Chapter 323: The Perilous Shall Find Peace; the Complacent Shall Find Ruin

The lingering festive cheer of the Lantern Festival drifted over the capital for a few more days before the first month's cold winds finally swept it clean away.

By the twentieth day of the first month, the various government offices, some sooner and some later, had at last regained a measure of their usual working atmosphere.

All the tasks that had been set aside by the oxen and horses were also gradually being picked up and pushed forward again.

"It's about time. Let's go!"

After the routine morning roll call today, Li Shiqi led over twenty new clerks, white feathers tucked in their hair, out of the government compound in a grand procession, heading straight north. Today was the day the auction would be held.

The so-called auction was not originally called an auction, but rather a "buy-out assembly."

And as for the so-called buy-out, according to Qiu Jun's account in his Supplement to the Expanded Meaning of the Great Learning, written during the Wanli period:

"'What is called a buy-out bid is this: one calculates the total tax revenue due from a workshop or establishment, has a merchant first pay that sum to the government to buy the concession, and then allows him to collect the taxes on his own to recoup the outlay.' 'What is called a contract purchase is this: wherever there is a workshop, market, or river crossing, one first solicits a man to pay money to the government for the contract purchase, and then allows him to collect the taxes on his own to recoup the outlay.' But His Majesty disliked this terminology and coined a new term, calling it an auction, thereby distinguishing it from the buy-out system that flourished in the Song dynasty.

The crowd naturally had no intention of opposing it. New policies, new terms, new laws — a change of wording was all to the good.

Qian Changle marched briskly along, mingled among the ranks of the new clerks.

Yet his gaze could not help but sweep over the back of Wu Yanzuo walking ahead, a trace of worry rising in his heart.

Ever since New Year's Day, the Tax Office had begun sorting through the lists of various merchants.

Categorizing them by trade, by financial strength, by tax payment status, and so on.

The most important among these was the list of merchants holding capital debt.

And at the very top of this capital debt list was the father of that foremost among the new clerks, Wu Yanzuo — Wu Jinbo, Wu Cheng'en. Qian Changle had not initially taken this matter to heart.

But that day, before going to Guangqu Gate to watch the first flight of the hot-air balloon, he had encountered Wang Jing, the capital debt merchant ranked third on the list, loitering outside the office and attempting to fish for information and connections.

When he returned to the office and truthfully reported it to his superior, all he got in reply was a cold laugh from Li Shiqi:

"Just let them be for now. They can't overturn the heavens!"

It was precisely this reply, brimming with murderous intent, that made him suddenly realize that his friend Wu Yanzuo seemed to have already been swept into an exceedingly dangerous storm.

Because of this, his original plans — whether to discuss with Wu Yanzuo the new policy business venture his elder brother had proposed, or the matter of reporting the private minting of coins in the suburbs — all had to be set aside for the time being.

After all, his good friend might well face the ruin of his family. To pester him with such trifling matters at a time like this — would that not be a complete failure in human decency?

The group hurried along Chongwen Gate Avenue.

Before long, they arrived in the vicinity of Chengqing Ward.

Turning another street corner, directly opposite the Military Administration Office, was the venue for today's auction.

The "former" Shuntian Prefecture Tea Certificate Inspection Office.

This place was, within the bounds of the capital, the office specifically responsible for the corner-clipping and cancellation of tea certificates.

Whenever a traveling merchant brought tea to the capital, he had to come here to hand over his tea certificate, have the quantity and type of the "certified goods" verified as correct, and then have the corners of the tea certificate clipped and stamped. After the tea was completely sold, the merchant still had to surrender the tea certificate for recycling and invalidation.

In short, it was a place for "managing regional distribution permits."

As for salt certificates? The salt certificates for Northern Zhili were not canceled here, but over at the Tianjin Changlu Salt Fields.

Of course... in these days of moral decay, this entire set of procedures had been corroded beyond recognition.

When a merchant used an official tea permit to carry private tea, this was called "piggybacking."

Or when old permits were not recycled and surrendered, but instead continued to be used to purchase and sell tea, this was called "shadowing."

And even privately carving printing blocks, printing, and stamping them oneself — this was called "forgery."

In short, the tea laws, just like the salt laws, had by now become a complete mess and were in dire need of reform.

