Chapter 2206: Renzong Chronicles 15: The Backbone of Rule

On the plaza before the grand administrative building of the Jianghai Customs General Tax Office, an unusual event was underway—an abacus competition. The venue held a large crowd, roughly several thousand at a glance, but the scene was quiet, with little noise or commotion.

It wasn't that the onlookers were especially refined; rather, over a thousand Shanghai yamen runners and patrol constables were maintaining order all around, while atop the high platform sat a host of Jiangnan dignitaries and nobles, including Minister of Works and Jianghuai Inspection Commissioner Fan Zhongwen, Jianghai Customs General Tax Commissioner Lin Hui, and Wang Anshi, who had served as Mayor of Shanghai for three years—all prominent figures in the southeastern officialdom.

Fan Zhongwen, born of the Fan clan of Daming Prefecture, was the great-great-grandson of Qianyou-era Chancellor Fan Zhi, the great-grandson of Kaibao-era famed minister Fan Min, and the grandson of the late Duke of Xingguo, Fan Yisun. As the Xingguo Duke line of the Twenty-Four Ministers of Qianyou, the lineage had now passed through five generations, a full hundred years, and during his father Fan Jinyuan's time, the Shizong Emperor had redesignated the title to Duke of Yongxing (inherited by Fan Zhongwen's elder brother, Fan Zhongkang).

The Fan clan had in truth declined somewhat after Fan Min, for lack of worthy successors—none of his descendants had amounted to much. Yet the halo of the Twenty-Four Ministers of Qianyou was far too dazzling, and the blessings left by their ancestors were enough to sustain them for several generations.

Of course, the Fan clan's ability to pass down smoothly and dodge the political whirlpools from the Taizong to Shizong reigns was also tied to the rigorous family discipline established since Fan Zhi's time.

Thirty years west of the river, thirty years east—only in the late Shizong era did the Fan clan rise again in the court, and the key lay in the two brothers Fan Zhongkang and Fan Zhongwen.

Fan Zhongkang was one of the advocates of the burgeoning "School of Principle" in the Great Han's intellectual world, as renowned as Zhang Zai. He never entered the capital, never mounted the court, but only studied, researched, and taught at the Fan Garden outside Yuancheng in Daming Prefecture—yet his fame spread across the entire northern scholarly world.

As for Fan Zhongwen, his reputation was no less than his brother's, and among the noble class he was even more highly regarded. For he was not only erudite, versed in astronomy, geography, hydraulics, architecture, and mathematics, but also highly capable in practical implementation and governance—he could talk eloquently, yet when it came to real work, he was equally decisive.

With sufficient fame, ability, and pedigree, Fan Zhongwen's rise in the imperial court was only natural. In his early years, Fan Zhongwen had also been promoted by Fan Zhongyan, and for his outstanding ability and notable reputation, he had earned the sobriquet "Little Fan."

Now, the "Great Fan" was long gone, and Little Fan was steadily stepping toward the center of the empire's political stage. Fan Zhongwen was only forty-three, yet already Minister of Works and Jianghuai Inspection Commissioner—a rate of promotion that was extremely fast even among the noble class.

While still serving as Vice Minister of Works, he had overseen the completion of two major projects: one was the renovation of the Zhaolie Temple in the Eastern Capital, and the other the construction of the Taiqing Abbey in the Western Capital. With his mastery of architectural theory, he personally led scholars from various fields in planning and design.

The construction of the Taiqing Abbey particularly pleased the Emperor, for the Zhengtong Emperor was a devotee of Daoism—it was a landmark he had conceived and pushed through against all opposition after nearly twenty years on the throne.

Shortly after its completion, Fan Zhongwen was smoothly promoted to Minister of Works, and now, bearing the title of Minister of Works, he represented the court on an inspection tour of the Jianghuai region. Shanghai was the final stop of his journey through Jiangnan.

Both in and out of the capital, rumors circulated that once Fan Zhongwen returned, he might well enter the Hall of State Affairs. Even if he was still young, given his current favor with the Emperor, it was not impossible.

Thus, Fan Zhongwen's journey through the southeast naturally received enthusiastic hospitality from the Jianghuai officialdom. Even Wang Anshi, known for his unyielding integrity, dared not show the slightest neglect toward Fan Zhongwen.

Lin Hui, General Tax Commissioner of Jianghai Customs, was also just past forty, with an equally distinguished background. His grandfather was the Yongxi-era famed minister Lin Te, who had managed the Court of the Imperial Treasury and served as Commissioner of the Wude Office, and after the Shizong Emperor's accession, had been sent out as Fiscal Commissioner of the Southeast.

