Chapter 144: New Policies

Since Chongzhen had crossed over, after much effort, although the treasury was considerably more comfortable than before, the bulk of it still went to the military, especially the Liaodong warlords.

The military expenditures for men like Lu Xiangsheng and Hong Chengchou were worth it—they were genuinely devoted to suppressing the bandits, had achieved brilliant results, and spent little.

Liaodong's enormous annual military expenditure was not worth it at all. This wasn't spending money to maintain troops; it was raising pigs.

Although he knew he was being taken advantage of, Chongzhen couldn't touch them for now—Liaodong had to be kept stable.

These hundred-some-thousand troops, though rarely achieving battle merits, at least held the Jianzhou barbarians at bay beyond Shanhai Pass.

If Chongzhen had more money than he could spend, he could just grind the Jianzhou barbarians down like this, and within ten years they would be worn to death.

Of course, the precondition was that the Jurchens couldn't break through the pass from another direction to raid and plunder.

If the Jurchens didn't plunder, how would they feed themselves? Relying on the Han people seized from the Great Ming to farm? That would only be enough to scrape by—can farming produce gold, silver, and fine silks? So, Liaodong would have to be endured for now. But it could no longer be like before, giving the warlords whatever they asked for. Instead, the Ministry of War and Liaodong should be made to wrangle back and forth several times, with payments doled out in installments in between to keep the military chiefs steady. Going back and forth like that, a year would pass. Chongzhen planned to resolve the Liaodong problem within two years; for now he would delay the release of funds as much as possible without making the military chiefs restless. Yang Sichang would have quite a headache over this.

Now Chongzhen no longer had to worry about petty sums like tens of thousands of taels of silver.

Gong Fanwu's salt-evaporation at the Changlu salt fields had already succeeded, and the new salt in the capital region no longer needed to be transported over long distances from Shandong.

This reduced costs considerably and saved a great deal of manpower, materials, and money. Changlu's new salt was also sufficient to meet the northern market, and its transport distance held a great advantage.

The Shouguang salt field had been steadily expanding production. With new salt piling up like mountains, that was how Shandong salt came to be dumped southward. No other reason—the northern market was approaching saturation, so the only direction was south.

At Chongzhen's direction, the new salt sold into the Lianghuai salt region was priced at fifteen wen per catty to local small and medium salt merchants. Although profits dropped sharply, seizing market share was what mattered most.

The price was set so low precisely to ensure the distributors could turn a profit. Add to that the threats and intimidation of the Embroidered Uniform Guard—what power did these salt merchants have to contend with a monster like the Embroidered Uniform Guard? Besides, the salt they sold was high quality and cheap, far superior to the old large-grained bitter salt, so sales were bound to be better. Why wouldn't the merchants go along willingly?

Chongzhen made a rough calculation: in the capital alone, with its population of a million, the new salt could bring him at least five hundred thousand taels a year.

If one counted the several million people in the other prefectures and counties of North Zhili, it would be five hundred thousand multiplied by X in silver.

Even with a discount, it came to around one and a half million taels annually.

At present, the new salt was being promoted and sold in the Shanxi-Shaanxi, Henan, and Huguang regions, but because of the unstable situation and problems with road transport, progress was relatively slow.

The new salt was gradually seizing market share in the various prefectures and counties of Shandong. Since the Shouguang salt field had previously focused mainly on opening up the capital market, it had never occupied Shandong close at hand.

After all, initial production was limited—just enough to supply the capital region and no more.

Now that Changlu had taken over the north, Shouguang salt could supply its local area in full while also covering the Lianghuai region.

Since he now had a stable income, and even larger revenues were already in sight, he could not act like a miser. The money had to be spent, made to circulate, so that it could directly or indirectly drive social progress and development. To stimulate consumption, he needed to find another consumer group. The clerks of the various government offices numbered nearly two thousand, involving the same number of families; with their influence added in, they were worth cultivating vigorously.

According to intelligence from the Eastern Depot, most clerks in the various offices of the capital were indeed living poorly.

The capital had numerous government offices. Besides the well-known Grand Secretariat and the Six Ministries and the Censorate, there were mainly also the Six Offices of Scrutiny, the Five Courts, the Shuntian Prefecture, and the Depot and Guard agencies.

