The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 612 Moore: The so-called heaven looks bright on the surface, but its foundation is collapsing!

November of the seventh year in the Tianli calendar of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Huangshi Town, Daye, Hubei.

A "Jianghai" class steam sailing ship, which is very rare in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, slowly docked at the dock of Huangshi Port, trailing white smoke.

Hundreds of thinly dressed porters at the dock shouted slogans, their backs bent like shrimps, carrying baskets of iron ore from wheelbarrows to wooden boats. When Bai Siwen got off the boat and landed, he pinched his nose to avoid the sweat and acid smell of the porters: "Shanghai is still a bit glamorous, but it's a pity that once you go inland, everything is still the same!"

Wanzhen held the maid's hand and stepped over the gangplank: "This place is indeed far worse than Shanghai... But King Wu said that in the second five-year plan, a railway will be built between Daye and Pingxiang."

Bai Siwen snorted, "Just listen to his nonsense. One mile of railway costs at least 15,000 taels of silver. The distance from Daye to Pingxiang is at least 700 miles. Haha, more than 10 million taels! How can he afford to build it?"

Moore stood next to a foreman who was keeping accounts and secretly glanced at the account book. The foreman in a silk shirt was marking the names of the porters with a red pen, and he wrote a "positive" for every five baskets he carried.

Friedrich wrote in his notebook: "There are still a lot of inefficient handicraft production in the interior of China. Once the scale of the machine industry in the coastal areas is further expanded, these backward handicrafts will be ruthlessly eliminated."

As soon as they landed, Huangshi Mayor Xiao Defu was already waiting at the dock with three green velvet sedan chairs and four bearers. The short and fat man was wearing a Suzhou silk gown, and the gold pocket watch chain on his chest was dazzling. When he saw Moore and Friedrich, he stepped forward and bowed: "I am the mayor of Huangshi, my surname is Xiao, and my humble name is Defu. You two must be foreign Taoist priests from England, right? You must have come a long way! Hongbinlou has prepared a welcoming banquet, and the guest rooms have been fumigated with mugwort!"

"No need for a sedan chair." Moore waved his hand to refuse, but saw that the two sedan bearers had patched knees and their straw sandals revealed their frozen red toes.

Mayor Xiao followed Moore's gaze, then smiled bitterly and said to the two sedan bearers, "Really? Can't you two dress more decently?"

Wanzhen walked on the muddy dock, holding up her skirt and jacket: "Mayor Xiao is so generous, these three green velvet sedan chairs must be expensive, right?"

"You must be the fourth wife of King Wu, right?" Mayor Xiao said with a smile, "One of these three sedan chairs belongs to the town government, one to the farmers' association, and one to the Huangshi Port Management Office under the Daye Mining Bureau. They are all public property."

Moore whispered to Friedrich in English: "To overthrow the old aristocracy is to become a new aristocracy."

Before he finished speaking, there was a sudden cry outside the dock. Three ragged peasants were dragged by the tax collectors on their carrying poles, and the brown rice in their baskets spilled all over the ground.

“Please be kind, please be kind, I won’t do it again,” an old farmer begged bitterly while picking up the fallen brown rice into the basket.

The tax collector showed no mercy and just kept yelling, "Who told you to set up a stall without paying taxes? Does the Hongbinlou in town know about this? That's the business of Mr. Xiao and his brothers, and they paid all the taxes they should have paid."

Moore frowned and took out his notebook, but Friedrich held his wrist and said, "Look there." More than twenty porters were carrying iron ingots from a mule cart with a sign of "Daye Mining Bureau" to a business company. Next to the cart stood a merchant wearing a Hangzhou silk cotton robe, holding an abacus and chatting and laughing with a tax collector.

"That's Chen Shiwan, the owner of the largest iron shop in Daye County," Mayor Xiao said, following their gaze. "He's the God of Wealth in Daye County. One-third of Daye's pig iron is sold through him. Every year, he pays 5,000 silver dollars in commercial taxes to the county."

"Five thousand?" Bai Siwen suddenly interrupted, "Back then, the Tongzhou Canal Transport Office only earned..."

"Bang!" A loud noise suddenly came from the dock. Two wheelbarrows carrying iron ore collided with each other, and the baskets filled with iron ore fell over, breaking a coolie's thigh and causing him to scream in pain. Mayor Xiao didn't even raise his eyelids, and ordered his men: "Go and take a look. If he's not dead, ask the dock to give him two bucks and send him away."

Wanzhen twisted her handkerchief and whispered, "We should send her to the hospital."

"The Queen is really kind-hearted!" Xiao Defu said, bending over, "Someone, send the injured to the clinic - Hongbinlou is here!"

On the way to Hongbinlou, Moore and his companions passed by Huangshi Town Hall and suddenly saw a thin middle-aged man with patches on his official uniform squatting on the threshold of the town hall eating noodles. The middle-aged man ate a large bowl of noodles with some pickles, and his red silk official uniform showed that he was at least a sixth-rank official of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

"County Magistrate Yang, why didn't you inform us that you were coming to Huangshi Town? I'm happy to entertain you!" When Xiao Defu saw the man, he hurried forward to salute. This man turned out to be the county magistrate of Huangshi County, Yang Laobai - the same Yang Laobai who forced Huang Shiren to go to the United States to lend money at high interest rates. He had been very successful in his career in the past two years and was even promoted to county chief.

"Tianguo County Magistrate?" Moore's eyes lit up, and he immediately felt a liking for this simple and frugal Tianguo County Magistrate.