This experience was somewhat similar to that of the former chancellor Wang Xuanzhen, whose grandson was none other than Wang Shilin, who had dominated the Zhengtong court and risen to Director of State Affairs. Lin Hui, meanwhile, had inherited his grandfather's talent for financial management. From the start of his official career, he was known for his competence and acuity, working his entire career in the fiscal system, deeply familiar with taxation and statutes.

Of course, Lin Hui's smooth official career was due not only to family background and ability, but also to one more crucial factor. His younger sister was the Jing Consort in the Zhengtong Emperor's harem. Though not as perpetually favored as the Han Noble Consort, she had once shared a harmonious, loving bond with the Emperor.

With this connection, combined with his own qualities, he had become the head of Jianghai Customs in his early forties. It should be noted that over the past decades, imperial customs revenue had risen steadily, and of the five major customs houses, Jianghai alone accounted for half.

The annual customs duties remitted to the court reached three million strings of cash, yet the actual volume of goods and wealth passing through his hands was far beyond what a few million strings could represent. Economic foundation determines political status—the rise in customs revenue had elevated the customs service's standing in the imperial bureaucracy, making it highly valued by the central powers.

Even purely by rank, the Jianghai Customs General Tax Commissioner had been adjusted from the original senior third grade to full third grade, only half a grade below the Salt and Iron and Expenditure ministries within the fiscal system—yet its allure, for many nobles, far exceeded that of many equivalent central posts.

For Lin Hui to secure such a lucrative and critical position, every condition had to be met—none could be lacking.

Compared to Fan and Lin, Wang Anshi naturally lacked such illustrious background and backing. Though born into an official family, his rise in the empire's political arena relied far more on his own ability, integrity, and reputation.

Of course, luck was also an extremely special and crucial factor. During his observation period, he happened to coincide with Fan Zhongyan's return to power, who advocated merit-based promotion and strengthened examination-based appointments—and Wang Anshi was fortunate enough to be among that batch of vigorously promoted "Fan faction talents."

And more than others, Wang Anshi was further transferred to the Hall of State Affairs to serve at Fan Zhongyan's side, gaining the fortune to observe Fan Zhongyan's governance up close. From a humble position, he moved in and out of the empire's power core, standing at a height ordinary men could not reach, observing, understanding, and contemplating every aspect of the Great Han Empire's affairs.

That period was not long—barely three years in total—but it enormously broadened Wang Anshi's horizons, accumulated his political experience, and gave him a profound understanding and knowledge of the Great Han Empire's complex administrative system and its modes of operation.

Such an opportunity could never have arisen without extraordinary fortune. And Wang Anshi's luck had a clear continuity—on the eve of the central "anti-Fan movement," he was sent out to the southeast as Deputy Commissioner of Jianghai Customs, successfully dodging a major wave of attack.

And the political aftershocks of that affair were weathered for him by the then-Fiscal Commissioner of the Southeast, Bao Zheng, allowing Wang Anshi to remain in his post as Deputy Commissioner of Jianghai Customs and practically test and verify what he had seen, learned, and contemplated at the center.

Fan Zhongyan had many disciples and former subordinates, not a few of them outstanding, and many had long remained active in the empire's political arena, playing the role of the backbone of the bureaucratic class.

Yet if one asked who inherited Fan Zhongyan's governing philosophy most deeply, it was still Wang Anshi—he was, after all, a "closed-door disciple," and one personally guided through practice, hand in hand.

And what most set Wang Anshi apart was that while inheriting and studying the "Fan School," he always infused his own thinking and insights. His views on many matters were uniquely penetrating, especially on imperial finance, economy, and people's livelihood—in the art of governance, he leaned more toward "technique."

The post of Deputy Commissioner of Jianghai Customs was an important experiment in combining his governing technique with practice. Whether judged by process or result, it had extremely positive and significant meaning for his political career and official advancement.

Ten years ago, before he was sent out, Fan Zhongyan had worried that with Wang Anshi's upright, even fiery temperament, he could not last long in the southeastern officialdom, where locusts and bookworms swarmed—fearing that what was too rigid would easily snap.

But Wang Anshi proved with facts that Fan Zhongyan's concern was somewhat unnecessary. Perhaps Wang Anshi found much to disapprove of in many affairs and the status quo, and felt an urge to change them, but he was by no means ignorant of when to advance and when to retreat.

A bureaucrat so learned and intelligent, so long-tested and seasoned, having witnessed so many political intrigues and whirlpools—how could he only know how to act rashly? He understood when to bend and when to stretch, and how to seize the principal contradiction, how to achieve his political aims through compromise and detours, especially when his power and position were still far from sufficient.