Besides the senior officials of the Six Ministries—the Ministers and the Left and Right Vice Ministers—there were also the principal officers of each bureau: Bureau Directors, Vice Bureau Directors, and Bureau Secretaries. Under each bureau were varying numbers of clerks, record keepers, and attendants who handled specific duties, not to mention grooms, cooks, night watchmen, and other menial laborers. All told, these numbered several hundred people.

Counting everything, the number of clerks and menial laborers in the capital approached two thousand—and this did not include the Depot and Guard agencies or the Twenty-four Directorates of the inner court.

Far too many people in the entire capital ate from the imperial grain supply. The Capital Camps had over thirty thousand men, the Yongwei Camp had been expanded to twenty thousand, the Embroidered Uniform Guard numbered over ten thousand, and the eunuchs and palace maids of the inner court also exceeded ten thousand. All of these people depended on Chongzhen's privy purse to survive.

Once Chongzhen had money, he was very generous, substantially raising the monthly pay and treatment of these seventy to eighty thousand people. Since this directly concerned his own safety, the silver had to be spent where it counted.

Although the troops and inner court personnel now had surplus money in hand, first their status restricted them, and second, many soldiers were orphans who had fled to the north from disaster areas, with no relatives in the capital, so they had little opportunity to spend outside and could not play a role in driving economic development.

But the clerks in these government offices were different. They were all natives of the capital, their families all lived in the city, and all their spending took place in the capital.

If this group of people had money to spare, their daily expenditures would become another major consumer force.

Although serving in the government sounded prestigious, many clerks knew their own hardships.

As fiscal revenues deteriorated day by day, the treasury was empty as well—what surplus silver was there to pay the clerks' monthly salaries?

Since there was no cash, they used goods instead.

And so, at the beginning of every month when salaries were distributed, a large crowd would appear before the gates of every office—people clutching bolts of cloth and silk, sacks of rice and grain, pickled vegetables and salt, and stacks of precious notes. These people were the clerks who were run off their feet all day by their superiors. The goods they carried were that month's pay, and many depended on these things to feed their families.

These goods were tax revenues turned in from various regions, stored for long periods in the Inner Receiving Treasury, the Guangying Treasury, and the Guanghui Treasury. Much of the cloth had already begun to rot and could not possibly be made into clothing; pawning it fetched nothing. The precious notes were waste paper—many merchants had long since refused to accept them.

Much of the rice distributed had already gone moldy, the pickled vegetables were covered in green fuzz, and the salt was originally the large-grained crude salt from Lianghuai, only recently changed to new salt.

And don't you dare complain—if you didn't want it, you wouldn't even get these things.

Most of these clerks were like a certain class in later ages—not everyone had the opportunity to embezzle or take bribes. Most held no real power in hand. Who would waste money sending gifts to you? Didn't they still depend on that pitiful monthly salary to get by?

These clerks bore the heaviest official duties of every office. Although they too were men of learning, they were basically losers of the examination halls who had failed time and again. Only in desperation did they pull strings to enter the offices, counting it as a job to support their families. But under the rigidly hierarchical system, the path of promotion for clerks without official rank was sealed off. They could only muddle along at the very bottom for their entire lives, and were frequently berated, scolded, and even beaten with boards by the jinshi masters. This rice bowl was not easy to eat by any means—far from the glamorous and enviable appearance it presented.

The consequence of poor treatment was that many people perfunctorily handled the government affairs assigned by their masters, and many more racked their brains for ways to profit from it.

For example, clerks in the Ministry of War would collude with local generals, deliberately over-issuing armor and weapons, then report to their superiors under the pretext of "losses in transit," and finally take kickbacks from the receiving side. As for where the armor and weapons actually went, they cared not at all.

Such problems were widespread across all the ministries. The superiors naturally profited from it as well and thus tacitly permitted it, which led to serious losses to the court's interests.

To solve these problems that directly harmed the court's interests, one had to wield a stick in one hand and a carrot in the other.

After the Eastern Depot and the Embroidered Uniform Guard were revived, they successively sent personnel into the various ministries and courts, and one by one hauled the more unwise vermin into the Imperial Prison, followed by the confiscation of their family property and the exile of their relatives. From the top of each office down to the clerks with real power, everyone both hated and feared the Depot and Guard. Those clerks who could only rely on their salaries, however, maintained an attitude of indifference.

