June 12, 1915, on the border between Hebei and Henan.

Caojiapu was a very ordinary small village in Linzhang County, Hebei. It was some forty li away from the Anyang border in Henan, and only sixty li from Handan. Although it was relatively close to the Beijing-Hankou Railway, it was quite far from the station, so it didn't gain much benefit from it. The Cao family was the dominant clan in the village, with over 80% of the residents surnamed Cao.

With the summer harvest approaching, Caojiapu would normally be bustling with preparations. But this year, all the village residents gathered at the village entrance for a meeting. This was a council convened personally by the clan leader, Cao Jingxiu, and the male heads of every household attended. A hundred or so people gathered together, making for a dense crowd.

The clan leader, Cao Jingxiu, was over sixty years old. Because he frequently worked in the fields, his skin had the dark purplish tan characteristic of a farmer. "Everyone, old and young, I invited you here today to talk about the coming war. Should we throw our lot in with the People's Party, or stick with the government?"

Hebei was Zhili Province, so they knew the most about the government and there had been many acts of resistance. As soon as Cao Jingxiu said this, someone among the villagers shouted, "With the Beiyang taxes set like this, won't we starve to death if we follow the government?"

After the opposition shouted out, a supporter spoke up. "They're only collecting this tax for one year. Just endure it and it will pass."

The supporter was the local landlord, Cao Cuishan. As soon as his words fell, the initial dissenter, Cao Jinggui, immediately retorted, "Your son is in the Beiyang Army, so of course you support the government. But the harvest this year isn't that good, and the government wants to collect seventy percent as tax. With only thirty percent of the grain left, can we survive until next year?"

The situation in Caojiapu was basically the same as in thousands of other Chinese villages. Generally, the wealthier families had lower generational seniority. This was almost inevitable; families with more land and money had more affairs to attend to, and since getting married wasn't difficult for them, they tended to marry relatively late. Poor families found it hard to get married, so the family would start making arrangements early, leading to earlier marriages. One generation might only differ by five or six years, but accumulated over seven or eight generations, it became a difference of sixty or seventy years. Cao Cuishan and Cao Jinggui were both in their early forties, but they were three generations apart in seniority. Seriously speaking, Cao Jinggui, who was of the same generation as the clan leader Cao Jingxiu, was actually Cao Cuishan's great-grandfather.

Cao Cuishan argued, "The government has bought quite a lot of grain over the past two years, so no one is short of money. Why is there a need to defect to the People's Party?"

Cao Jinggui sneered, "Haha, your family has a lot of grain, so naturally you made big money selling it. But how much grain did we sell in a year? How much money could we earn? Now grain prices are almost reaching the sky. After paying taxes, where would we have any grain left to sell? With the current grain price of sixteen silver dollars per shi of wheat, we couldn't buy a shi of grain even if we sold everything we own."

The Beiyang government lacked grain but had silver dollars in hand. Over the past year or so, the price of wheat had skyrocketed from four dollars a shi to sixteen dollars a shi—a fourfold increase. Hebei hadn't suffered from disasters in recent years, so the harvest was passable. The common people hadn't reached the point where they had nothing to eat. In the past year, not only had the price of wheat soared, but the prices of other grains had also risen three or four times. Seeing grain prices rise like this, everyone sold whatever grain they could. Now that the summer harvest was about to begin, many families didn't have a single grain left at home, just waiting for the wheat to be harvested to eat a full meal. Just at this moment, the government ordered this year's tax revenue to be increased to 70%. Farmers were extremely pragmatic; 30% of the grain would at most allow everyone to eat for half a year, and the little money everyone had in hand was simply not enough to buy half a year's worth of grain. If things went on like this, they would only starve to death.

Although the topic raised was the major issue of "rebellion," Clan Leader Cao Jingxiu still had to convene this meeting under pressure from everyone.

Cao Jinggui's statement received the support of the majority of the villagers. Everyone said one after another, "It's not that we haven't talked to the county about this, but those tax collectors won't make any exceptions. If they hadn't been driven away by the People's Party, I'm afraid they would be living in the fields right now waiting to collect our grain!"

As a landlord, Cao Cuishan naturally couldn't support Cao Jinggui's opinion. He shouted, "If the People's Party comes here, they're going to distribute the land!"

"So what if they distribute the land? They distributed land in Henan years ago, and the people there live much better lives than we do." Caojiapu was only forty-some li from the Anyang border in Henan. Farmers had no concept of provincial boundaries. It was all the same land anyway; did it affect these common people whether it was Henan or not a few dozen li away? The girls who had married over there naturally praised the life in the People's Party territory highly. Concentrated living and the overall planning after land reform made life much easier. Not to mention anything else, just the collective manure collection saved the villagers a huge amount of effort. The transport capacity provided by the People's Party's hot bulb tractors and the manure produced by the village feedlots largely guaranteed the fertility of the land. Not to mention the basic social services like tap water, hospitals, schools, and post offices after moving into collective housing.

The poorer the people, the more they could feel the immense improvement in life under the People's Party's rule. The people of Caojiapu were incredibly envious after seeing the device where clean tap water gushed out just by turning a faucet. For rural areas, carrying water was an exhausting task. If water usage was high, a laborer would have to spend several hours a day just on carrying water. As for the cheap farming tools from the rural cooperatives, as well as the inexpensive cloth and daily necessities, these were good things that made the farmers of Caojiapu drool with envy.

