future, and chickens may also be snatched by others, and the current malnutrition may quickly lead to defeat.In this situation, exhausting the river to catch fish - the standard behavior of bandits - is the most beneficial choice. According to the law of blood rewards, and then introducing the factor of production income, the third conjecture can be formed: as blood rewards gradually decrease, the rewards for production behaviors will increase relatively, and bandits can be transformed into farmers. In Wang Yangming's works, there are two backgrounds for Jiangxi bandits to engage in farming.One is that the government established the Baojia system, and the defenses of villages and towns became more and more strict. At the same time, the government began to train troops to suppress bandits, and the risk of robbery increased.The other is that the number of bandits increased tenfold in two or three years, from more than 3,000 to tens of thousands, and the people fled in poverty.There are more wolves, thinner sheep, and fewer sheep, and the income from robbery is bound to decrease.These two backgrounds mean: the bandits bleed more and earn less.Blood rewards have been reduced. The famous writer Yao Xueyin lived in the place and era where bandits were rampant, and had a personal experience of being kidnapped by bandits. He described the environment created by bandits in this way: "I am from Western Henan, and Western Henan is known as the 'Bandit World'. Take According to Deng County, my hometown, from about 1928 to 1933, Dongxiang was controlled by the Red Gun Society, and Xixiang was controlled by bandits. The bandit-controlled area formed tens of miles of barren grass due to the exodus of farmers. At that time, the county government reported 40,000 barren land. Now, although it may be exaggerated, one can imagine the seriousness of the situation. I once entered the barren area and saw that the grass was as deep as half a person, with pheasants flying around, hares running in groups, and gray-white wolf droppings everywhere." Just imagine, the bandit-controlled area is full of weeds, how do the bandits live?If going abroad to rob is dangerous, you might as well live by hunting.In this way, the bandits began to transform into working people. According to the "Wenjiang County Chronicle" of the Republic of China version: due to Zhang Xianzhong's massacre, "human beings were almost wiped out in Wenjiang County, and the only survivors were the Fan family, Chen family, Wei family, Jiang family, Yan family, and Hu family. It’s just the surname. In the 16th year of Shunzhi (1659), there were only 32 households, 31 males and 23 females. They are wild and wild, like the beginning of the world.” Volume 19 of "Jianyang County Chronicles" in the Republic of China, Shihuo: "Jianzhou tax and service... At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the war was severe, and it became a wilderness. There are only 14 indigenous households." Both Wenjiang and Jianyang are good places near Chengdu, with resource potential sufficient to support hundreds of thousands of people.Such a large area is "likely a wilderness", "hazel hazel is vast, like the beginning of the world", and there are only ten or twenty families left in the county. What is the best way to make a living?At this time, the search cost of kidnapping or robbery is very high, and the ability of the hostage to pay for his own life is very low.In an environment where sheep are few and thin, instead of being a wolf that cannot find meat to eat, it is better to be a sheep that eats grass. However, bandit farming does not necessarily mean being a farmer.The bandits in Wang Yangming's works set up their own villages to farm the land, and at the same time captured people to farm the land, using them as slaves or serfs.The Mongolian Yuan ruling group and the Eight Banners Group of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties also did similar things in the early days. They used the captive population to establish a considerable scale of slavery and serfdom. Agricultural producers in troubled times may have many forms, such as Juntun, Zhuangding, Buqu and so on.Residential forms include Wubao, Shanzhai and Tuweizi, while in Europe there are castles and lords—they are all forms of social organization in which many agricultural producers surround a violent core.The degree of competition and monopoly of violent groups has a decisive impact on the existence of agricultural producers.The conversion of bandits into standard Chinese peasant households, whether owner farmers or tenant households, must be conditional on the restoration of imperial order, that is, the military and political organization headed by the emperor becomes the only violent core in the world. Wang Yangming succeeded in suppressing bandits, restored the order of the empire, increased the risk of being a bandit, and increased the income of being a farmer.As a result, many bandits went down the mountain to surrender and turned into farmers, which Wang Yangming called "Xinmin". The fourth conjecture is opposite to the third conjecture: assuming that the blood reward remains unchanged, with the reduction or even disappearance of the production income, a large number of producers will turn to violent groups. Zhu De recalled that (around 1921) almost every province in China was under the iron heel of warlord troops, and the harvest of farmers was trampled to nothing, turning into an endless loess desert.Tens of thousands of peasants who depended on the land for a living were enlisted in the army. If troops were routed, or soldiers were dismissed, they were reduced to vagrants.It can be seen