History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 660: Wang Zhang, the Money-Making Expert
Wang Zhang's money-making skills were deeply influenced by Kong Qian, and he was even better than his teacher.

First, save money.

Wang Zhang, who has been engaged in financial work for a long time, has developed a pair of sharp eyes. He is observant and good at discovering details, and then focusing on the big and letting go of the small, thus reducing financial expenditure.

What is big? War. Apart from that, all public expenditures must be reduced.

Second, it is open source.

Money should not only be saved, but also earned.

According to the custom at that time, when paying taxes to the government, the people had to pay an additional 2% "sparrow and mouse consumption", but Wang Zhang ordered it to be increased to 20%, calling it "provincial consumption", which was directly increased tenfold;
At that time, the "short money" was 80 coins for 80 coins. The "short money" and "full money" have been described in detail in the previous article. In short, 100 coins were circulated as 80 coins, and the government recognized it. Wang Zhang created the "provincial money", that is, when the people paid taxes to the government, 100 coins were circulated as 77 coins, and when the government needed to pay the people, 100 coins were circulated as 3.75 coins, with a % handling fee.

数学题，直观感受是3%的手续费，即（80-77）÷100×100%，其实这跟100没关系，略加解析：官府用77钱换百姓80钱，每80钱损失3钱，而不是每100钱损失3钱，所以应该是（80-77）÷80×100%=3.75%，3个点儿太温柔，王章比你想象的更狠。

Third, in order to maintain the profits of the government's monopoly, Wang Zhang worked with Shi Hongzhao, Yang Bin and other departments to formulate the most stringent anti-smuggling order in history, strictly prohibiting the private trading of salt, wine and alum. Anyone who dared to sell a grain of salt, a drop of wine or a piece of alum would be beheaded.
Fourth, withholding wages.

Wang Zhang's targets of deductions were civil officials. The military pay of the soldiers was paid in full, but the salaries of the civil officials were not only replaced by inferior ones, but also deducted, which was called "raising the estimate";
Finally, whenever a land dispute occurred among the people, local officials would be ordered to conduct a statewide re-inspection, ostensibly to strictly investigate property rights disputes, but in reality it was an opportunity to investigate "hidden land," or in other words, to track down tax evasion.

In short, Wang Zhang's combination of measures did fill the national treasury, but the people suffered. Historical records show that "the whole country was in great trouble" and "the people suffered greatly."

3.2 Grudges with the Civil Service Group

In terms of attitude towards civil servants, Wang Zhang was in step with Shi Hongzhao and Yang Bin, all of whom were extremely contemptuous and disgusted. Wang Zhang publicly stated many times, "What's the point of the country supporting these literati? If they can't even use an abacus, what else can they do?"

For example, the "raising and estimating" mentioned above was Wang Zhang's exploitation of the civil service group. At that time, the salaries of officials were composed of many forms, such as cash, silk, and grain; and grain was also divided into different grades, and different prices were converted according to the quality of the grain.

When Wang Zhang distributed grain, he distributed high-quality grain to the army and low-quality grain to civil officials. Although the grain was low-quality, it was converted according to the high-quality grain. On top of that, Wang Zhang deliberately raised its valuation. This is the "high valuation" mentioned above.

The practice of "raising the estimate" offended the entire civil service group.

After sorting out and summarizing, it can be seen that although Shi Hongzhao, Yang Bin, and Wang Zhang all hated the civil service group, their political demands only stayed at restricting and weakening the power and influence of the civil service group. They did not rise to a life-and-death political struggle, and there was no plan to physically eliminate the civil service group. Although Shi Hongzhao had the urge to kill Su Fengji, it had nothing to do with politics. It was completely a personal grudge, and he was angry for his beloved. Similarly, the civil service group headed by Su Fengji also hated the military group. However, it is unlikely to restrict the power of the military group. How can the country, which is using troops everywhere, value civil over military?

Su Fengji also launched a tentative attack on the military group, using Li Tao to test the waters. This question revealed the military group's strong backer, Empress Dowager Li.

Fortunately, Li Tao was stubborn and did not expose the mastermind behind the scenes, Su Fengji. After this small test, the military group was in full swing, and the civil group was silent.

However, the blows to the civil service group were not over yet, but one wave came after another. Liu Chengyou began to cultivate his own party, the "uncle clan group", which was a new political force and a nouveau riche among the nouveau riche.

These nouveau riche wanted to seize power, to cut into the profit pie of the Later Han Dynasty, and to get a share of the political gluttony. In other words, they wanted to shake the interests of the civil official group and the military general group and cut meat from them. Their only capital was the secret support of Empress Dowager Li and the emperor.

The power structure has been broken, and the most uneasy ones are the civil service group, because it is easier to snatch meat from their mouths.

Su Fengji reached the most critical moment. After calm thinking, Su Fengji quickly found the key to the problem:
1. The "small uncle clan" is unstoppable. Although Li Ye, Yan Jinqing, Nie Wenjin, Hou Zan, Guo Yunming and others are all unknown small characters, they are backed by Empress Dowager Li and Liu Chengyou. Therefore, they will inevitably exist like cheats in the subsequent political struggles. They should not be underestimated. It can even be said that they will definitely be the final winners.

2. The scope of the attack of "the uncle's clan is small" is very wide, not only targeting the civil service group, but also the military generals group that is in its heyday. The Later Han Dynasty is about to usher in a major reshuffle.

Therefore, Su Fengji immediately made the right choice: to stand on the side of the "small uncle clan" and guide them to bite the military generals group.

The reason why the military generals group was able to run rampant in the Later Han Dynasty was because of the favoritism of Empress Dowager Li. When Empress Dowager Li also began to cultivate the "uncles", the military generals group became raised by the stepmother, and the "uncles" became the biological sons.

However, in order to completely overthrow the military generals group, it is not enough to just make Empress Dowager Li "fall in love with someone else", but also to make her completely disgusted with and abandon the military generals group.

This was the opportunity Su Fengji was waiting for. It came soon.

Shi Hongzhao and other important ministers entrusted with the care of the young emperor did not escape the historical law of relying on their achievements to become arrogant. Relying on their contributions to the founding of the country, they looked down on everyone and never took the young emperor Liu Chengyou seriously. In addition, due to their nature, they had many shortcomings in their interpersonal relationships. With the favoritism of Empress Dowager Li in the "Li Tao Case", Shi Hongzhao and others became even more arrogant and dug a fire pit for themselves.

The rapid rise of the "small uncle clan" also aroused the vigilance of the military generals, but unlike Su Fengji's calm analysis, Shi Hongzhao and other military generals still adopted a simple and crude way to deal with it. They did not realize that the driving force behind the rise of the "small uncle clan" was Empress Dowager Li and Liu Chengyou, or they realized it but did not take it seriously.

(End of this chapter)