prosperous age

"Uncle, you should be careful with snuff. Although the Imperial Hospital has not found it to be harmful to the body, I think it may just be that the harm is relatively slow, so it cannot be detected."

When Wei Guangde saw Zhang Juzheng taking snuff, he quickly reminded him.

“I know that external stimulants are not good, but I often feel tired lately, and I can’t do without them.”

Zhang Juzheng gave a wry smile, then said seriously, "What you just said makes sense to me."

Back when we were at Prince Yu's Mansion, we would sit in that small courtyard where we studied, discussing current affairs and expressing our opinions with great enthusiasm. What a scholarly spirit we had!

It's a pity that he only realized how complicated things were in the court when he actually reached the position of Grand Secretary Yan.

Every little detail, every aspect, has far-reaching consequences; one must be cautious and prudent in everything one does.

"hehe."

Wei Guangde chuckled softly.

Back around the fortieth year of the Jiajing reign, Gao Gong returned to the Prince Yu's residence and chatted with them, still criticizing Yan Shifan for selling official positions and for protecting corrupt officials.

At the time, they had a very simple idea: they thought that as long as the law was strictly enforced, corrupt officials would be afraid and wouldn't dare to continue.

But reality is not so simple. Corruption in the Ming Dynasty was rampant and seemed to have no end.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said these past few days: what if we also gave salaries to those with honorary titles and those without official titles, and then the government also gave salaries to all positions in the government offices.”

Is it truly effective in preventing corruption when officials, especially their own staff, are required to pay their own salaries?

Zhang Juzheng asked the question.

"Ok?"

Wei Guangde was slightly stunned when he heard Zhang Juzheng's words. He realized that Zhang Juzheng had also been thinking about the matter of raising the salaries of Ming Dynasty officials.

Well, if this were to succeed, it would be a groundbreaking event for the Ming Dynasty's system, essentially reversing the prevailing opinion that ancestral rules were inviolable.

Zhang Juzheng was indeed bold. Wei Guangde only dared to mention it, but might not dare to do it, while Zhang Juzheng was already considering whether to do it.

He's definitely a man of action.

Wei Guangde sighed inwardly, thinking that such a person was almost pulled out of his coffin and beaten in the end, which was truly a pity.

"High salaries may not necessarily eliminate corruption."

When asked about Zhang Juzheng, Wei Guangde thought for a moment and then replied, “During the Song Dynasty, there was also a policy of ‘generous salaries to encourage integrity,’ but corruption still occurred frequently. This once proved that there was no direct causal relationship between ‘generous salaries’ and ‘connections.’”

Upon hearing this, Zhang Juzheng nodded slightly.

The Song Dynasty was famous for its high-salary system, but the high salaries did not lead to a clean government. People often use this to refute the effectiveness of high salaries for civil servants in preventing corruption.

How high were the salaries of officials in the Song Dynasty?
It must be admitted that the basic salary of Ming Dynasty officials was not high, but the various fixed welfare subsidies added up to a considerable sum of money.

Take Bao Zheng, the mayor of Kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, as an example. His main salary is reflected in the "Official Records" of the History of the Song Dynasty: 30 shi of grain per month, 1,500 guan of "official expenses" and 100 guan of "additional expenses" per month.

In addition, Bao Gong also held the title of Academician of the Longtu Pavilion, which granted him an extra 20 hectares of farmland allocated by the imperial court free of charge, with an annual income of 2,000 shi (a unit of dry measure).

If all these things were converted into copper coins, Bao Gong's annual income would be approximately 20,000 strings of cash.

One string of copper coins was roughly equivalent to one tael of silver in the Ming Dynasty, even when calculated in copper coins.

Bao Gong's annual salary of 20,000 taels of silver was equivalent to or even exceeded the salary of a prince in the Ming Dynasty. This was his actual salary, without any deductions.

If you think Bao Gong is too high-ranking, let's change it to a lower-ranking one, like a county magistrate.

