Chapter 495: Financial Crisis

"Commandery Governor, the commandery's money and grain are already stretched to the breaking point!"

At the end of the third month, Heifu had just finished his leave and returned to the commandery office to work. The moment he stepped through the door, the Gold and Cloth Section Clerk in charge of finances began pouring out his woes to him.

The Gold and Cloth Section was the department in a Qin commandery that specialized in managing finances. The Section Clerk was named Ku Fu. From the first meeting Heifu had with him, this man wore a bitter expression. Every time Heifu wanted to do something and had the finance department release funds, Ku Fu's face grew even more unsightly.

This sour-faced man counted off on his fingers, listing item by item: "After the Commandery Governor took office, first he established the Academy and gave scholarships to disciples who excelled in examinations. Then he built public latrines everywhere to prepare for promoting the methods of composting and fermenting fertilizer next year. There are also matters like constructing the paper-making workshop, waterwheels, water-powered trip hammers, and many other projects... My Lord, you have only been in office for two months, yet the things you have done are more than what the previous Commandery Governor did in five years combined!"

Hearing this, Heifu did not know whether to laugh or cry. Since when was getting things done a fault?

Ku Fu continued: "That would be one thing, but now we must also repair roads, build a traveling palace, construct docks, and make boats. My Lord, do you think the commandery's gold, cloth, coin, and grain are inexhaustible?"

Listening to this fellow's words, it was clear he very much wanted to cut out more than half of Heifu's plans!

Heifu was driven to exasperation by his words, but his attitude remained resolute:

"The funds for the traveling palace come from the Privy Treasury. Xianyang has already agreed that Jiaodong may redirect the market taxes from salt, iron, mountains, and marshes that were originally due to the Privy Treasury toward constructing the traveling palace. As for the docks and boats, these are long-term plans and cannot be delayed either."

The roads and traveling palace were preparations for Qin Shi Huang's eastern inspection tour in the summer and autumn. Jimo, Zhifu, Chengshan — at least three sites were needed, right? These had to be built, costing an estimated 3 million coins. Widening and repairing the roads would also require 2 million coins.

As Heifu thought about it, the Zhuang and Yue streets in Linzi alone could generate 5 million coins in market taxes within a single month... Even if Jiaodong was worse off, its annual market tax should still reach that amount, right?

As for the docks and boats, that was an idea of Heifu's: to open a road from Jimo City to Jiaozhou Bay, preparing for the future development of that area and turning the currently desolate Jiaozhou Bay into a new fishing harbor. This plan would probably require about 1.5 million coins...

Ku Fu, however, raised his neck, throwing caution to the wind: "Jiaodong was never wealthy to begin with. Even if the Commandery Governor kills me now, this lowly clerk still cannot produce any more money!"

Heifu also grew angry. He summoned Chen Ping on the spot and ordered him to take men and audit the accounts of the Gold and Cloth Section.

One does not know until one investigates, and the investigation gave him a shock. Ku Fu's complaints were truly not false. On the financial books of Jiaodong Commandery, only 5 million coins remained! Of that, 3 million were intended to be handed over to the Privy Treasury.

So, by calculation, the actual usable funds Heifu had on hand were only 2 million coins...

The Qin dynasty had its own institutions. The central finances were divided between the Superintendent of Agriculture and the Privy Treasury, which respectively managed public finances and the imperial household's finances. Among these, the land tax, the head tax on adults, and income from fines all belonged to the Superintendent of Agriculture.

Meanwhile, income from mountains, marshes, parks, and enclosures; the salt and iron monopoly; as well as taxes on artisans and merchants; customs duties; and the poll tax paid by children aged 7 to 14 all had to be handed over to the Privy Treasury.

These funds and grains were collected locally. Two-thirds were retained for the commandery and county finances, while the remaining one-third was separately handed over to the Superintendent of Agriculture and the Privy Treasury.

Beidi, where Heifu had previously stayed, was a poor commandery. Its income could not cover its expenses, and every year it needed large subsidies of coin and grain from the central government just to pay the salaries of soldiers and minor officials.

Jiaodong was different. It had the benefits of mountains and sea and a large population. Considered across the whole realm, it was a developed region. Its finances should be overflowing with wealth — they should not be in such difficulty!

Heifu calculated: although he had stirred up many things in these two months, it had only cost two or three million, right? How could such a large deficit have appeared?

