Chapter 226: The Western City Is Noble, the Eastern City Is Wealthy

One by one, the various instructors finished presenting the portions they were responsible for.

The newly selected clerks seated in the hall were still calculating the total score for this grand examination when they saw that smiling Clerk Zheng step forward once again.

He cleared his throat and began:

"Everyone, stop calculating. The new policies were rushed; everything is being tested as we go and refined as we test. The examination papers, in fact, have not yet been finalized."

"The score weightings the various gentlemen just mentioned are, for the most part, only for reference."

He paused, then added:

"However, there are a few matters that have been roughly discussed and settled, which I can tell you in advance."

"This examination will be entirely different from the preliminary test you took before."

"The number of questions will surge to between one hundred and two hundred. The total score will be between three hundred and five hundred."

"But no matter how it changes, the time limit remains the same: it must still be completed within a single day."

The moment his words fell, a collective gasp rippled through the classroom.

Clerk Zheng watched this reaction with a smile, waiting a moment before he spoke again:

"Therefore, after this month of training, what will be tested is genuine talent and practical ability."

"If you do not attend lectures and study diligently, I fear you need not trouble yourselves over the probationary period—you will not even make it past the training period first."

This was intimidation.

The new-policy clerks, however, were not limited to just this hundred before them.

From the Shuntian Prefectural yamen, over a hundred more had also been preliminarily selected and brought into the new-policy clerk system.

Their training, though, would have to wait until this batch of clerks had finished before being made up.

In practice, their training would likely be far simpler, since most of them were veteran clerks of many years.

Most critically, these veteran clerks had now skipped the training period and entered directly into the probationary period, so naturally they would also face assessment requirements. The smiling Clerk Zheng—the target he carried on his back was, of course, the training results of this batch of new-policy clerks.

If every one of them passed, his evaluation would be top-grade.

If their results were all exceptionally outstanding, then a special-grade evaluation was not beyond hope either.

Thus, compared to Eunuch Liu, compared to His Excellency Ni, compared to the other hired instructors, Clerk Zheng was the person who cared most about the training. After intimidating these new clerks once more, Clerk Zheng led the various instructors in distributing the textbooks for each subject, along with the matching writing brushes, inksticks, paper, and inkstones. Then he formally announced dismissal.

After all the instructors had departed,

the classroom regained a measure of vitality.

People gathered in twos and threes, exchanging names or making plans to study together in the days ahead, their words brimming with warmth.

Wu Yanzuo was among them, chatting and laughing with a few others, but his gaze swept unobtrusively through the crowd.

He understood the situation clearly. Once he had finished exchanging pleasantries, he picked up his own bundle and walked over to a few men whose clothing was somewhat shabby. "Gentlemen, my humble home is piled mountain-high with such commonplace things—truly useless to me—and carrying them back now is really too far a journey."

"Meeting you all today has been a great pleasure. I might as well give from my surplus to supply your want. These trifling items are no mark of respect; I only hope you gentlemen will by no means refuse them." His smile was bright and open, his words earnest, carrying not the slightest hint of charity, as though he were sincerely dealing with a troublesome matter.

The few men were first taken aback, then their faces flushed crimson, and they waved their hands repeatedly in refusal. Wu Yanzuo, however, pressed the things into their hands without allowing further argument, clapped them on the shoulders, and laughed: "We are all to be colleagues from now on—why stand on such ceremony! It's settled, then!"

With that, he turned and left, leaving the few men clutching the writing supplies, gazing gratefully at his retreating figure where they stood.

But while brushes, ink, and paper could be given away, the textbooks could not.

Wu Yanzuo divided the thick textbooks into two bundles, tied them with hemp cord, took one bundle in each hand, and also walked out of the classroom.

Once outside, he saw the daylight was still early; the sun had not even reached the noon hour.

Most of the clerks had their homes settled in the southern city or outside the city walls. After leaving the Ministry of Personnel, they scattered in every direction.

Everyone cupped their hands in farewell to one another.

"See you tomorrow!"

"Everyone, don't miss tomorrow morning's roll-call hour..."

Wu Yanzuo stood at the street corner, waved with a smile, and watched as people merged in twos and threes into the distant crowds. Only then did he turn around and walk alone toward the direction of Chongwen Gate to the east.

His two page boys had never imagined their young master could be "off duty" so early, and at this moment were nowhere nearby to attend him. And so, the seventh son of the capital's enormously wealthy Wu Jinbo, the newly appointed new-policy clerk Wu Yanzuo, thus walked home on foot—no carriage, still less a sedan chair—carrying two heavy bundles of books.

After walking a while, he found both hands sore and numb, so he simply slung the two bundles back over his shoulder, carrying them like a traveling pack, and before long disappeared into the crowds.

As the saying goes, the western city is noble, the eastern city is wealthy.

The nine inner gates of the capital all had tax posts, but Chongwen Gate alone was the most flourishing.