During his tenure at Jianghai Customs, Wang Anshi made considerable improvements and refinements to the customs system—for example, introducing the double-entry bookkeeping method already mature and prevalent among the people, proposing the concept of the "general ledger method," improving statistical methods, standardizing tax procedures to cover all taxation links and reduce revenue leakage, submitting memorials recommending the redrafting of commodity customs duties, and bringing in more clerical personnel skilled in arithmetic and statistics to manage affairs.

In summary, what Wang Anshi did was an act of enlarging the pie—on the basis of the existing institutional model, he introduced, summarized, and improved methods, releasing the potential and capacity inherent in the system itself.

The result was a great success. Even without notable growth in the number of merchant ships or trade volume at the ports, Jianghai Customs' annual revenue rose significantly (by nearly one-tenth).

On this point alone, no matter how much the gray interest chains surrounding Jianghai Customs resented it, Wang Anshi at least showed the court his ability and achievements, and built enormous prestige within Jianghai Customs itself.

Of course, that a deputy could push through so many customs reforms was also related to the then-General Tax Commissioner of Jianghai Customs, Zhang Qi. Zhang Qi came from another great family of the imperial navy, the Zhang clan (Marquis of Hailing, Zhang Yanqing). He was very supportive of the improvements Wang Anshi proposed and let him have free rein.

And Zhang Qi's investment was clearly successful—he used it to secure a promotion to the capital, becoming Deputy Commissioner of Military Affairs. Wang Anshi was then duly promoted to the top post, formally taking charge of Jianghai Customs. With the foundation laid earlier, he could now act boldly, rectifying the various disorders and malpractices that existed within Jianghai Customs.

His cooperation and dealings with Zhang Qi established a tenuous connection between Wang Anshi and the navy faction—at the very least, Wang Anshi's ideas of encouraging maritime trade and emphasizing naval development and training were well received.

During Wang Anshi's tenure, smuggling, tax evasion, tax avoidance, corruption, and a whole series of phenomena involving collusion between officials and merchants and covert profiteering were suppressed with unprecedented force, leaving "the entire Jianghai Customs front" wailing in misery.

In the end, only after two and a half years, when Wang Anshi was transferred away, did that "tense and oppressive" atmosphere begin to ease. Of course, when Wang Anshi left his post, Jianghai Customs' annual revenue had risen by a full three-tenths compared to when he first came south.

On the strength of these remarkable achievements, Wang Anshi was promoted—and not far away: to Prefect of Jiangning, the foremost city of the Jiangnan circuit, where he began his practice in governance and people's livelihood. But his reputation for skillfully managing (and amassing) wealth had also reached the highest levels.

At Jiangning Prefecture, Wang Anshi served only three years, but the improvement and sharpening of his comprehensive abilities was marked. Later, with Shanghai's municipal affairs in disorder and popular grievances mounting, on the recommendation of the then-Censor-in-Chief Bao Zheng, Wang Anshi was transferred to Shanghai to govern this first port city of the empire, with a population approaching one million.

And this abacus competition now underway was precisely Wang Anshi's proposal, led by the Shanghai yamen with the General Tax Office as co-organizer. Since its invention, the abacus had developed rapidly, becoming the most important calculation tool for both officials and commoners. During the Kaibao and Yongxi eras, the court had even vigorously promoted it.

Over all these years, the abacus had spread thoroughly throughout the empire, and the counting frame had become the most conspicuous mark of those bookkeepers. From government offices to the common folk, countless "abacus masters" had emerged.

Yet for the government to organize such an "abacus competition" was a first—it caused quite a stir in Shanghai and even among the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Not only because the competition was novel, but also because both the Shanghai yamen and the Jianghai Customs General Tax Office had issued proclamations that they would select a batch of talents from the competition's winners to fill clerical posts in the government.

Naturally, the appeal multiplied. Jiangsu and Zhejiang, with their prosperous economy and thriving commerce, had long been places where the abacus reigned supreme. After decades of development, the folk community was a veritable den of hidden dragons and crouching tigers. Thus, at this competition, many "dragons and tigers" of the abacus world emerged, striving mightily in the calculation contests to display their agile mental-and-manual computing speed.

And in organizing this competition, beyond continuing to encourage mathematics, promote the abacus, and select talent from among the participants, Wang Anshi's more important purpose lay in his considerations for governing practice.

Through years of accumulated administrative experience, he had grown increasingly inclined toward a clearer, more professional division of functions within the imperial government's internal offices. This clearly required far more "professional" talent than the various administrative schools could supply—and Wang Anshi also had many opinions and objections regarding the teaching content and practice of those schools.

Fan Zhongwen, Lin Hui, and Wang Anshi—perhaps their origins and experiences differed, but they were without question the backbone of the current ruling class of the Great Han Empire, and at the same time, one could glimpse in them the budding signs of "technocratic bureaucrats."