Chapter 567: Lock Power in a Prison

Abandoning the root for the branch, the Fengqi of extravagance has swept through both the Southern Ya and Zhejiang—scenes Zhang Zhang Juzheng could not see from the capital, and which had already alarmed Li Le, who returned to the capital specifically to address this matter.

The massive inflow of silver has made money the supreme value in the Jiangnan region.

"Money can do anything—it is gradually becoming the standard for measuring good and evil, right and wrong, truth and falsehood, until everyone worships money, believing it can bribe ghosts and gods, that wealth can make a millstone turn a ghost," Li Le said with deep concern: "Indeed, this is inevitable in the development of a commodity economy, but it has become far too extreme."

The massive inflow of silver, and its stagnation in the Southern Ya, created the situation Li Le observed.

Li Le attempted to study the causes behind this Fengqi: in the Southern Ya, as means of production became increasingly concentrated, labor division grew more defined, and commodities grew more abundant, silver—the general equivalent for measuring commodity value—seemed to have become the general equivalent capable of purchasing everything, even a magical force capable of determining human fate, leading to the worship of money and ultimately, money supremacy.

"At Yuhu Fang, there is a brothel that sells flower baskets, just like in the capital, each basket costs one hundred taels of silver; ten baskets cost twelve hundred taels—buy more and it becomes more expensive, the pricier it is, the more people buy; how strange! A thousand taels are spent merely to make a beauty smile, to earn praise from others and compete in wealth."

"At Zhijin Fang, there was a weaver who had been betrothed by her parents' decree and matchmaker's word, with all six formalities completed, ready for a glorious wedding—but on the wedding day, her family demanded five taels of silver as a 'bride's descent fee.' The groom's family could not pay, so the bearers lifted the bride back to her parents' home, leaving the guests who had come to feast utterly helpless."

"This Fengqi has spread to the Southern Ya 's Imperial Academy. When I first arrived, it was led by Geng Geng Xiangding and was quite plain—even many wore hemp robes. This spring, when I returned, everyone was dressed in silk and brocade, adorned with numerous ornaments, terrified of falling behind, holding red sandalwood folding fans."

"Such bizarre phenomena are deeply troubling."

Li Le used three cases to demonstrate how widespread the abandonment of the root for the branch and the supremacy of money had become in the Southern Ya.

"Given these three incidents, how did you handle them?" Zhang Zhang Juzheng asked curiously; in his letters, Li Le had mentioned these matters but not in such detail.

Li Le's face contorted in anguish: "At Yuhu Fang, every flower basket sold must pay forty taels in sitting tax to the court. I thought this would curb the culture, but after enforcing it for just two days, I discovered these men were siphoning twenty taels from what should have gone to the courtesans."

"A hundred-tael basket originally gave the courtesan only twenty-two taels; now twenty taels were taken away. The courtesans cursed me to my face, screaming that even prostitutes' money was being stolen!"

"I had to halt the order—but even after halting it, the twenty taels were still not returned to the courtesans; all the brothel owners kept it for themselves, because the courtesans rarely went out and did not know the order had been canceled. Yet they still cursed me."

"These owners had long been seeking ways to reduce the courtesans' share; my additional tax became their excuse to exploit them further—like sliding down a slope."

Zhang Zhang Juzheng pondered briefly; curbing extravagance was never easy. Li Le's experience showed him that such measures not only invited hatred but were easily exploited by powerful elites.

When the court announced a tax, it was immediately passed down to the people; when the court withdrew it, they stayed silent, letting the court bear all the blame—this was entirely normal in policy implementation.

"How did you respond?" Zhang Zhang Juzheng asked sternly.

Li Le gritted his teeth: "I set a tax of one thousand taels per flower basket and dispatched Luo Luo Bingliang, the Tax Inspector from the Inspection Bureau. Overnight, no one in Nanjing sold flower baskets anymore."

A new official's three fires—Li Le's first fire burned him to the bone.

Zhang Zhang Juzheng frowned: "Are you just acting out of spite? These powerful elites are surely laughing at you behind your back—you have no strategy, only the impulse to overturn the table."

"Exactly," Li Le chuckled bitterly at his own foolishness: "I had just become Provincial Governor and wanted to make a big splash. Pan Viceroy left for Suiyuan in haste, and I wanted to prove myself—so I rushed things."

"Later, I devised a solution: flower baskets could be sold, but every brothel's baskets must be collected at the Drum Tower of Yingtian Prefecture, on the third day of each month, where courtesans would come to collect their share."