They hated them for cutting off their path to wealth, as if killing their parents; but they feared even more that once they entered the Imperial Prison, there was no chance of survival, and their families would be implicated.

Since the stick had already fallen, it was time for the carrot to make its grand entrance.

A few days later, an imperial edict was transmitted through the Grand Secretariat to all the offices of the capital. Its content was simple: the Emperor, pitying the hard lot of officials and clerks, had specially drawn on the privy purse to raise the pay of everyone, including the low-level clerks, and this would be treated as a standing practice.

A pay raise was of course a wonderful thing, but there was no such thing as a free lunch—the raise came with conditions.

The monthly salaries of clerks in each office were set at two, three, or four taels depending on the importance of their post and duties. Each person would also receive ten taels of diligence pay and twenty taels of integrity pay annually.

The monthly salary and the diligence and integrity pay would all be issued in cash, effective from the current month.

At the end of each year, led by the Grand Secretariat, with the Ministry of Personnel, the Censorate, and the Depot and Guard each dispatching personnel to form review teams stationed in every department, each official's and clerk's work for the year would be examined. As long as one passed the review, thirty taels of silver would be taken home, letting the family enjoy a fat New Year; if problems were found, then sorry—your farewell to the old year and welcome of the new would take place in the Imperial Prison.

The arithmetic was simple: over the course of a year, if each clerk passed the review, even the lowest earner would take in over fifty taels of silver—enough to support an entire family, and at a fairly comfortable standard of living. Those in important positions could earn over seventy taels a year, and all of it in silver, not the miscellaneous goods of before. That was a very substantial income.

And the incomes of the principal officials of the various ministries and courts were even higher.

The Ministers of each ministry, of the second rank, received a monthly salary of one hundred taels and six hundred taels of integrity pay.

The Left and Right Vice Ministers, of the third rank, received a monthly salary of eighty taels and five hundred taels of integrity pay.

Bureau Directors, of the fifth rank, received a monthly salary of sixty taels and three hundred taels of integrity pay.

Vice Bureau Directors, of the fifth rank (subgrade), received a monthly salary of forty taels and two hundred taels of integrity pay.

Bureau Secretaries, of the sixth rank, received a monthly salary of thirty taels and one hundred fifty taels of integrity pay.

The remaining officials from the seventh to ninth ranks received monthly salaries of twenty, fifteen, and ten taels respectively, with integrity pay ranging from one hundred to sixty taels.

The Nine Chief Ministers and the officials of Shuntian Prefecture were to implement the policy according to their ranks, following the standards set for the Six Ministries.

Once the new policy was announced, it caused a tremendous stir in the various government offices in the capital. The vast majority of people warmly welcomed this move by the Emperor. Especially among the lower and mid-ranking officials and clerks, many were jubilant, their excitement written plainly on their faces.

The reason was simple: the salaries of Ming Dynasty officials were appallingly low.

The Grand Ancestor came from the very bottom rung of society and harbored a deep, abiding hatred and hostility toward corrupt officials. Thus, after he ascended the throne, he set the salaries for officials at all levels extremely low, and even said with self-righteous conviction: "Officials who receive generous emoluments from the court yet remain unsatisfied, refusing to benefit the people and devoting themselves instead to graft and the violation of law—can they truly blame anyone but themselves when their families are ruined?"

To give an example: when Hai Rui served as County Magistrate of Chun'an, he received an annual salary of only about twelve dan of rice and less than thirty taels of silver. That amount of money and grain was barely enough to sustain a family of five in daily life—and mind you, he was a magistrate of the seventh rank, a "lord of a hundred li."

No wonder a County Magistrate once submitted a memorial to the court complaining: "Officials of all ranks, aside from the discounted paper-money portion of their pay, receive no more than two dan of rice per month—not enough to feed several people. With elders above to support and children below to raise, and travel expenses to and from postings, where is one to find the funds?"

I risk life and limb to govern a region for you, managing tens of thousands of common folk, with parents above and children below—and in the end, I don't have a single spare coin in my hand. How can you expect a man to serve you with all his heart under such conditions?

It was precisely because of the pitifully low salaries and the lack of effective oversight that corruption and bribery became endemic throughout the entire Ming officialdom, growing ever more rampant. This severely undermined the efficiency of the court's administration and tarnished its image in the eyes of the common people.