It was just that, if reform was to come, it would not be during the first phase of the New Policies.

After all, the tea laws and salt laws had been revised many times over the course of the dynasty's history. Each time they were first reformed, they improved for a while, only to deteriorate once again.

The most critical issue was not flawed institutional design, but flawed organizational execution.

No matter how good a system is, once established, if it cannot be thoroughly executed, it is better to set it aside for a while, lest it damage the New Policies' reputation for "certain success" — its winning brand of scholarship. (Attached image: location of the Tea Certificate Inspection Office. This is a local institution, not a central one.)

The group arrived at the entrance of the Inspection Office.

A crowd of merchants had already been waiting for a long time in the open ground, braving the cold wind.

Qian Changle swept his eyes over them. Among them he spotted Wu Yanzuo's father, and also saw Wang Jing, the man who had come fishing for information that day.

The leading magnates of every trade and industry, all listed on the roster, were present in numbers beyond counting.

But what was peculiar was that in the immediate vicinity, there was not a single horse-drawn carriage to be seen.

The many merchants, each worth a vast fortune, had, as if by unspoken agreement, all parked their carriages several streets away.

All their usual silks and satins were gone; today, every one of them wore only drab, dark cotton clothes, their necks hunched, shivering pitifully in the wind. Li Shiqi did not so much as glance at them, leading the many new clerks straight through the threshold.

Qian Changle followed the procession inside. Raising his eyes to look around, he clicked his tongue inwardly in astonishment.

He saw that the largest main hall here had been opened up on all four sides, leaving only the essential pillars and beams, making it astonishingly spacious.

At the very front, a high platform had been erected, laid with dark red felt, exuding an air of solemnity.

Around the perimeter below, many tables and chairs had been arranged in a ring, and on the tabletops were neatly placed wooden plaques with names written on them.

This Inspection Office had long since been taken over by the Directorate of Ceremonial, which had assigned palace servants to manage and prepare it for over half a month, so that its appearance had greatly changed. As for the Inspection Office's original functions, they had been crudely bundled off to the Capital Tax Office, where they were merged into its operations.

In any case, an inspection office of this sort, like the Tax Bureau, fell under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Revenue in terms of official duties.

But at the local level, it was actually placed under the management of the various prefectures and counties.

The Capital Tax Office had unified control over commercial taxes in the capital, so merging it there was, in fact, an entirely normal course of action.

Following the procedures from their prior training, Qian Changle walked to a table and chair off to one side and sat down. He skillfully ground the ink, prepared the brush, spread out the paper, and then sat upright with a solemn air. His responsibility today was to record the bid amounts called out by each merchant.

The other new clerks each had their own responsibilities.

Some were tasked with verifying financial qualifications, to prevent merchants from making reckless bids and causing disruptions.

For example, if someone whose net worth was estimated by the Tax Office to be in the hundred-thousand-tael range suddenly called out an exorbitant bid of a million taels, that person was to rise and challenge him.

Some were responsible for, immediately upon the auction's conclusion, signing contracts with the merchants on the spot, affixing their seals and filing them as evidence.

Some were responsible for calculating the tax rules, determining on the spot the patent taxes, project taxes, and so forth, directly channeling a portion of the auction proceeds into the Tax Office.

In short, because the auction involved merchants, many matters implicated the Tax Office.

So although they were not the organizers, they had still sent over twenty men to assist here.

A while later, the hour of the Dragon arrived.

The gate guards posted by the Directorate of Ceremonial began admitting people. The merchants, hands tucked in their sleeves and bodies hunched against the cold, filed in one after another.

At a moment like this, when life and death hung in the balance, no one dared to court any unknown misfortune.

Several magnates who ordinarily commanded wind and rain in the capital's commercial circles were now so deferential before the seats that they resembled fussy, pedantic xiucai scholars.

"Proprietor Wang, after you, after you."

"Oh no, I couldn't possibly. Elder Brother Wu is a senior — by rights, you should step forward first."

"You flatter this old man. The protocol today is strict; let us simply go by age..."

The group demurred back and forth, none daring to be the bird that sticks out its head and sit at the very front.

Gao Zhice and Li Shiqi frowned. Li barked:

"What is all this racket?! Take your assigned seats at once — if the hour is delayed, who will bear the responsibility?"

