Chapter 282: A Disgrace to Refined Culture

Salt is a very interesting thing.

The common people's standard of living can be high or low; even herders can be self-sufficient in other respects, but salt alone is the exception — it cannot be self-supplied.

Salt is something people need to sustain life. Any government office must control the salt-producing regions — this is a truth even the tusi chieftains understand.

But on the other hand, each person's need for salt is not large; a few jin a year is enough for daily needs. So the common people are not as sensitive to changes in the price of salt as they are to changes in grain prices, and hidden within this lies enormous profit.

Because of this characteristic, salt became an excellent pillar of tax revenue for the imperial court.

In the Ming dynasty, the salt tax was the second-largest source of revenue, second only to the grain tax.

And in the Tang dynasty, the salt tax reforms after the An Lushan Rebellion made salt tax revenue account for half of total tax income.

Liu Chengzong had never dealt with these matters before and did not understand them, but Yang Dingrui was very clear on these things.

From the imperial court's perspective, taxation is a necessity, and it needs to collect more. But how to shear the most wool while hearing the fewest bleats from the sheep — that is progress.

Yang Dingrui did not consider the reforms Liu Chengzong was about to carry out in the seven counties of Kangning Prefecture to be progress. Although he intended to grant slaves the treatment of free men and distribute land to them, this could at best be called good deeds by a good man.

To grit one's teeth and endure hardship oneself in order to secure benefits for others — well, isn't that just good deeds by a good man?

Yang Dingrui believed the progress Liu Chengzong needed to make was not to be a good man, but to establish a progressive court.

In the past, in northern Shaanxi, being a good man was enough. Distributing seized land or grain to others could win the following of poor commoners and starving soldiers, sweeping people along to fight wars, living day by day — at the time, that was correct.

But having arrived here, with a stable territory, the question of long-term peace and order must be considered.

"Salt and iron must be state monopolies, and I also believe this is not yet the time to promote paper currency on a large scale," Yang Dingrui said. "Our silver reserves are too small. Promoting paper currency now could rake in a quick profit, but it would do no good for long-term peace and order."

Yang Dingrui smiled as he spoke. "When our silver reserves are larger, we can try promoting Lion notes. After all, to promote a currency, no party — including the government itself — may refuse to accept that currency."

Collecting Lion notes as tax revenue is not a problem; the problem is that our silver reserves are too small.

This truly struck Liu Chengzong as amusing. Just a year ago, when they first arrived at Juer Bay, he had felt smug about sitting on three hundred thousand taels of silver. He never imagined that barely a year later, three hundred thousand taels of silver would be worth nothing at all.

The main reason was that the western campaign had swept up too many troops. If it were only the two main battalions of the Liu brothers, this sum should have been enough to pay five years of military wages.

Now, once Yang Dingrui explained it, Liu Chengzong immediately understood where the timing issue for the currency lay.

A currency's reserves and credit are both indispensable. Without reserves, the currency cannot withstand risk; and without credit, the common people will not be willing to use it.

The cautionary tale of the Great Ming's treasure notes is right there — first, no reserves; second, taxes could not be paid with treasure notes.

The problem now facing Liu Chengzong was the same. He needed reserves, and tax collection needed to accept notes. But if everything collected was in notes, with silver reserves unchanged, the notes would sooner or later be over-issued.

What he faced was not merely the ten-thousand-strong army at Juer Bay, but at least two hundred thousand commoners within his domain — and this number would only grow with the time he controlled this land.

A myriad of tasks, all had to begin from this point.

Yang Dingrui said, "And establishing a salt law can solve another problem — the problem of transporting silver from north to south. As long as we control the salt fields here, we can turn salt into silver. We make the common people prosperous, and the common people can pay us more taxes. This is the key to progress."

"That is a good method. The several salt fields around Nangqian are all in my hands now. Once the regulations are properly set, work can begin immediately."

Liu Chengzong raised a hand. "But we must calculate the wages for the salt-drying workers properly."

The salt fields of Kangning Prefecture were concentrated in Nangqian County. This salt made Nangqian the largest market in the surrounding area, but it did not make the King of Nangqian wealthy.

Because the several large salt fields in the area were all formerly under the name of Genbang Monastery. The only salt field not belonging to monks had its headman pay a little extra tribute to the King of Nangqian each year — it was very difficult for this to bring about a qualitative change in wealth.

In any case, it was quite strange. Clearly sitting on the largest salt-producing region in the area, it neither enriched the rulers, and the salt was still sold quite expensively, nor did it bring real benefit to the common people.

"Wages?"

Yang Dingrui stroked his chin, realizing the matter was not simple. "How did they calculate wages before? Was it a private salt field that paid a salt tax, or a government-run salt field that sold salt to the outside?"

Liu Chengzong shook his head. "There was no salt tax. The ones boiling the salt were not commoners but slaves. Their annual wage was three hundred and sixty-five zanba."

Yang Dingrui grimaced, lowered his head, and scratched the edge of his hairline, his face full of puzzlement. "That shouldn't be. Even Tibet doesn't do things this way."