This place connected to the outer city and was screened by tall city walls, so many merchants unwilling to enter the gate and pay the full duties set up their trading right there on the south side of Chongwen Gate.

Flower markets, rice markets, horse markets, cloth markets, fur markets... everything one could want, a dazzling array.

Goods from south and north converged here; accents from every corner of the realm interwove. Licensed markets and shopfronts stood row upon row; carts and horses streamed by in an endless, unbroken flow. And once inside Chongwen Gate, it was even more like flowers decked in brocade, like flames fed with oil.

To the north lay the Northern and Southern Joint Hostelries and the Barbarian Market, where the various foreign tribes came to offer tribute, and the rare and exotic goods they brought were all sold here, drawing countless people to hunt for curios and search for treasures. Further north still, at Military Government Street, were the imperial shops such as Baohe, and the Tea-license Inspection Office was also located there.

Silks and porcelains that came along the canal, furs and medicinal herbs that arrived by the overland route through Zhangjiakou—all converged here, then dispersed into the thousand gates and ten thousand households of the capital. Yet, since the eighth month, this scene had gradually begun to change.

A new sovereign brings a new court; this new ruler's manner and bearing were utterly different from the late Emperor's.

The newly appointed Assistant Prefect of Shuntian, Li Shiqi, leading the Depot guards, had cast nearly all the tax clerks and gate supervisors of the nine gates—eighteen Grand Commissioners, Vice Commissioners, and a host of tax clerks—into the Imperial Prison.

It was said that two among them had died of illness in prison, and from them a full ninety thousand taels of silver had been squeezed out.

When this news broke, the small and middling traders all raised their hands to their foreheads in relief and rushed about spreading the word.

But those great merchant princes who ordinarily commanded wind and rain showed not the slightest excitement; instead, they all fell uniformly silent, one after another shutting their doors and declining visitors, watching and waiting.

The capital was a place where a hundred officials gathered and ten thousand merchants converged—what day was ever free of grease? What day was ever free of connections?

Only when a share of profit is paid out can a hundredfold profit flow in—this was a principle everyone understood in their bones.

Now, with profit unable to flow out, the new policies unclear, the weather turning cold on top of it, and the canal freezing over, the goods entering the capital had grown visibly scarcer by the day. For a time, the area inside and outside Chongwen Gate, which surpassed all the capital in splendor, appeared somewhat desolate.

And the Wu residence was situated near this desolate quarter, in a very inconspicuous alleyway.

The stalls, awnings, and curtains that had originally stood before its gate had been forcibly demolished by the authorities on account of the capital's roadworks, exposing the mottled walls within, heaped with some white lime—bare and exceedingly unsightly.

Some bracket sets, colored glazed tiles, and other decorations that had once exceeded the sumptuary regulations had been dismantled at some unknown time, yet had not been replaced, making it appear even more unsightly. Gazing upon the entire mansion, it had not the slightest air of the foremost wealth of the capital; instead, like the market at Chongwen Gate, it exuded a sense of desolation. As soon as Wu Yanzuo entered the residence, a servant came forward to meet him.

He handed the two heavy bundles of books on his back to the servant, casually instructing only, "Put them away carefully," then headed straight for the study with quick steps. Within the study, sandalwood incense curled in lazy spirals.

A pale, thin young man sat in a chair, now and then letting out a suppressed cough or two.

He was Wu Yanzuo's elder brother, the Wu family's eldest son, Wu Jiye.

Behind the writing desk, a shrewd-faced middle-aged man in a brocade robe, his brows tightly knit, was holding several sheets of paper, utterly absorbed. This man was their father, Wu Cheng'en, known in merchant circles as "Wu Goldfoil."

Seeing Wu Yanzuo enter, Wu Cheng'en merely lifted his eyes and said flatly, "Back already? Wait a moment."

With that, he turned his gaze back to the papers, his frown deepening.

Wu Yanzuo said nothing. He cupped his hands toward his father and elder brother and stood quietly to one side.

Ever since their father had donated twenty thousand taels of silver to repair the roads and been granted an audience with His Majesty, the Wu family had been assigned a task.

A task that had left Wu Cheng'en unable to eat or sleep — he was to write a memorandum on "the abuses of traveling merchants."

He had revised it countless times; the discarded drafts had piled into a mountain, yet even now, Wu Cheng'en still dared not submit the document. The study was so silent one could hear a pin drop — only Wu Jiye's occasional cough and the rustle of paper as Wu Cheng'en turned the pages.

After a long while, Wu Cheng'en finally let out a long, turbid breath, shook his head, and handed the sheets over.

"Yanzuo, you take a look too."

"This is a new version your elder brother had the shop managers draft, following the style of the Great Ming Times."

"But I still feel it isn't right."

Wu Cheng'en's voice carried a deep weariness and anxiety.