At this scolding, the merchants all shivered in unison.

The status of merchants, by this era, was an exceedingly delicate matter.

Among the great merchants of the capital, those worth a million taels were beyond counting, and many had dukes or high ministers backing them.

But that sort of face was enough only to bully minor clerks, or to use tricks to manipulate low-ranking officials.

Placed before this new-policy favorite Li Shiqi, however, it was overestimating themselves.

The crowd dared speak no more. Each man, silent as a cicada in winter, obediently found the seat bearing his name and sat down with the utmost care.

A moment later, a young eunuch with an honest, simple face mounted the platform, a small wooden mallet in his hand.

He swept his gaze over the dense mass of heads below, drew a deep breath, and spoke:

"The first lot is the patent for the microscope."

"The winning bidder will receive the complete microscope technology from the Academy of Sciences, along with one year of technical improvement support."

"And will enjoy two years of exclusive operating rights in every province of the Great Ming."

"However, this patent carries an attached requirement: the winning bidder must complete the phased production of a total of ten thousand units within two years."

"Otherwise, the court may revoke this authorization at any time."

"For the remaining detailed conditions, you may consult the auction booklet in your hands."

"The opening bid..."

The young eunuch read this far, looked at the figure on the paper, and his tongue tied itself in a knot. "Th... thirty thousand taels."

Having said it, he seemed to feel a little guilty. His hand gripped the mallet, lifted it, then set it down again, at a loss as to what posture to assume, and in the end simply stood there woodenly.

But after standing a moment, he suddenly collected himself and hurriedly added one more line:

"Each bid increment must be no less than five thousand taels."

With such a performance, expecting this young eunuch to stir the pot with any inflammatory rhetoric was even more out of the question.

The merchants lowered their heads and leafed through the auction booklet, as if this booklet, distributed over ten days ago, had suddenly sprouted flowers — they turned page after page with meticulous care, yet no one opened his mouth to bid.

In the great hall, for a time, silence reigned.

It was not that the merchants thought the microscope unworthy of the thirty-thousand-tael price.

After all, the microscope, through the ceaseless coverage in the Great Ming Times, had become something of a divine instrument for "seeking the Dao" in the capital.

Under the microscopic lens, was it truly a world in a flower, a bodhi in a leaf?!

This had utterly overturned everyone's imagination.

And could one call it false?

Empress Zhou had drawn the illustrations with her own hand, and His Eternal Majesty had personally written the text for The World Under the Microscope, which had already begun to be printed and sold in the capital.

Whomever you might doubt, you surely could not doubt that the two most exalted people under heaven had colluded to set a trap and deceive you, could you?

Moreover, the item had circulated very little so far — only the Secretariat, the Directorate of Ceremonial, the Hanlin Academy, the Imperial Academy, and the Military College each possessed one, with a few more bestowed upon dukes and high ministers.

All told, the total number in circulation was probably not even thirty, far less widespread than pocket watches.

For clocks and watches, after all, already had a technical foundation. When the Emperor displayed his passion for clocks and pocket watches, their production naturally exploded in response.

Everything was just as the Wanli Emperor had loved jewelry, or the Xuande Emperor had loved crickets.

Not to mention that many master clockmakers recruited from the Southern Metropolitan Region, besides working in the Bureau of Artifice, had also, with the support of the Directorate of Ceremonial, set up their own private shops in the capital.

This in turn had greatly spurred the vogue for clocks and pocket watches among the capital's wealthy households.

In short, the microscope, riding the banner of "science" and arriving at this moment when rarity made things precious, was destined for boundless prospects. And according to the booklet, its cost was very low: once the method was mastered, a simple model cost only a few fen, and even a complex model cost no more than a few qian.

But if one were truly to set a price, in the current wave of enthusiasm, one tael or even five taels would probably not be difficult!

The attached condition, however — the requirement to manufacture over ten thousand units — would to a great extent cause overall profits to decline...

All in all, it truly could not be called a small business.

Only, though merchants chased profit, they also feared death.

The hesitation everyone felt now was mainly because they still had not seen clearly just what sort of plan the Emperor had in mind.

One must understand that this so-called auction, though a new term, was, plainly speaking, simply the "competitive contract" method.

