Chapter 179: Stability

This year, the various markets in the capital showed a prosperity unseen for many years. Goods related to the festival sold extremely well, and many shops experienced shortages as demand outstripped supply.

As early as the end of the eleventh month, when merchants in the capital were stocking up heavily for the New Year, the tax office that the Ministry of Revenue had established at Chongwen Gate expanded its staff of tax assessors and set up several tax checkpoints outside Chongwen Gate, making it convenient for merchants transporting goods into the city to pay their taxes and avoid congestion at Chongwen Gate when approaching the inner city. In this way, after unloading at the Tongzhou docks, merchants could load their goods onto carts and, along the route from the Left Peace Gate of the outer city to Chongwen Gate of the inner city, complete their tax payments at any time, obtain the wooden entry permits, and then sell their wares in the inner city.

Because no one had anticipated such a booming sales season for the New Year, many shops and trading houses had understocked. Some establishments dealing in cloth and silk, ready-made clothing, shoes, and hats opened for business at the chen hour of the morning and had sold out by around the wu hour. The owners and managers of these trading houses had to take the field themselves, leading their clerks and hurrying with horse-drawn carts to the Tongzhou docks south of the capital, trying to snap up cloth and other goods from merchant ships that had just arrived. Fights and disputes broke out frequently as a result. In the end, the Shuntian Prefecture yamen had to dispatch a hundred or so constables specifically to maintain order at the Tongzhou docks, to prevent more incidents of this kind.

Pedestrians on the great streets and narrow lanes walked with light steps, carrying and shouldering all kinds of goods in their hands and on their persons, smiles that could not be hidden on their faces. When acquaintances met on the street or in shops, they greeted each other warmly, chatting about their New Year purchases and discussing where goods were plentiful and cheap, their tones revealing ease and contentment.

In previous years, the capital had indeed been livelier than usual during the New Year, and goods and supplies had been dazzling in their variety, but the purchasers were mostly stewards and servants of high officials and nobles, or wealthy households of the capital with modest fortunes. Ordinary folk were hard up; although they would add a few things to their households, it was a negligible supplement to the capital's commodity market as a whole. The merchants' greatest income still came from bulk purchases by the great households.

It was not only the common people who had little spare money; the numerous low- and mid-ranking officials and clerks of the various capital yamen were hardly better off than they were.

Although officials from the provinces sent many attendants to the capital bearing gifts before the New Year, those gifts were all for the powerful high officials above—who would give gifts to such insignificant little men?

Their meager salaries barely sufficed to feed their families, and the low-ranking clerks in these yamen were filled with resentment. They too toiled hard for the court, yet in the end had no spare money to add things to their homes or buy new clothes for their children.

A few months earlier, the Emperor had substantially increased the salaries of all officials and clerks in every yamen, converting all previous payments in kind to silver. This made countless officials and clerks feel deeply grateful to Zhu Youjian from the bottom of their hearts, and all the vicious words they had once muttered in secret vanished without a trace.

The effect of this salary increase was fully demonstrated at the end of the year.

The officials and clerks, suddenly with vastly more money in hand, became the main force of this New Year's spending. After the holiday began, they dressed in plain clothes and swaggered out with their wives and children to buy New Year goods.

With money in hand, they dared to show their faces in public. No longer were they reduced, as in New Years past, to protecting their pride by taking out only a few copper coins and a few bits of broken silver, letting their wives go out to buy some rice, flour, and meat, and tearing off a few lengths of cotton cloth to sew into clothes for the children—that was how they had once gotten through the New Year.

Goods they had never dared to buy before were now ordinary items.

"Husband, this silver hairpin has such a novel design and is so finely crafted. I truly like it!"

"You like it? Buy it! How much silver? One tael? Wrap up that silver bracelet as well—this official will not haggle! My wife's fair wrist will look absolutely beautiful with it!"

"Father, Father, I want this little wooden man that does somersaults, and these handsome boots too!"

"No problem, buy them! As long as my son likes them!"

Seeing the heartfelt happiness and joy in their wives' and children's eyes and faces, everyone felt a deep sense of satisfaction in their hearts.

These low-ranking officials finally felt they could hold their heads high. In former times, when they returned home for festivals and saw the expectant looks in their parents', wives', and children's eyes, yet were too poor to buy the things they loved and bring them home, the shame, anger, and guilt in their hearts made them wish the ground would swallow them up. They wished they could smash this ugly world to pieces and burn the mansions of those high officials to the ground.

Now everything had changed—and changed utterly, turned upside down.

Ever since the salary increase, at the beginning of each month what they brought home was gleaming white broken silver, no longer silk thin as cicada wings, rice and flour mixed with grit, or coarse salt yellow tinged with black. The looks their loved ones gave them were filled with deep admiration. Life had suddenly become good, and such a life filled people with hope for the future. All of this was the grace and virtue of His Majesty, the present Sage.

The officials and clerks, together with the formerly poor artisan households and the soldiers of the Yongwei Camp and the Capital Camps who had families in the capital—these people formed this year's army of consumers.