"Nangqian has only four thousand households of commoners, of which over two thousand are slave households, and over a thousand are impoverished people with no surplus grain to store. There's no need for large-scale salt production."

Liu Shizi spread his hands. "Naturally, there was no need to consider salt laws. Just set a price casually and sell it. If you can afford it, eat it; if not, go home and eat bland food. And for the local serfs, working at the salt field boiling salt was a very happy job."

Yang Dingrui felt extremely puzzled by this. On his way here, he had seen many common people coming to pay their respects, all well-dressed and well-supplied. The region was orderly, very quiet and peaceful, matched with the breathtakingly beautiful snowy mountain scenery. All along the journey, he felt that aside from the sparse population, everything else was quite good.

How was it that now, from what Liu Shizi said, a single zanba a day at the salt field was considered a very happy job — like hell on earth?

When he voiced his confusion, he saw Liu Chengzong shake his head with a face full of emotion. "The quiet and peace you saw on your way in is because, on the road into Kangning Prefecture, the slaves from every domain were conscripted by me and taken off to war. On this land, some people enjoy the greatest blessings under heaven, while others endure the deepest suffering in the world."

"Sir, let me tell you a story — about slaves, and about salt."

Liu Chengzong sat on the edge of the bed, one leg crossed, leaning against the kang table. "Basan was a serf. One day, a deity manifested and bestowed upon Basan many things: a large chunk of stewed lamb, fat and lean intermingled; a big stack of sheepskins; a bag of white sugar; several bags of highland barley flour; and a block of salt the size of a watermelon. Guess what happened?"

Yang Dingrui chuckled. "This Basan had good fortune. Eating stewed lamb dipped in white sugar, wrapped in sheepskins, carrying highland barley flour on his back, and hugging a salt brick home — a good thing."

"He couldn't be bothered to eat the meat. He threw himself onto the salt brick and licked it. After licking it, he had someone wrap it up for him, to be sent to Nangqian for his wife to lick."

Liu Chengzong rapped his knuckles twice on the kang table, fixed his gaze steadily on Yang Dingrui, and slowly shook his head. "This story is true. There was no deity. This was the reward I gave Basan the day after I led the army to Danba."

Yang Dingrui said nothing. This matter exceeded his understanding of the normal world. Several times he wanted to speak, his face full of bewilderment for a long while before he finally asked, "Why would he do that? Even without eating salt, it shouldn't be to this extent!"

"There is a difference between your understanding and his."

Liu Chengzong said this expressionlessly, then raised a thumb toward himself. "I know that if I go a few days without salt, I'll turn into a weakling. At that point, I need to eat some salt to return to normal. But for him, it is not so."

"He thinks salt is a kind of divine medicine, that eating it will make him stronger... Does sir understand where the difference lies?"

Yang Dingrui fell silent.

Liu Shizi ate salt regularly; it was only the experience of running out of grain as a soldier that taught him that without salt, he would become weak and powerless.

Basan did not eat salt; the few times he had eaten salt taught him that eating salt greatly increased his strength.

And Yang Dingrui knew nothing of all this. His life had never lacked salt; at times he even found the cook at the Yan'an Prefecture office made the dishes too salty.

This made him silent for a long while before he finally spoke. "Originally, I wanted to give you the labor service regulations that Fourth Master and I compiled, but now it seems that won't do. And the salt law — for now, forget everything I said."

Liu Chengzong asked, "Why?"

"Assign me an interpreter. I learned some Western Tibetan speech from the tribal soldiers at Juer Bay and Sun-Moon Mountain, but when some words are spoken quickly, I still can't understand. Are there still slaves like you described in Nangqian, or must I go to Makang County?"

Yang Dingrui said, "I plan to eat and live together with the slaves for a period. They are the largest group among the common people, and for this set of regulations, the laws must be tailored to local conditions."

"Eat and live together? There's a salt field to the southeast. The headman there is still reasonably obedient; I haven't moved against him yet."

As Liu Chengzong spoke, an image involuntarily formed in his mind of the jinshi scholar squatting beneath a ladder, stuffing zanba into his mouth. He quickly shook his head. "Forget it, go to Makang instead. Basan's military camp is a bit better, though the food is still lacking. You can ask them about their former lives."

Yang Dingrui, however, grew stubborn. Shaking his head, he said, "No, I'll go to the salt field. It's a perfect chance to see what's going on with them!"

"No, no, no!" Liu Chengzong waved his hands. "Sir, just go as a guest — be an honored visitor, let the headman wait on you, see it with your own eyes, ask a few questions, that's enough. Eat and live alongside them? You couldn't endure that kind of hardship."

Yang Dingrui rose proudly. "Grand Marshal, those words show far too little regard for your teacher. I, Yang Xingzhuang, have endured twenty years of bitter study by a cold window — what hardship is there that I cannot stomach?"

That was an absolute statement. Studying, his goddamn mother — that counts as hardship?

Perhaps for Yang Dingrui, twenty years sharpening a single blade, unsheathed to pass the imperial exam and become a prefectural vice-magistrate of the principal fifth rank — in one leap, standing above a hundred thousand men.

