Chapter 127: The Conception

The joy that the great victory of the government forces over the slave rebels had brought to the people of the capital had not yet fully faded when news spread rapidly that the two great houses of Duke Chengguo and Count Xiangcheng had been uprooted in an instant.

Every street and alley in the capital buzzed with talk of this matter, and when the people learned that the two houses had secretly sold government weapons to the Jianzhou barbarians, public opinion swung overwhelmingly to the side of the court. This kind of behavior—biting the hand that feeds one—was the most detestable, and nearly everyone supported and sympathized with the Emperor. A servant who steals his master's property, and moreover sneaks out the master's grain to sell to the ruffians who constantly come to extort and rob the master—such a person deserves to be cut into ten thousand pieces.

The Duke Chengguo case caused a tremendous shock among the remaining noble houses. Hereditary dukes and counts spanning over two hundred years vanished into smoke in an instant, and while the nobles mourned the fox's death, they also felt overwhelming terror at Chongzhen's cold-blooded ruthlessness. Apart from those like Marquis Yangwu who had long since sided with the Emperor, the remaining nobles sternly warned their family members and servants to henceforth keep their heads down and behave, and that anyone who dared to use the family's name to invite disaster would be immediately expelled from the household. All the nobles reduced their tenant rents to fourteen percent, finally giving tenant farmers enough grain to fill their bellies.

The civil officials, while watching the spectacle, were secretly alarmed by the Emperor's methods. Everyone present at the time except Li Banghua and Chang Ziyu concluded afterward that the Emperor must have long been biding his time against the two houses. After confirming that the existence of the Yongwei Camp could neutralize the uncertain factor of the Capital Camps, the Emperor seized the opportunity to strike like thunder, catching the two houses completely off guard. Zhu Chunchen and Li Guozhen not only never imagined such an unprovoked calamity would befall them—even if they had prepared in advance, they could not have withstood the combined strike of the Yongwei Camp, the Eastern Depot, and the Embroidered Uniform Guard. The Emperor had truly changed; he was no longer that impatient, hot-tempered, suspicious, and fickle sovereign, but had become wise and steady, methodical in his actions, unfathomably deep—and far more difficult to deal with.

Several days later, the wagon train of the Four Seas Trading Company finally returned fully loaded, bringing back great quantities of horses, cattle, donkeys, sheep, and other livestock, along with furs, medicinal herbs, felt, and dried cheese. Within days, these goods were snapped up by the capital's major merchants, who then distributed them throughout the Ming realm.

The Four Seas Trading Company's first venture beyond the frontier was a resounding success, for a simple reason: although Fan Yongdou and the others had been executed, the managers and clerks under the eight houses' names were all unharmed. These men were all seasoned veterans of commerce, intimately familiar with the several trade routes and the Mongol tribes. Under the dual effect of the Four Seas Trading Company raising their pay and revealing its background, each of them worked with exceptional zeal, all hoping to win first honors before their new employer to gain promotion and favor. As for their dead former masters—they had been decent enough, but everyone worked to earn money and support their families. The old masters were gone, but life had to go on, didn't it? It didn't matter who the master was, as long as everyone could profit from it.

The Four Seas Trading Company had two chief managers, one from the household of Marquis Xinle and one from Count Taikang's estate; both men were the external affairs stewards of their respective households, ordinarily responsible for managing the family's various business ventures. Though they had never handled very large transactions, the principles of business were the same whether large or small—especially in this kind of enterprise with a complete framework where one only needed to delegate authority. Even if a steward made reckless decisions, the managers below would veto them, so the two only needed to oversee the accounts and personnel. After all, Chongzhen had never been in business and knew little of its inner workings; his approach was simply to never employ those he doubted and never doubt those he employed. As for whether there was any skulduggery within, he didn't care, as long as it wasn't excessive. The despicable practice of wanting the horse to run while refusing to let it eat—Chongzhen knew he could not do such a thing. People didn't follow you to make selfless sacrifices; they too needed silver to feed their families, didn't they?

The confiscation of Zhu Chunchen's and Li Guozhen's family properties had once again netted Chongzhen a handsome windfall. Both men had accumulated wealth over several generations, with Zhu Chunchen's being the greater. The Eastern Depot seized over 520,000 taels of silver from his household, along with dozens of establishments—wine houses, cloth shops, grain stores, rice shops, salt shops, and brothels. Apart from a few brothels and wine houses assigned respectively to the Eastern Depot and the Embroidered Uniform Guard, all the remaining shops went under the name of the Four Seas Trading Company. The capital, with its million inhabitants, was the greatest city in the world, gathering countless noble houses, eminent families, and merchant magnates. These shops all occupied prime locations in the capital, and with proper management, their annual income would be quite considerable.

Li Guozhen's property was somewhat inferior to Zhu Chunchen's, but still yielded over 200,000 taels of silver and numerous shops. The two families' farmland in the capital's outskirts totaled several hundred thousand mu, and these fields had not yet been assigned to the Emperor's name—Chongzhen had other plans for them.