from the archives of the Republic of China that among the thousands of bandits executed, the first was a vagrant, the second was a soldier, the third was a coolie, and the fourth was a farmer.Among them, the proportion of homeless people is more than 70%. This sorting happens to be the order of diminishing returns in productivity: farmers have land to grow, and as long as there are no natural and man-made disasters, they may have some production benefits.Once the land is lost or the harvest is cut off, they have to "make their own careers" and go to work as coolies or as soldiers.If they are unemployed again, their productive income will be completely cut off, and they will have nothing but their precarious lives. They will be forced to use their lives to gain resources for survival, and those who have the ability to rob will become bandits. In terms of selection order, being a soldier is worse than being a bandit, because being a bandit is not as promising as being a soldier, and the income is not as stable as being a soldier, but the risk of death is extremely high.I overestimated the risk of being a bandit based on the whereabouts of the bandits in the Kanto region, and the "occupational death rate" was over 38%. Having said that, I would like to emphasize the significance of statistics and calculations.From bronze inscriptions to Xiaozhuan, the character "thief" is an image of people under Ge Xia robbing Ge Xia of their wealth.This picture shows the conversion of life and survival resources.The benefits and risks of production or plundering activities determine the strength of thieves.This principle does not only apply to humans.When the nectar source is tight and production costs rise, the "stealing" of bees will also increase.The act of stealing honey will trigger a war between bee colonies, resulting in a large number of death and flight of bees.In a sufficiently large sample, human thieves, like bee thieves, can be calculated statistically in this way, and the moral integrity of individual people has little effect on the results. The fifth hypothesis is an extension of the first hypothesis.In order to pursue the long-term maximization of blood rewards, since bandits are willing to establish an order that protects the objects of plunder, when the benefits brought by a certain order exceed the old order, legislators and law enforcers should also be willing to change the law and increase or reduce the protection of the objects of plunder. degree of protection. Not much to say about the reforms to reduce the level of protection. There are many stories about the introduction of evil laws and excessive taxation in the past dynasties.It is also one of the basic characteristics of Chinese society that bureaucrats at all levels replace formal rules with unspoken rules in order to pursue the interests of their agents.Here we focus on considering more significant institutional changes, and see how far the end of the system reform can be pushed. According to the "Records of Qing Shizu" (Qing Shizu is Emperor Shunzhi, who reigned from 1644 to 1661), Volume 90 records: "The population obtained from bloody battles has always been used for farming and horse herding." The same as Volume 20, after entering the customs , "The people captured will be rewarded as usual to those who were injured in climbing the city." Wordings such as "income from bloody battles" indicate that the parties involved did have the concept of using slaves as blood rewards.As mentioned earlier, the Manchu ruling group initially plundered people as slaves like bandits.Later, like robbers, they plundered 150,000 to 220,000 hectares of land by enclosure, distributed them to the soldiers of the Eight Banners, and let their servants cultivate them for them.The master can torture and abuse the slaves at will.This kind of institutional arrangement is very pleasant for the master, and it is simple and convenient to operate. It was also done in the early Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties. The problem is that slaves can be lazy, pretend to be stupid, eat and steal, be beaten and abused, and run away.In the third year of Shunzhi (1646), "in a few months, tens of thousands of people have fled." And 30,000, less than one-tenth of those seized." From the perspective of blood rewards, large-scale fleeing means that "there is no way to comfort the master, but to persuade meritorious deeds." The reward and incentive functions designed by the system have been lost.Not only that, a large amount of land that was encircled was abandoned, and "the harvest has not been harvested over the years," and the landless and fugitives became bandits one after another. The initial reaction of the Manchu rulers was two-fold, with concessions and offenses. Let me talk about backing down first.In the fourth year of Shunzhi (1647), the Qing government issued an order: "From now on, private farmhouses shall not be re-circulated, and they shall be prohibited forever." In the eighth year of Kangxi (1669), the emperor once again fought back against the restoration of land enclosures: "In recent years, private lands have been enclosed under the flag, resulting in unemployment, lack of food and clothing, and hardships in displacement. . . . Non-governmental housing and land shall cease forever.” Let's talk about offense.In the third year of Shunzhi (1646), the "Law of Escaping Persons" stipulated: "The fleeing person will receive one hundred lashes and return it to the owner. Those who hide away will be punished by the law, and their family property will be lost. Neighboring Youjiujia Changxiang Township Covenant, each will receive one hundred lashes and