The imperial estate that Zhu Youjian had first visited was also bustling with activity; the first to grow rich were this group of poor estate households.

The small market outside the estate had now been rebuilt into all kinds of shops, and the several thousand people in the imperial estate had no small demand for goods.

The goods the estate households purchased were basically the same as those in the capital. Although their purchasing power was relatively weaker, they still became an indispensable force driving the market.

With adequate nutrition and full meals at every sitting, Daniú and Niuniu were now developing rapidly. Nine-year-old Daniú had already become a skilled hand at raising pigs and feeding chickens. Under his careful feeding, the two piglets assigned to him had grown to around a hundred catties, and the estate steward was full of praise for him.

Niuniu was now six years old. The year and more of life here was something she had never experienced before—safe, simple, and happy, no longer the hunger and cold of her former days. Everyone was very kind, and she had made many young friends her own age. Since they were all orphans, Niuniu often slept in the same bed as her little sisters, and they would burrow into the quilts, laughing and playing, as if they had endless secrets to share.

These gathered orphans were divided into groups of ten, with two women assigned to look after each group.

At Zhu Youjian's direction, these women had all been specially selected—all were pitiful souls who had lost their husbands and children to war and famine. Zhu Youjian believed that only such women would bring the glory of motherhood to its fullest expression.

He did not want the sordid affairs of the orphanages of later ages to happen before his eyes. Although people of this era generally possessed simple and honest virtues, he still strove for perfection, unwilling to let any young heart be hurt again.

Facts proved his measures were entirely correct—one might even call them a stroke of genius.

Those women who had lost everything had originally been utterly despairing of life. Although Zhu Youjian had taken them into the imperial estate, where their clothing, food, and safety were guaranteed, the loss of all their loved ones—especially their own flesh and blood—had dealt a devastating blow to their spirits. Their longing for their kin kept them immersed in pain at every moment, and many lived on like walking corpses, with tragic suicides by hanging occurring from time to time.

The tasks assigned to them at the imperial estate gave every one of them a reason to go on living. Looking at the innocent, lovely faces before them, these women's maternal love was fully awakened.

They treated these children as their own flesh and blood, placing all their hope for living in this world upon the children. Their former numb, dazed expressions regained their vitality, and each one devoted herself wholeheartedly to caring for the children under her charge. The imperial estate would allocate money, grain, oil, salt, and meat on a per-person basis, and the women would manage the children's daily food and living arrangements. Under their careful attention, Daniú, Niuniu, and the others grew up healthy and happy.

When Zhu Youjian had first taken in these orphans, it was partly out of his soft heart and partly because he wanted to use other means to train this batch of children into a special force loyal to him.

But now he had abandoned his original plan, treating these orphans merely as ordinary children to be cared for and looked after.

Peace under heaven was no longer far off; powerful opponents were being wiped out one by one. The remaining tribe beyond the passes, being too small in size, would find it hard to contend with a Great Ming that was about to recover its health. The next step was to intensify the blockade against it, dealing further heavy blows to its extremely backward productive forces. With the situation growing better and better, why should children who ought to grow up happily be turned into brainwashed products?

The right to choose should belong to each person, not be imposed or forced upon them.

Since his original intention in taking in the children had been to protect the weak, that original intention should not be forgotten or changed.

As snowflakes drifted down from the sky in profusion, the ninth year of Chongzhen came to an end amid a great snowfall and amid people's hopes for the future.

On New Year's Eve in the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Youjian, along with Empress Dowager Yi'an, Empress Zhou, Noble Consort Tian, Virtuous Consort Li, and the children—the Crown Prince, Prince Ding, Prince Yong, and Changping—the whole family sat around a large round table. On the table were several copper hotpots, platters of paper-thin fresh mutton, and several kinds of green leafy vegetables. Before each person were several small dishes of dipping sauces, holding sesame paste, mashed garlic, chive flower sauce, and other condiments.

This was a family banquet held at Zhu Youjian's suggestion.

In previous years, the Qianqing Palace had seen no such scene at New Year. Zhu Youjian, worried about affairs of state and averse to extravagance, had never had the mood to dine with his family.

Empress Dowager Yi'an had also spent every New Year's Eve alone in her cold, desolate palace.

As the situation improved and the increasingly strained financial problems were basically resolved, from the noble ladies at the top of the palace down to the maids and menial servants, nearly everyone's face wore an expression of ease and joy.

These hotpots had been made at Zhu Youjian's special instruction. Empress Dowager Yi'an and the others had never seen them before, nor had they ever tried this way of eating.

The water in the hotpot began to boil. Zhu Youjian picked up a slice of mutton with his chopsticks, swished it back and forth in the boiling water a few times, then dipped it into the sauce dish and put it into his mouth.

Everyone at the table watched Zhu Youjian curiously. Seeing him close his eyes and chew the mutton in his mouth, his face full of contentment, Changping's clear voice suddenly rang out: "Imperial Father, you're drooling!"