Chapter 890: Governing a Great State Is Like Running a Trading House (Seeking Subscriptions)

Inside the mansion of Vice Minister of Rites Ruan Dacheng, several cups of Huangshan Songluo tea sent up wisps of wavering, shifting fragrance. Ruan Dacheng, long since returned to the Donglin gentlemen's camp, sat at ease on a couch in a Daoist robe, waving a paper fan as he chatted and reminisced with his old friend Ma Shiying, whom he had not seen in years, cutting quite the dashing, romantic figure.

In history he was a notorious eunuch-faction partisan, and he dragged Ma Shiying down into the eunuch faction with him; later he even fell into the water and became a traitor. But with a wise sovereign like Zhu Cilang, who could educate treacherous ministers into loyal martyrs, Ruan Dacheng had also come into the luck of the "loyal minister and gentleman," and no one treated him as a eunuch partisan anymore.

Moreover, the main line of factional struggle at the Ming court was now "North versus South," and no one bothered about eunuch partisans or Donglin anymore. For example, Shi Kefa and Hou Xun, two "great Donglin" figures, were not in the same faction as Qian Qianyi, the Donglin leader. And Vice Minister of Rites Ruan Dacheng, a former eunuch partisan, was a Tongcheng man and therefore stood close to Qian Qianyi; the two were together leaders of the Southern faction.

Ma Shiying, a Guizhou man, and Zeng Ying, a Sichuan man, had originally stood outside the North-South factional struggle, because that struggle revolved mainly around tax collection. The Northern faction controlled most of the army and wanted to seize northern lands through the Northern Expedition, so of course it had to squeeze the scholar-officials and merchants of the Four Rivers, the Two Lakes, Fujian, and Guangdong.

The Southern faction represented the landlords and merchants of the Four Rivers, the Two Lakes, Fujian, and Guangdong, and naturally did not want to pay more taxes.

As for Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan, because the occupied territory there was so large, there was little tax to collect, so the Sichuan gentry and officials in exile did not oppose the court squeezing the Four Rivers, the Two Lakes, Fujian, and Guangdong — as long as the Sichuan-Guizhou armies they controlled could share in a bit of the proceeds.

But the Ministry of War and the Military Staff Office, held by the Northern faction, and the Ministry of Revenue, held by the Southern faction, had always kept Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan blocked and were not very willing to pay out.

And Zhu Cilang was an "atypical wise sovereign" who ran the state like a company. He was simply unwilling to spend a hundred million to pacify Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan, and then collect a little over a million a year — that sum was not even enough to maintain a hundred thousand garrison troops in Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan! Maintaining a hundred thousand garrison troops cost at least two million a year.

That would be like having Emperor Zhu spend a hundred million to buy a company that lost a million a year!

Of course, Emperor Zhu would sometimes do such money-losing deals; for instance, his investments in the northwest were never going to turn a profit. And the two hundred million he planned to spend to settle the Great Qing would not bring a very high rate of return either. After all, this was the Little Ice Age, not the age of industrialization; the coal and iron resources of the north were not worth much, and the natural economy was constrained by the climate, so losses or meager profits were all normal.

But Sichuan really was different!

In later ages, Sichuan and Chongqing ran fiscal deficits, but those deficits appeared only under the central-local tax-sharing system, where the central government had already taken the bulk of tax revenue. Yet the one million-plus that Ming Sichuan turned over was the total tax revenue!

Losses in the northwest, meager profits in the north — Zhu Cilang accepted that. But if even Sichuan, the Land of Abundance, was going to lose money, could Zhu Cilang still afford to be emperor?

So even before the war to recover Sichuan began, Ma Shiying and Zeng Ying had become "comrades" with the Southern faction. Today Ma Shiying had brought Zeng Ying to visit, precisely to sound out the court's bottom line through his old friend Ruan Dacheng.

After Ruan Dacheng and Ma Shiying had finished their pleasantries, they finally got down to business. Ruan Dacheng's face turned grave: "Brother Yaocao, the roving bandits in Sichuan now scrape at least fifteen million taels a year, and the people still live in peace and comfort. How about you go by that figure?"

Fifteen million — a tenfold tax increase!

"Too much!" Ma Shiying shook his head. "Far too much."

"Too much?" Ruan Dacheng shook his head. "Yaocao, once you take up the post of Governor of Jiangnan, you will know what 'too much' means. Jiangnan now turns over more than twenty million taels in money and grain converted to silver every year, and Jiangnan Province does not even include Yingtian Prefecture! Sichuan is so large — is fifteen million too much?"