migrate to remote areas. " These regulations seem strange at first glance.The servant who fled was only exchanged for a hundred lashes and returned to the owner, but the hideout was executed and his property was confiscated.Neighbors and village cadres implicated will also receive a hundred lashes and will be exiled to the frontier.The punishment for fugitives is far less severe than that for those implicated.The calculation behind this kind of law is: slaves are the property of noble legislators like cattle and horses. If the cattle and horses are finally recovered, they cannot be killed, which is tantamount to punishing the owner of the property.But the hidden person is an outsider, no matter how harsh the punishment, the legislator will not hurt. It was indeed shrewd calculation on the part of the slaveholder.For the emperor, this is a narrow and short-sighted calculation. Four hundred years before the Manchu Qing enforced the "Fleeing Person Law", the Mongolian Yuan also had a similar law. In 1232, the Mongolian army captured Henan and "captured a lot of people. The army returned, and the fugitives were 17 or 18." So the emperor ordered: "The fugitives and those who gave money will be destroyed. The master's method seems to be more vicious than that of the Qing Dynasty, reaching the level of "destroying his family".At this time, Yelu Chucai (1190-1244, the official to the prime minister of the Yuan Dynasty) settled another account for the emperor. He said that since Henan was pacified, the people belonged to His Majesty, so where could he escape?Why implicate and execute dozens or hundreds of people because of one prisoner? At that time, Yelu Chucai had just established a taxation system in the Central Plains, and one more commoner could collect more taxes equivalent to more than ten yuan. The military supplies of the Mongolian Yuan army depended on these taxes.For the benefit of those second- and third-rate nobles, destroying a piece of the emperor's tax base, who is this kind of law beneficial to? So, "Emperor Wu, order to remove the ban." After several twists and turns, the Manchu Qing also amended the escape law, the owner of the nest was spared from death, and the punishment was reduced.At the same time, the system of slaves and serfs was fundamentally revised, and it was stipulated that slaves and maids should not be abused. If a slave was beaten to death, the head of the family should also be punished.Later, the tenancy system gradually replaced the serfdom system, and the problem of fleeing people naturally disappeared. I guess, more than 2,000 years ago, the well field system was replaced by the "early tax mu", and a large number of serfs who worked in labor became self-cultivated farmers who paid taxes. The pursuit of maximization.Similarly, this explanation is also applicable to a series of new policies in the late Qing Dynasty, such as gradually withdrawing from enterprises, relaxing the official monopoly on industry and commerce, and allowing the development of private industries. After all, killing and harming people is not an end in itself. To obtain greater benefits, we must first create conditions for cattle and sheep to grow up, and mobilize their enthusiasm for growing meat and breeding.According to the law of blood rewards, if the object is worth 10,000 yuan or 100,000,000 yuan for the same robbery, the value of blood rewards can vary by 10,000 times.Then, to create conditions for the target to get rich and let them have a net worth of billions, even if the intensity of looting is reduced by ten times, it is still very cost-effective. What Shandong warlord Han Fuju did was even more eye-opening.He Siyuan said in "My Eight-Year Experience and Knowledge of Han Fuju's Working Together with Han Fuju" that Han Fuju had little ambition, and he felt that it would be very difficult to preserve the Shandong territory. Fearing that Chiang Kai-shek would set a trap and make Han fall into the trap. He Siyuan said that Han Fuju was afraid that his own military and government would become increasingly corrupt and that he would collapse.He used to say reform or collapse.Han Fuju asked Liang Shuming to do rural construction in Shandong, and he said: "I don't know how to reform, please Liang to reform for us!" Han Fuju invited the Youth Party to Shandong, and finally wanted to cooperate with the Communist Party, all starting from the need for reform . From this point of view, in order to maximize income in the long run, the leaders of violent groups can even carry out reforms and fight corruption.Continuing on like this, is it possible for violent groups to go against themselves and change from the masters of the people to the servants of the people? I don't know how Taiwan's experience should be classified.In European history, you can see the story of urban citizen groups buying autonomy with huge sums of money.The sale of "autonomous licenses" by the ruling group to the citizens may be understood as a one-time collection of blood or legal remuneration; the sale of master power can be regarded as a paid transfer of the right to reform the law, which itself is a fundamental reform.Such things are lacking in China's historical experience.Although bloodless master-servant swaps were not uncommon, it was never "the people" who became masters. What is "the people"?The Chinese people are mainly farmers, and farmers are like a pan of loose sand, one grain at a time, unrelated to each other.At that time, there was neither a parliament nor a peasant association, so how could tens of millions of unconnected grains of sand become masters?How can one who has become a master be counted as a peasant—a people?