"No limit on the number per basket—highest bidder wins. Each brothel is allowed only ten baskets per month. Isn't this about competing in extravagance? Compete! These Wanku want to show off their wealth? Let them!"

"This infuriated those Wanku to the point of grinding their teeth."

"This month, each brothel gets ten baskets; next month, a thousand. But once too many baskets flood the market, no one buys them anymore."

Zhang Zhang Juzheng still frowned: "Your method, like that of the powerful elites, only harms the courtesans who sell their smiles. This turmoil will make their lives even harder—when the city gate catches fire, the fish in the moat suffer; when immortals fight, mortals pay the price."

"Master's teaching is correct," Li Le smiled: "Flower baskets can no longer be sold—but wine can. Sell more, earn more; sell less, earn less."

"There are many wine shops in the outer city, but their wine sells poorly and yields meager profits. I built an official brewery at the old street corner—giving distillers a livelihood, and also my first official factory in the Southern Ya. It's thriving."

Zhang Zhang Juzheng's brow relaxed: "This, though it may seem to compete with the people for profit, is far better than your previous approach."

"Later, when the official brewery couldn't meet demand, I allowed private participation—opposition then diminished greatly," Li Le said, shaking his head: "But most of the money courtesans earned from selling wine was still siphoned off by the madams; little remained in their hands. This is determined by the relations of production."

"I thought abolishing the low-status slave registry would improve things, but the effect was negligible. It's not that nothing changed, but most former slaves still lived much as before—especially the courtesans."

"Because these courtesans, especially those along the Qinhuaihe, must bind their feet; bound feet make it impossible to do anything else, even to leave the house."

Foot-binding was never a custom—it was physical confinement enforcing personal dependency. The courtesans' fate did not improve noticeably after the abolition of low-status slavery, because their lives were entirely confined within the brothels; even when the Southern Ya abolished the Wang Jian Nu registry, these women did not appear at the Drum Tower to attend the abolition ceremony.

"Abolishing the low-status slave registry shows no immediate effect, but over time, its impact will gradually emerge," Li Le explained. He was not criticizing the policy as useless, but arguing that such long-term policies require time to take effect—stretching the scale from one or two years to a hundred or two hundred years, only then will the policy's full influence on every aspect of the Great Ming become evident.

Zhang Zhang Juzheng clearly understood such policies showed no immediate results, but the court no longer recognizing the legality of indenture contracts would, over time, affect the masses. He asked: "What of the weaver's case at Zhijin Fang?"

Li Le's expression was complex: "I merely ordered the return of the bride price. The weaver, unable to bear the gossip, jumped into the Qinhuaihe—but she didn't die; people rescued her. Now she lives in the Zhijin Fang weaving bureau's official factory and refuses to return home."

"The weaver understood clearly: the twenty-five taels of bride price and the five-tael descent fee were her parents profiting from her reputation, giving her not a single coin, forcing her to bear the shame. With her reputation ruined, she refused to marry again. After jumping into the river, she returned her flesh and blood, her very life, to her parents—cutting all ties."

"A married daughter is like water spilled out"—this was common. Husbands rarely divorced, and mutual separation was rare. How cruel these parents were—even if they truly received the five taels, how much suffering would their daughter endure in another household?

This case, from when Li Le served as Vice Prefect of Yingtian, was the most vivid example he had ever encountered: one of the most direct demonstrations of money's massive challenge to public order, law, and social consensus—all for five taels of descent fee, turning everything to chaos.

The weaver at Zhijin Fang was one of the few respectable occupations open to women in this era—not a lowly trade of selling smiles or bodies. Moreover, the official factory had a school; most weavers could read and write. Though not necessarily learned, they recognized daily characters. Their marriage partners were middle-class families in Nanjing—not poor, but not wealthy either.

What should have been a union of hearts, lasting forever, a perfect match under moon and flowers, became this mess—all for five taels of descent fee.

"And what of the extravagance at the Imperial Academy?" Zhang Zhang Juzheng made no comment on the weaver's case, for it was not an isolated incident but a prevailing custom in the Southern Ya. Even in the Northern Ya, he had heard of this vile practice; the Southern Ya had banned it, but with poor results.

"I mandated uniform dress for all students of the Imperial Academy, forbidding any ornaments. Any act of extravagance was deemed a moral failing. Only then did the culture of extravagance begin to recede." Li Le enforced this strictly, even designing a uniform academy robe, to prevent society's further moral decay.

