Chapter 742

Ma Guolei fell silent. To be honest, he too could not quite figure out what Wang Dou was really up to, and as Li Banghua had said, it was indeed true that the future Xuanfu Garrison and Anbei Protectorate would be plagued by redundant officials and superfluous clerks.

Strengthening local control was something Ma Guolei agreed with, but the current situation was clearly developing toward administrative bloat.

In the early days of the dynasty, a single prefecture or county could govern a vast territory with just a few officials and some minor clerks. Yet now, the number of officials and clerks nationwide was more than ten times that of the early dynasty. The annual tax grain and silver collected, merely to support the officials and clerks, had become a crushing burden.

Observing Wang Dou's conduct, he had further refined and subdivided the clerical positions.

Take Baoan Department, for example. In the past, there was only one Clerk Officer, six Department Clerks, six Statute Clerks, one Correspondence Clerk, and then one or two clerks each for the Confucian School, the Yin-Yang Office, the Medical Office, the Buddhist and Daoist Office, the Yongxing Granary, and the Famine Relief Granary.

But now, the number of people drawing salaries had likely multiplied many times over. Ma Guolei did not understand how Wang Dou would support all these clerks in the future.

As for Li Banghua's worry that these people would be cunning and wicked, Ma Guolei did not agree. The reason clerks and runners became such a great scourge was that they entrenched themselves locally and had no hope of promotion.

Many toiled their whole lives and remained unranked minor clerks, without even an official grade, so they were all the more ravenous for money. Add to that their local entrenchment, with positions passed from father to son, son to grandson, generation after generation, they became deeply rooted local strongmen, and only thus could they hoodwink officials and manipulate local affairs.

In fact, this problem was easy to solve: simply transfer them to different posts in different places, as was done with officials. And this was exactly what Wang Dou did. Every time he recruited clerks, he never assigned them to their own home fort or city, but transferred them elsewhere. Though it was not as strict as with officials, who had to avoid serving in their home province or even several provinces, or were even swapped between north and south, it was already sufficient.

Moreover, these clerks had hope of promotion, climbing step by step from the Section rank all the way to the Ministry rank, which was enough to make these minor clerks strive.

The highest clerical rank was no longer merely the lower ninth grade. Like officials, they had a direction to strive toward. Ma Guolei considered this a stroke of genius by Wang Dou.

Unwilling to reject it wholesale, he finally said, "The Marquis of Yongning has not entirely strayed down the wrong path. I observe that the Marquis's intent clearly shows an unconventional mindset, broadening the recruitment of talent, and even placing greater emphasis on specialists in the Ming Law, Ming Calculation, and Ming Calligraphy examinations. These are universally practical talents for local governance."

He continued, "The imperial examination system has reached its present state riddled with abuses. In the early dynasty, talent could still be advanced unconventionally through recommendation, the examinations, and the clerical path. Later, it gradually came to rely solely on the examinations, and within the examinations, the Metropolitan Graduate degree was especially favored, while Provincial Graduates and Tribute Students were greatly scorned. The abuse of favoring Metropolitan Graduates has accumulated over two to three hundred years. The Marquis of Yongning is doing this to set things right and restore order."

Li Banghua opened his mouth but ultimately continued listening. After all, what Ma Guolei said was also the truth.

He heard Ma Guolei say in a deep voice, "Moreover, officials who deal directly with the people should be primarily familiar with local essential affairs. Just as in the Han dynasty, county magistrates were often selected from the most outstanding commandery clerks. Thus they were practiced in the affairs and did not suffer from incompetence. Yet observing our dynasty now, the selection is overly narrow. Most of these bookworms are ignorant of practical matters—how can they be a match for local strongmen?"

He said, "Local department and county affairs are now especially complex. A single county magistrate sits and manages the taxes of tens of thousands of households, with categories and items many times more numerous and intricate than in the past. How can he not be bewildered and at the mercy of local manipulation? The Marquis of Yongning appoints officials from clerks familiar with local affairs, each a universally practical talent, and thus can restrain the wicked local clerks and gentry!"

He finally said, "Although I still have misgivings, fearing future clerical and administrative bloat, yet for now, the Marquis of Yongning's policy is not without merit as a good prescription for reforming the dynasty's accumulated abuses. As for how it turns out in the future, I shall wait and see."

Having said this, Ma Guolei picked up the wine cup before him and drained it in one gulp.

Li Banghua's eyes flickered, and he could not help but stand up.

Indeed, by this point in the Great Ming, the system of selecting and appointing officials could be said to be riddled with accumulated abuses, and the imperial examination system in particular was under attack from all sides.