Maybe in his eyes that blade was not especially sharp, nor entirely satisfying, and those years of bitter study by a cold window became the greatest hardship he had ever endured in his life.

But for Liu Chengzong, the happiest time in his life had been those twelve years of study and learning.

Compared to being a household retainer at Fish River Fort, bitter study by a cold window was worth a fart!

Though Yang Dingrui wore spectacles and had a strong literati air, Liu Chengzong knew his teacher's heart was also exceedingly firm. He could not stop what the man was set on doing, so he sent a verbal message to the salt-field headman, telling him to let Yang Dingrui go work there for a few days and take a look around.

In truth, he had a premonition in his heart: this would surely end with Yang Dingrui unhappy, and the local headman who had been so carefully obliging would be uncomfortable too.

But he never imagined that Yang Dingrui would only last three days.

That salt field was called Bairi, ninety li from the Nangqian Modesty Palace, surrounded on all sides by forest.

Bairi means monkey. Legend has it that long ago, monkeys in the forest would often gather in one spot, lick the spring water, and then leave. Later, people discovered the spring water had a salty taste, and when mixed into food it tasted very good, so they established a salt field there.

All the salt from Nangqian's salt fields came from spring water, so unlike the lake salt of Chaka and Shanxi, this was spring salt — though it still required brine evaporation under the sun, much the same in essentials while differing in minor points.

The journey there took a day. He stayed the night nearby, spent the second day looking around, slept another night, and on the third day worked a full day's labor. That night he mounted a horse and raced back toward Nangqian through the night.

By the time he reached Nangqian it was already early morning. He rushed frantically into the third floor of the manor, startling Fan Sanlang, who was keeping night watch in the hall, so badly that her face drained of color and she nearly pulled the trigger.

Liu Chengzong was woken from his dreams. Still groggy, he heard Yang Dingrui saying he wanted to raise two hundred royal troops and raze Bairi to the ground.

In a flash, Liu Chengzong was fully alert. Rage surged from his heart, all drowsiness gone — someone dared to bully his teacher?

He asked, "What happened?"

Yang Dingrui's account gradually quelled Liu Chengzong's fury, and instead left him and Fan Sanlang sitting in the hall, both struggling to suppress their laughter.

The Bairi headman — Liu Chengzong had met him. He had lost a hand protecting Gama's older brother during the war, a very honest and simple middle-aged man.

The trouble was precisely that he was too honest and simple.

For any normal person, when the Grand Marshal of Qinghai's teacher says he wants to observe this salt field, eat and live with the slaves, and do the same work as them — wouldn't that mean raising the status of all the slaves? Let them all eat a little better, live a little better.

That was exactly what Liu Chengzong had been thinking. He had long been mentally prepared anyway — even if the Bairi headman had served him well, Yang Dingrui would certainly have cried out against the injustice done to the slaves, and the Bairi headman's territory would absolutely not have been preserved.

But that didn't matter. Liu Chengzong could compensate that headman who was loyal to his old master, send him to Lincong to serve as a circulating official. After all, converting native chieftainships to regular administration was the great trend — those converted early got good treatment, those converted late got fewer benefits.

But the Bairi headman lacked that perceptiveness. He was a headman who was extremely loyal and capable toward his slave-master, not an extremely loyal and capable official.

An extremely loyal official would choose flexibility in handling matters, but an extremely loyal headman would not — he would only carry out his master's orders to the letter, even if he was clever enough to know that carrying out the orders this way would harm himself, he would not hesitate.

Because slaves need only carry out orders; they must not presume to guess the reasons behind the headman's orders. Likewise, a headman must not presume to guess the reasons behind the great king's orders.

In their language, the word gyelpo makes no distinction between king or emperor — it simply means the mightiest man of a land.

So Liu Chengzong was the great king here. If the great king sent his teacher to Bairi to be a slave, then a slave he would be.

Yang Dingrui arrived the morning of the first day, toured the manor, saw all kinds of treasures the Bairi headman had collected, who hoped he would take whatever caught his eye.

At the banquet, they served sandwiched beef and gold-and-silver black-thread cakes, drank a cup of sweet fermented oats, and slept on a bed spread with camel down, with two girls, scrubbed fragrant and fair-skinned, prepared at the bedside.

That night, he was the most honored guest of the Bairi salt field.

But when he woke, everything had changed. He was roughly stripped of all his clothes, shackled bare-assed with ankle chains and tethered by a lock chain, and driven stumbling toward the salt field along with countless slaves.

They could not wear clothes — clothes would carry away the master's salt water.

To be precise: they were women.

Those who worked at the salt field were all women. Yang Dingrui was the only man. Everyone was naked, and Yang Dingrui was the whitest one in the crowd, so white he glowed.

He would never forget that day, under a sun that scorched faces red, when he stood like a white bamboo shoot, deeply rooted in the salt pan, not daring to move.

That day, he endured a full day of the overseer's long whip slashing down hard — not for the sake of drying salt, but just to cover the swaying wind chime between his legs.