prosperous age

In the blink of an eye, two days have passed, and it's already New Year's Eve.

That morning, the major government offices in the capital gradually began to be sealed off.

However, it's just a ritual; the sealing doesn't mean they'll actually stop working.

All the major government offices had already arranged the duty roster for their officials from today until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. In the main hall of each government office, there must always be an official in charge.

In the Ming Dynasty, only the Ministry of War and the Grand Secretariat did not have such a ceremony.

Yes, the Ministry of War is not sealed, nor is the Cabinet.

Of course, the cabinet itself does not have a special official seal, so there is no need to seal it.

However, by this time, fewer and fewer memorials could be delivered to the capital.

The memorials for greetings and reporting on work were sent a few days ago. No one would submit a memorial to the emperor during the New Year. That would not be showing up in front of the emperor, but rather making trouble for oneself.

When Wei Guangde entered the duty room today, he saw two memorials in front of him.

Without waiting for Lu Bu to bring in the tea and take a sip, he picked up the first one and flipped through it.

The Ministry of Rites presented the ceremonial procedures for the Grand Court Assembly on New Year's Day a few days ago. The Cabinet and the Directorate of Ceremonial approved it. This memorial indicates that the preparations are complete. It is a report on the work, and the text is concise with no unnecessary embellishments.

In fact, apart from congratulatory memorials, the Ming court always required memorials to be simple and direct, which was a rule set by Zhu Yuanzhang.

The second document, from the Shuntian Prefecture, is a memorial requesting the mobilization of officers and soldiers from the Military Affairs Department and government offices to maintain order in the capital during the New Year.

This had actually been arranged by the Shuntian Prefecture in conjunction with the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Justice long ago. This was done every year, and there was no need to submit a report. The people below knew what to do.

However, at this time of year, a memorial must still be submitted to the emperor so that he knows the work his ministers are doing for the New Year, and that the officials are still sticking to their posts so that the people can have a peaceful New Year.

Wei Guangde simply scooped water, ground ink himself, and quickly drafted the ticket.

Handling these kinds of memorials is really not difficult.

When Lu Bu brought in the tea, Wei Guangde had already handed over the two memorials and said, "Take them out and send them to the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs as soon as possible."

Clearly, if the cabinet doesn't have any other memorials to submit today, these cabinet ministers will go visiting each other and then slip away early in the afternoon.

Tomorrow there is also the grand court assembly for the New Year, so Wei Guangde cannot leave the capital to go to Tangshan to soak in the hot springs.

"Um, when you go out, ask around. If there aren't any urgent memorials, just put them aside for now."

Wei Guangde said to Lu Bu, who was taking the memorial out, "If it's not a matter of national importance, nothing else needs to be dealt with immediately. There's no need to trouble them with this during the New Year."

"Yes, sir."

Lu Bu had been in the cabinet for many years, so he knew that even if the officials were still sitting in their offices, they didn't want anything to happen and preferred peace and quiet.

In other government offices, the officials sitting in court would probably be playing chess in a side room at this time.

In this situation, even the censors of the Censorate would have no objections, and perhaps the Censorate itself would also be in the same boat.

Everyone was no longer in the mood to do their jobs, especially since there wasn't much to do anyway.

Wei Guangde walked to the bookshelf, looked around, and finally took out Euclid's Elements. This book was a gift from Matteo Ricci. After reading the Bible, he brought this book to the cabinet, thinking that he could read it in his spare time.

Unexpectedly, time has come.

With a pot of tea and a book, Wei Guangde leisurely rested in his duty room, waiting for time to pass.

The mansion was empty this morning. The madam had taken a large group of children and relatives out of the city to Tangshan Hot Springs. He planned to go there on the third day of the Lunar New Year and return to the capital on the tenth. He would then see the Aoshan Lantern Festival, and that would mark the end of the New Year celebrations.

As for whether they should spend New Year's Eve together, they haven't thought about it for a long time, since they are together every day.

Besides, Wei Guangde didn't only have this one home; his other residences outside had long been known to be secret.

However, Xu Jianglan didn't make a fuss. These days, it's not uncommon for officials to keep mistresses.

"master."

Just as Wei Guangde finished reading one article and was about to continue reading the next, Lu Bu appeared at the door of the duty room.

"Is something wrong?"

Wei Guangde withdrew his gaze and looked over to ask.

“I intercepted a memorial sent from the Office of Transmission.”

Lu Bu spoke.

"Ok?"

Wei Guangde was taken aback and immediately asked, "What memorial is it, and where did it come from?"

"Nanjing, the impeachment memorial from Lord Zhao Yongxian."

Lu Bu immediately spoke up, "They initially said I would be assigned to Grand Secretary Xu's side, but I heard it was because of an impeachment memorial from Nanjing, so I'm coming over soon."

"Bring it to me and see."

Wei Guangde nodded, satisfied with Lu Bu's reaction.

While Wei Guangde was reviewing memorials in his duty room, Xu Guo had already received the news and was furious to hear that the attempt had failed.

