Chapter 139: Schemes

Inside the Qianqing Palace, Chongzhen was reviewing the personal memorials of Hu Tinglu, Transport Commissioner of the Lianghuai Salt Transport Supervisorate, and Censor Song Sizhang of the Lianghuai Salt Inspection. The two memorials were largely identical in content, both impeaching Lu Heng, Transport Commissioner of the Shandong Salt Transport Supervisorate.

This was all within expectations. After flipping through the memorials, Chongzhen tossed them aside.

The content of the memorials was simple: they accused Lu Heng of dereliction and negligence of duty, sitting idly by while smuggled salt was sold across borders unchecked, causing the salt tax revenue of the Lianghuai salt fields to plummet and inflicting enormous losses upon the court.

The two men hinted in their memorials that not only were the official salt granaries of Lianghuai overflowing with accumulated stock, but the salt-boiling households also held massive quantities of salt in their hands, growing at an astonishing rate every single day.

Because the salt was piling up unsold, unrest had already begun to brew among the vast number of salt-boiling households. If this continued, it could not be ruled out that several hundred thousand salt-boiling households might take some drastic action, and when that time came, Nanjing would likely bear the brunt of it.

The two men's memorials were framed under the pretext of acting in the court's best interests, but their essence was nothing more than that the new salt had seized the market that originally belonged to those in Lianghuai connected to salt profits, disrupting the normal order of salt transport, and causing losses in income for the entire Transport Supervisorate and the salt merchants alike.

Due to the limitations of their horizons, these people did not realize this would be the beginning of their downfall. They merely thought that some noble in the palace had unsightly table manners and had reached across the line to grab what was not theirs.

The salt-boiling households were hereditary in their trade. Since the rise of smuggled salt, most of the formerly destitute and helpless salt-boiling households had already come to enjoy lives free from worries about food and clothing.

Boiling salt required nothing more than periodically replacing the iron cauldrons that burned out. Firewood was available everywhere, and seawater cost nothing to purchase. As long as one put in the labor and time, the salt produced was nearly cost-free.

Moreover, there was no need to worry about selling the salt. As soon as each household saved up ten shi, they could push it by cart to the purchasing stations set up by salt merchants, and in return they would naturally receive gleaming copper coins, bits of silver, or grain.

As for official salt, they could casually hand over a bit when they had spare time. No matter how much official salt they turned in, it would not earn them a single coin, for the money and grain the court allocated to the salt-boiling households had long been embezzled by the officials.

If the new salt squeezed Huai salt out of the market, the salt-boiling households would certainly erupt in fierce discontent. If the interested parties then secretly sent people to stir them up with seditious words, a popular uprising could easily break out. Should the court be caught unprepared, the prosperous Jiangnan region might well suffer considerable turmoil.

If it truly came to that, whoever stood behind the new salt would become the target of universal condemnation, and would be ground to dust amid the denunciations of the court officials.

Chongzhen believed that for personal gain, these people would do absolutely anything. Because the profits involved were too enormous, and too many people were entangled in them.

From high-ranking officials, nobles of merit, and wealthy merchants at the top, down to peddlers, porters, soldiers, and salt laborers at the bottom — every single person profited from it.

Although the lion's share of the profits was controlled by a small circle of interest groups, their table manners were not unsightly. They knew to let a few crumbs slip through their fingers to the common people and soldiers below, so that this chain could link up even more people and form an even greater circle of interests.

They actually dared to threaten the court with popular uprising! Chongzhen sneered coldly to himself.

Then kill the chicken to warn the monkeys. Start from Huai'an — first take the Huai'an Salt Distribution Office and eat some fat meat. Then squeeze southward bit by bit, until the entire Lianghuai salt fields are in hand.

The whole world knew the Lianghuai salt merchants were enormously wealthy, and there were indeed quite a few officials who coveted the riches in their homes. Many tried to use the power in their hands to extract profit from the salt merchants.

But the Lianghuai salt merchants were all exceedingly shrewd. They knew that even with money, they could not match the authority of petty government clerks, and that to protect the treasure bowl in their hands, they first had to keep the officials fully fed.