Zhang Zhang Juzheng nodded: "Yes, it is the only way possible. The Northern Ya 's Imperial Academy must adopt this too, as must the three-tier academies and the Royal Institute of Technology. After all, these are places for learning and cultivating virtue—extravagance must never spread into them."

Schools are where one forms one's worldview, life philosophy, and values. If this place is poisoned by extravagance, a complete collapse into ritual decay becomes inevitable.

Zhang Zhang Juzheng's expression grew solemn: Power's alienation of people is limited and partial—especially evident among Ming officials, who constitute only a small fraction of the Ming whole. Power's alienation can be purged like metabolic renewal.

But money's alienation of people is universal and profoundly far-reaching, penetrating every aspect of the Ming. This alienation demands the court's cautious response.

"Difficult," Zhang Zhang Juzheng finally said after long thought.

Zhang Zhang Juzheng recalled when the Emperor once asked during a lecture: "To strike someone costs fifteen wen; to kill them costs two taels. A person raised under such conditions will truly treat others as objects—even that object may be less valuable than a porcelain vase at home."

This too is an expression of money's alienation of people.

New circumstances bring new challenges. The Ming cannot stop silver inflow; its money shortage grows worse, and silver is gradually becoming the mechanism for redistribution. If silver stops flowing, the entire New Policy collapses.

Zhang Zhang Juzheng said hesitantly: "I think the essence of this issue lies in silver's stagnation in the Southern Ya, in the metropolis—but I have never been there, so my understanding is incomplete. Li Le, what do you think?"

"Bai Yin's stagnation has intensified the prevalence of this phenomenon," Li Le cautiously agreed with Zhang Zhang Juzheng's view.

"No, the essence is not silver's stagnation," Zhang Zhang Juzheng immediately retracted his own statement, looking at Li Le: "The pursuit of money is the pursuit of material goods, of a better life—this is not wrong. The real question is: is man the slave of money, or its master?"

"That is the key."

Zhang Zhang Juzheng immediately recognized his own partiality and swiftly corrected it.

After a moment's thought, he said: "There must be a clear, definite boundary: man is the subject, money the servant. Human desire must be rationally controlled—this rationality may be public order and custom, consensus, or law."

"Beyond the question of whether man is master or slave to money, it is also clear this stems from excessive wealth disparity."

"Let me reflect further."

No policy can be conceived on a whim—it requires careful thought, and time.

Many things Zhang Zhang Juzheng, in the Northern Ya, could not see clearly, so he engaged in prolonged communication with Li Le—but even this was like viewing a leopard through a tube. After an hour-long discussion, Zhang Zhang Juzheng finally concluded: a southern inspection was necessary.

Court ministers must witness these things firsthand; hearsay is but a reflection in water or a flower in a mirror.

"I will compile your accounts into a memorial tonight and submit it to the palace tomorrow," Zhang Zhang Juzheng said as he saw off his two students, then began writing. The memorial focused on phenomena, not problems, causes, or solutions—so it flowed smoothly. Before the Emperor's edict on curfew hours, Zhang Zhang Juzheng completed his memorial.

Zhang Zhang Juzheng did not burden You Qi; when rest time came, he put down the memorial and rested. This matter could not be rushed.

Zhu Zhu Yijun received Zhang Zhang Juzheng's memorial. Li Zhi had already mentioned money's alienation of people; Li Li Yashi had too; now Li Le added his voice. The entire Ming had anticipated the changes money brought to the realm, had been warned. Of course, some things must happen—this is the inevitable upheaval the Ming must endure. One cannot refuse to eat for fear of choking—otherwise, one starves.

Zhang Zhang Juzheng formally began contemplating institutional design: how to reduce chaos during this social transformation through institutional mechanisms.

"Master says the phenomenon stems from excessive concentration of means of production—i. e., land consolidation causing excessive wealth disparity—and is attempting to analyze and resolve it," Zhu Zhu Yijun deeply admired Zhang Zhang Juzheng's courage!

This problem could be avoided, not confronted, for it is extremely thorny and its impact vast—but its worst effects emerge slowly, taking ten or twenty years to become an incurable disease. Zhang Zhang Juzheng did not evade it; he faced it bravely.

On Zhu Zhu Yijun's desk lay a pile of miscellaneous reports, all discussing how to establish more oversight mechanisms to inspect power—essentially, locking power in a cage.

"Locking power in a cage—what cage? A prison?" Zhu Zhu Yijun flipped through several memorials, shaking his head; their quality was far inferior to Lin Lin Fucheng and Li Zhi, who had grown wise and no longer proposed policies, only described problems.

