Chapter 399: Fang Yuegong

During the Ming dynasty, Songjiang Prefecture had its administrative seat in the ancient Huating County, and governed Huating, Shanghai, Jiading, Qingpu, and other counties. Its jurisdiction was vast, encompassing nearly the entire right half of the Yangtze River Delta.

In this era, Shanghai County, though quite prosperous, was very small in area — only the circle of land around Shiliupu. Therefore, the majority of later-generation Shanghai natives, if traced by ancestral origin, were actually from Jiading, Qingpu, or Songjiang. In short, they were all country bumpkins and mud-legged hicks — anything but true Shanghai people.

The Songjiang Prefectural Office, located on the future site of Songjiang No. 2 Middle School, was a considerably large architectural complex in the 17th century. After all, by regulation, a prefectural yamen was two full circles larger than a county yamen.

On the second day after the Land Deed Alliance's tea-tasting meeting, a messenger was already sitting in the warm pavilion of the Back Residence at the Songjiang Prefectural Office, tasting tea with Prefect Fang Yuegong.

This messenger was surnamed Lü. The reason he was sent to see the Prefect was that Lü Jinshen and Prefect Fang had both passed the imperial examination in the second year of the Tianqi reign; the two were examination-year peers who also traveled back and forth in daily life, making him a suitable go-between.

Prefect Fang Yuegong was a native of Gucheng in Hubei, courtesy name Sichang. His appearance was utterly ordinary — not tall, slightly plump, around thirty-eight or thirty-nine years old, which made him relatively young among middle-aged officials.

At this moment, Prefect Fang was personally lifting a copper teapot from a clay stove burning charcoal at his feet, pouring tea for his old friend sitting nearby.

"Brother Sichang, this is far too crude. Honest and incorruptible service need not go to such lengths. Tomorrow I shall send a man to deliver a kerosene stove — perfect for the damp cold of winter."

Certain chaotic intruders had already exerted an ever-deepening influence upon this plane of existence.

Take winter heating stoves and charcoal, for example: the wealthiest households, those with the most money to spare, all now used adjustable, convenient, and clean kerosene stoves. The next tier of rich families used traditional silver-thread white charcoal. Only those of the tier below that would use ordinary charcoal, as Prefect Fang did.

"The official operating funds for the yamen amount to only so much — what can be done?" After pouring tea for his old friend, Fang Yuegong's expression turned somewhat ambiguous. "And don't go sending me any fire oil — a poor official like me cannot afford to use it."

"What kind of talk is that? Would I ever ask my elder brother for silver?!" Lü Jinshen feigned anger.

"It is precisely the things that cost no silver which prove the most expensive." At this point, Prefect Fang put away his joking face and asked with a serious expression: "You bookworm, you've always been one who never visits the Three Treasures Hall without a reason. What exactly is the matter? Speak honestly!"

Lü Jinshen laughed heartily upon hearing this. "Only Brother Fang truly knows me."

The next moment, Lü Jinshen also put away his smile. "Of late, there are those who are arrogant and untamed, who do not act according to the rules. Their power has grown great and difficult to control. I hope my elder brother will stretch out his hand to suppress them just a little — I would be deeply grateful for your kindness!"

"Hmph." Fang Yuegong shook his head upon hearing this. "Schemes to seize other people's property — do not come looking for me."

"Oh? Brother Fang already knows of it?"

"A joke. These past few days you have been raising a clamorous uproar, killing and burning night after night. Do you take me, the Prefect, for a dead man?"

"Heh heh, since my elder brother already knows, then I shall open the window and speak plainly." Lü Jinshen's face now showed not the slightest trace of shame. Staring at his Prefect brother, he said: "This matter has already made it impossible for the various gentry to back down with dignity. Now we are riding a tiger and cannot dismount. I hope my elder brother will act, just slightly suppressing that gang of soldiers. The various gentry will surely offer generous recompense in the aftermath!"