"Could it be that someone has been embezzling?!"

But Ku Fu also came from Guanzhong and had a clean record. When Chen Ping audited the accounts, he found no problems either. Ku Fu even found every single expenditure of the year, one by one, and laid them out all over Heifu's desk.

"Jiaodong is far from being as wealthy as the Commandery Governor imagines."

Ku Fu explained the true situation: "By all reason, Jiaodong has 130,000 households. Even if each household only paid the land tax on 10 mu, that would be over 2 million shi of grain, equivalent to 60 million coins! But in reality, the land tax is only 1 million shi. After handing two-thirds to the Grain Superintendent, the commandery retains only 300,000 shi. After paying the officials' salaries and providing rations for the commandery troops and the guard posts, there is practically nothing left."

This was a major problem. Heifu guessed the reason: "Could the land tax be so low because of concealed fields and hidden households?"

"Exactly!"

Ku Fu clapped his hands and said: "The Commandery Governor should know that in winter, His Majesty issued an edict ordering the common people east of the Pass to self-report their fields."

"Why self-report? The root cause is that in many places, the government offices simply cannot extend beyond the county seat. They can only control the area around the county town. The more distant villages and hamlets are completely beyond their reach!"

Heifu nodded. Language barriers, hostility from the common people, and powerful clans and village officials concealing things from above and below — these were all reasons why Qin rule east of the Pass found it difficult to reach the lower levels as it did west of the Pass and in Nan Commandery.

Imperial power could hardly reach down into the villages. That being the case, for the government to take the initiative and measure the actual acreage of each household's fields became an impossibility. In order to collect at least some tax, they had no choice but to take a step back and let the common people report voluntarily.

People all seek advantage and avoid harm. The people of Jiaodong, taking advantage of the fact that Qin officials could not penetrate deeply into the countryside, would report 100 mu of land as 50 mu, and 50 mu as 30 mu, in order to evade heavy taxes.

As a result, the annual tax and levy collected was nowhere near what was imagined. And in this process of collecting taxes layer by layer upward, who knew how much the local magnates and village officials skimmed off in between? In the end, all the blame was heaped onto the heads of the Qin officials, leading to a universal psychology of hatred for Qin...

Heifu asked again: "If the land tax is like this, what about the salt industry?"

Ku Fu said: "The ancients had a saying: Chu had the gold of Ru and Han, Qi had the salt of Quchan, and Yan had the boiling of Liaodong. These three states were considered wealthy because of this. This salt of Quchan is right here in Jiaodong! Where the Wei River enters the sea."

"It is said that at its peak, the people of Qi boiled the sea for salt and could obtain 200,000 shi in a single year! Of that, 100,000 shi came from Jiaodong!"

Heifu calculated. Over 100,000 shi of salt was not a small amount. At one shi of salt per person, the people of Jiaodong could not possibly consume it all. Most could be sold externally. Converted into coin, that was also over 20 million — a major part of Jiaodong's finances.

But Ku Fu informed Heifu of a shocking fact: "Although Jiaodong has been a commandery for five years and has taken the salt and iron industries under government ownership, the result is that the salt produced each year has decreased year by year. Now it is only 50,000 shi..."

Thus, the income from the salt industry had also sharply declined. Searching for the reasons, the first was that the official monopoly on salt and iron had become a state-owned enterprise. The salt workers had all lost their motivation and just muddled along.

The second was that piracy along the coast was severe, and anti-Qin forces were active frequently, affecting the operation of the salt fields.

The third was that along Jiaodong's long coastline, there were still many powerful nobles and salt smugglers engaged in the boiling and selling of private salt! These people colluded with officials internally and banded with pirates externally — another chronic ailment of Jiaodong.

The land tax and the salt tax, Jiaodong's two main sources of fiscal revenue, were both being siphoned off. It was no wonder the government treasury had no money and no grain.

After clarifying the whole matter, Heifu sank into deep thought. For now, although he had won over the intellectuals and stabilized the farmers near the commandery city, he was still far from controlling the entire commandery.

This was not something that could be solved by making a few inventions. The entire administrative framework was flawed. Not just Jiaodong, but all twenty-odd commanderies east of the Pass were more or less the same...

The Qin dynasty's rule in the east was like a tall building without a solid foundation. A casual fire could burn it down and cause it to collapse, even dragging down the originally sturdy west with it.

