Chapter 528: Governing a Great State Is Like Cooking a Small Fish

As the Governor of Jiaodong Commandery, Heifu was up ahead arranging the itinerary, while the First Emperor's grand procession followed twenty li behind. Just as Zhang Cang was marveling at his first sight of the sea, the First Emperor was at the last pavilion-post by the shore, eating food hastily prepared by the imperial chef.

The First Emperor was no gourmand like Duke Huan of Qi — perhaps due to his weak stomach. With the myriad affairs of the realm weighing on him, his daily schedule was extremely tight, and he habitually ate while working. Often he would become so absorbed in reviewing documents that his soup and dishes would grow cold before he had taken more than a few bites. Now middle-aged, his digestion had gradually worsened, so each meal he ate only a little, with no demand for extravagance or completeness. He had even less interest in the gaudy, fanciful foods that had become fashionable in Guanzhong in recent years, and still kept to tradition: six simple dishes of meat, vegetables, soup, and grain sufficed.

After the receptionist-attendants had finished testing for poison twice — once with silver needles, once with their own lives — the First Emperor took up his chopsticks, lifted a bite of cooked fresh fish to his mouth, and then frowned.

"Too much salt."

The caterer responsible for the imperial meal felt disaster looming and hastily fell to his knees. The cook was also dragged over to beg forgiveness, explaining that although the vessels, cauldrons, and gui-tureens had all been brought from Xianyang, the fish used was local sea fish. Sea fish flesh naturally contains salt, hence the slight excess.

The First Emperor did not fly into a rage. He told the cook to rise and asked him, "The salt you used — was it the Privy Treasury's salt or local salt?"

"It was the Privy Treasury's salt." The cook valued his life dearly; he would never dare use salt of unknown origin!

He added, "The Privy Treasury has two kinds of salt: the green salt from the Huama Pool in the Northern Lands, and the white salt from Anyi. Both are personally obtained by Privy Treasury agents sent to those places and transported back to Xianyang for storage…"

"Of all the salt under heaven, two parts in three come from Qi. Yet why does the Privy Treasury not use Qi salt? Do any of you know?" The First Emperor turned his head and posed this pointed question to his assembled ministers.

The ministers looked at one another, but Zhao Gao, Prefect of the Palace Chariots, who had endured bitter hardship as a child, smiled and said, "Your Majesty, the green salt of the Huama Pool comes from the frontier; its color is finest and its flavor the truest. And Anyi was anciently called Daxia — the salt of Daxia is the perfection of harmony. These two are most fitting for a king's seasoning. Qi may produce much salt, but most of it tastes astringent. If not boiled properly, it even has a scorched, bitter taste. That is salt for commoners and black-headed peasants — how could it enter Your Majesty's mouth?"

"Though it be the food of commoners, it is the greatest profit under heaven."

The First Emperor looked around. "Where is Zhang Cang of the Privy Treasury? Is he not a man of broad learning, and does he not oversee the court's revenues and expenditures? Let him come and explain the empire's salt administration to me."

"Your Majesty, Zhang Cang has gone ahead to the seashore with the Governor of Jiaodong," said Ye Teng, the Commandant of Justice, stepping forward with clasped hands. Li Si had been left behind by the First Emperor in Linzi to oversee the collection and editing of Qi's books, so Ye Teng had become the ranking court official in the retinue. Some said that Chancellor Li had deliberately avoided coming to Jiaodong to observe its governance.

"When I need him, he is absent. When I have no use for him, his voice is loud enough."

The First Emperor was somewhat displeased. He looked at Ye Teng. "I recall you once told me that when you were a minor clerk, you also managed salt and grain. Then let the Commandant of Justice explain it to me in brief."

He was not particular about the person; with a wave of his hand, he bade Ye Teng narrate while he ate.

Ye Teng smiled and said, "Your Majesty, salt seems ordinary enough — we eat it every day. But in truth, it is enough to determine life and death, and the strength or weakness of a state!"

"Oh?" The First Emperor's interest was piqued, and he told Ye Teng to elaborate.

Ye Teng had risen through the ranks on practical governance and understood the hardships of the lower classes well. He began from what he had seen in daily life. People eat salt every day; the nobility take it for granted and sometimes even find it excessive. But for impoverished commoners, whether or not they had salt was a matter of life and death!

"Without salt, one has no strength. One cannot work the fields, and even walking feels utterly enervated. Thus, people cannot do without salt."

Beyond daily needs, preserving vegetables, meat, fish, and the like also relied on salt for pickling. Ye Teng used the two most common foods in Qin — "jiang" and "zu" — as examples.

