Chapter 520: The Power of a Role Model

The profession of Tax Farmer is one of the most ancient trades — this holds true in all times and places, both in China and abroad.

In its early period, Europe was a purely feudal inheritance; the division of rights between kings and lords was very clear, and each was the sole master of his own little domain. As a result, many royal houses and local lords would conveniently contract out or auction off the tax-collection rights of their jurisdictions to merchants, in exchange for a stable fiscal income.

This situation reached its peak in the late Middle Ages.

Asia, however, was different.

After Qin Shi Huang established the Great Unification dynasty, the feudal system changed in character. The state's taxes were normally collected by local government offices dispatched by the central authorities. In this respect, China's Landlord Class did not possess rights as extensive as those of European lords. Although they could use various methods to evade taxes and share in the embezzlement of state revenues, this was, after all, illegitimate and had little to do with Tax Farmers.

The Tax Farmer truly entered the Chinese field of vision during the Mongol Yuan period. The illiterate Mongols of that time could not handle fiscal matters and did not trust Han officials, so after the Occupation of China, they subcontracted the state's tax collection to Semu people — various European merchants who had come to China with the Mongols.

This kind of completely unregulated tax-farming system was certainly unworkable. A tax official who spent one dollar to buy the tax-collection rights would inevitably have to extort ten dollars from his jurisdiction. This caused popular resentment to boil over and Resistance to break out everywhere. In the end, the Mongols could not hold on in China for more than a few decades, and the tax-farming system is universally acknowledged as one of the chief culprits for their downfall.

Time came to the Ming dynasty. As the social Environment changed, in the mid-to-late Ming, the tax-farming system gradually reappeared and became an optional tax-collection program for some local government offices.

Normally, a County Yamen that chose the tax-farming system would contract out the tax-collection rights for the summer and autumn seasons to certain locally "powerful" figures who had the Capability to collect money and grain from the common people, in order to save on administrative costs and complete the fiscal handover to the higher authorities.

This method of tax collection gradually found a market in the mid-to-late Ming dynasty, and can be considered a spontaneously formed subcontracting model.

Tax farming was not mainstream at first, but by the Late Ming, as the central imperial power grew weaker by the day, the administrative Capability of the county yamen — the tentacles at the very end of the system — weakened accordingly. Facing the increasingly deteriorating local chaos, they became more and more powerless, and so the tax-farming system grew ever more prevalent.

Therefore, when Ding Liqiu brought up the term "tax farming" during the negotiations today, Gu County Magistrate was not overly surprised, because over the past few years, some surrounding prefectures and counties had already been doing this, only to different degrees of openness. Even Gu Tai himself had once considered contracting the autumn taxes to several major households in the county; he had simply hesitated and never carried it out.

In the end, Master Gu did not deliberate for long before nodding and agreeing to hand over this year's summer and autumn taxes to Ding Scribe... The man had delivered the money and grain into the County Yamen's Storehouse in advance — such a fine thing had never happened under heaven before. To some extent, the moment the money and grain entered the storehouse, this year's taxes should rightfully have been Ding Scribe's. The County Yamen truly could find no grounds for Opposition.

An important Type 28 conference thus concluded victoriously. This meeting marked the Transmigrators' formal initiation of the process of societal transformation upon the grassroots regime of the Great Ming, moving from sea to land, from passive to active, "penetrating deep into enemy territory" — a profoundly significant event.

In the days that followed, the Ming People of Zengcheng County began to experience wave after wave of unprecedented tragicomedies.

The first to begin was the Corvée Labor.

Shortly after the Flower Hall meeting, and before the New Year on the Lunar Calendar, the various village communities and lijia under Zengcheng County's jurisdiction officially began mobilization. Cooperating with the yamen runners dispatched to the countryside, they sent the Selected corvée laborers off to Xiancheng.

What was different from previous years was that this year, if one wanted to pay a fee to be exempted from the corvée, one had to pay double the silver.

Furthermore, this year's urgent corvée was not to dredge the River, but to go work at some damned military port in Huangpu.

As for the latter point, the ill-informed commoners were indifferent, because they were going to work no matter where. Dredging a river or repairing a military port made little difference to them.

But the former point was a killer: many commoners could not afford the doubled exemption silver.

In this situation, it was impossible for the commoners not to be full of complaints. The New Year was just around the corner, yet because they could not afford the silver, they were Be Forced To go out and perform corvée labor, leaving their village homes with no one to look after them. On top of that, they had to bring their own dry rations. No matter how you looked at it, it was a bitter hardship.

Yet complaining was useless. After all, corvée labor had operated this way for thousands of years. Those whose turn it was to serve this year could at most lament their own bad luck; no one dared to resist the ferocious Official Runners and lijia leaders.

Thus, before long, led by the lijia leaders from each village, the teams of corvée laborers under Zengcheng County's jurisdiction began arriving in Xiancheng one after another, Gathering.

Once they reached the Scout Field south of the city, the lijia leaders, bearing documents and name registers, completed the handover with the clerks Sitting In the sheds. After that, the several dozen laborers behind them, their faces full of numb resignation, were formally taken over by the Transmigrators from the Greedy bureaucratic system.

The next moment, the tragicomedy officially began: after queuing up and completing registration, every single laborer received three gleaming Silver Cakes on the spot!

Dumbfounded, clutching the Silver Cakes and having no idea what was going on, the laborers then heard a voice, loud as thunder, coming from a person holding a strange trumpet nearby: "Everyone, this time you're here to do work for Lord Cao, the Great General of Guangzhou City! Regional Commander Cao loves the people like his own children and has a Jinshan at home, so he doesn't care about this bit of money. This time, everyone who comes to serve will receive three Silver Cakes per person per month, no need to wait until the end of the month — you get paid at the start of the month!"

After hearing the shout from the loudspeaker, the laborers, who had looked as if they had lost their parents, instantly erupted in an uproar, unable to believe the words they were hearing. Yet the Silver Cakes clutched tightly in their palms Reminded them: this was real!

In this era, for a non-skilled Laborer who only knew how to Sell brute strength, earning three taels of silver a month was impossible. Now, having received this unexpected windfall, many were so overjoyed they became stupefied: weren't we supposed to come and work for free? How come we're getting wages?

This group of forcibly conscripted laborers had naturally never heard the saying, "The power of a Role Model is infinite."

The fundamental purpose of the Transmigrators' corvée conscription this time was, in fact, to use the Great Ming's administrative system to forcibly spread Regional Commander Cao's personal reputation at the fastest possible speed, letting the surrounding populace know that working for Regional Commander Cao was One Path to a good life.

Now that the first batch of Role Models had arrived, they would Be Certain To receive generous treatment. The next step, after the laborers were assembled in Xiancheng, was to send them to Huangpu Military Port. This group was split into two at the military port. One Part boarded ships and went to Tainan — nominally to do work, but actually a paid tour to observe and learn about advanced systems. The other part was settled locally to do odd jobs. Every day they had food and drink, and were issued various labor protection items and denim work uniforms. Their days could not have been more comfortable.

After Half a Month passed like this, the laborers, carrying silver and laden with holiday rice, wind-dried chicken, and labor protection supplies issued by the military port, received Lord Cao's gracious reward and joyfully returned to their villages for the "New Year holiday."

As news Spreading after these people returned home, the locals of Zengcheng who figured out What's the Story with this year's corvée labor, after the New Year turned, came in an endless stream, bringing relatives and friends, their whole Family in Tow, all rushing over to demand to do "corvée labor."

The First Step of Ding Liqiu's corvée labor series of operations could be considered a success.