Chapter 343: Secret Schemes

After the Jinghu Fort meeting, Song Jia went first to the garrison city to move things along, met his former superior Zhang Guowei, and received a satisfactory reply and hints. A few days later, through the introduction of Yanqing Department Garrison Commander Chen Enchong, he met the Eastern Route Grain Transport Assistant Prefect Guo Shitong.

Although Guo Shitong's official rank was low, he was a civil official in charge of all grain and pay matters on the Eastern Route, wielding immense real power — not to mention his backer was the Xuan-Da Viceroy Chen Xinjia. In the past, he had never really taken military men like Song Jia seriously.

Chen Enchong had pledged allegiance and curried favor early on, so Guo Shitong reluctantly accepted him. For Chen Enchong's sake, Guo Shitong granted an audience to Jinghu Fort Garrison Commander Song Jia.

Although Song Jia had a fierce, villainous look, before Guo Shitong he was not as arrogant as Wang Dou. Following the unwritten rule of civil superiority and military inferiority, he respectfully kowtowed to Guo Shitong. Guo Shitong nodded inwardly: "This Song Jia may be a crude military man, but he knows the rules — not like that Wang Dou."

After kowtowing, Song Jia rose from the floor and forced a smile onto his face: "I have heard that Your Excellency is a man of refined taste, deeply fond of calligraphy and painting. Some days ago, a servant of my household went to the garrison city and found a boxed set of rare editions by Master Kaoting. I am but a military man; for such a sage's handwritten scrolls to fall into my hands would be a sheer waste of heavenly treasure. Far better that Your Excellency collect them."

Then he added in a low voice: "In addition, there are some items of huangjing and baila, offered together to Your Excellency."

Guo Shitong could not help but be overjoyed. Hand-copied scrolls by the great Song Confucian Zhu Xi were rare treasures indeed. As for the huangjing and baila — these were actually code words: huangjing meant gold, and baila meant silver. To facilitate bribery, such code words changed constantly; previously they were called "yellow rice" and "white rice," and now the fashion was to call them "huangjing" and "baila."

Guo Shitong's expression grew gentler. He cleared his throat: "You are thoughtful."

He granted Song Jia a chair. Song Jia respectfully sat on only half the seat, and Chen Enchong across from him did the same.

Looking at the two of them, Guo Shitong stroked his beard and nodded slightly. In the past he had never taken these military men to heart; he controlled grain and pay, and with the Xuan-Da Viceroy Chen Xinjia as his backer, he spoke to everyone with a tone that brooked no contradiction, and those officers had to treat him with deference.

But with Wang Dou's arrival, this man was overbearing and handled matters with lightning speed that caught people completely off guard.

That old fox Ma Guolei seemed inclined to stand on the same boat as Wang Dou. With these two on the Eastern Route, where would there be room for his own voice in the future? Wang Dou was increasingly walking all over him — how could Guo Shitong endure it?

To prepare for a rainy day, he needed to draw a group of people to his side.

"Your Excellency, that Wang Dou has come on with ferocious momentum. As soon as he reached the Eastern Route, he launched a whole series of measures — opening up farmland, suppressing bandits. Coming from Yanqing, I see that the common people everywhere know only of the State-Stabilizing General and not of the imperial court. For Wang Dou to curry popular favor like this — his intentions, heh heh..." Chen Enchong remarked darkly from the side.

Guo Shitong's face grew even more unsightly. He snorted: "The Eastern Route is the imperial court's Eastern Route, not some military man's. As long as I am here, I will never permit a repeat of the late Tang military-governor calamities within my jurisdiction."

Song Jia and Chen Enchong hurriedly stood: "We are loyal to the nation."

Guo Shitong motioned for them to sit: "Your diligence and prudence have not escaped my notice. Sit, sit."

The more deferential the two were, the more Guo Shitong recalled Wang Dou's arrogance and insolence toward him, and he was filled with envy at how easily Wang Dou had won renown — an envy that grew ever more intense. If only the common people's praise for Wang Dou could fall upon his own head.

He said slowly: "The ancestral system divides civil and military duties. A Branch Defense Assistant Regional Commander is merely to repair local city walls and train troops. The Military Defense Circuit and I govern land reclamation and civil affairs, sparing the soldiers the worries of hunger and cold. For Wang Dou to overstep his bounds and usurp authority — what is his intention? Wang Dou's reckless audacity, yet the Military Defense Circuit does not even question it."