Fang Yuegong, hearing this, wore an expression that said "just as I expected." He raised his head to gaze out the window and rapped his fingers on the table. "Generous recompense? What generous recompense?"

"Whatever my elder brother asks, we shall not refuse!"

Before Lü Jinshen's words had even faded, Prefect Fang, as if he had been waiting for ten thousand years, hurriedly blurted out a sentence: "I want to build a seawall."

Immediately after, he added expressionlessly: "A stone seawall."

Historically, Fang Yuegong was actually the same type of person as Hai Rui and Wang Zunde: as officials, they sought only fame, not wealth, and their official purses were always empty.

In the tenth year of Chongzhen, when Zhang Xianzhong occupied Gucheng, he heard from residents that Fang Yuezong was Fang Yuegong's younger brother. He then seized Fang Yuezong's house, detained him under a pretext, and demanded he contribute funds for military provisions.

However, after Zhang Xianzhong went to Fang Yuezong's home and looked around, he discovered the man was indeed a commoner, felt a sudden surge of respect, and released him.

These few officials of incorruptible repute all shared one common trait in their careers: they served the public, feared no powerful nobles, and left their families with no surplus wealth. They were unlike the majority of officials — "winning a name that lives on after death" was the thing they truly pursued.

But in terms of administrative skill, Fang Yuegong — the last Grand Secretary appointed by Chongzhen — was undoubtedly far stronger than the two men mentioned above.

Fang Yuegong had assumed the post of Songjiang Prefect the previous year. After taking office, he chose a project that would win deep popular support and leave his name in the annals of history: repairing the seawalls.

As mentioned earlier, from the early years of Chongzhen onward, the tide disasters and windstorms in Jiangnan had never ceased. The resulting breaches of the dikes by seawater caused massive civilian deaths, and disaster victims were everywhere.

It was at this critical juncture that Fang Yuegong began planning to repair the dikes.

So why was he able to leave his name in history? Because what he built was a stone seawall. Yes — before Fang Yuegong, for thousands of years, all the seawalls in Jiangnan had been mud dikes, commonly called rammed-earth walls or clamped-board walls.

For the ancients with low productivity, quarrying a large stone, trimming and polishing it, and finally transporting it to the seaside — the pure manual labor cost was extremely high. Add to that consumables like glutinous rice and egg whites used as binding agents, and the cost of a true stone seawall built from thousands upon thousands of large stones was, for a local government office, truly an immense burden.

Thus, throughout all history, it was not until Fang Yuegong in the late Ming that the first stone seawall in the Jiangnan region was successfully built. From this alone one can see that Fang Yuegong's administrative and organizational abilities completely outclassed those other incorruptible officials — the Jiangnan region had always been rich and prosperous; why had no one before him been able to accomplish it?

In the end, this was a matter of capability and determination.

It must be known that when Fang Yuegong first convened the gentry to raise funds, he also encountered layer upon layer of resistance.

The gentry feared increased financial burdens and emphasized three difficulties in building a stone seawall: first, the expense was enormous; second, stone seawall construction was technically more demanding than earthen dikes; third, "the force of the sea cannot be contended with," and they advocated retreating inland to build earthen dikes further back.

Fang Yuegong, however, firmly maintained that retreating inland was tantamount to ceding land to the sea. He thus overrode all objections and resolved to build a stone seawall.

After this, Prefect Fang would sail out in a single leaf-like boat, soliciting donations everywhere, and he promulgated Songjiang Prefecture's local dike-building policy: "All wealthy households possessing one hundred mu of land shall be uniformly urged to contribute eight li of silver per mu."

All of the above demonstrates Fang Yuegong's brilliant administrative ability: collecting silver was no simple matter. Without considerable finesse, merely putting on a show of boating around to solicit donations — how could the gentry ever be brought to heel?

After that came project management, and Fang Yuegong was equally strong in this regard — far stronger, even, than many later-generation projects.

He not only searched far and wide for master craftsmen, but once construction began, he eliminated abuses, forbade the yamen and official runners from skimming at every level, and personally visited the supervising personnel at any time to inspect whether the disbursed silver had all arrived in full. In the end, the stone seawall project was completed smoothly.