By now, the Great Ming valued only Metropolitan Graduates. Yet these Metropolitan Graduates were all bred from intensive study of the eight-legged essay. Candidates for local department and county posts were basically all these newly degreed bookworms. Among them, not one or two in ten were versed in administrative affairs, while the weak and incompetent ones made up the majority.

The Ministry of Personnel also did not select carefully when making appointments, often using methods like drawing lots or casting hooks. This ultimately created a situation where "the fate of a hundred-li district was entrusted to worthless and incompetent men, who harmed the people and in the end brought harm upon themselves."

Logically speaking, local officials should all be appointed from people familiar with local affairs. Yet looking at these eight-legged essay bookworms above, they were clearly unqualified. Ignorant of practical matters, it was understandable that local power fell into the hands of clerks and gentry.

And even though the Great Ming still held examinations in the Ming Law, Ming Calculation, and Ming Calligraphy categories, their status and prestige were far inferior to the Metropolitan Graduate category. After recruitment, these specialized talents only served in agencies related to their specialties.

For instance, the Ming Calculation category at the Imperial Academy handled matters of engineering, budgeting, and finance for the entire state. The work was very important, but the status was very lowly, and the room for promotion was narrow. Therefore, no student was willing to take these three categories.

Conversely, the bookworms who excelled at the eight-legged essay enjoyed broad appointment prospects and rapid promotion, which naturally resulted in a stampede of thousands upon thousands taking only the Metropolitan Graduate examination.

How could Li Banghua not know of the dynasty's accumulated abuses? But reform—where would one even begin?

Speaking of the moral integrity of officials, they were in truth not much better, and not much longer superior to the clerks. The bookworms who had thoroughly read the sages' books, when they finally became officials, were all greedy and arrogant, without the slightest intention of repaying the state.

There was also a strange phenomenon: those of the most impoverished origins, who had endured bitter study, often ended up being the most egregiously greedy, showing a desperate, life-risking lust for money.

Having spent many years in the Chief Surveillance Bureau, Li Banghua actually understood the mentality of these people.

Officials from powerful and wealthy clans were like sated wolves and leopards—they at least paid some attention to how they fed. But officials from poor families threw all caution to the wind, heedless of everything, intent first on recouping their past investments, like ravenous wolves with empty bellies!

Moreover, they had read only the sages' books with single-minded devotion, their ears deaf to outside affairs. They were usually mere bookworms. Once posted to a locality, apart from cooperating in squeezing money, what ability did they have to accomplish anything?

After much pondering, Li Banghua finally let out a long sigh. Perhaps he could observe where Wang Dou's clerical evaluation system would lead in the future.

Although he believed this method likewise had problems in many aspects, especially the moral integrity of the clerks, which did not set his mind at ease. After all, clerks at all levels and local magistrates were the officials closest to the common people. Their moral character directly bore on local order or chaos and the hardships of the people's livelihood.

He chanted, "Officials chosen carelessly, half die bearing grievances. If a ruler wishes to draw near to the people, he must first draw near the officials who shepherd the people, and only then can the achievement of great peace be hoped for... I too shall wait and see!"

Li Banghua decided that his journey of incognito inspection would end here. The continuous shocks along the way had already become unbearable for him. He had even less desire to visit the department city, that "dragon's pool and tiger's den," fearing that what he saw and heard there would make him vomit three pints of blood.

Next, the two men ordered food and dined, chatting about lighter matters. Ma Guolei ordered a table full of dishes, and the two drank together. Their several attendants sat at another table nearby.

Seeing the table laden with fish and meat, the meal extremely sumptuous, Li Banghua said with a serious expression, "Why go to such expense?"

Li Banghua appreciated Ma Guolei more and more. Although the two belonged to different factions and had some conflicting political views, Ma Guolei's words and deeds made Li Banghua feel his wholehearted loyalty, filial piety, and integrity. Having Ma Guolei stationed on the Eastern Route also gave Li Banghua some slight peace of mind.

And for old-system officials like them, now deprived of all forms of gray income, it was not easy to save up any grain or silver in ordinary times. Throughout this journey, the food and drink for his party had all been paid for out of Ma Guolei's private purse, which made Li Banghua feel somewhat uneasy.

Ma Guolei laughed and said, "It is no matter. In truth, although this feast looks sumptuous, it did not cost much. Including the attendants' table, the total was only one yuan and five jiao. The most expensive part was this wine, for the Xuanfu Garrison has a law that heavily taxes wine brewers."

"One yuan and five jiao?"

Li Banghua was astonished. Two tables of food and drink cost only one tael and five mace of silver in total?

