Chapter 243

Duke Xingye, Zhang Tongchang, had spoken far too soon. The light in his eyes, over these ten days, dimmed little by little.

On the first day after the New Policies Command was established, he was still brimming with excitement, even having the presence of mind to observe and puzzle out the thoughts of the other ennobled nobles.

On the second day, he was still bursting with passion, even cheering and celebrating with his colleagues when the preliminary review of Shuntian Prefecture's documents was completed. But by the third, fourth, and fifth days, he already needed to draw strength from ancient worthies like Yue Fei and Zhuge Liang, spurring himself on through stories from history.

By the sixth and seventh days, never mind him, a newly minted, ersatz Ming noble.

Even Xu Yunzhen, who had been born into wealth and ease and always carried himself with grace, could no longer be bothered with any of that maneuvering to win over or sound out this batch of newly ennobled nobles. In everyone's eyes, beyond the fanaticism, there was now nothing but numbness.

The sheer workload of the New Policies investigation and review across the entire Northern Metropolitan Region had completely surpassed everyone's prior estimates.

The mountain of piled-up documents was not something you could simply review once and then stick up on a wall.

Such perfunctory treatment — not only would the Emperor forbid it, and Team Leader Qi forbid it, they themselves would not permit it either.

Within this process lay an enormous amount of extra work: repeated cross-checking, verification, rejection, formal rebuke, and chasing down drafts.

In the middle of it, there were even county magistrates who were weeded out because their documents could not pass review.

Then the newly appointed county magistrate sent by the Ministry of Personnel would also need someone from the secretariat to go and explain the local conditions to him.

And when the officials and juren originally assigned to provide documents were dismissed for concealment or incompetence, the Command also had to liaise with the newly selected replacements.

Thus, the total document-review workload exceeded the original estimate by more than fivefold!

But what was interesting was that, as the workload continuously outstripped estimates, the Command's manpower had, in the midst of it, actually been increasing in tandem.

On the second day, the four newly arrived secretaries from the secretariat — Yao Ximeng, Chen Renxi, and the others — were urgently reassigned to the Northern Metropolitan Region New Policies team.

On the fourth day, the Inner Palace School in the palace dispatched twenty new young eunuchs to come help with copying and checking calculations.

On the sixth day, even the Hanlin Academy, from its work on collating the Zhang Juzheng New Policies, forcibly pulled out six Junior Compilers and sent them over. Yet for some reason, the more the manpower increased, the greater the workload each person felt became.

Perhaps it was because with more people, the links requiring communication, coordination, and mutual adjustment multiplied accordingly.

Or perhaps it was that, seeing so many people straining themselves to the limit for the same cause, each person unconsciously raised the bar for themselves. And so, the end-of-day dismissal time crept quietly from the early evening hour of xu, to the late night hour of hai.

On the night of the ninth day, as the last batch of officials dragged their leaden legs out of the office, the watchmen in the streets were already sounding the clappers for the hour of zi. Correspondingly, the morning roll-call, too, shifted from the originally strict hour of mao, postponed by everyone's silent actions and tacit understanding to the hour of chen. No one proposed it, and no one opposed it.

Everyone knew that the total working hours had not, in fact, changed very much.

But in this bone-chilling October, everyone knew that lingering an extra hour in a warm bed was far happier than returning home an hour earlier through the freezing night wind.

It was a wordless understanding, a survival wisdom born spontaneously under extreme pressure.

At last, after battling on like this for ten full days, as the setting sun of the tenth day slanted in through the window lattice, Qi Xinxiao pinned the final slip of paper onto the wall and shouted hoarsely: "It is done!"

In that moment, the entire great hall was first deathly silent, then erupted in an immense, relieved cheer.

They had done it!

All the submitted situation reports on local conditions from the eight prefectures and more than one hundred counties and departments of Northern Zhili had at last been fully reviewed!

The candidates for over a hundred local offices had also at last been finalized one by one, under the three rigorous checkpoints of administrative record, official reputation, and documentary quality.

All the results were sorted and transcribed onto the enormous charts covering every wall of the office, and a duplicate copy was even made and sent to the Directorate of Ceremonial.

Those ten dark, oppressive, and unforgettably grueling days were finally over.

And just at that moment, a long, drawn-out announcement came from outside the door.

"His Majesty arrives!"