Lock power in a prison.

This sounds noble—but who builds the prison? Who does it imprison? Who supervises its operation? In the end, it becomes a spiral of power monitoring power.

As the person with the greatest power in the realm, Zhu Zhu Yijun would never ignore this. He would not allow anything to bind him—not the rites of the Three Dynasties, nor Ming ancestral laws. These were tools for better governance, not restraints.

Even the Ming Ancestral Instructions were tools, not restraints.

After Zhu Zhu Yuanzhang's death, he could no longer control events after him. He paved the way for Zhu Zhu Yunwen's accession, yet Zhu Di seized the throne. Zhu Zhu Yuanzhang's ancestral laws remained in force, yet every emperor tinkered with them. Zhu Zhu Yuanzhang decreed eunuchs must not interfere in politics—yet the Office of Imperial Eunuchs had existed since Yongle's reign.

The Ming Emperor naturally held the ultimate authority to interpret ancestral laws and the Ming Ancestral Instructions.

Zhu Zhu Yijun would never accept any form of constitutional model. He was an absolute autocrat; when he deemed it necessary, even Zhang Zhang Juzheng could not stop him.

In Zhu Zhu Yijun's view, in his own practice, constitutionalism was a complete lie. Constitutional monarchy was merely a veil for the privileged to revel in. With this veil, no one needed to bear full responsibility for the state's decay.

The essence of constitutional monarchy is a lie: the privileged enjoy power's benefits but bear no responsibility.

As Emperor, Zhu Zhu Yijun held only this attitude toward constitutional monarchy: no one would ever accomplish so-called constitutional monarchy in his hands!

He did not believe in it at all. He was Emperor. His stance was that no one could challenge him, and he would never voluntarily enter a cage.

Yet Zhu Zhu Yijun did not silence these upright scholars; he allowed them to freely debate in the miscellaneous reports.

This was inevitable during the reform era. If he lacked even this tolerance, there was no point in the Emperor Wanli Reforms at all.

The Yongzheng Emperor wrote a book called "The Great Righteousness Awakening the Deluded"—translated, roughly: "Resolution and Notice on Historical Issues Since the Manchu Conquest."

This was Yongzheng's personal treatise debating with Han Confucian Zeng Jing. It primarily addressed five issues: first, the legitimacy of the Qing dynasty; second, responsibility for the Ming's fall; third, the distinction between Han and barbarians; fourth, the queue and dress reforms; fifth, Yongzheng's rebuttal of Zeng Jing's ten accusations against him.

Interestingly, Yongzheng, a man with normal aesthetics, did not stubbornly defend the queue and Manchu dress as beautiful. He evaded the issue.

Zeng Jing said: "Peacock feathers, horse-hoof sleeves—these garments are beasts among clothing; since they come from beasts, those who wear them are beasts."

Yongzheng replied: "Each region adopts its own clothing for convenience and comfort; it has nothing to do with a person's virtue or the success of governance."

Yongzheng, slightly cornered, immediately invoked Han and Tang dynasties, noting their garments like feather robes, crane cloaks, and lion-belt ornaments were also named after beasts—did Han people not revere such attire? Both Ming and Qing embroidered beasts on their rank badges!

Yongzheng was clearly sophistry.

Zeng Jing's point was that the wearer became a beast, and the clothing was ugly; he condemned queue and dress reforms as beasts slaughtering humanity. Faced with this, Yongzheng could only stubbornly defend himself, for the queue and dress reforms had once caused nationwide uproar: "Cut your hair or lose your head; keep your head and lose your hair."

Each of these five issues was punishable by clan extermination. In the last, Zeng Jing listed ten grave crimes against Yongzheng personally.

In truth, all five issues pointed to one: the Manchu dynasty's congenital disease—the Han-Manchu divide.

Yet Yongzheng permitted such debate and personally engaged in it. Zeng Jing lived until the third month after Yongzheng's death, when Emperor Qianlong had him flayed alive. Emperor Qianlong further violated his father's edict by banning "The Great Righteousness Awakening the Deluded" through literary inquisition.

After its completion in Yongzheng's seventh year, "The Great Righteousness Awakening the Deluded" was widely printed. Yongzheng ordered every government office, local official, and scholar to possess a copy, and required all local officials and educators to lecture on its contents. So many copies were printed that no ban could stop its spread.