So the salt merchants spontaneously formed an alliance and poured out huge sums of money in bribes.

The primary targets of their bribery were not the chief magistrates of the counties and prefectures, but the clerks and secretaries who wielded real power in the various government offices.

Clerks were iron, but magistrates were flowing water. According to court regulations, prefectural and county chief magistrates served terms of three years, and at most two terms before they had to be moved along. Whether you passed the jinshi examination with distinction or as a second-class graduate, by the time you arrived at your post you had only just become familiar with the situation under your jurisdiction. Perhaps some capable official had just begun to make a mark of achievement, and then the three-year term expired — barring unexpected circumstances, it was time to leave.

But those hereditary clerks were all local men. They were the ones who truly held power in the region. The chief clerks of the six offices — the Revenue Office, the Justice Office, and the rest — were all passed down through generations, interconnected with one another. The edicts and directives of the court and of the great magistrates all had to be executed through these chief clerks and their underlings.

If the clerks were dissatisfied with the magistrate's governance, they needed only to use a few small tricks to make the lofty jinshi master — who knew only the Four Books and Five Classics and understood nothing of the world — end up with a face full of ashes.

Take the collection of the summer grain tax, for example. The chief clerk of the Revenue Office would, in the magistrate's presence, sternly demand that the runners complete this year's summer grain collection task with guaranteed quality and quantity, treating the summer grain levy as the top priority of the moment, ensuring it was implemented down to every single household, and that the court's taxes were paid in full and on time. This bore upon the Ministry of Personnel's assessment of the magistrate's performance, so everyone must work together diligently at their duties and not disappoint the magistrate's great kindness.

Come evening, the yamen runners who had been leading the grain collection would gather at the home of the Revenue Office chief clerk. While drinking and making merry, the chief clerk would use simple hints to tell the runners: when collecting grain, do not oppress the common people excessively. If there were poor farming households that truly could not pay, do not make things too difficult for them. Everyone was fellow villager and neighbor, and if they pressed too hard, how would they face each other in the future?

The final result went without saying. The summer grain collection was completed very poorly — due to a poor harvest, only half of the collection quota was fulfilled.

Then the jinshi magistrate would fly into a rage, punish those involved with beatings of the board, and make threats such as declaring that if the task was not completed, someone's position as chief clerk would not be secure.

That very night, the government granary would catch fire, and nearly all the collected grain would turn to ashes. In the end, the magistrate who failed his task would be rated as inferior by the Ministry of Personnel, and would slink back to his hometown with his bedroll.

After a long time, the prefectural and county chief magistrates naturally came to understand that these entrenched locals were the true power holders, and that none of their own directives could function without these villainous clerks who handled the actual work. So the vast majority of chief magistrates adopted a policy of turning a blind eye. As long as the tasks assigned by the court were completed on time, and their own due benefits were not short by a single cent, then play however you like. Would it not be better for this official and the gentry to wander leisurely beneath the trees, composing poetry and admiring the moon, and enjoy a life of carefree ease?

The salt merchants naturally never failed to present the great magistrates with gifts for the festivals and New Year, and the gifts were quite lavish — famous paintings and calligraphy, antiques from previous dynasties, and other such valuables. Gold and silver were given relatively sparingly.

But to the clerks and secretaries, they gave solid, genuine gold and silver. Whenever the clerks' families had weddings, funerals, or birthday celebrations, the salt merchants would be generous with their gifts, and would always loudly announce the gift list in front of the assembled guests, so that the host family would feel greatly honored — thereby expanding their own influence and reputation.

At the same time, the salt merchants would also provide funds to support poor scholars, using the method of "warming the cold stove" to help them, hoping that when the recipient eventually rose to prominence, their own families might bask in reflected glory. This sort of practice was very common in the Jiangnan region, and indeed there had been no shortage of successful cases.

As for those examination candidates who liked to court fame under various banners, the expenses for the poetry gatherings and literary assemblies they hosted were also funded by the salt merchants.

All these measures combined produced excellent results. In the Jiangnan region, the salt merchants enjoyed a very good reputation among the officials and the literati. Both sides got what they needed, and gradually became tightly bound together.

