Chapter 351: How About Exchanging Rich Officials for Poor Gentry?

The first to offer Zhu Cilang plans and counsel was Huang Zongxi. Stroking his beard, he spoke with easy confidence: "Your Highness, this late-born student believes the root of our dynasty's strong gentry and impoverished state lies in the Qin abolition of enfeoffment. The realm is too vast to govern easily, and what the Son of Heaven can reach and attend to is limited. Therefore one cannot govern the people through officials alone; one can only use officials to placate the gentry, and use the gentry to govern all the people of the realm. This is what is meant by sharing the realm with the scholar-officials! Since the realm is shared with the scholar-officials, the scholar-officials naturally must profit from it. How much they profit depends on the strength or weakness, the nearness or distance, of the court.

In the past the court made Beijing its capital, with the Son of Heaven guarding the frontier, and treated the rich southeast as distant provinces. Governance of the southeast naturally depended heavily on the local gentry, and the profits of the southeast naturally had to be shared with the gentry. Moreover, since the Tumu Crisis, this dynasty has declined from prosperity, the national power has waned day by day, and the sovereign's authority has gradually weakened. When the sovereign is weak, the gentry grow strong; when the gentry grow strong, they contend with the sovereign for profit, and the realm's tax revenue is inevitably lost. Thus with a billion mu of farmland and a hundred million people, the state collects only a little over twenty million shi of grain and two to three million taels of silver.

And this student's remedy is this: govern the nearby prefectures strictly, and turn the distant provinces into military commands. With a hundred thousand and more troops of the new army, with several thousand households of meritorious nobles and hereditary officials who have come south from the north, and with tens of thousands of imperial clansmen gathered from every region, is there any fear of failing to govern well the several dozen prefectures of South Zhili, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi? So this student believes what truly requires attention is still the remote border provinces and the northern lands!"

Truly insightful!

What Huang Zongxi had laid bare was the greatest difficulty of Chinese autocratic centralized rule — the country was simply too large! In this age, transport basically depended on running, and communication basically depended on shouting. When a country is large, the transmission of information is slow. Places relatively close to the capital are still easy to control, but distant provinces and border commanderies can very easily slip out of control.

In the early years, the Great Ming established its capital at Nanjing, keeping its eye on the purse. As a result, the border troops rebelled under the leadership of the Prince of Yan, Zhu Di!

Later Zhu Di moved the capital to Beijing and personally kept watch over the border troops, whereupon the southeastern gentry promptly rose up.

Now Zhu Cilang has brought more than a hundred thousand northern troops, several thousand northern noble and powerful families, and tens of thousands of imperial clansmen south to Jiangnan. With so many people and such great strength, suppressing the southeastern gentry is not much of a problem. The real problems are the remote border provinces and the northern front.

If the remote provinces cause no trouble, and the northern Tartars do not stick a foot in, what is there in the southeast that cannot be flattened?

"Your Highness, this student has a method that can keep the southeastern prefectures peaceful and untroubled while the court strictly levies commercial taxes and investigates landholdings."

The speaker this time was Luo Dagong — whether he or Huang Zongxi would be this examination's top jinshi all depended on their performance today!

In a sense, today's Donglin assembly was also an interview for the top jinshi! Luo Dagong dreamed day and night of becoming top jinshi — how could he not put on a good showing?

"This student's method is to exchange rich officials for poor gentry!" Luo Dagong unveiled his "solution."

"How so?" Zhu Cilang asked with interest.

Luo Dagong said: "The way of governance in this dynasty has always been rich gentry and poor officials! By 'gentry' I mean xiucai, juren, and official households. This dynasty treats scholars more generously than the Tang or Song. Take the Song as an example: civil officials received generous salaries, and official households enjoyed exemption from taxes and corvée. But how many officials and official households were there? The jinshi examination is hard to pass, and obtaining office is not easy; in the whole realm, only a few hundred pass in three years. The official households of the entire country number only a few tens of thousands. Though they enjoy various privileges, the expense is ultimately limited.