To Emperor Qianlong, "The Great Righteousness Awakening the Deluded" only worsened matters. No one cared what Yongzheng said; everyone cared what Zeng Jing said, ultimately triggering widespread, massive questioning of the Qing dynasty.

Yongzheng bravely confronted the congenital disease of the Han-Manchu divide. He did not evade the issue, nor did he execute or confiscate property to end it. Instead, he pushed the discussion further, seeking to resolve it completely.

But Emperor Qianlong chose to silence it. Silence was easy—but silence was evasion. The result was that the congenital disease had no room for relief.

Every reform, every renewal, brings such a basket of opinions. Allowing such a basket to exist is the courage to confront problems head-on.

When problems arise, only by confronting them can they be solved; evasion only lets them sink deep into the bones, becoming the most incurable of ailments.

Zhu Zhu Yijun allowed the opinion baskets to voice their views, but he set very clear boundaries for discussion—he physically silenced Chen Yang Youren, and his only boundary was: no glorification of Japanese pirate atrocities.

The one who acts truly does so through sincerity alone; earnest, fact-based discussion is merely Zhu Zhu Yijun's idealistic vision.

"Take this article in the During Zhengde Miscellany, for instance—the serialized 'Biography of Heroes of the Eastern Expedition.' I very much enjoy it," Zhu Zhu Yijun praised a serialized piece from the During Zhengde Miscellany, which chronicled numerous outstanding figures who emerged during the Japanese pirate invasions.

Even Luo Luo Gongchen, director of the Daxiang Pavilion and Commander of Coastal Defense, was included, with his life and contributions fully listed.

"Originally overseen by the Grand Secretary, now it's under the Junior Secretary Shen Li," Feng Bao glanced and smiled. "Junior Secretary Shen is an upright minister—he thoroughly investigates every article and every individual before publication. Commander Qi reads every issue without fail; these are truthful, reliable writings."

"It's less a miscellany than a historical record—extremely rigorous."

"An official gazette?" Zhu Zhu Yijun smiled. "The Ministry of Rites has done well. Bestow upon Junior Secretary Shen a crane-feather cloak, and promote him to Junior Guardian of the Crown Prince and Minister of Rites."

After Wan Shihé entered the Grand Secretariat, portions of the Ministry of Rites' duties were transferred to Shen Li, while Vice Minister Chen Chen Xuehui took charge of foreign affairs. The entire Ministry of Rites never became a haven for base Confucians who used ritual propriety to block the emperor's reforms—this was largely due to Wan Shihé, Shen Li, Chen Chen Xuehui, and other Confucian scholars skilled in adaptability.

This was a promotion for Shen Li, yet he remained Junior Secretary; should problems arise in the Ministry of Rites, Wan Shihé would still bear the burden.

Long before, Wan Shihé had begun, in the court's name, establishing official gazettes beyond the palace bulletins. Unlike private miscellanies, these official publications, as authoritative journals, were not the mouthpieces of base Confucians—they strictly upheld the principle: "Act through sincerity alone." Every source of information had to be verified before publication.

The official gazettes and the miscellanies formed two opposing camps, clashing on the battlefield of public opinion.

If you do not seize the high ground of public opinion, your enemy will.

This issue of the During Zhengde Miscellany recounted the story of Shi Mao—because of his great achievements in Shaanxi, people remembered only his resistance against the barbarians and forgot his pacification of Japanese pirates in Yangzhou Prefecture, but Shen Li restored those little-known accounts.

One detail stood out: Shi Mao trained his troops in Yangzhou Prefecture, eating, living, and marching alongside them as comrades-in-arms—men who could entrust their backs to each other on the battlefield. This was why Shi Mao triumphed in the anti-pirate campaigns in Yangzhou.

Meanwhile, Shi Mao, en route back to the capital, was deeply dissatisfied with his personal physician, Pang Zhang Xian.

Physician Pang Zhang Xian was a disciple of Li Li Shizhen; since Shi Mao submitted his petition for retirement due to illness at the end of last year, Pang Zhang Xian had traveled to Shaanxi to treat him.

"You rascal, how insolent! Can't I even read a courier report?" Shi Mao looked remarkably spirited—he could even slam the table—far from the frail, dying man the court imagined.

Pang Zhang Xian smiled. "Let the Grand Coordinator read it. As long as the Grand Coordinator returns to the capital in peace, that's enough. We're nearly at Guihua City—the imperial highway is open there; our journey back will be swift."

"So you truly won't let me see it?" Shi Mao sighed heavily, helplessly asking.

Pang Zhang Xian nodded. "There is an imperial decree."