Friedrich on the side also nodded repeatedly: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom still has some characteristics of a peasant regime!
"What do you mean by entertaining? Getting things done is better than anything else." Yang Laobai wiped his mouth and glared at Xiao Defu fiercely - this guy only knows how to make money, and he is just fooling around with his work! If he wasn't surnamed Xiao and was a relative of the King of the West, he would have been done long ago!
Yang Laobai glanced at the two foreigners and Wanzhen, and said nothing. He walked straight into the hall, grabbed the gavel and slammed it on the table: "Bring the prisoner!"

The criminals were not murderous and arsonist bandits, but eight honest farmers who were brought in by the militia of Huangshi County. The leader, old farmer Wang Er, fell to his knees and said, "My Lord! This year, there were insect disasters and hailstorms, and we can only harvest three dan of grain from two mu of paddy fields." "The quota for two mu of paddy fields is six dan, and you should pay one dan for the six taxes," Yang Laobai sneered as he flipped through the account book. "You only paid three dou, do you think I'm easy to fool?"

Moore, who was listening outside the government office, asked Mayor Xiao, "Why is it six taxes and one tax? Shouldn't it be nine taxes and one tax?"

"One out of nine taxes is for the imperial court," Xiao Defu explained, "plus local taxes, that's six out of ten."

"My mother had tuberculosis and sold a stone of grain to buy medicine."

"Bullshit!" Yang Laobai threw the account book to the ground. "The Holy Soldiers are still starving in Sichuan to fight against the Qing demons, and you are pretending to be pitiful in the rear? Come on - drag them to the mines to work for a full month to deduct the tax!"

Mayor Xiao further explained, "Those who can't pay taxes are usually taken to work and their labor is used to pay off the taxes! And the Mining Bureau in Daye is always short of manpower, so they are sent there."

Moore and Friedrich were both disappointed. They finally met an honest official, but he was so cruel.
Mayor Xiao was very good at observing people's expressions. When he found out that the two "foreign masters" were unhappy, he walked into the lobby with a smile and said, "Mr. Yang, I'm welcoming the two masters at Hongbin Tower. How about you come too?"

"Your mother's wind!" Yang Laobai glared at him, "The autumn tax is still short of 1,200 taels, and you have money to hold a banquet? Do you believe that I will report you for misusing public funds?"

"Go ahead!" Xiao Degui was not angry, and said with a smile, "The reception banquet was paid for with the funds for 'foreign affairs reception', which is in line with the regulations on official expenses issued by the Ministry of Revenue."

At this time, a child's voice suddenly came from outside the town hall: "The calculation method for trapezoidal fields is to add the upper base and the lower base times the height, divided by two."

Yang Laobai's expression eased a little, and he said to the farmers who owed taxes: "Did you hear that? King Wu's new policy of running schools has taken effect. All the boys in the town can calculate the acres of land. Once the acres of land are calculated, the yield per acre can be calculated. If you want to owe taxes or evade taxes, it will be impossible!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a little boy with a schoolbag on his back walked into the county office. He was startled to see so many people inside, and then turned to look at Xiao Defu. It turned out that the boy who was reciting the formula just now was Xiao Defu's son, who was studying at the Daye Mining Bureau Primary School in Huangshi Town - this is the best primary school in Daye County, and not just anyone's child can go there.

One day later, at a tea stand outside the town hall opposite the Huangshi Hotel, Wang Er trembled as he pressed his fingerprints on the land deed. He paid 20 silver dollars for one mu of paddy field to Town Chief Xiao, and the accountant counted on the abacus and muttered, "The monthly interest is 2%, and if the land is not redeemed by the due date, it will belong to the owner."

"Xiao Defu!" Yang Laobai rushed out from the lobby of the town hall, "You are eating up the people's land again!"

"Yang Qingtian is wise!" Mayor Xiao bowed and said, "These are all farmers who voluntarily pay off their debts in order to treat their wives and pay taxes to the county. If you find any evidence of forced seizure, I will behead you!"

Wang Er, who was squatting in the corner, just kept crying: "Voluntary, voluntary, I can't just watch the child's mother die of illness!"

"That's right, that's right," Xiao Defu said, "A day of marriage brings a hundred days of love. If you lose both your love and your money, don't regret it. You still have one acre of paddy field to sell to me, so I can have the money to go to Southeast Asia!"

At the dock of Huangshi Town, a farmer-looking man pushed a boy towards the tattered fence of the newly opened Huangshi Town Primary School: "Learn to read! Learn to use the abacus! Become a superior person in the future!"

Moore squatted down and asked the skinny boy: "Why do you study?"

"Become the mayor!" The child's eyes sparkled, pointing at Mayor Xiao who came to see Moore and the others off. "Wear silk, ride in a sedan chair, and eat meat every day!"

Friedrich was stunned: "The dream of the children of Prussian workers is to become engineers"

"It's all the legacy of the imperial examination system!" Bai Siwen sneered, "They change into officials and continue to exploit the people."

Wanzhen pointed at the groups of children pouring into the school gate and said: "Even if we pick only one out of ten thousand, there will always be tens of thousands of talents."

"Then what?" Moore muttered to himself in German, "Become a cruel official like Yang Laobai? Or a parasite like Xiao Defu?"

As the ship's whistle blew, more than twenty students in straw sandals ran through the stone streets in the drizzle, all holding their schoolbags, which contained textbooks distributed free of charge by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom court.

As the steamboat sailed upstream, Friedrich wrote in the cabin: "The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom replaced the Four Books and Five Classics with elementary mathematics, but copied the promotion logic of the old bureaucracy. No one knows what kind of talents will be educated in the end?"

(End of this chapter)