"Governing Jiaodong — how difficult it is..."

For a moment, Heifu even secretly regretted it. Had he known this earlier, he might as well have stayed in the blank slate of Helan to farm and fight the Rong and Di barbarians — that would have been easier.

But he quickly rallied his spirits. There were still several years before the great edifice would topple. Whether for the country or for himself, he had to give it a try.

After this, Heifu began to plan with Chen Ping: "The problem of government authority being unable to reach down into the villages — in a few months, when the first batch of public academy disciples complete their training, we must take it county by county, storming and seizing each one!"

"After this matter is resolved, the common people's concealed fields cannot be managed for the time being. We must concentrate our strength and start with the hidden households attached to the various Tian clans. Use this as a pretext to pull them up by the roots."

"Then advance from the inland toward the coast, crack down on private salt, and firmly control the salt industry. In the end, we must even build ships and go out to sea, sweeping away the pirates, seizing the islands they occupy, and subduing the evil waves of Jiaodong!"

These were the things Heifu resolved to accomplish within his term of office. It was truly hellish difficulty.

"If I want to do these things, first, I need an armed force that can confront the various Tian clans head-on. Relying solely on the commandery troops is clearly not enough."

And so, they returned to the original problem: money!

Heifu summoned Ku Fu again and asked him: if the government urgently needed money, what was the fastest method?

Ku Fu tilted his head and thought for a moment, then spat out three words: "Collect the poll tax."

But Heifu shook his head: "That method is no different from drinking poison to quench thirst!"

He had heard Chen Ping say that in the Wei region, some families, unable to pay the poll tax for their children, would strangle the child to death as soon as it was born.

By all reason, 23 coins per person per year does not seem like much. Would it really drive someone to strangle their own flesh-and-blood child to death?

But the reality was not so simple. Unlike the annual land tax, the Qin dynasty's poll tax allowed local authorities to levy additional charges as circumstances dictated, and after being imposed again and again, the amount had long since multiplied several times over the statutory rate, becoming a crushing burden on the Qin commoners.

Hei Fu had spent no small effort placating the Jiaodong Confucian scholars and literati and stabilizing the peasants near the commandery seat. If the poll tax were increased now, all that work would be undone, and the various Tian clans would surely be grinning from ear to ear.

So he rejected the idea and had Chen Ping fetch a map of the entire commandery, then began examining it county by county.

Hei Fu was searching for a place — a place that would be immensely famous in later ages. He knew it was in Jiaodong, but he had no idea of its exact location.

"Zhaoyuan... where in the world is Zhaoyuan?"

Hei Fu remembered that back in school in his previous life, he had a classmate from Zhaoyuan in Shandong who was always bragging about how incredible their gold mines were, going on about how of China's top ten gold mines, five were in Yantai — three of those in Laizhou, and two in Zhaoyuan!

The bragging had been so incessant that Hei Fu had committed it to memory.

"If I can find this gold mine, everything will fall into place..."

Hei Fu's gaze swept back and forth across the northern part of the Jiaodong Peninsula — Huang County, Ye County, and Chui County.

"Is the Commandery Governor searching for... a gold mine?" At that moment, Ku Fu spoke up quietly.

Hei Fu looked at Ku Fu, and in that instant, his sour, bitter face didn't seem quite so hard to look at.

"You know of one?"

Ku Fu said, "Southwest of Huang County, there is a township settlement called Qucheng. Near Qucheng there are mountains, and it is rumored that the mountains yield gold. The locals often pan for it in the streams, but the amount is very meager..."

Inwardly, he sighed. Had this Commandery Governor become so desperate for money that he was grasping at any straw? Since ancient times, the Qi region had never been known for any major gold deposits — otherwise Guan Zhong would hardly have needed to go to such lengths to trade for gold from Chu...

Hei Fu, however, was overjoyed at these words. He gave orders to Ku Fu and Chen Ping: "Put the dock and ship construction on hold for now. First, send men to collect local rumors of gold in every area, and then find a few yin-yang fangshi who know how to read mountains, observe waters, and trace veins!"

After the two men departed on his orders, he paced the room for a moment, then summoned Cao Can. "Go and fetch Liu Ji, who just returned from Chengshan. Tell him that this Commandery Governor has an important assignment for him!"

(End of chapter)