In the Song dynasty, liquor, salt, vinegar, tea, and alum could all be acquired through competitive contract.

Even river ferries, gold and silver mines, and local commercial taxes could be acquired through competitive contract.

It was only under our Great Ming dynasty that the competitive contract method gradually vanished.

For things like salt certificates and tea certificates, one simply purchased them at a set price — there was no mutual bidding.

And what one purchased was not a "regional exclusive franchise" but a "regional distribution right," entirely different from the Song competitive contract system. As for the various merchant procurements of rice and beans, horse fodder, cotton cloth, pig iron, and the like, the Ministry of Revenue or the Ministry of Works directly set the price — there was no such thing as competitive comparison.

Thus, with the wind's direction unclear at present, who dared be the first bird to stick out its head?

Yet Wu Jinbo, seated in the front row, had not once lowered his head to look at that booklet.

He drew a deep breath, and in the dead silence, abruptly raised his hand.

"One hundred thousand taels."

Three calm words shattered the stillness.

Everyone in the hall jerked their heads up and looked over, one after another.

Wu Jinbo, however, did not so much as glance sideways. His back was ramrod straight, his expression utterly composed. From the day he received word of the auction, from the day he received word that the list of capital-debt merchants was being compiled—

he had seen it clearly.

Whether his family survived this life-and-death trial or not depended entirely on how much silver he was willing to lay out!

Did the potential market for the microscope reach a million or not?

After deducting costs, setting up sales channels, shop labor, and even the expenses of dealing with officialdom, just how much profit could it actually yield?

Could these one hundred thousand taels ultimately be earned back?

These questions mattered a great deal to other merchants, but to his Wu family, they did not matter at all!

If necessary, he could bid a million! He could accept not a single cash of profit!

So long as the Wu family could weather this calamity, so long as the Wu family could shed those chilling, death-warrant labels: "Wei Zhongxian's old faction," "the foremost capital-debt merchant."

Putting up the Wu family's entire liquid assets would be nothing!

The Book of Changes says: "Peril makes one secure; ease makes one fall."

When a man is in danger and keeps caution and fear in his heart, only then can he turn peril into safety; if he rests content with the present and grows careless, he will surely be overturned and destroyed!

Let no one think that because His Majesty personally promised to repay the money he owes Wu Jinbo, it will certainly be repaid.

Still less let anyone think that because his eldest son became a Secretary in the Secretariat and an intern in the Chancellery, all thanks to Wu Jinbo's donations of silver for road-building—

But! Repaying debts, repaying debts — is money repaid to a dead man somehow not repayment?

In the discussions among the father and his sons, the most dreadful outcome was this:

The Emperor would crack down on capital debt, confiscate their family property under an upright and impeccable charge, and either execute them or send them into exile.

Then the several hundred thousand taels the imperial household owed the Wu family would simply be repaid directly to some randomly chosen distant Wu relative.

In one stroke, the Emperor would stand righteous and sublime, his word as good as gold, every debt honored.

And the contrast between the Wu family's thunderous collapse and the heaven-sent fortune of some nameless lucky fellow — that would be brimming with dramatic tension, destined to become yet another widely-told "Yongchang tale"!

This reasoning was far too terrifying, yet it carried a very real possibility.

It had shocked the father and his sons so badly that they could neither sit nor sleep in peace.

Therefore, for today's auction, Wu Jinbo had maneuvered funds from every quarter, sold off many shop deeds as if carving flesh from his own body, and with all his might had scraped together six hundred seventy thousand taels in ready silver.

— It was not that he could not produce more, but that many of his assets were fixed assets or located far away in his native place; converting them to cash in a short time was exceedingly difficult.

At this so-called "auction," he intended to stake everything on a single throw!

Auction or no auction — this was no auction of projects; this was plainly an auction of the several hundred heads of his Wu family, high and low!

Up on the dais, the young eunuch Wang Cheng'en, hearing this bid, stood frozen on the spot.

He was still studying at the Inner Palace School.

Only now and then would he be assigned some outside, practical work.

His previous stint at the Northern Zhili New Policies Command Post had been like that, and coming to serve as auctioneer at today's auction was the same.

As His Majesty put it, new men must not only study books; they must also be given ample opportunities to train.

