posts. With the example they set, it would be surprising if many of their subordinates missed out on a piece of the enormous funds spent on defence. It was a calculated risk that the local population, having been taxed once already to pay for the troops, could stand another and more direct imposition in the form of the troops themselves taking what
they needed from the people they were supposed to protect.
Extra levies in the hands of the high command and of local officials were a double-edged tool. Chia-hsing and the surrounding prefectures were better able to pay than most other parts of the empire. But both physically and psychologically, there was a limit to what could be imposed. Because risking a dangerous level of disaffection and lack of co-operation not only from the poorer people but also from those whose greater sources of income would normally make them strong
supporters of government defence efforts, officials risked cutting off the long-term source of supply in order to make large short term
collections.
The proximity of magistrates and prefects to the basic level of tax collection put into their hands in times of emergency the opportunity to raise extra money. If a local official used this opportunity, he also had a means of control over troops stationed in his area. To follow
such a course, he would need the backing of the local notables, and also support from influential areas of the bureaucracy since his fund-raising would be irregular. Liu Ch’üeh, prefect of Chia-hsing from 1553 to late
in 1556, seemed to have all of these conditions in his favour, m his bold use of locally raised funds to hire the "wolf troops" on a daily basis for the protection of the prefectural city.
Besides taxation, there were other problems for local
administration in preventing undue disruption to economic life in the face of large-scale military crisis. Two of these were the practice of crop destruction to prevent ambushes, and the institution of barriers on waterways to prevent easy access of pirate groups to the inland.
Time and again the pirates inflicted heavy losses on government troops by ambushing them. Occasionally the ambush was set up in a group of temple or monastery buildings. More usually though, the pirates were
simply hidden in the fields among the hemp or ripening wheat. For this reason orders were often given for crops to be mown or burnt so as to leave no cover for the pirates. It is understandable that a commander in the field may find it necessary to carry out burning or mowing of crops to promote the ends of his particular expedition. The military headquarters themselves issued orders to every district in Ghia-hsing, evidently intending that the destruction of crops should be widespread. T s ’ai reports that early in 1555, when very large numbers of troops were concentrated at Chin-shan, military headquarters sent dispatches to the districts ordering them to prepare dry provisions, to detail labourers to transport them to Chin-shan, and to mow the wheat "so that it would be easier to capture bandits." On the seventeenth of the month in Hai- yen district they began mowing the wheat, and two hundred men set off
n two hundred tan of rice and two hundred catties of flour for Chin-shan. It is possible, even probable, that the orders were not carried out entirely. The order was the easier to give because the armies were not dependent on grain grown within the area for supplies. Nevertheless, it must have had a severe effect on the economy of individual households
that season, and gone some way towards disrupting the general patterns of economic life.
It had always been difficult to maintain control over the traffic using the network of waterways in the prefecture. Local authorities wanted to control the traffic chiefly to prevent salt smugglers from having unchecked use of the routes. A system had once been set up of movable wooden barriers placed at important junctions and bridges in the district, particularly those along the borders, and it had been the responsibility of Lhe local dyke captains (Lsang—ahung), working with the heads of the local Li in rotation, to ensure that the barriers were closed at night and opened in the morning. Since the local people
gained no personal advantage by maintaining the system, it fell into
7 1 disuse once the barriers began to need repair.
By the time of the pirate incursions, there was no effective means of denying the pirates access to the inland waterways. By the beginning
20 T s ’ai:3.3b.
of 1554, the local authorities had felled trees across and installed
wooden stakes into the junctions of waterways. The Assistant Regional
Commander T ’ang K ’o - k ’uan ordered them to be pulled up again, because they restricted people fleeing from the pirates, without unduly worrying
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