The clerk in Xu Guo's office was really unlucky, as he was scolded by Xu Guo.

“Master, I think this is not a simple matter. That Lu Bu looks like he’s waiting there to intercept the memorials.”

After being severely reprimanded, the clerk promptly shifted the blame.

You, Grand Secretary Xu, are already ranked low in the cabinet, only third or fourth. How can a lowly clerk like me compete with the servants in the Grand Secretary's office?

In fact, if no one wanted such a memorial, the Secretariat would usually send it to Wang Jiaping first.

So if he wants to come over, that would be a perfectly logical thing to do.

Little did he know that after glancing at the source of the memorial, the clerk in the Grand Secretary's office would scramble to have it.

He gave the order, and the other members of the family naturally dared not argue, as they all followed the rules.

If nobody wants it, then distribute it from the back to the front.

But if someone wants it, it will be given to whoever has the highest ranking.

However, under normal circumstances, no one would argue about it, especially at this time.

Therefore, after he and Lu Bu both asked for the memorial, the others looked on with surprise.

After Lu Bu took the memorial, the group of people who had been chatting immediately dispersed and went back to deliver the message to the master in the duty room.

"Lubu, go and invite a few gentlemen to my office for a chat."

Wei Guangde had already read the memorial, which was Zhao Yongxian's memorial impeaching the prefect of Huizhou and the magistrates of the six counties in Huizhou. The memorial accused them of levying "fire loss" after collecting taxes from the court, and stated that this loss should not have existed after the court minted Tongbao coins.

The memorial did not mention the "travel tax" that had resurfaced in some areas, perhaps because Zhao Yongxian believed that this old tax had some merit. After all, when the "Single Whip Law" was initially formulated by each province, the calculations were made in a unified manner to determine the allocation of taxes based on land area.

In some areas with poor transportation conditions, the calculated "transportation fee" may not be enough to hire laborers to carry goods.

Local government officials have a limited amount of money to keep; if it exceeds that limit, they will naturally have to find ways to raise more.

Raising taxes is the most direct way.

Therefore, it is understandable that some places levy additional "transportation fees".

However, the "fire loss" is indeed inexplicable. It's not like we're still using silver ingots and the government needs to recast them, so where does the fire loss come from?

With a light tap on the table, Wei Guangde knew that today they could only talk about "fire loss" and nothing else. As for the "transportation fee," he would have the Censorate investigate and report back later.

Then, the task of hiring laborers to transport taxes was directly transferred to the provincial administration commissioners.

There is definitely enough money, but previously it was supervised by each county, so there may indeed be difficulties in some places.

Since it's a coordinated effort, let each province do it; this will balance things out.

As for the practice of the government collecting taxes, then officials saving money and letting the remaining tax revenue slip directly into their own pockets, this must definitely be prevented.

Otherwise, rectifying official corruption would be just empty talk and impossible to achieve.

Before long, Shen Shixing and others arrived, and Wei Guangde had already put down his book and came over with a memorial.

While waiting for someone, Wei Guangde handed the memorial to Shen Shixing and asked him to take a look first.

Afterwards, the people who arrived took their seats in order and read the memorials from Nanjing one by one.

After everyone had seen it and it was finally returned to Wei Guangde, he spoke to Shen Shixing: "Ru Mo, you were involved in the whole process of the Single Whip Law when the court was compiling it. You should know that the law was compiled to include all taxes except for the poll tax into the land tax, as well as the list of miscellaneous taxes that were necessary in the local area."

I remember that the eight prefectures of Jiangnan once had this "fire loss silver," and I wondered how it was made back then.

The taxes levied in the Jiangnan region during the Ming Dynasty were the heaviest in history. At that time, the overall tax burden in the Wu region was nearly nine times the national average.

In particular, the inner court levied gold and silver taxes on the eight prefectures, which involved "fire loss".

As for the amount, it was determined according to the amount allocated to each prefecture. Generally, if the actual tax collected was 5,000 taels, then 6,000 taels of silver would be collected from the people as gold flower tax. The extra amount was called "fire loss," which was the loss incurred when the broken silver was melted down and recast into silver ingots.

During the Ming Dynasty, the fire loss tax was 20%-30% of the regular tax. The Qing Dynasty followed the Ming system, but there was no unified currency system at that time, and silver ingots were commonly used in the market. Therefore, the collection of fire loss tax never stopped and became more and more serious. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, the fire loss tax had reached as high as 70% to 80% of the regular tax.

Ultimately, this is because lower-level officials saw an opportunity to profit and thus embezzled a large portion of the tax revenue.

Moreover, this money is easy to launder: simply melt down the lowest quality silver and even artificially add impurities to achieve the purpose of embezzlement.

"The eight prefectures' fire loss silver was directly abolished. After the currency law came into effect, it was directly paid in official silver coins or offset with copper coins according to regulations."

The same principle applied to other places where taxes were paid in kind or in silver. People could pay their taxes in kind or in copper coins.