O-one… one hundred thousand?!

How much money was that?

One cash bought a flatbread; one tael of silver was a thousand cash — so one hundred thousand taels was… a thousand times one hundred thousand flatbreads.

This colossal figure already exceeded the scope of the math problems in the Inner Palace School monthly exams, leaving Wang Cheng'en, for a moment, utterly unable to compute it.

He held the little mallet aloft, his head buzzing, a little dazed.

He had never imagined that the brass-tube device he saw so routinely in the Directorate of Ceremonial could be worth such an outrageous price.

And to think he had earlier felt that the thirty-thousand-tael starting price was too high and had been too embarrassed to say it.

It took him a long while to recollect the procedures he had been drilled on.

"Ah… this… that… right…"

Flustered, he accidentally brought the mallet down hard on the table with a dull thud, nearly declaring the sale concluded then and there.

"That… one hundred thousand taels… going once…"

"One hundred thousand taels, going twice."

Before Wang Cheng'en could finish, another urgent voice rang out sharply.

"One hundred ten thousand taels!"

Qian Changle, seated on the left side and responsible for recording everyone's bids, hurriedly swept his gaze upward.

Then he immediately lowered his head and, on the pre-drawn chart, swiftly wrote down the second line.

"Wang Jing, second bid, one hundred ten thousand taels."

Yet before his brush could stop, another loud cry followed right on its heels.

"One hundred thirty thousand taels!"

"One hundred forty thousand taels!"

"One hundred sixty thousand taels!"

Once the price began to move, it started climbing at a dizzyingly rapid pace.

Qian Changle's brush flew without pause, recording everything, from so-and-so bidding such-and-such an amount.

Until at last, the pace grew so fast that his writing turned into ghostly scrawls, recording only surnames and abbreviated figures.

It drove him so hard that, in the depths of winter, he broke out in a sweat that covered his whole head.

Merchants fear death…

But merchants chase profit even more!

A plainly excellent deal laid out before them — and one that rides the new policy wave besides.

One could say it kills two birds with one stone: politically and financially.

Once someone takes the lead and breaks the ice, no one can easily walk away anymore.

The price climbed steadily, and only when it reached one hundred eighty thousand taels did the pace finally begin to slow. At this level, the fever in the bidders' minds cooled a few degrees, and what they began turning over instead were questions of risk. For instance — this so-called "chartered monopoly" — could it truly be chartered?

What if someone counterfeits and peddles the goods on the local market, crashing it?

Would the authorities help them seize the offenders, or fleece them instead?

This thing is not like the long-established state monopolies on salt and tea — there is no precedent to go by.

Could it be that the court, beyond the laws against private salt and private tea, would specially enact a statute against "private microscopes"?

At the current price, it seems there is still roughly fourfold profit to be made.

But the risks just mentioned are truly the sort of life-or-death matters one cannot help but dwell on.

Bet right, and you make a colossal fortune.

But bet wrong… and what you lose is over a hundred thousand taels of silver!

For many a middling merchant, that is practically his entire life's worth and livelihood!

What is more, assets are assets and liquid silver is liquid silver — actually laying out such a large sum in one go would severely impact one's own enterprises.

And so the bidding calls grew slower and slower, and every increment became exceedingly cautious.

In the end, it finally settled at a comparatively very low figure.

"One hundred ninety-five thousand taels — going twice…"

"One hundred ninety-five thousand taels — going three times…"

"S… Sold!"

Wang Cheng'en drew a deep breath, raised the hammer, and struck it down hard.

His voice, still in the midst of breaking, let out a sharp, shrill cry, proclaiming the conclusion of the first auction transaction of the first year of Yongchang.

His whole person was drenched in sweat, his palms so slick it was as though he had just been fished out of water.

The merchant who had won the bid abruptly stood up, his legs faintly trembling, yet forcing himself to cup his hands toward all four sides.

This man was none other than the rising star of the capital's printing and publishing trade — Zhang Wenshan.

This man had run a literary enterprise in the capital for many years, always tepid, always ranking in the lower-middle tier of strength.

Yet in the wave stirred up by the new policies, this man had perfectly caught every single rhythm.

At the very start, he hired a great number of hands to copy out the Ming Times by brush.