In the Song Dynasty, a county magistrate's monthly income was 80 taels of silver, while Song Jiang, the clerk in "Water Margin," was the captain of the county's economic crime investigation team and the director of the tax bureau. His total monthly income was about 20 taels of silver.

According to actual prices, the salary of a county magistrate in the Song Dynasty exceeded that of a first-rank official in the same dynasty, and the income of Song Jiang, a low-ranking official, was comparable to that of a fifth-rank official in the Ming Dynasty.

If we take into account the exchange rate, it would be roughly equivalent to the level of a third-rank official.

Therefore, the salaries in the Ming Dynasty seem to be no match for those in the Song Dynasty.

We envy others because we can't achieve what they have.

Wei Guangde was like that.

If the salaries of officials in the Ming Dynasty were high, they probably wouldn't have engaged in commerce; they could have just enjoyed eating and drinking, and lent out their surplus money to earn interest permitted by the Ming law.

Alternatively, investing in real estate in Beijing and making money through rentals is also a good option.

"Since generous salaries cannot eliminate corruption, why bother trying?"

Zhang Juzheng then said.

"Brother Uncle, a high salary does not necessarily foster integrity, but a meager salary certainly does not foster integrity."

Wei Guangde smiled bitterly, “If people can’t even support themselves, who can be at ease being an official? The court has given the job of supporting three shifts of yamen runners to the officials. Even an upright person will eventually succumb to this environment without realizing it.”

"As long as you manipulate the miscellaneous taxes a little, money is easily within your grasp."

The formation of group corruption in the Ming Dynasty was actually caused by Zhu Yuanzhang's low wages.

Those who passed the imperial examinations and entered officialdom were immediately overwhelmed by the pressures of life.

An official's meager legitimate income is barely enough to make ends meet; how can they possibly socialize?
Upon further reflection, it becomes clear that the system has become a breeding ground for corruption, so why not just jump right in and let everyone work together and embezzle together?

Even the most upright or timid scholars gradually succumbed to corruption and became part of the corrupt clique.

"The current situation in the country is that local officials rely on the power of the government to exploit the people, and even collude with local gentry to shift taxes onto others."

Local officials, on the other hand, embezzled public funds by imposing miscellaneous taxes and engaging in corrupt practices.

At the level of the imperial court, funds were constantly being siphoned off from public funds for personal enrichment, creating a bottom-up corruption that ultimately led to systemic corruption within the bureaucracy.

Wei Guangde continued, "Brother Shuda arranged for various places to submit their applications for positions in the government offices today. Perhaps he is willing, but he has not yet made a real decision."

To be honest, the salaries of minor officials can't be too low; they're barely enough to support their families. Maintaining the current salary for county magistrates is even worse. If we can't increase their pay, the local area will definitely descend into chaos.

"The Single Whip Law and the increase in salaries were implemented together, and the salaries of county officials were also paid at the same time."

"What you say makes sense. A meager salary cannot foster integrity. If the soil for corruption is not even established, how can we expect officials to be honest and dedicated to their duties?" Zhang Juzheng may have been placing greater emphasis on a series of reforms in his mind, and had basically made up his mind to take advantage of the opportunity of the great increase in the national treasury after the land survey to do this as well.

While it may not completely eliminate corruption, it at least provides fertile ground for all those entering officialdom to choose whether or not to be corrupt.

At the very least, the salaries paid by the imperial court should be sufficient to ensure that officials can live a decent life.

As for the unspoken rules that have long been established, they can only be dealt with little by little, slowly.

Having such a place to go for the increased tax revenue is better than having it siphoned off by lower-level officials through various pretexts.

In fact, with the land survey nearing its end, Zhang Juzheng had high hopes for next year's tax revenue.

However, judging from Wei Guangde's several attempts to increase the court's revenue, expenditures also increased significantly after the increase in revenue, sometimes even exceeding the increase in income. Instead of creating a surplus, the situation worsened.