Looking at the confiscation inventory, Chongzhen beamed with delight, and in a moment of impulse even considered framing and confiscating the properties of all the powerful civil officials in the capital, as well as the noble houses other than Xue Lian and his ilk. But the thought was suppressed the moment it arose—he had no desire to court death. He was not afraid of corrupt officials; the current system made it very difficult to eliminate corruption. Even if he killed all the so-called corrupt officials of today, who could guarantee that their replacements would all be clean? Even if the new appointees started out incorruptible, what about later?

A thousand li of officialdom is pursued for wealth; all men have selfish motives. Mature people talk of interests; childish people talk of ideals. It's not your greed I fear, but your lack of ability and failure to work for the people. Better to let someone with flawed private morals but real competence—someone who can eat meat himself while still letting the people have soup—hold power, than to let a pure but pedantic fool rule.

Those people in time-travel stories who go back to ancient times and slaughter everyone are simple-minded sorts; with that level of intelligence, surviving two episodes of a fifty-episode television drama would be a feat. They believe killing can solve everything, and some even cite a certain stage of a certain later dynasty as an example. But although that stage had very few corrupt officials, its productive forces were extremely backward, causing the Chinese nation to lose precious decades of golden development. Chongzhen did not believe that everyone eating chaff and swallowing wild vegetables, living a simple life, constituted happiness. That was self-deception, and very childish at that.

In Chongzhen's plans, establishing a strict multi-layered supervisory system to prevent large-scale corruption was the most important thing. In this era where imperial power did not reach below the county level, the prefecture and county administrations were the most basic level of government directly facing the people; their power was very great, and they were precisely the ones most in need of oversight.

"A county magistrate can ruin a family; a prefect can wipe out a clan"—this proverb vividly expressed the power of officials at this level.

Chongzhen intended that once the domestic situation was completely stabilized, he would extend supervisory systems like the Censorate and the Embroidered Uniform Guard down to the prefecture and county level. Adopting the practice of later ages, every prefecture and county would have resident Censors and Embroidered Uniform Guard officers stationed there; while supervising the chief officials, the two bodies would also supervise each other. Because of the natural antagonism between civil officials and the Embroidered Uniform Guard, the possibility of the two—or even all three—colluding was essentially nil; each side would be wary of the other, which would better restrain the power of prefectural and county chiefs and prevent corruption to the greatest extent.

The Ministry of Justice and the Court of Judicial Review should also dispatch permanent institutions to the localities, with criminal cases and litigation falling under the jurisdiction of these two departments. When major cases and capital crimes were tried, the local Censors and Embroidered Uniform Guard officers would sit in and keep records—another means of restraining the abuse of power.

Local officials would be chiefly responsible for civil administration and barred from interfering in judicial matters, which would greatly weaken their power and further narrow their channels for converting authority into money.

Separation of powers—that was Chongzhen's plan.

The current Censors were mostly of a touring nature, with each province having only one Regional Inspector. Even if he were diligent and competent, with such inconvenient transportation, how many prefectures and counties could he visit in a year? What effect could staying a few days in one prefecture or county achieve? He could easily be fobbed off by local officials, not to mention the backroom deals involved. Therefore, supervisory Censors must be stationed permanently in local prefectures and counties, rather than galloping about on a cursory tour that let certain Censors use the opportunity to rake in money hand over fist.

Then there were the petty clerks and yamen runners of the prefectures and counties—these were the people who accumulated the greatest popular resentment. Even if a county magistrate or prefect were clean and just, because they rarely left the yamen, they could easily be deceived and kept in the dark by colluding clerks and runners. Moreover, these people were all local natives with tangled relationships among themselves; some clerk families had served in the yamen for generations, forming vast networks of connections and enormous power. The oppression ordinary people suffered came directly from these men, and in the end the people would attribute their grievances to the court.

These people were the ones that gave favored ministers the greatest headaches. Whether maintaining local order or collecting the summer and autumn taxes, every government action touching the people had to be carried out through these men. How to supervise and restrain them, ensuring fairness and justice to the greatest degree—this was somewhat complicated.

Thus far, Chongzhen had only thought of opening the channel of upward mobility.

Because the clerks were not of the orthodox examination class, they had no hope of promotion for life, so they directed their energies toward squeezing out money. If they could be given prospects, allowed to become officials, and combined with other restraining measures, perhaps the harm done to the people could be reduced or lessened. But opening the upward channel for these men would inevitably infringe upon the interests of the literati. In this era of scholar-official governance, offending all the literati of the realm was an unwise move. Was he to go on killing, killing, killing like those brainless time-travelers? Was he to slaughter everyone? How would that differ from the Mongol Yuan or the Manchu Qing? Was there any point in Han killing Han? Could he not allow anyone to utter a word of dissent?

Sigh—just thinking about it gave him a headache. Chongzhen rubbed his temples with both hands.