The Eternal Prosperity Emperor, Zhu Youjian, had come, at the moment when everyone most hoped for it and was most exhausted.

Inside the great hall, silence fell instantly.

The officials who had been slumped limp in their chairs moments before now all struggled to straighten their bodies, smoothing their rumpled official robes, their expressions invigorated. Merely looking at the vast, sweeping charts of the Northern Zhili investigation covering the walls, at the dense yet meticulously ordered data and names upon them, an unprecedented confidence welled up in everyone's hearts.

They believed that the New Policies in Northern Zhili were certain to succeed!

They could find no reason for failure.

Since the founding of the dynasty — no! In all the thousand years of Huaxia!

Where had there ever been such a precedent, of weighing every penny and scrutinizing every detail, of invariably conducting an investigation before taking any action!

Where had there ever been such an example, of openly and aboveboard laying out the tangled, deep-rooted local magnates, powerful landlords, and petty-official clans on the table to be dissected one by one! This total command of information, the grand strategic picture sorted and synthesized from those orderly tables, intoxicated everyone in the room.

This group of Ming scholar-officials had, in ten days, created from nothing the masterpiece of their era — the Great Ming Northern Zhili Big Data Board!

All eyes, burning with fervor, fixed upon the Son of Heaven as he strode in.

Every one of them wanted to see how the originator of this undertaking would regard the fruits of their ten days of furious labor!

Zhu Youjian walked in slowly.

His gaze did not go first to the people, but fell upon those charts that occupied every wall.

Step by step, he walked very slowly, his eyes sweeping across the charts.

Zhu Youjian's face was expressionless, but inwardly he could not help exclaiming.

That anxiety that had always lurked in his heart had finally eased a few degrees more.

This feeling came, first of all, from a sense of comprehensive control over the matter.

In that later era of extreme information explosion, forget about crude user profiles like province or gender.

He was someone who would even analyze and process where a user clicked first, where they clicked next, and what they did just before churning and leaving the app. The bureaucratic maps and official dossiers he had previously had the Directorate of Ceremonial compile were for handling factional struggles and personnel matters, and always lacked something of the flavor of overall control. The statecraft reports that kept coming in were, in turn, more often expositions aimed at a particular facet or a specific issue.

Very few people possessed this kind of data-driven thinking, and even fewer had the ability to obtain data on such a scale to articulate comprehensive grand policy.

But Zhu Youjian, as the Emperor of the empire, was different from these officials, and even more different from those impoverished transmigrators who had to start from scratch with nothing. He lacked money, he lacked grain, but the one thing he absolutely did not lack was manpower to deploy!

What was the ultimate goal of a genius who had endured decades of grueling study?

In this era, it was simply to sell oneself to the imperial house!

And people, so long as they are set in motion, so long as they move along a relatively correct path, will inevitably create value.

Take the chart before his eyes, for instance — it would be hard to claim it was absolutely correct.

Were there elements of exaggeration, concealment, and outright fabrication in it? There certainly were.

But that did not matter.

To go from thirty points to sixty points — though it may seem like barely passing — is still to double the degree of information mastery! And his second source of confidence came precisely from this New Policies team before his eyes, a team he had single-handedly brought into being.

Zhu Youjian withdrew his gaze from the charts, turned slowly, and looked at the assembly.

According to the regulations of the Great Ming, before a subject had an audience with His Majesty, he was to burn incense and bathe. If he had bad breath, he was even to hold a clove in his mouth to dispel the foul odor.

But now, where would this vanguard of the New Policies find such conditions?

Nearly every face bore two dark, heavy circles under the eyes, the whites shot through with blood.

At the corners of some mouths, in this dry winter, internal heat had flared up and strung a line of fever blisters.

Even Xu Yingzhen, long famed for his lavish ease and meticulous bearing, was now disheveled and grimy, his official hat askew, the two official boots on his feet not even of the same style.

Looking at these bedraggled yet high-spirited ministers, Zhu Youjian broke into a radiant smile.

"Good!"

"Good!"

"Good!"

He said "good" three times in succession, then paused a moment, his gaze sweeping across every agitated face.

"In all the realm, through all the dynasties down the ages, who has ever accomplished a work of revival and surpassing greatness? No one has done it!"