He of course knew about the Xuanfu Garrison's silver yuan. Each silver yuan was "ninety-five percent pure silver," worth a solid one tael of gold flower silver. And because virtually every coin was identical in shape, color, and weight, one coin could be used as one coin. Not only in the Xuanfu Garrison, but even now in the capital, their value was very firm.

Many wealthy households liked using the Xuanfu Garrison's silver yuan—simple and convenient, sparing them the many past troubles of checking silver purity and weight.

The rate of acceptance among the common people was also very high. Of course, silver yuan were rarely seen by ordinary folk; it was the copper yuan that many commoners used.

What astonished Li Banghua was how low the prices were here. In the capital, these two tables of food and drink could not be had without many silver yuan. Here it was only one yuan and five jiao?

Ma Guolei said, "Yes, and this is because prices in Baoan Department are relatively high. If it were in Huailai City, it would be even cheaper."

He laughed and said, "If one uses grain tickets, the cost is even less."

Li Banghua said, "Grain tickets?"

Ma Guolei explained that prices in the Xuanfu Garrison roughly corresponded to those of the Wanli reign. One silver yuan could buy about one dan of rice. In terms of later value, in the Huailai City area, that was equivalent to about three hundred and fifty yuan of later times, and in the Baoan Department area, equivalent to about three hundred yuan.

Moreover, because the credibility of grain tickets had been affirmed, more and more people were using them, especially the local military and civilian households of the Xuanfu Garrison. Many large transactions were conducted using grain tickets—after all, light paper notes had advantages over relatively heavy silver yuan.

Only outsiders still harbored doubts and mostly used silver and copper yuan.

Li Banghua mused, "If prices here are so low, won't merchants buy up grain and rice, hoard them to corner the market, and transport them elsewhere for profit?"

Ma Guolei chuckled, "Of course. Merchants are all fellows who won't rise early without profit. Where there is profit to be made, how could they fail to see this?"

He said, "The key lies in the Xuanfu Garrison's grain shops!"

He said, "By law, the Xuanfu Garrison's grain shops have the priority right to purchase grain from military and civilian households. Every city and every fort is amply stocked. When grain is cheap among the people, they buy at high prices to prevent cheap grain from harming the farmers. When grain is expensive among the people, they sell at fair prices to prevent the people from starving."

"Over these past few years, a general market rate has formed: one tael of silver buys one dan of rice. Though there are some fluctuations in each city, the variation is not great."

He said coolly, "As for lawless merchants—the grain shops have ample funds and rely on the entire Shogunate. If it comes to a contest, few merchants can outmatch them. Just like the commercial war between the Shanxi merchants and the Eastern Route back then, the great merchant houses all returned with their capital wiped out. They long ago ceased to dare underestimate the power of this garrison... Though the profits now are not windfall profits, the advantage lies in stability and longevity. Many merchants are unwilling to stir up trouble... Moreover, the Xuanfu Garrison now also has the crime of hoarding and cornering the market. Many have also been killed to the point of fear..."

Li Banghua had to admit that, in matters of people's livelihood, Wang Dou had already achieved an excellent standard.

Looking across the rest of the Great Ming, merchants colluded with the gentry, setting the purchase price of the autumn grain extremely low, and when the harvest was lean, they set the price of their grain sales extremely high, so the common people suffered unbearable misery. Here, prices were stable — truly a blessing for the people.

The two drank together. The taste of the wine and dishes rather satisfied Li Banghua.

By now it was also time to finish work and eat. The clamour outside could be heard without pause, as group after group of workers from the workshops hurried to the various eateries in the market town to eat, cramming every large and small food stall and noodle stand to bursting, and even the originally spacious streets were packed solid.

People of every description arrived, making the market town extraordinarily lively. Li Banghua looked down from the entrance. Outside there were also throngs of seamstresses, every one of them coarse-featured, rough-handed and big-footed, heading straight to the noodle stands and food stalls to eat, drawing winks, leers, laughter and whistles from the equally uncouth men beside them.

Those seamstresses were not afraid either; some shouted back with curses, some glared with furious brows. They were quite fierce, and many had "this old lady" all over their lips, which nearly made Li Banghua unable to swallow his fine food.

Li Banghua knew that when refugees entered the borders of Xuanfu Garrison, they all had to first enter the receiving centres, and then be settled according to their circumstances. Generally speaking, only honest country folk with intact families who could endure hardship were taken into the settlement forts, in order to preserve the pure and good character of the forts.

But as more and more people entered the borders, what was to be done with the rest? They could only be left to make their own living. Those without any particular skill, especially, became the main labour force for the various workshops and mines, doing the lowly trades and toilsome work that the locals were unwilling to do.

