Chapter 284: The Official Vessel

The Huai'an Customs House was located at Banzha Town, north of Huai'an Prefectural City, and was the largest of the eight customs houses on the Grand Canal.

As a vital junction of land and water routes, Huai'an was the Ming dynasty's center for grain transport by water, river management, tribute grain transshipment, grain barge construction, and salt tax administration. At its peak, roughly four million dan of tribute grain passed through Huai'an to the capital each year, and its customs duties accounted for more than half of all customs revenue.

Banzha Town, northwest of Huai'an Prefectural City, faced a lake on one side and the sea on the other, with rivers to left and right—long a key thoroughfare for boats and carts traveling north and south. The *Shanyang County Gazetteer* records: "All grain ships from Huguang, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, and Jiangnan arrive in Shanyang tail-to-head and travel north along the canal. Though grain ships from Shandong and Henan do not pass through Huai'an's Banzha, they all still submit to its regulations from afar. Thus grain administration reaches seven provinces, and Shanyang's Banzha is truly the throat of the route."

The Huai'an customs house at Banzha consisted of three main parts: first, the Customs Superintendent's yamen office; second, the Huai'an Great Gate—these two parts formed the main body of the Huai'an customs establishment. The third was the old town of Banzha that had grown up around the customs house.

The Huai'an Customs House maintained a total of three gates and eighteen checkpoints. The three gates were the Banzha Gate, the Suqian Gate, and the Haizhou Gate. The eighteen checkpoints included Shangyipu, Xiayipu, Qinghe Sluice, Matouyin, Gaoliangjian, Shunheji, and others. These checkpoints were all situated at key points where waterways converged into the canal, minimizing the possibility of smuggling by any vessel traveling the Grand Canal.

The Huai'an Great Gate stood beside the canal embankment. It consisted of a two-story gate tower and other auxiliary buildings, with the four large characters "Huai'an Great Gate" written atop the tower, visible from a great distance. The Great Gate's specific duties were handling cargo vessel inspection, customs declaration, and tax collection.

Every day at the end of the shen hour (roughly 5 p. m.), the Huai'an Great Gate released a row of boats from the stone wharf to block the canal's surface. All passing vessels had to drop anchor there and wait for cargo inspection and tax payment the next day. Often the waiting vessels stretched two or three li long, and at the busiest times the queue could extend five or six li.

The next morning at the start of the chen hour (roughly 7 a. m.), the boat bridge blocking the river was removed, and the supervising inspector led the "probe hands," "tax clerks," and laborers aboard the vessels for inspection. The probe hands used graduated probes to measure a vessel's draft, and the cargo capacity was called out to the inspector on the spot. The tax clerks worked by specialty—tea clerks inspected tea, silk and cloth clerks inspected cloth, and bamboo, timber, oil, hemp, beans, sundries, and the like each had their own specialists. In this manner, tax certificates were filled out and duties collected.

Ever since Zhu Youjian had issued the decree changing the transit commercial tax to one-thirtieth, the Huai'an Customs House's revenue had grown considerably, but the tax collection process was also rife with disputes, and many merchants grumbled endlessly about the court raising commercial taxes.

On this particular day, after the gate opened, most vessels had gradually paid their duties and been released. As time passed and noon approached, the number of vessels in the queue had steadily dwindled.

Just then, an official vessel approached the customs house from the south. A large black banner with white characters fluttered in the wind at its bow, embroidered with the five large characters "Liu, Prefect of Yangzhou."

More than a dozen merchant and grain vessels of various sizes still waited ahead of the official vessel to pay duties and be released, yet a gong sounded from the official vessel. After the gong rang, someone on board shouted: "Make way at once! The kin of His Honor Liu, Prefect of Yangzhou, are aboard! All unrelated persons, clear off immediately!"

The duty inspector supervising the probe hands' cargo inspection that day was Zhao Fangzhi, the customs house's inspector on rotation. Seeing that the busiest part of the day was about to pass and the hour was growing late, he was just calculating in his mind that after going off duty he would head to Wang Family Tavern in Banzha Town, tell the owner to make a few authentic Huaiyang dishes, and have a pot of old wine—when the gong and shouting from not far away pulled him back to reality.

"Xu San, go inform them—tell that fellow to stop his racket! Whoever passes through must wait in line! The court's taxes matter more than anyone!"

Zhao Fangzhi gave the order with some impatience.

His attendant Xu San acknowledged the order, then, taking a laborer with him, jumped from the merchant vessel onto the customs house's patrol boat and directed the boatmen to head toward the official vessel.

The reason Zhao Fangzhi hadn't ordered the waiting merchant vessels to clear a path for the official boat was not that he was upright and impartial or fearless of the powerful. Though he held only a lowly rank of 8b, he had been dispatched by the Ministry of Revenue and was under the Ministry's direct jurisdiction, having no ordinary dealings with local officials. Moreover, in the capital, a fourth-rank official was hardly a high dignitary—he frequently saw second- and third-rank grandees like the Ministry's Minister and Vice Ministers—and after long exposure he had lost much of his fear. So whether he chose to accommodate local officials depended entirely on his mood.

He had been busy from the chen hour until now, nearly two full hours, and with the hot weather, he was eager to go off duty and have a drink to relax. That grating gong-voice shouting had instantly soured his mood.

Xu San quickly brought the patrol boat alongside the official vessel. Cupping his hands around his mouth like a trumpet and tilting his head up, he shouted: "I have been sent by Inspector Zhao to inform the honored one aboard—please wait a moment; the waterway ahead will be cleared shortly!"