At its peak, he employed over seven hundred Confucian scholars as scribes, nearly seizing a third of the capital's literary labor market.

— One must understand, copying the Ming Times is not something mere literacy suffices for; one's calligraphy must also be quite fine.

Then, leveraging this unique advantage, he secured newspaper subscription agreements with over a thousand capital officials and various provincial governors and grand coordinators.

Every time the Times went on sale, he would immediately obtain the master copy, set his men to copying day and night, and then dispatch them by fast horse to every residence or distant post. Later, when the Ming Times loosened its print-run restrictions, this reselling business became unworkable.

He was decisive enough, too — he dismissed the Confucian scholars, keeping only a few with supremely excellent calligraphy to serve exclusively those old patrons with particular preferences.

— There are some households that simply do not care for printed newspapers, preferring these specially hand-copied ones instead.

And Zhang Wenshan drew out all his remaining silver and poured it entirely into the printing of statecraft documents.

Among the many publications, the one that gave him the greatest pride was the monthly periodical titled The Secretariat Clerk's Monthly Compendium of Official Documents.

Now, in the capital, it is already nearly second only to the Ming Times and the traditional Four Books and Five Classics as a bestseller.

There is even a rumor circulating in the capital.

That the piece which originally stirred up such a great storm — Xue the capital's Memorial on Road Building (His Majesty's Personally Annotated Edition) — was first privately printed and circulated by him! (Note: The Eastern Depot has already investigated and reported back — this material in fact came out of the Duke of Ding's residence and then spread through the Imperial Academy, and has no connection to Zhang Wenshan. His Majesty personally endorsed it with: Pay it no mind.)

After Zhang Wenshan sat down, his heart pounded violently, as if about to leap out of his chest.

His palms were even more drenched in sweat, soaking the cuffs he clutched until they were damp.

But this deal — he could see it clearly — was definitely workable!

First, it genuinely had a future.

In the present age, the most precious thing of all is to be able to catch the wind and waves raised by His Majesty.

This truth he had already seen with perfect clarity back when he once sold a single copy of the Ming Times for the high price of five taels of silver. Second…

Was this unprecedented, never-before-seen buying of lots… no, it should be called an auction.

If he, Zhang Wenshan, came to grief in this, then the new policies would surely come to grief as well.

What he was gambling on this time was not, in truth, that he himself would not lose.

It was that His Majesty would not lose!

In all the games under heaven, the good player schemes for the board; the poor player schemes for the pieces.

In this wild tide of new policies, calculating the profit and loss of silver is but the lowest pursuit.

The true winner is not buying a mere dead object — he is buying the entire nation's momentum!

What you mediocre men are betting on is recouping your capital; what I, Zhang Wenshan, am betting on is His Majesty's boundless longevity!

A merchant beside him, seeing him seated, leaned over and probed sourly:

"Zhang Danshi… you've got nerve, haven't you? This time, don't tell me you've thrown your whole fortune in?"

The very fact that he could produce the nickname "Zhang Danshi," a moniker circulated only within the Imperial Academy, made it clear this man was surely Zhang Wenshan's rival in the capital's printing trade. But in the marketplace, a man may fall, but he must not let his front fall.

Though Zhang Wenshan's calf muscles were still cramping at that very moment, his face broke into a hearty laugh, his spirit soaring to the clouds:

"A mere two hundred thousand…"

Before he could finish this face-saving declaration, the wooden mallet at the front rapped crisply — the next auction had already begun.

Zhang Wenshan's eyes shifted; he immediately changed tack:

"But let's not talk about that now — let's keep watching first."

"I'm still planning to bid on a few more fine items!"

After winning a major project, what method could prove to the outside world that one's cash flow was ample, and fend off a run on funds or rivals colluding to set a trap?

Naturally, putting up a bold front!

Zhang Wenshan calculated the liquid funds he still had on hand, already planning to put on a good show in the projects to come!

Take that Wu Jinbo, for instance.

Didn't he call out a hundred thousand taels and then fall silent?

Very likely he was just like him, putting up a bold front here, hoping to intimidate his rivals.

After all, the rumor that the Wu family was finished had been spreading like wildfire lately in the capital's circles.

Quite a few people were gloating, just waiting to see the richest family in the capital of the Tianqi era brought to ruin and destruction.