In Li Banghua's view, these people, whether men or women, were all lacking in moral instruction, a wicked and ill-behaved lot, and a mix of good and bad — a source of disaster.

Especially with an endless stream of refugees entering and competing with these people for their rice bowls, sooner or later trouble would break out.

Of course, Li Banghua watched from upstairs, earnestly concerned, but the people on the street would not understand this point. Each one laughing and joking, in groups of three or five, they simply slurped down their meals.

Though they ate frugally, grain prices here were not expensive, and livestock farms abounded, so even on many people's tables there were meat and eggs.

Many seamstresses were also eating a noodle dish called "Yongning City Fatty Pork Noodles." Li Banghua had seen this noodle dish advertised in the Xuanfu Times: "Yongning City Fatty Pork Noodles — one copper coin buys two large bowls, with vegetables and meat. Even the Marquis ate it and said it was good."

One copper coin for two bowls, and the copper coins in Xuanfu Garrison were generally "each coin worth ten standard cash," which meant five standard cash per bowl of noodles, with vegetables and meat, and one bowl could fill you up. No wonder so many people were eating it.

And thinking again of what he had seen in the capital, and the scenes along his journey, and then looking at these former refugees now working — not only eating their fill, but even able to eat meat. Even in the rest of the Great Ming, landlords and rich peasants dared not eat like this. Li Banghua could not help shaking his head and sighing: "The local customs here are overly extravagant and luxurious; this is not the way of frugality."

Ma Guolei laughed and said: "If even the common folk can eat meat, no wonder the refugees yearn to come here."

……

Having finished their wine and meal, Li Banghua and Ma Guolei and the others went downstairs and walked along the street. Everywhere they looked were wicked and ill-behaved sorts, and each and every frivolous woman made Li Banghua feel quite uneasy, wanting only to leave this place quickly.

Suddenly there was a clamour from a corner ahead, and they heard someone shouting: "A fight!"

Then the people all around surged forward to watch, and even many from the food stalls and noodle stands ran out.

Watching excitement is the nature of the countrymen, and Li Banghua was no exception. He had originally wanted to leave, but without knowing it, he walked forward instead. Ma Guolei and the retinue could only follow.

Going forward to look, a dark, dense circle of people had already gathered ahead. Li Banghua could only stand at the back of the crowd. He vaguely saw what seemed to be two workshop owners in the centre, arguing with spittle flying everywhere, apparently over some commercial dispute.

Then the workers under them were fighting in a tangled mass. Fortunately, they were all bare-fisted, without knives or clubs.

Without realising it, Li Banghua had moved further forward. He saw a group of people beside him — it was those men from Baoanzhou he had earlier seen at the restaurant.

They too had gathered at the edge to watch. Some frowned; some drew their swords to protect their family and friends. One complained: "Why are there so many beatings lately? Quickly, call the constables."

Someone else was reproaching the two workshop owners: "Yang Da, Sun Er, what are you two doing? How can you brawl in the street? This is a serious crime!"

"Yes, what are you all doing? Is there anything that can't be settled by sitting down and talking properly? Inciting your workers to fight — be careful you don't get caught and taken to the constable station."

Yang Da and Sun Er, faced with the reproach of their fellow townsmen, were somewhat timid. They were about to call off the work when suddenly someone shouted: "The constables are coming."

Like birds and beasts scattering, the crowd filling the street burst apart with a roar and fled in all directions. Many of the men under the two bosses who had been fighting also turned tail and ran. Yang Da and Sun Er both wailed miserably: "Don't run! If you run, you'll end up in the receiving centre! Aiya, don't run — if you run, I'll be in trouble too…"

A gust of wind came, and Li Banghua's squire's cap instantly vanished. Someone unknown passed by Li Banghua and carried his cap away. Not only that, another unknown person, in their haste, bumped into Li Banghua, nearly sending him staggering backwards to the ground.

"My lord, quickly, let's go…"

Ma Guolei and the retinue rushed forward, propped up Li Banghua, and likewise turned tail and ran.

The arrival of the constables was no good thing. If it came to checking identity papers, it would be even harder to explain. Better to run first and talk later.

In frantic haste like dogs fleeing a ruined home, in flurried panic like fish escaping the net, they ran in one breath to the outskirts of the market town. Only then did Li Banghua come back to his senses and discover that at some point he had even run his shoes off, and his hair was dishevelled — truly a disgrace to all refinement. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, welcome to Qidian to cast your recommendation votes and monthly votes. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please read at m.)

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