"And now, our Great Ming is to accomplish this unprecedented work of surpassing greatness — naturally, it also requires surpassing men who can do what others cannot! What is a surpassing man?"

Zhu Youjian stretched out his hand and slowly traced a circle in the air, encompassing everyone within it, and said with a ringing laugh:

"They are precisely the gentlemen before me!"

"In ten days' labor, to clarify the worldly conditions across a thousand li of Northern Zhili! Through all the dynasties, who could do it? Who could accomplish it?"

Zhu Youjian raised both hands high, his tone soaring.

"This is something Zhang Liang and Xiao He could not have done — something no one in the thousand centuries of Huaxia has ever done!"

"Our Great Ming's surpassing of every dynasty begins precisely with these charts — and precisely with you gentlemen!"

With that, he took the lead and clapped with force! The assembly in the hall followed almost as one in an instant!

Many people's eyes reddened, their faces flushed crimson; they poured every ounce of strength into making the applause resound through the entire office hall.

Zhu Youjian led the applause and kept it up for nearly a full minute before slowly lowering his hands.

Looking at them, his own heart surged with emotion.

But though motivational rhetoric has its uses, rhetoric alone will not suffice.

If one merely imitates those vulgar bosses of later ages, pouring out nothing but rhetoric while grudging the delivery of real benefits — if one learns only Huawei's wolf spirit but not Huawei's profit-sharing — then one is practically racing toward national ruin.

Set the tone, do the work, distribute the rewards — only by cycling through these without cease can all men unite in purpose and break through every obstacle.

Therefore, Zhu Youjian had long since prepared, for this flock of white crows — battle-crows among white crows — honors beyond their imagining.

But all of that must wait thirty days before it can be delivered.

For the present, he could only offer one small reward to keep their morale surging.

"We have come today to arrange only two matters," Zhu Youjian began.

At once everyone held their breath and focused their minds, knowing the real business had arrived.

"First: notify everyone immediately — the New Policies enter their second phase. Every selected local official in Northern Zhili must, within five days, submit his 'Northern Zhili New Policies Implementation Pledge.'"

The assembly listened in silence. This was already implicit in the plan; all the regulations had long been set and could hardly be counted as any special arrangement.

Zhu Youjian paused, then continued: "Second."

He smiled faintly.

"Starting tomorrow, every person in this room is on collective leave for three days! On the fourth day, you shall return to duty!"

As his words fell, the entire great hall sank into a moment of silence.

Everyone thought they had misheard.

Then, no one knew who reacted first, letting out a cheer of disbelief.

Immediately after, an immense, tidal-wave roar of cheers and applause exploded!

"Your Majesty is sagely wise!"

"We thank Your Majesty for his boundless grace!"

This round of applause was even more fervent than the last, more from the depths of the heart, brimming with the wild joy of survivors.

Zhu Youjian smiled and waved his hand, pressing down the noise.

"Enough, all of you disperse! From this moment, the leave has begun — go at once!"

He turned his head toward Gao Shiming and deliberately put on a stern face.

"Companion Gao, drive every last one of them out for Us! For three days, whoever dares come here to work, We shall punish him for the offense!"

The assembly burst into roaring laughter; the nerves that had been taut only moments before now relaxed completely.

Laughing and making a ruckus, they still earnestly performed the full rites of sovereign and subject before Zhu Youjian, and only then withdrew in twos and threes, arms slung over one another's shoulders. The Northern Zhili New Policies Command Post, bustling and clamorous with voices day after day, was reduced in the blink of an eye to only two men — Zhu Youjian and Gao Shiming. Only then did Zhu Youjian pace back again, intending to seriously examine the data they had gathered.

Yes — at this stage, whatever the outcome of their work, there would be only rewards, no punishments.

That was why Zhu Youjian had not, in truth, looked closely at all just now.

He walked up to the wall directly facing the main doors.

On this wall were filled in the final estimated aggregate figures for all eight prefectures of Northern Zhili.

He read them over one by one.

"Cultivated acreage: original quota, 49,256,842 mu. Current aggregate estimated quota, 52,318,192 mu to 63,012,910 mu."

The so-called estimated quota was obtained by separately summing the lowest and the highest values estimated by each county, hence the very wide range of fluctuation.