Guo Shitong's tone could not conceal his dissatisfaction with Military Defense Circuit Ma Guolei, but this was a topic that Song Jia and Chen Enchong dared not touch.

Chen Enchong poured out his grievances: "The State-Stabilizing General's establishment of new garrison farms — we are in favor of it. But the original military households in the various cities, coveting the tax-exempt benefits of the new farms, are fleeing in droves. When they enter the new farms, we dare not pursue and arrest them... This, however, disrupts the collection of summer and autumn grain taxes within our forts..." Guo Shitong's face grew even more unsightly. He was responsible for grain and tax collection across all departments, counties, and guard battalions on the Eastern Route. Because the old military households were fleeing, the tax revenue from each city had decreased, and the bulk of this shortfall was counted against him. The Great Ming was increasingly strict with civil officials; failing to complete tax collection meant dismissal from office at any moment.

Guo Shitong had spent no small amount of silver and effort to obtain this official post. If he were dismissed because of this, he could eat Wang Dou's heart raw.

Song Jia suddenly spoke from the side: "I have heard that the State-Stabilizing General intends to levy commercial taxes, regardless of whether it is Baoan Department or anywhere on the Eastern Route."

Hearing this, Guo Shitong abruptly stood: "Absurd! This is an act of snatching profit from the people."

He said: "In the time of Emperor Xian, there was the calamity of commercial and mining taxes. Mining taxes proliferated, countless people lost their livelihoods, high and low fought each other with profit the only concern. The common people had no assurance of daily survival, and chaos sprouted everywhere under heaven. Has Wang Dou not heard of this overturned cart of disaster?"

He spoke with fierce countenance and harsh tone: "The Military Defense Circuit and I have not yet deliberated on this. By what authority does a mere Branch Defense Assistant Regional Commander levy taxes? Is this the heart of a tiger or wolf, seeking to create a state within a state?"

"If Wang Dou dares to proceed with this universally condemned act, I will certainly impeach him!"

Watching his righteous indignation, Song Jia and Chen Enchong understood perfectly well in their hearts. After Guo Shitong became Grain Transport Assistant Prefect, his clansmen had swarmed in, buying fields and land, opening shops and stores — grain and oil shops, cloth shops, salt shops, and so on, more than a dozen establishments in all.

If Wang Dou levied taxes, wouldn't he be snatching food from Guo Shitong's own mouth? How could Guo Shitong bear it?

Song Jia, who managed a frontier pass fort, understood even more clearly. If the Guo clan's sons were not involved in smuggling beyond the border, that would be the real surprise. Wang Dou intended to overhaul the military and ban private trade, which already made Guo Shitong deeply wary. If he then levied taxes...

In truth, whether to levy commercial taxes had not yet been decided by Wang Dou's Assistant Regional Commander headquarters. Although Wang Dou had the intention, considering the time was not ripe, he planned to go slowly and wait a year or two. But for some reason, this rumor had suddenly spread and was rapidly circulating through every city on the Eastern Route.

For people like Song Jia, this news was like sweet rain after a long drought. Whether true or not, Wang Dou would be plunged into a tremendous crisis. He would offend most of the merchants, gentry, and military men on the Eastern Route. Under a tide of opposition, whether he could hold his seat on the Eastern Route in the future was truly hard to say.

In that case, Wang Dou would have no time to overhaul the military or ban private trade. People like Song Jia could once again line their pockets at ease, pocket empty pay slots, and drink the soldiers' blood to the fullest.

No one knew how long the three talked inside the room before Song Jia and Chen Enchong emerged satisfied. The two exchanged a glance and both sneered coldly.

Yanqing Department was established in the 11th year of Yongle, faced with brick in the 2nd year of Jingtai, and expanded in the 7th year of Wanli. Like Baoan Department, it was one of the two civilian departments within the Eastern Route, and a large portion of the inhabitants living there were civilian households.

Yanqing Department had a department administration office and a garrison commander's hall, and within it was the Guanshan Academy, where Confucian learning was established. The department city sat on flat plain land, with mountains to the north and south and fertile flatlands to the east and west, and it lay on the vital road connecting the garrison city and the capital. It had long been a place where the population flourished, and as early as the Yongning period, people were recruited here to garrison the area.