The imperial court had previously stipulated that each tael of silver should be worth 960 coins, and each coin of silver should be worth 60 coins.

Shen Shixing already knew that Huizhou Prefecture had broken with the court's earlier system and was clearly trying to overturn their previous efforts.

To be honest, Shenshi was not informed beforehand and was kept in the dark.

Although I knew this kind of thing would happen sooner or later, I didn't expect that, as the saying goes, "when a person dies, the government ends," but this person had only been dead for half a year, and the people below were already unable to restrain themselves and had begun to test the waters.

After saying that, he looked at Wei Guangde, and from his eyes, Shen Shixing knew Wei Guangde's attitude.

"After the imperial court has minted coins and promulgated monetary laws, local officials are still so unscrupulous in levying exorbitant taxes. The entire Huizhou Prefecture should be severely punished for this."

Without waiting for anyone else to express their opinion, Shen Shixing had already stated his thoughts.

"This... I'm afraid it's not appropriate."

Just as Yu Youding and Wang Jiaping were about to agree, Xu Guo suddenly interrupted, "The imperial court's finances have been temporarily relieved due to reforms, but in reality, the tax revenue is still the same. Moreover, due to accounting practices, most of the tax revenue has been transferred to the national treasury, leaving insufficient funds for local governments."

As far as I know, many local governments are already facing financial deficits, so their imposition of this tax, though nominal, is understandable.

"We, who are in charge of the central government, shouldn't be unaware of the hardships faced by our officials below."

“I remember that when the tax law was being drafted, the cabinet also considered how to compensate for insufficient local reserves in each prefecture and county, based on their actual circumstances.”

At this point, Wei Guangde looked at Wang Jiaping, who had been involved in the matter.

Sure enough, after seeing Wei Guangde looking at him, Wang Jiaping decisively said, "The Grand Secretary is right. I did participate in drafting the official document."

If the local reserves are insufficient to cover expenditures, each prefecture and county may submit a petition to the Provincial Administration Commissioner requesting that the reserves be supplemented.

If Huizhou Prefecture truly had a fiscal deficit, it should have reported it to the Ministry of Revenue in Nanjing, instead of arbitrarily increasing taxes. Such disregard for imperial decrees deserves severe punishment.

Xu Guo glanced at the others. Although Yu Youding hadn't spoken, he figured his opinion was similar to theirs.

Naturally, Xu Guo did not intend to continue arguing. Instead, he said, "In that case, let's send someone down to verify. We'll discuss it again once we have the results."

After all, it's only one side of the story; there's no need to resort to violence right away. Sending people down to investigate before making a decision isn't too late.

“Xu Gong’s words are reasonable. This matter should be reported to His Majesty, and an imperial censor should be dispatched to investigate and report back truthfully so that the court can discuss and reach a conclusion.”

Wei Guangde nodded, but then said calmly, "The court has only been implementing the new laws for a little over two years, and some places already dare to do this, completely disregarding the court's laws."

As can be seen from Lord Zhao's memorial, the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue was unaware of the affairs of Huizhou Prefecture from beginning to end, until it was mentioned by Huizhou merchants while they were doing business in Nanjing.

It is clear that what Huizhou Prefecture did was not simply to increase taxes to make up for the local financial deficit, but to disregard the authority of the imperial court and openly defy the law.

In any case, this trend must not be allowed to continue.

Xu Guo wanted to first obscure the nature of the officials involved, but Wei Guangde would not agree to that.

Even if the tax increase is indeed intended to make up for local fiscal deficits, it should be reported to the higher-level government first and approved before the tax increase is carried out.

To not report it and directly increase taxes is to resist the law, to despise imperial authority, and to disregard the court.

Hearing Wei Guangde's words, they knew he was directly defining the nature of the incident. The others didn't seem to care, but at this moment, they all shifted their attention to Xu Guo.

Everyone knows that Xu Guo came from Huizhou Prefecture, and he seems to be the only cabinet minister from there.

Because three cabinet ministers were accepted at once, according to the results of their previous discussions in the office, it was planned that Yu Youding would return to his hometown to visit relatives first next year, followed by Xu Guo, and finally Wang Jiaping.

Arranging for cabinet ministers to return home to visit their families had another purpose besides returning in glory: to build a memorial archway for Grand Secretaries.

The paifang is a gate-shaped commemorative building in traditional Chinese architecture. It is constructed of stone and was used in feudal society to commend meritorious service, academic achievements, virtuous governance, loyalty, filial piety and integrity. It also served functions such as marking landmarks, ancestral worship in ancestral halls, and promoting feudal ethics.

For scholars, starting from the juren (successful candidate in the provincial examination), a memorial archway was built. In addition to the well-known jinshi (successful candidate in the imperial examination) archway, there was also a special grand shi (successful candidate in the imperial examination) archway for those who entered the cabinet.

"If there are no objections, we will go to the palace together to report to His Majesty."

Wei Guangde spoke up.

Upon hearing this, Xu Guo gritted his teeth, but ultimately said nothing more. (End of Chapter)