These two items: one was fermented and pickled soybean mash, an indispensable food for the Qin army on campaign. It was salty enough to choke a person, but a single small dish per meal made dry, coarse millet rice flavorful and satisfying, while also replenishing the salt the Qin soldiers needed to have the strength to carry their spears and halberds. "Zu" was the same — it was pickled vegetables, primarily winter mallow, a common side dish for farming households. Even the sea fish from Qi relied on nearby salt for pickling, which allowed it to be widely sold inland and became the only meat many people could eat all year round…

Salt was so vital that no one could do without it. Yet the greatest problem was that not every region produced salt.

Farming households were largely self-sufficient. Grain they could grow and eat themselves. Cloth they could make by planting hemp, with the women spinning the thread and weaving. Whether for warmth or sustenance, they could solve these needs on their own. But salt was different! You could not grow it in the fields. This made salt the one commodity the common people had to purchase and trade for.

The earliest merchants under heaven were salt merchants! They transported salt from the great salt pools near Anyi to other regions.

Ye Teng said, "Thus, of all goods and commodities under heaven, grain, salt, cloth, iron, copper, and livestock are the most vital!"

He ranked salt second — even more important than cloth!

"And so it was by relying on sea salt that Qi grew rich?" The First Emperor set down his chopsticks.

Ye Teng said, "Indeed. The Yingqiu region of Qi, eight hundred years ago, was largely salt-alkali land, vast in territory but sparsely populated. But Grand Duke Tai of Qi facilitated commerce and industry and exploited the advantages of fish and salt, and so the people flocked to Qi, and Qi thus became a great state. By the time of Duke Huan of Qi, the population was already large. He further employed Guan Zhong's strategy of 'state control of mountains and seas,' making the government monopolize salt and iron. Thus Qi's silk, sashes, garments, and shoes spread throughout the realm, and all between the sea and Mount Tai gathered their sleeves and came to pay court."

He also catered to the Emperor's preferences, omitting the crucial point of "mercantilism" in Qi's prosperity and strength, and emphasizing only the state monopoly on salt and iron.

In Ye Teng's view, Duke Huan of Qi had obtained vast quantities of salt by cutting firewood and boiling brine, then sold it at high prices to the saltless feudal lords of the Central Plains, thereby reaping enormous profits.

"Guan Yiwu said, 'The lord cuts firewood and boils the Ji River, thereby taxing the entire realm!' The meaning is that by boiling the sea and selling salt, everyone under heaven was paying a salt tax to Qi, and Qi grew rich from it."

With ample fiscal revenue, Qi was able to become one of the Five Hegemons of the Spring and Autumn period, assembling the feudal lords nine times and rectifying all under heaven. Without the financial support provided by the salt-driven trade system, how would Duke Huan have had the funds to organize multinational peacekeeping forces, to hold annual feudal summits, to maintain the peace of the Zhou realm, or to establish the new international order of the Spring and Autumn era?

By the time the Tian clan ruled, Qi had always been renowned for its extravagance. Its palaces were several times finer than Qin's. It not only supported the ever-expanding cadet branches of the Tian clan but could also spend vast sums building the Great Dyke and the Qi Long Wall. It frequently waged war abroad and often spent money hiring others to fight. Under these circumstances, it still only levied a tithe on farmers, and the lives of its common people were fairly decent…

All of this was the dividend brought by the export of sea salt!

But now, the times had changed. Qi was destroyed, and the Qin dynasty controlled the seaside salt works. This treasure bowl had fallen into the hands of Qin officials.

"'Governing a great state is like cooking a small fish' — how true these words are."

The First Emperor looked at the unfinished plate of fish and said with sudden understanding, "And in this small dish, besides adding a little grain, the one absolutely indispensable ingredient is salt. Above, it concerns the wealth and strength of the state; below, it touches the food of the common people. Only with this substance can the realm achieve harmonious flavor!"

…

The reason the First Emperor had taken time to come here for a look was simple: the empire's finances were now stretched to the breaking point. Both the Emperor's private purse, the Privy Treasury, and the state treasury, the Superintendent of Grain and Internal Revenue, were utterly destitute. For six years, there had hardly been a year without war. The Mount Li mausoleum, the palaces, the straight roads, the post roads, the five-foot roads, the Long Wall, the military colonies beyond the frontier, the imperial tours and fengshan sacrifices…

In short, there were far too many places requiring money! The court had already been forced to repeatedly increase the poll tax, stirring widespread public resentment. Land tax had already reached 1.5 shi per mu and could not be raised further. Thus, the Emperor, who had spent lavishly in previous years, now had to open his eyes wide and search everywhere for new sources of revenue to sustain his ambitions and his vast empire.

Since Qi had relied on sea salt to generate colossal wealth, why could Qin not do the same?

In the Emperor's eyes, salt was no longer salt — it was white gold!