After he shouted, before long a head poked out over the official vessel's gunwale. Looking down at Xu San, the man called out loudly: "Must we wait much longer? The honored one aboard is heading to the capital to visit family—this cannot be delayed!"

Xu San was a local hanger-on of humble birth. As a commoner, any official at all was someone he dared not offend. He put on a smiling face and answered, looking up: "Honored sir, at most another half an hour or so. Please have a cup of tea and wait just a moment!"

The head at the gunwale vanished in a flash, evidently gone to report back. Xu San ordered the boatmen to steer the patrol boat in a circle around the official vessel and return.

"Master Zhao, I have delivered the notice. But there is one matter I know not whether I should mention. If you'd rather not hear it, then consider that I said nothing at all!"

Xu San, back at Zhao Fangzhi's side, spoke in a lowered voice.

"What is it? Let's hear it!"

Zhao Fangzhi stood on a merchant vessel loaded with bolts of cotton cloth, hands clasped behind his back, watching a tax clerk writing out a tax certificate for the shipowner, and said with an air of indifference.

"Then I'll speak, and I hope Master Zhao won't blame me for meddling. When I went over to deliver the message just now, I noticed that the official vessel sits very deep in the water, as if carrying a great deal of weight. By the usual standard, if it carried only passengers, it could hardly be so heavy! I think—could it be...?"

Xu San had been a hanger-on at the customs house for many years and had developed a pair of sharp, knowing eyes. Though he hadn't spelled it out, his meaning was plain enough: the official vessel flying the banner of the Yangzhou Prefect was hauling cargo—and no small amount of it.

Zhao Fangzhi's heart stirred at these words.

Official vessels and grain boats carrying smuggled goods on the side—this was far too commonplace. Customs officials generally turned a blind eye and let such things pass, since offending people over official business wasn't worth it.

But by Xu San's account, this vessel didn't seem to be a matter of merely carrying smuggled goods on the side—it was using an official vessel outright for commercial transport. Such cases had occurred before, but they were quite rare, and as luck would have it, he had run into one today. What was he to do?

After pondering for a moment, Zhao Fangzhi decided to let the matter pass while feigning ignorance. After all, the other party was a fourth-rank high official. Though he had no connection to him, mountains turn and waters flow—who knew if the man might one day become his superior. There was no need to offend anyone over official business, and besides, the court was hardly short of this bit of tax silver.

Just as he was about to open his mouth and order the vessel released, Xu San at his side suddenly spoke in a low voice: "Master Zhao, on this canal, besides our Huai'an Customs House, there are seven more major gates all the way to the capital. Letting this one pass is no trouble for us—but if by some chance one of those customs superintendents takes the matter seriously and investigates, and the court comes down on us, you might catch the blame, sir!"

Xu San had pulled strings through several layers of connections to become Zhao Fangzhi's personal attendant. If anything happened to Zhao Fangzhi that forced him from his post, Xu San would lose his rice bowl along with him.

The post of inspector's personal attendant was a lucrative one, equivalent to a leader's personal secretary in later times. On many occasions the inspector did not personally issue orders to the probe hands, tax clerks, and laborers under him, but directed them through his attendant instead.

Nor did the inspector personally follow and watch every vessel while on duty—with so many merchant boats, he couldn't keep track of them all. Generally the probe hands and tax clerks worked in small teams, each boarding vessels to inspect cargo and levy taxes, and the inspector would instruct his attendant to supervise those subordinates in his place. On certain occasions, the attendant would seize the chance to collude with the probe hands and tax clerks in taking bribes from merchants, then underreport a vessel's draft and the quantity and value of its cargo, so that the merchant vessel could pay less commercial tax.

Xu San's words suddenly brought Zhao Fangzhi to his senses.

The post of canal customs inspector was a lucrative one—a classic position of low rank but great power and abundant grease. The high officials at court were well aware of this, which was why important posts like inspector were never held for long; generally one was replaced within two years at most, to prevent the phenomenon of petty officials committing enormous graft.

But even so, after two years as inspector, besides normal income such as salary and out-of-capital allowances, one's gray income was considerable. Accepting bribes from the large merchants who plied the canal regularly was standard practice, and in return, the inspector would show leniency in the measurement of those big merchants' vessels.

But now, not only did the eight customs houses have Ministry of Revenue officials, but last year Embroidered Uniform Guard officers and river patrol censors had also been added—and these people were aimed squarely at the Ministry of Revenue officials. Ordinarily, the Embroidered Uniform Guard squad leader at each customs house had men watching the tax collection. It just so happened that these past two days the squad leader at the Huai'an Great Gate seemed to have some official business, and the platoon leader had taken most of the guards to Linqing, leaving only a few guards to mind the house—which was why he felt somewhat more at ease.

Ever since Zhu Youjian had decided to levy commercial taxes on the canal, the Embroidered Uniform Guard and river patrol censors had arrived one after another to strengthen oversight of the customs houses.

Though no customs officials had yet been punished for bribery as far as he had heard, quite a number of the former inspectors, tax clerks, and probe hands at the various customs houses had been arrested, ending in ruined families, lost fortunes, and utter ruin.

If this official vessel with its obvious signs of smuggling slipped through under his watch, only to be caught further along, he would certainly be in for trouble.

But neither did he need to personally offend anyone. Better to have someone else investigate the matter. If those above offered promotion or reward, he could still claim a share of the credit; and if the matter fizzled out, he would lose nothing.

With this in mind, Zhao Fangzhi gave his order: "Xu San, quietly pass the word to slow down the inspection pace. Then report this matter to the Embroidered Uniform Guard at once!"