These figures were certainly inaccurate, but they at least represented the overall view of all the officials who had participated in the investigation — that the actual acreage under cultivation was definitely greater than what the ledgers showed. Yet everyone seemed to think it would not be much greater — or was it that they did not wish it to be much greater?

Zhu Youjian continued reading downward.

"Population: original quota, 4,264,898 persons. Current aggregate estimated quota, 7,281,371 to 9,280,028 persons."

Seeing this number, Zhu Youjian's brows furrowed slightly. This view was somewhat pessimistic.

According to the earlier calculations based on surveys by the capital's midwives, the actual population of the Great Ming, compared to the sixty million recorded in the Yellow Registers, should be at least two and a half times that — roughly one hundred and fifty million.

Yet here in the Northern Metropolitan Region, a quick mental calculation told him the population multiplier was actually only about 1.7 to 2.1 times. Was this a sample bias, because the capital's midwives ultimately had better skills and medical conditions than the surrounding towns and villages?

Or was it… as those memorials claimed, a massive flight from taxes and levies, leading to population exodus?

If it was population exodus, where had these people fled to? Into the Taihang Mountains? Or onto the estates of those ennobled families and palace eunuchs?

This data point diverged considerably from Zhu Youjian's expectations.

But he was not about to doubt the reliability of the entire information chain because of it.

The new policies had just begun; everything was still an estimate. He would proceed and observe as he went.

His gaze finally settled on the tax quota.

"Summer tax and autumn grain, original quota: 604,609 shi. Estimated quota: 1.5 million to 3 million shi."

"Ah?"

For a moment, Zhu Youjian thought he had misread.

This can't be right!

The increase in farmland acreage was not dramatic, and the population increase was only moderate at best — so how had the tax quota directly doubled, with the highest estimate reaching five times the original?

How had they calculated this? How could the estimate be so optimistic?

Could it be… that the men below had seen through His Majesty's intentions and, in pursuit of merit, had deliberately exaggerated the figures?

"Qi Xinxiao!" Zhu Youjian called out reflexively. "This data…"

The moment the words left his mouth, he realized his mistake. He turned his head — and sure enough, in the empty hall, only Gao Shiming stood to the side, a faint smile on his face.

Gao Shiming immediately bowed. "Your Majesty, shall this slave send someone to invite Team Leader Qi back to explain?"

Zhu Youjian pondered for a moment, then shook his head with a rueful laugh.

"Forget it. There's no rush. Let them rest properly."

"When the county magistrates from each locality submit their letters of commitment later, and we reach the interview stage, I will look into it carefully then."

"Yes." Gao Shiming clasped his hands and stood in attendance, saying nothing further.

He had known it would be like this.

This new sovereign had always regarded his own promises as weightier than heaven itself.

And this method of bestowing favor to win hearts — he would absolutely never undermine its effect by issuing orders in the morning and rescinding them by evening.

Even though he knew that Team Leader Qi, at this very moment, would be a thousand times, ten thousand times willing to race back immediately for a private audience. Zhu Youjian then examined the other tax line items — horse fodder, cotton, household salt-certificate silver, silk, and so on — one by one. All of them, above their original quotas, now carried estimates that, while not quite so dramatic, were still remarkably optimistic.

He skimmed through them cursorily, then moved to stand beneath the chart for Yongping Prefecture, his eyes beginning to search county by county among its subordinate jurisdictions. Lulong, Qian'an, Funing…

There it was. Leting County.

He directed his gaze to the "Key Figures" column for this county seat.

Numerous small paper slips had been pinned onto it with needles.

The Zhang clan, to which Shaanxi Provincial Administration Commissioner Zhang Guorui belonged;

The Liu clan, to which Liu Tingxuan, Right Assistant Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, belonged;

Local strongman, Zhang Youcai;

A White Lotus sect leader apparently active in the area, but name unknown, noted here as an estimate…

Zhu Youjian's eyes passed over these names one by one, finally coming to rest on one of the slips.

— Leting County Constable, Wu Kongjia, formerly a Junior Compiler at the Hanlin Academy.

Zhu Youjian's fingertip gently brushed across this slip of paper. After a long moment, he let out a sigh, barely audible.

He said nothing, merely turned, and walked toward the door.

"Close the door and lock it."

"Open it again in three days."

Attached map: Leting County's location is provided here — it lies in the southernmost part of Yongping Prefecture, to the left of Shanhai Pass.