For this reason, while in Xianyang, the First Emperor had specifically ordered the Privy Treasury to investigate the salt production of the Qi commanderies — Jibei, Linzi, Jiaodong, and Langya. The result nearly made him explode with rage!

Under the Tian Qi, the annual yield from boiling seawater had been over a hundred thousand zhong of salt.

But under Qin management of these salt works, production had shrunk by half, to only fifty or sixty thousand zhong!

The reasons behind this were complex and could not be explained in a few words. In any case, Qin's salt revenue fell far short of the Emperor's expectations. Since the previous year, the First Emperor had repeatedly ordered the coastal commanderies to rectify the situation, but the results were barely satisfactory. He had dispatched Heifu to Jiaodong not only because it lay along his eastern inspection route, but also with the aim of having Heifu find a way to manage the local salt administration.

And today was the day the Emperor would inspect the results. Although he had heard some reports, and Heifu had mentioned in passing that the results were promising and that next year's output would double, some things were still best verified with one's own eyes.

With this in mind, the First Emperor swiftly finished his morning meal and was about to order the procession to set off again toward the salt works at the mouth of the Wei River, where Heifu had already arranged everything and was awaiting his inspection…

But before he could board the carriage, the court gentleman Zhao Cheng — Zhao Gao's younger brother — who was in charge of security, came to report that several li from the pavilion-post, Jiaodong commandery troops had been discovered in a dispute with a few individuals.

Zhao Cheng knelt and said, "Your servant observed that these men were acting suspiciously and suspected they might be assassins, so I went over to question them. After thorough interrogation, they claimed to be fangshi of Jiaodong Commandery, with grievances to report to Your Majesty…"

"If they have grievances, there are local magistrates and assistant magistrates to handle them. What use is it coming to me?"

The First Emperor cast a cold glance at Zhao Cheng. In Qin, legal cases were heard level by level; unless a convict appealed for a retrial, one could not bypass the hierarchy and report upward! The Emperor reviewed the written records of important cases and only occasionally intervened in judicial matters — such as when the First Emperor spared Zhao Gao from execution…

Zhao Cheng hastily said, "But those fangshi claim that they originally wished to present their arcane arts so that Your Majesty might attain longevity, yet they were obstructed by the Governor of Jiaodong!"

"Oh?"

Attaining longevity — this was a deep-seated preoccupation of the First Emperor. Upon hearing this, his brow furrowed, but he still did not go out to meet them. Instead, he looked at Ye Teng, the Commandant of Justice.

"Commandant of Justice, go with the local magistrate and assistant magistrate to hear them out, then submit the written record for my perusal."

Ye Teng solemnly accepted the order and departed. Half a ke later, he returned with the assistant magistrate of Xiami County and submitted the written record.

The First Emperor did not open it, but asked, "What are those fangshi accusing?"

Ye Teng smiled wryly and said, "Three fangshi accuse the Governor of Jiaodong of falsely transmitting Your Majesty's edict and deceiving them."

"They said that the Governor of Jiaodong, Heifu, posted notices in every county a few months ago, saying he wished to recruit fangshi of Jiaodong to cultivate strange and wondrous arts and present them to His Majesty, and he hoped the fangshi would report to the commandery office."

"The fangshi believed it to be true and went to Jimo. Who could have guessed that the Governor of Jiaodong would treat them as convicts and bond-servants, either sending them into mountain hollows to search for ore veins, or exiling them to the seashore to toil at hard labor all day, exposed to wind and sun... It was only a few days ago that these fangshi were released and allowed to return, their skin already peeled from sunburn. They feel they were deceived by the Governor of Jiaodong, and hearing that the Sage Son of Heaven is on an eastern tour, they have come to cry out their grievances..."

The assembled ministers looked at one another. Zhao Cheng was somewhat smug; if he had not asked that extra question, those three Jiaodong fangshi would have been blocked by the commandery soldiers. He wanted to wink at his elder brother Zhao Gao to claim credit, but was instead met with a fierce glare from Zhao Gao!

"Fool!" This was Zhao Gao's inner thought.

Meanwhile, fangshi such as Lu Sheng and Han Zhong exchanged glances. A few fangshi who did not know the truth wanted to speak, but were stopped by Lu Sheng shaking his head...

The First Emperor was first taken aback, then suddenly burst into loud laughter. Heifu had mentioned this matter a few days ago, but the First Emperor had not paid it much mind at the time. He never expected it to be recounted like this by those fangshi.

"Excellent! My Governor of Jiaodong has actually acted in such a manner. Detain those fangshi and bring them along to the seashore. I shall see for myself exactly what 'strange and wondrous arts' Heifu has had them tinkering with!"

PS: Tomorrow's update will be in the evening. No need to keep refreshing in the morning and afternoon.

(End of chapter)