Chapter 346: The Future Grand Secretary Zheng

A boycott of the examinations, still in its infancy, was crushed by the "progressive juren" whom His Highness the Crown Prince had arranged in advance.

As Qian Qianyi and one hundred musketeers began patrolling the examination sheds of the Jiangnan Provincial Examination Hall, and the musketeers following him loudly proclaimed that two juren were stripped of their degrees, order in the examination hall was quickly restored — the whole affair turned out to be utterly pointless! Not only did the two Suzhou celebrities fail to rise higher through this protest, they were stripped of their degrees and, on top of that, branded as eunuch-faction traitors!

The infamy of being a "eunuch-faction traitor" is not easily washed clean! Moreover, they might still be investigated by the Southern Provost Office of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. It would be no surprise if the investigation ruined their families completely!

A wise man does not suffer a loss right before his eyes, and a wise juren is even less likely to do so. Better to go back to the examination shed and write the essay! Even if one fails to pass the jinshi examination, one must at least keep the juren degree — one cannot afford to throw the juren degree away. Without the juren degree, how could one evade taxes, conceal landholdings, or have others entrust property under false names?

Not all juren, however, harbored such passive thoughts. There were still some who, from the moment they entered the examination shed, shut their ears to everything outside and devoted their full energy to the examination.

Zhu Cilang's eldest fellow disciple, Zheng Sen, was one of them! His sole purpose in taking this special examination was to pass the jinshi — to earn a jinshi degree by his own ability! Indeed, he did have ability! Although his eight-legged essays were not particularly good, he knew how to collect commercial taxes and customs duties!

He had made a special study of this matter. He knew how Japan levied taxes, how the Dutch East India Company levied taxes, and also how his father Zheng Zhilong collected money by blocking the sea lanes.

So he directly wrote a great many concrete tax-collection methods on his examination paper.

As for customs duties, his method was to levy by "ship" rather than by "cargo."

That is to say, tax officials would not concern themselves with what goods merchants carried, but only with how many ships there were, how many carts there were, and how long, wide, and tall the ships were — then collect money according to quantity and dimensions.

And to facilitate the collection of customs duties, the court should also establish five trading ports — Jiangkou (Shanghai), Ningbo, Quanzhou, Guangzhou, and Dengzhou — for concentrated trade.

In addition, tax barriers should be set up on the Yangtze River, the Grand Canal, and other waterways with sufficient navigability, to levy transit taxes on passing vessels. The method of collecting transit taxes should be the same as maritime customs — by ship rather than by cargo — though the tax rate should be lower than maritime customs.

Beyond customs duties, Zheng Sen also proposed two concepts: "monopoly sales" and "market taxes."

Among these, monopoly sales chiefly concerned salt and wine. Salt monopoly was already underway. After the four Huai-Yang salt monopolies, Zhu Cilang had, at the end of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, contracted out the monopoly rights for Lu salt, Zhe salt, Min salt, and Yue salt — Shandong, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong all had salt fields, though their scale could not compare with Huai salt. Therefore the value of these monopoly rights was relatively low, but there was no question that the total salt tax submitted annually by the four provinces would exceed three million taels.

Of this, the six hundred thousand taels from the Lu salt monopoly were entirely at the disposal of Shi Kefa, Governor-General of the Seven Provinces, while the revenues from Zhe salt, Min salt, and Yue salt were all submitted to the Ministry of Revenue (deposited into the Ministry of Revenue's account at the Salt Merchants' Bank). Thus, beginning in the eighteenth year of Chongzhen, the Great Ming court's salt tax revenue would reach 8.4 million taels — truly a rolling tide of wealth!

If the wine monopoly could be smoothly implemented, the Great Ming court would gain yet another very broad source of revenue!

Market taxes, meanwhile, were commercial taxes levied in cities and large market towns throughout the realm, and could be further divided into "transit taxes" and "residence taxes."

The so-called transit tax meant setting up checkpoints at important road junctions and river mouths to collect taxes, levying relatively low duties on passing carts, boats, and merchants. Payment need not be in silver — copper cash and grain were also acceptable.

The residence tax was levied on shops and workshops within cities and towns, assessed according to the area of the shops and workshops and the actual conditions of each locality.

In Zheng Sen's proposal, unlike the three major taxes — the salt monopoly tax, the North and South Seas franchise tax, and internal and external customs duties — the wine monopoly tax and market taxes, being relatively complicated commercial taxes to collect, should be "local taxes." That is, the provinces, prefectures (departments), and counties would be responsible for collecting them, and then share the proceeds with the court — apart from a few major cities and ports, the court did not expect to collect much from these.

However, the salaries of local officials, the expenses of local government schools, the militia for maintaining local security, the costs of repairing city walls, and the expenses of the officials' yamen all had to depend on these commercial taxes!

If officials in poor, small localities insisted on not collecting them, and could withstand an investigation by the Censorate, then so be it. But the major cities and trading ports still needed capable officials to seize tax collection!

"Good! Good!" Inside the Mingyuan Tower, His Highness the Crown Prince set down Zheng Sen's paper and clapped his hands in approval. "A fine essay! A fine plan! Master Qian, your student is quite good!"

What do you mean, quite good? Qian Qianyi, who had by now recovered his composure, was rather exasperated. The imperial examinations could not be conducted this way — papers had to be sealed and recopied! How could you simply have the examiner tear open the sealed name and pull out Zheng Sen's paper to read?

And what was so good about Zheng Sen's essay? Apart from a few concrete tax-collection methods, there was nothing good about it. It cited no classics, it gave no sense of flowing eloquence when read, and it even had two wrong characters.

"Second class, first place, then!" Zhu Cilang asked Qian Qianyi with a smile. "Master Qian, what do you think?"

"That... Thousand Years, this is the Ministry of Rites examination, not the palace examination."

"Oh." Zhu Cilang nodded. "So there is still one more examination. Fine, fine. But my eldest fellow disciple's jinshi degree is assured. Master Qian, after my eldest fellow disciple passes, what office should he be given?"

"If," Qian Qianyi frowned deeply, "if he places first in the second class, then of course he should become a Hanlin Bachelor at the Hanlin Academy. It has been the custom since the Ying Temple that no one enters the Grand Secretariat without first being a Hanlin."

"Ah, so Master Qian also thinks my eldest fellow disciple should enter the Grand Secretariat!" Zhu Cilang interrupted Qian Qianyi and laughed. "Grand Secretary Zheng... not bad, not bad!"

What do you mean, "Grand Secretary Zheng"? The son of a pirate chief — making him a naval commander would be one thing, but how does he become a Grand Secretary?

"I fear, I fear it would be inappropriate," Qian Qianyi cautioned. "Damu is a relative of the imperial family by marriage, and his family is a hegemon of an entire region..."

Zhu Cilang glanced at Qian Qianyi and said in a low voice, "That is precisely why he should be a Grand Secretary! What else should he be? King of Fujian?"

Ah, how wise is His Highness the Crown Prince! Qian Qianyi understood at once — Zhu Cilang had long been planning to reduce the power of regional lords.

"But for now he cannot enter the Hanlin Academy," Zhu Cilang continued. "Shanghai still needs the Zheng family's help. Let him take a post in Shanghai. As for the rule that no one enters the Grand Secretariat without being a Hanlin — that is not an ancestral institution of the Great Founder, and We do not abide by it."

He paused, then said to Wu Meicun, who was standing nearby, "Master Wu, go and bring me the papers of Huang Taichong, Luo Dagong, and Zhang Xuanzhu. I want to read them."

(End of Chapter)