But in this dynasty, even from the rank of xiucai upward one receives generous treatment: exemption from taxes, exemption from corvée, and the ability, through fraudulent registration, donation of land, and sheltering merchants, to convert the scholar's privileges into cash — which in reality is sharing in the state's tax revenue. Therefore in this dynasty, any scholar who has even a xiucai degree is no poor wretch, and if he passes the juren examination, within two or three months he becomes a local magnate. Those who can remain clean and self-disciplined are not one in ten thousand! As for entering official service, if one is not the least bit corrupt, in reality one is merely seeking a posthumous reputation; one earns little money, and may even have to put money in from one's own pocket.

However, the privileges given to official households at the local level are far greater than those for juren, so even those outwardly clean officials, the great majority, can still scrape together a little by sharing in the state's taxes. If such an official comes from the rich southeast, then even without being corrupt he can become very wealthy. Only this money does not come from the Son of Heaven but is taken from the localities. The greatest failure of this dynasty's official administration lies precisely here!"

The officials work for His Majesty's family, but His Majesty's family pays only meager salaries, which account for a negligible share of the income of the vast majority of officials' households!

Even if they lose their posts, so long as they are not stripped of their status — or if, after being stripped, their reputation among the literati rises even higher — they suffer no economic loss.

This is the fundamental reason the civil officials of the Great Ming dare to resist imperial authority — their economic foundation is not His Majesty's salary at all, but the right to share in the state's tax revenue. This is not official salary; it is gentry power!

Luo Dagong continued: "If Your Highness wishes to take back the power of the southeastern gentry, you must support officials with high salaries, so that officials who work wholeheartedly can share in the profits of the gentry power recovered by the court. In this way, a portion of the officials of gentry background will seize the financial power of other gentry on behalf of the court."

"Well said!" Zhu Cilang smiled. This is a talent! In the future he could become Grand Secretary Luo!

"Tell me," Zhu Cilang asked with a smile, "how should We support officials with high salaries?"

Luo Dagong said: "Your Highness, this late-born student's idea is that wherever more taxes and grain are paid, more officials should be supported! The court should take a portion from the land rents and commercial taxes of every prefecture — say, two parts in ten — as funds for supporting officials. The more such funds there are, the more officials that place should have! Take Songjiang Prefecture, where this subject is registered, as an example. Songjiang has fertile land; the registered total of farmland is about two million mu, but the actual figure should be around 3.3 million mu. Of this, official land, military land, and hidden land account for nearly half. If a full investigation could be completed, then 1.65 million mu of land could be assigned to military agricultural guard units. The court could take out 300,000 mu of it as office land for officials registered in Songjiang.

Then from the rent of office land alone, officials registered in Songjiang could receive at least more than 200,000 shi of white rice. Half of it would be distributed to Songjiang-registered officials serving at court or in other prefectures, and the other half to low-ranking officials, clerks, constables, and local militia serving locally. With such generous treatment, one could naturally win over many Songjiang gentry who are willing to serve the court and capable of handling affairs."

In the late Ming, rice prices were high, and more than 200,000 shi of white rice was equivalent to four or five hundred thousand taels of silver — an enormous benefit! Luo Dagong, who had proposed this price, was inwardly somewhat uneasy — was he asking for too much?

"But how would taking two parts in ten of the official land be enough?" Zhu Cilang's answer exceeded Luo Dagong's expectations. "We do not keep hungry soldiers. To make people work wholeheartedly, of course they must be given full salaries. Besides the twenty percent of official, military, and hidden land, Songjiang's local commercial taxes can also be shared! Of the commercial taxes, customs duties and salt taxes all go to the court, but transit taxes, lodging taxes, wine taxes, and deed taxes are all shared between the localities and the court! Given Songjiang's wealth, sharing one or two hundred thousand taels of silver a year should be no problem!

Moreover, Songjiang officials serving at court or in other prefectures will naturally receive another generous salary!"

Zhu Cilang's eyes blazed as he looked at the Donglin gentlemen filling the room. "Gentlemen, do you think such terms can find enough scholar-officials and brave stalwarts in Songjiang Prefecture to be used by the state?"

(End of Chapter)