"Master Yuanhai, you may not know," said Governor-General of Sichuan and Guizhou Zeng Ying, shaking his head repeatedly, "that the foundation of the Sichuan army is the militia of the Sichuan gentry. We have fought and bled for so many years, and in the end we get a tenfold tax increase — this, this, this..."

Ruan Dacheng spread his hands: "But you cannot defeat the roving bandits!"

"But we have not let the roving bandits break out either!" Zeng Ying said. "All these years, if we had not held the west, the roving bandits would have burst out long ago. The court must not forget the merits and hardships of our Sichuan army!"

"How have they been forgotten?" Ruan Dacheng said, taken aback. "Plenty of Sichuan army officers and men have been promoted and enriched, have they not? The court has not shorted the Sichuan army on pay and provisions either!"

Ma Shiying said, "His Majesty has said that the fields equalized by the roving bandits cannot be returned to their original owners. The Sichuan gentry and meritorious officers and men can only take land from the bandits' military fields in the future."

"So that is how it is." Ruan Dacheng thought for a moment. "Then roughly how much land is there to distribute?"

Zeng Ying did not answer, but glanced at Ma Shiying. Ma Shiying said, "About fifteen million mu."

Ruan Dacheng asked again, "How much is left?"

"At least thirty-five million mu," Ma Shiying said.

"Then the total is fifty million mu. If each mu pays rice equivalent to three qian of silver, that is ten million taels. At current rice prices, that is about two or three dou per mu." Ruan Dacheng said, "Sichuan also has the salt tax — three million, surely? Deduct the salt tax, and that leaves thirteen million taels; two dou of rice per mu would be enough."

Of that, about twenty percent would go to local governments as tax-collection expenses, so the actual amount turned over would be just over ten million shi."

At present, the Ming land tax and land rent (from military colony fields) could be paid in grain or silver, and meltage fees were not counted; the common people only needed to deliver payment to the county seat, and transport costs were not high either.

After the government received the grain or silver, it would handle it according to circumstances — either escorting it to the treasury or selling it off for cash. Depending on the roads and water transport in the area, different meltage-fee standards applied. At most it could reach thirty percent, at least five percent; twenty percent was only an average. And if a local government or military colony office was good at management, it could skim quite a bit of profit from this. This was legal income, with no need to worry about censors finding fault.

Ruan Dacheng went on: "Moreover, Sichuan's industry and commerce are now in ruins, so the court will not ask for any share of commercial taxes; that income will all go to the localities. Sichuan's localities can bring in two or three million a year — the localities in Sichuan can see several million in benefit a year! Governor-General Zeng, think it over carefully: can this deal be done or not?"

"A deal?" Ma Shiying smiled bitterly. "How did this become a deal?"

Ruan Dacheng shook his head. "Brother Yaocao has been in Guizhou too long and does not know that this emperor of ours runs the state as a business. So those of us serving below must also know how to manage it!"

"Th-this... how does one manage it?" Zeng Ying looked thoroughly troubled. Although he had served as Military Commissioner of Eastern Sichuan, he was not good at management; Ma Shiying had always handled his logistics.

Ruan Dacheng smiled: "That is easy to handle. Let us first reckon how much capital we have in hand, and then think of a way."

"Capital?" Zeng Ying did not quite understand.

Ma Shiying did not quite understand either, and said to his good friend, "Jizhi, stop keeping us in suspense — speak up."

"Very well, very well." Ruan Dacheng counted on his fingers. "First, land! There are fifteen million mu to distribute — is that not capital?

Second, salt. Sichuan's salt is now run by the roving bandits themselves; after recovery it will surely be contracted out to merchant operation — that is another piece of capital.

Third, official posts! Setting aside the prefectural and directly administered department level, just speaking of counties and subordinate departments — how many counties and subordinate departments does Sichuan have?"

Zeng Ying started at this. "Wait — Vice Minister Ruan, by counties and subordinate departments, you mean..."

"Official posts are capital too!" Ruan Dacheng laughed. "This dynasty now does not forbid natives from holding office locally. Native officials at the provincial and prefectural-department level are still few, but native officials in counties and subordinate departments are everywhere. Sichuan is also a war zone, so the situation is even more special; using local strongmen as officials is only natural. Governor-General Zeng might as well discuss it with Governor Li and Commander Yang and draw up a set of regulations, using these posts to raise merit rewards and compensate the great gentry and powerful families for their losses."

"Using prefectural and county posts to raise military merit and compensate the powerful gentry?" Zeng Ying still felt something was not right. "Is the court not afraid they will embezzle and take bribes, extort the people and bring them harm?"

"Not afraid," Ruan Dacheng said. "There will be a pack of ferocious censors to arrest, interrogate, and confiscate!"

(End of Chapter)