After the stone seawall was finished, the common people, to thank Fang Yuegong, specially built a "Repaying Merit Shrine." Even in later generations, villagers still came to offer worship.

All of the above proves that although Fang Yuegong was an incorruptible official, he was an incorruptible official with considerable cunning, strategy, and a deep understanding of worldly affairs and the human heart.

And so the guest who had come today, Lü Jinshen, after visiting Prefect Fang, hastily took his leave — he carried away the fundraising conditions Prefect Fang had proposed. These conditions were far too harsh; the guest had no authority to decide and had to return to discuss them with the others.

After sending off this examination-year peer who spent his days scheming to seize other people's family property, the great Prefect Fang shook his head, let out a sigh, left the warm pavilion, and walked toward another side courtyard in the Back Residence.

Historically, Fang Yuegong only truly got all parties on board and formally began constructing the stone seawall a few years later. But this matter had been in planning and trial-ballooning since he took office the previous year: for such a colossal project, under the social conditions of the medieval era, a preparatory period of several years was entirely normal.

So just now, upon seeing his examination-year peer Lü, he had unceremoniously tossed a huge problem right at him... In any case, he had no desire to meddle in those sordid affairs; he might as well make an exorbitant demand.

Revolving all the possible aftermaths in his mind, Prefect Fang walked briskly along. Soon he entered an inconspicuous room within the side courtyard.

After pushing open the door, Prefect Fang stepped inside in one stride, hurried to the desk, and planted both hands on its edge. His eyes fixed on the illustrated scroll atop the desk as he turned his head to the person beside him and asked: "What were we just discussing?"

The person beside him smiled slightly. "We had reached cement."

"Oh, right — cement!"

The man standing beside Prefect Fang was a middle-aged man named Luo Shizhi.

This man was one of the earliest distributors Xiong Dao had selected in Jiading County. Because Luo Shizhi's clan cousin was the current Director of the Ministry of Works, the goods the Luo Family distributed for Xiong Dao were primarily construction materials: cement, wood, and glass.

In fact, before Lü Jinshen had come calling today, Luo Shizhi had already been communicating with Prefect Fang in this side courtyard for the entire morning.

And what now lay before Fang Yuegong was precisely the object of all his thoughts and dreams — a watercolor illustration of a great dam.

In truth, the thing depicted on this picture far exceeded anything Fang Yuegong had ever dreamed of. For this was a large-format color image printed from a digital photograph, showing a dam that, by tomorrow's standards, would be considered extremely majestic.

Gazing at the vividly lifelike Tainan Plain scenery on the color image, as if seeing it in person, and at that grand, endlessly long dam, the jade-green reservoir, the white-dragon-like spillway gates... Although Fang Yuegong had already studied this picture for a long time before, at this moment he still could not tear himself away. One hand traced over the image while he muttered ceaselessly under his breath.

"Brother Sichang, the material used for this great dam is precisely that cement." Luo Shizhi now began to explain in detail to the Prefectural Governor the advantages of a cement dam.

After quietly listening to Luo Shizhi's introduction, Fang Yuegong nodded as he spoke: "If this cement dam can truly hold back a weir lake three to five zhang deep, as shown in this picture, then using it to build my seawall of a mere zhang or so in height would naturally be more than sufficient."

"Heh, Fourth Elder Brother still needs to see it with his own eyes to believe it, it seems." Luo Shizhi sat down at this point, poured himself a cup of tea over the same charcoal brazier, and after taking a sip said with full confidence: "This matter is simple. Tomorrow, Fourth Elder Brother may select a site within your residence and have master craftsmen build a section of seawall using the old method."

"On my side, I will also send craftsmen to build a wall using Cement and large stones, of the same length and width."

Hearing this, Fang Yuegong instantly understood Luo Shizhi's meaning: "That is indeed a good method. After the Aftermath, we can order men to demolish the walls and see which one is sturdier."