Within the city were several main streets, all adorned with memorial archways. At this moment, inside a large residence on a lane off Chengen Archway, numerous merchants had gathered. The mansion was splendid, the great hall spacious and richly appointed, and the merchants within were all dressed in brocade robes, exuding an air of wealth and nobility.

They sat talking and laughing in leisurely fashion. In a few brief exchanges, deals involving tens of thousands of taels of goods were sometimes concluded.

The merchants present were mostly grain and salt traders. Some also dealt in medicinal goods, furs, pawnshops and inns, money lending, tea, and warehousing. Each possessed a colossal fortune, and an aura of wealth wafted from their every gesture.

In the early Great Ming, to solve the problem of transporting grain and pay to the frontier armies, the "Kaizhong Law" was implemented, encouraging merchants to transport grain to the frontier passes. From that time on, grain and salt merchants flourished in the Nine Frontier Garrisons. Even after the Kaizhong Law declined, with the decay of the Great Ming's guard battalions, the Nine Frontiers still needed vast amounts of grain, cotton, and cloth, and could not do without these merchants.

Calculated at the standard of one shi of monthly grain per soldier, the three garrisons of Xuan-Da alone required over two million shi of grain per year, several hundred thousand bolts of cloth, and several hundred thousand jin of cotton. There were also fodder for large numbers of horses, and the quantities of miscellaneous goods like firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea needed were astronomical figures.

This supported an enormous merchant group. Those with a hundred thousand taels dared not boast; a million taels was considered ordinary. The Jin merchants, capital merchants, and Huizhou merchants were especially wealthy.

Because the profits were so enormous, although the late Ming was plagued by natural and man-made disasters and the common people were displaced and destitute, for many merchants, their luxurious lives were unaffected. Fragrant dust lined the roads, jade chips paved the streets; merchants' displays of wealth and ostentation emerged endlessly, with every extreme of extravagance indulged.

Looking at the rows of serving maids and attendants standing around, the exquisite huanghuali tables and chairs beside them, and the Bangzi opera troupe specially invited from Taiyuan playing and singing nearby — for many poor commoners, such luxury was beyond even their wildest dreams.

And this was merely an ordinary department on the Eastern Route. If one went to places like Taiyuan, the owner of this residence would be considered a country bumpkin again.

The merchants were whispering to each other and exchanging light banter when a steward in a blue silk long gown emerged and said with a smile: "Everyone, Elder Zhang has arrived."

A man in his fifties emerged, supported by a group of serving maids. His beard was half black and half white, his build tall and imposing, and his every gesture carried an air of authority — clearly someone long accustomed to the center of money and power.

Seeing him appear, the merchants present all cupped their hands and bowed, repeatedly saying, "Ten thousand blessings to Elder Zhang."

The merchants could not afford to be anything but respectful. This Elder Zhang, Zhang Wanshan, was the clan uncle of the former Eastern Route Assistant Regional Commander Zhang Guowei. Zhang Guowei had guarded the Eastern Route for many years, and his tentacles reached everywhere. Was there any profitable industry on the Eastern Route that he had not extended his hand into? Farmland, grain and oil, cloth, cotton, livestock, mines — in everything, the Zhang family's shadow was present.

Zhang Wanshan was a crafty old schemer with ruthless methods, never showing mercy to competitors unless they agreed to a series of harsh conditions he set. Some of the merchants present might be powerful outside dragons, but a powerful dragon cannot crush a local snake, and the Zhang family was the local snake of the Eastern Route. Whoever wanted to do business on the Eastern Route — who dared not heed the Zhang family's commands?

Even though Zhang Guowei had been transferred to the garrison city, the Zhang family's influence still ran deep on the Eastern Route.

Seeing the merchants bow, Zhang Wanshan laughed heartily, cupped his hands in a full circle, and said in a slightly raised voice: "Everyone, allow this old man to make an introduction."

He pointed to a shrewd-looking middle-aged man beside him, dressed in a silk robe and wearing a black unified cap: "This is the Fan family's eldest son, Fan Sanba, Manager Fan. Everyone, please become well acquainted."