The reason Chongzhen wanted to slowly squeeze the interests of this group, rather than openly sending people to confiscate their property and exterminate their clans, was that he did not wish to provoke great popular outrage, trigger instability in the Jiangnan region, and thereby cause severe damage to the court's tax revenues and grain transport.

If Jiangnan descended into chaos again, even if troops could be dispatched to suppress it, it would still throw the court — which was heavily dependent on the south's blood transfusion — into paralysis, and would also allow the grain-starved north to completely rot away.

Once the Huai'an Salt Distribution Office was taken, this group would naturally smell the danger. This would drive them — who had always scorned and loved to blackmail the court — to make irrational moves. Popular uprising was their favorite tactic, and also the most effective method for dealing with the court. They knew the court feared Jiangnan unrest above all. If Chongzhen had not traveled through time, this sort of behavior would indeed have seized the court by its vital gate.

Chongzhen wanted precisely to force them to launch a popular uprising.

Huai'an Prefecture bordered Yangzhou Prefecture, where the salt merchants were concentrated. Chen Qiyu was stationed in Huai'an with heavy troops at his command. As long as intelligence was grasped accurately and swiftly, the moment the uprising began would be the day its participants were destroyed.

Following past precedent, the salt merchant group would never imagine that the court would send troops to suppress them.

It had always been that once an uprising arose, the Jiangnan literati would raise a chorus of denunciation against the court, and the local officials with vested interests would submit memorials one after another, demanding severe punishment for the masterminds behind the northern salt's southward transport, to restore to the Great Ming a clear and pure Jiangnan like a painting.

Afterward, the Emperor and his chief ministers, in their panic, would respond to the incident with compromise. Then the uprising would quickly subside, everyone would go back to drinking and dancing as before — only the northern salt would completely disappear, and everything would return to the starting point.

Now that Chongzhen already knew the other side's cards, all he needed to do was control the timing of the play and identify the masterminds.

The salt merchants were too obvious as targets. He only needed to have the Embroidered Uniform Guard keep watch on the relevant personnel who had been unusually active of late. Now he needed to get word to Chen Qiyu in advance, to have him make early preparations. As long as the Embroidered Uniform Guard's intelligence was in hand, there would be no need to mobilize too many government troops — capture the chieftain to capture all, and the disaster could be swiftly quelled.

After that would come the settling of accounts after the autumn harvest.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard would make their appearance and arrest the implicated officials and merchants. These people had no power of resistance whatsoever, and would not dare openly defy the court.

The charges would be inciting popular uprising against the court and harboring seditious designs. Perhaps the Embroidered Uniform Guard would even discover evidence of secret correspondence with the roving bandits in certain households.

As long as the charge of colluding with bandits was pinned on them, whoever dared to step forward and speak on their behalf would all be dealt with as co-conspirators.

Mm, that was how it would be done.

Once the entire Lianghuai Salt Transport Supervisorate, from top to bottom, was taken down, the Lianghuai salt fields could be fully seized, and the salt-boiling households would become history. A portion would be kept to dry salt in the sun, while the rest would either be allotted confiscated farmland, or assigned newly reclaimed wasteland, or sent to work in the workshops — converting from salt-boiling households into farming households would do.

Of course, resettlement silver would still be distributed. Once they had the silver in hand, popular grievances would diminish. After a few years when they had adapted to their new identities, their former discontent would have long since vanished like smoke and dispersed like clouds.

This round of property confiscation would be another great harvest. No one in the Lianghuai Salt Transport Supervisorate offices, from top to bottom, could be let off.

Those mid- and lower-level officials — their family property was not necessarily less than that of their superiors. In their daily work they had used every means to stuff money that belonged to the court into their own pockets. This time, it was time to give it back.

The salt merchants had to be treated differently — no collective punishment. The masterminds numbered only a few; the rest were all coerced accomplices.

Just deal with the few ringleaders.

If any government students jumped out, then strip them of their scholarly titles. Consider it a warning knock on the door for the Donglin Faction.

Do not think Jiangnan belongs to you. This Great Ming still belongs to the Zhu family, and the court still has the final say.