There was a huge difference between the North and the South. In the South, due to the climate, one could survive as long as one had land. In the North, due to water sources and climate, having land didn't necessarily mean one could survive. Nothing else needed to be said; slightly dry weather could cause a massive reduction in grain yields. How much water could be carried by human strength with heavy wooden buckets? Even if the water source was relatively close, the whole family working themselves to death for a day might not be able to water four or five mu of land. Humans could wait, but crops couldn't. Two days of exposure to the scorching sun could kill a lot of crops. The people of Caojiapu had seen that the land under the People's Party's rule was basically all irrigated land. There was no need to dig large-scale diversion canals; after the People's Party drilled mechanical wells, water would gush up from underground. Irrigated land meant that grain yields wouldn't decrease. As long as every family had irrigated land, even with three mu of land per person, it was impossible to starve to death.

Caojiapu was in Linzhang County, and like nearby Anyang, it was close to the Zhang River. However, Anyang had basically popularized irrigated land through mechanical wells and canals, while Caojiapu, which was actually closer to the Zhang River, still had over 60% of its land as dry land, where grain yields basically depended on the heavens. Comparing the two, it was self-evident under whose rule life was better.

"We cannot rebel!" Cao Cuishan's voice became almost hysterical. As a landlord, Cao Cuishan had over ten qing of land at home. If the People's Party controlled Caojiapu, his family would lose everything. Since they were close to the People's Party territory in Anyang, Cao Cuishan naturally knew that although the People's Party didn't confiscate landlords' floating wealth or engage in looting, they absolutely did not tolerate opposition to land reform. The land of the landlords over there had been distributed cleanly, and no one had been able to escape it. He would rather die than let the People's Party fight their way over.

Cao Jinggui advised, "Cuishan, the Beiyang forces can't even make it out of Handan right now. If we actively defect to the People's Party now, we won't have to pay taxes this year. Otherwise, when those tax collectors from the Beiyang government come, we'll only starve to death. If the Beiyang government collects our grain and then gets defeated by the People's Party, our grain will have completely gone to waste. At that time, wouldn't we end up with nothing?"

"We can't rebel even if we end up with nothing!" Cao Cuishan's attitude was extremely clear. He could not accept the fate of his family's land being confiscated. Cao Cuishan originally didn't want his son to join the army, but the People's Party's actions in Henan made him make up his mind. He let his son join the army for only one purpose: to follow the government, win battles, and protect his family's land.

Seeing Cao Cuishan being so stubborn, Cao Jinggui knew he couldn't be persuaded. But he hadn't intended to persuade Cao Cuishan anyway; Cao Jinggui wanted to persuade the other villagers. Turning his head, Cao Jinggui shouted loudly to the other folks, "Everyone, I've said what I needed to say just now. I'm not saying whether the People's Party is better or the government is better. I'll just say one thing: if the government loses the war, what should we do? After our grain is taken away, do we go flee famine and beg for food? If you don't want to flee famine, then just invite the People's Party over. Since we surrendered early, the People's Party would have to exempt us from this year's taxes, right? If you folks are willing, I, Cao Jinggui, am willing to go and talk to the People's Party about this."

Whether or not to defect to the People's Party was a major event after all, and no result could be reached in the first day of discussion. When it finally got dark, Cao Cuishan returned home and immediately summoned his family. His face was terribly gloomy under the lamplight. "You all know about what happened today, right?"

Many of Cao Cuishan's family members had attended the meeting during the day, and everyone's face was as gloomy as Cao Cuishan's. They were all very clear about what the result would be after the People's Party took over Caojiapu.

"We absolutely cannot be polite to those rebels. Although they are fellow villagers, we cannot let Cao Jinggui lead everyone down the wrong path," Cao Cuishan said, almost gritting his teeth.

"Father, then what should we do? Find someone to off Cao Jinggui?" asked Cao Cuishan's son, Cao Yifeng.

"No, we can't do that. Yifeng, go to the county seat tonight and tell the county government about Cao Jinggui planning to rebel. Tell them to come and arrest him quickly." Cao Cuishan said viciously, "Our Cao family has never produced rebels, and we absolutely cannot sit idly by and watch this rebellion happen."

The rest of the Cao family naturally supported Cao Cuishan's view. Cao Yifeng followed his father's order, took a letter, and rushed towards Linzhang County seat. Early the next morning, Cao Yifeng hurried to see the county magistrate. The magistrate knew Cao Cuishan and knew his son Cao Yifeng. Since the young master of the Cao family had come to deliver a report, the magistrate immediately granted him an audience. After hearing that the people of Caojiapu actually wanted to invite the wolf into the house and actively defect to the People's Party, the magistrate was furious. He slapped the table and cursed, "These unruly people are simply lawless!"

There could be no delay. A brigade of the Beiyang Army was stationed in the county. After contacting the Beiyang Army, the magistrate had Cao Yifeng lead a battalion of five hundred Beiyang soldiers and tax collectors to Caojiapu. Even though he knew the tax collectors were going to collect taxes, Cao Yifeng had to accept this fact.