Wei Guangde, on the other hand, considered where to use the funds before adding any new source of revenue, and used the remaining small amount to subsidize the court's insufficient expenditures.

Even if the various ministries and temples came up with various pretexts, the Ministry of Revenue had no money and could only drag things out.

Zhang Juzheng had now become more astute, so he began to consider how to spend the increased national tax revenue, ensuring that it was used effectively rather than wasted.

There's another problem here.

Soon, Zhang Juzheng thought of another thorny problem, which was closely related to the topic they had just discussed.

Wei Guangde remained silent, waiting for Zhang Juzheng to speak.

"The issue of stipends for members of the imperial clan is easier to resolve by raising the salaries of court officials, but the members of the imperial clan will inevitably cause a huge uproar."

Zhang Juzheng said, "If the matter of the imperial clan cannot be resolved amicably, it will always be a troublesome issue."

"This"

When Wei Guangde heard that it involved members of the imperial family, he also felt a bit overwhelmed.

Zhang Juzheng was incredibly ambitious; he actually wanted to solve the deep-seated problems within the imperial clan. He was blinded by greed.

But as he said, what was just discussed is easy to do, and the palace might be able to persuade them, but the imperial family will definitely not agree.

Why should officials receive a raise while they still have to accept a nominal salary, which is only on paper and they don't actually receive much?

To be honest, later generations say that the Ming Dynasty was ruined by the imperial family. This rumor seems plausible, but it has no truth to it at all.

Indeed, from a mathematical perspective, you'll find that if the stipends for the imperial family had been actually paid during the Wanli reign, it would have truly crippled the Ming Dynasty's finances.

But can the royal family really receive that much money and grain?

If they were truly that wealthy, why would members of the imperial clan in Henan and other places still cause trouble over the stipends? It's because the stipends on paper were generally unavailable to members of the imperial clan.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang established a very generous standard for the stipends of the imperial family. Moreover, the titles of princes and dukes could be inherited without change. In addition to the eldest son inheriting the original title, their other sons could also receive a title one rank lower.

According to this standard, as the number of Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants continued to grow, over two hundred years, the number of members of the imperial clan receiving stipends may have reached hundreds of thousands, and by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the amount of stipends for the imperial clan could have reached a number sufficient to bankrupt the Ming Dynasty's finances.

Historians Wan Ming and others, after compiling the records in the Wanli Accounting Records, believe that the total amount of imperial stipends in the early Wanli period reached seven million shi (a unit of dry measure), accounting for 26.8% of the total amount of summer tax and autumn grain (rice and wheat) in the Ming Dynasty.

If the stipends were distributed according to this figure, it would indeed bankrupt the Ming Dynasty's finances.

However, this was not the case in reality. The Ming Dynasty's system of stipends for members of the imperial family was not static, but was continuously reduced as the number of members of the imperial family increased.

In the 28th year of Hongwu's reign, Zhu Yuanzhang himself reduced the number of princes Zonglu (who was designated as a prince in the 5th year of Hongwu's reign) by four-fifths and the number of dukes Zonglu by two-thirds.

Wei Guangde actually knew a little about it: the stipends for the imperial family in the Ming Dynasty were frozen by the mid-Wanli period, meaning the stipends for the imperial family were fixed and would never be increased or decreased.

In fact, by the 25th year of the Wanli Emperor's reign, the imperial court finally decided to freeze the total amount of stipends for members of the imperial clan. In other words, no matter how much the population of the imperial clan increased, the total amount of stipends for members of the imperial clan would be based on the total amount in the 25th year of the Wanli Emperor's reign and would not be increased.

Thus, the logical basis for the online article's claim that Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants multiplied and "exponentially grew," bankrupting the treasury, no longer exists.

In fact, the idea of ​​implementing a fixed quota system was proposed as early as the Jiajing reign, but neither the Jiajing Emperor nor the Longqing Emperor issued an edict to implement it.