"We are not civil officials. When a civil official writes something wrong, His Majesty may be lenient — he can take up his brush and correct it, even send it back for a rewrite."

"If we write something wrong..."

He sighed and left the rest unsaid, reducing it to just two words: "Hard to say, hard to say..."

Wu Yanzuo's heart tightened. He quickly took the papers and began examining them carefully.

The title was exceedingly long: "An Explanation of Bribery by Merchants and Corruption by Officials and Clerks in the Process of Commercial Tax Collection."

Reading further, he found all the details he already knew by heart.

From court ministers and hereditary nobles at the top, down to local clerks, inspectors, and tax officers at the bottom.

From the stationary duties in the capital to the transit duties along the Grand Canal.

Every aspect, nothing omitted, nothing left out.

Apart from the section on the palace eunuchs, which they had not dared to write, it laid out practically every corrupt abuse the merchants could think of, stripped of specific names and sorted into categories.

The entire piece contained not a single classical allusion, not a single ornate phrase; it strove for conciseness and plainness, brimming with data and detail. By all rights, in practical terms, this official document was already as seasoned as seasoned could be.

Its style, moreover, slavishly imitated those statecraft model essays in the Great Ming Times that His Majesty had "selected" — ugly and blunt, devoid of the slightest literati arrogance, nor did it deserve any.

Yet after reading it through, Wu Yanzuo felt the same vague sense of wrongness he had felt during every previous review.

This feeling was even more pronounced after today's clerk training session. Something was missing, but he could not put his finger on what...

He pondered for a moment, looked up at his father and brother, and was about to shake his head.

But in that instant, a flash of insight struck.

The fervent gleam that had burst from the eyes of those new-policy clerks in class today when they heard about salaries and bonuses suddenly rushed into his mind. "Slap!"

Wu Yanzuo clapped his hands and exclaimed, "I have it!"

Wu Cheng'en and Wu Jiye both perked up and looked at him together.

Wu Yanzuo shook the papers in his hand, his eyes burning, and spoke:

"Father, Elder Brother — it is the word 'profit'!"

"This document speaks only of current abuses, but never of where the 'profit' behind those abuses lies!"

He took a step forward, his voice rising a pitch.

"Clerks, ministers, and nobles sit in place and demand fees — that is pure profit. Writing that they are driven by greed is beyond reproach."

"But when the text describes us merchants offering every kind of bribe, it only tells of the suffering of being squeezed. How can that truly be the whole story?"

"In truth, we bribe to avoid even larger taxes, to travel faster routes, to earn more money! There is great profit in it too! That is why, after reading this document many times over, we have always felt something was off! Because it only speaks of others' greed, yet paints us merchants as lambs led to the slaughter. That was never our intent, but if submitted as is, it is ultimately neither complete nor truthful!"

"A document like this, if handed up, will certainly never catch this Son of Heaven's eye!"

"Profit!" Wu Cheng'en murmured the word to himself, his eyes first clouded, then growing brighter and brighter, until they finally crystallized into a sharp gleam.

He abruptly stood and paced rapidly about the room.

"Yes... yes! That is exactly the point!"

"We were all so focused on imitating the format and style of those statecraft documents that we missed the essence within!"

"None of us ever imagined daring to write so nakedly, so extensively, about the single word 'profit' in a document submitted to the Emperor!"

Having grasped this point, Wu Cheng'en's face was filled with sudden realization.

"Other emperors might not care to read it, but this His Majesty... I fear he would love it to death!"

"Father, this approach... is it not too blatant?" Wu Jiye, standing to the side, spoke up with a worried look. "To lay bare our merchant hearts that chase profit so openly before the Son of Heaven — would that not be... unseemly?"

He had long managed the family business; though he had seen the Emperor, he had not faced the imperial presence directly as his father had, nor had he personally felt the pulse of the new policies as Wu Yanzuo had. Wu Cheng'en glanced at him, then at Wu Yanzuo, and said, "Yanzuo, explain it to your elder brother."

"Yes, Father." Wu Yanzuo turned to Wu Jiye and said gravely, "Elder Brother, consider all the measures His Majesty has taken since his ascension."

"There is 'reputation' among them, to be sure, but the word 'profit' runs through them all. This new sovereign is by no means a man who shuns the topic of profit."

Wu Jiye gave a low cough. He still did not fully agree, but he no longer argued.

"Then it is settled!" Wu Cheng'en brought the hammer down. "Jiye, gather the men at once and rewrite it according to the line of thought Yanzuo has laid out! Make sure this word 'profit' is written through and through, written solid! Strive to submit it as soon as possible!"

"Yes, Father." Wu Jiye cupped his hands in assent.

"By the way," Wu Cheng'en now seemed to remember something. His brow furrowed, and a look of concern actually appeared as he turned to Wu Yanzuo.

"I was so preoccupied I forgot to ask — wasn't today your first day on duty? Why have you come back so early? Was there some mishap?"