The amount of official salary that the Ming Dynasty "nominally" needed to pay after the "perpetual fixed quota" was more than 156 million taels of silver.

The quantity was not small, but it was definitely not enough to cripple the Ming Dynasty's finances.

But the real problem is that, whether during the Jiajing or Wanli reigns, this figure was only the number that "nominally" needed to be actually distributed.

The actual amount of salary paid to members of the imperial family was likely only one-fifth or even one-tenth of this figure, amounting to 300,000 or even 100,000 taels of silver. Its impact on the Ming Dynasty's finances was negligible and could be considered non-existent.

Despite Wei Guangde being the second-highest-ranking official in the cabinet, no one would know exactly how much stipend he had given to members of the imperial family if no one specifically went to investigate.

Given the level of corruption among local officials in the Ming Dynasty, even the stipends recorded and withdrawn by the government offices might not actually be distributed, but rather transported directly back to the officials' homes.

Previously, it was revealed that from the 38th to the 39th year of the Jiajing reign, the Zhou Prince's Mansion in Henan owed more than 400,000 taels of silver in stipends, with an arrears rate as high as 94.97%, meaning that less than 10% was actually paid.

From the 39th to the 43rd year of the Jiajing reign, the Han Prince's Mansion owed a total of more than 580,000 taels of silver. If we calculate based on the annual stipend of 130,000 taels of silver, the arrears rate of the Han Prince's Mansion during these four years reached 89.87%, which is just over 10%.

Just a few years ago, in the third year of the Wanli reign, the Prince Dai's Mansion was in trouble with the grain tax. Zheng Luo, the governor of Datong, and others submitted a memorial stating: "The Prince Dai's Mansion... has been in arrears on the grain tax for twenty seasons from the third year of the Longqing reign to the third year of the Wanli reign, amounting to more than 800,000 taels of silver."

From the third year of the Longqing reign to the third year of the Wanli reign, the arrears rate of the government's stipends was at least 88.59%, and only 10% of the stipends were paid.

The arrears were not only high in proportion but also long in duration. "Some princes and below received only half of their stipends, some received two or three tenths, some did not receive their stipends for a year, and some did not receive their stipends for three or five years, which greatly distressed the various clans."

Six people, including Cong Yue and Jun Ju, generals of the Prince of Huai Ren’s Palace, complained that they had not received a single grain of rice for 21 years, and were therefore “suffering from hunger and cold, with no way to save themselves.”

Such arrears, often reaching 80% or 90% and lasting for more than ten or even twenty years, render the amount of stipends that should have been paid on paper meaningless.

When the rebel army captured the capital city at the end of the Ming Dynasty, many princes were unwilling to contribute money to the war effort. As a result, many people thought that these princes of the Ming Dynasty were stupid and did not understand the principle of mutual dependence. However, this may not be the truth.

After all, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong had both massacred princes when they captured the capital, so they must have known how dangerous it was.

However, most of the feudal lords were unwilling to pay, not necessarily because they were stingy, but because they genuinely had no money to "lose".

Apart from newly ennobled princes like the Prince of Fu who received generous gifts from the emperor, how much wealth did other members of the imperial clan possess?
When people in the tribe are in distress, they need help; otherwise, they will truly starve to death.

Furthermore, the Ming Dynasty's restrictions on the marriage alliances of princely families, aimed at preventing the princely families from becoming too powerful, restricted the marriage alliances of their relatives to official positions. This directly resulted in the princely families being forced to marry into local "bad people," thus losing external support.

No matter how high a prince's title is, he has no real power, is prohibited from engaging in commerce, and has limited income, leading to extravagance and debauchery.

Zonglu has been owed money and detained for a long time, so he probably doesn't have much real money at his disposal. The most valuable thing he owns is his magnificent palace, which is only a facade that has to be maintained. (End of Chapter)