Taichang Ming Dynasty

Chapter 244: Outdated System: Ministry of Revenue
After hearing Wang An’s words “we are in the same boat”, Fang Congzhe felt a little relieved.

Amidst the exchange of pleasantries, the four eunuchs and twelve ministers passed through Donghua Gate and Wenhua Gate, and along the long corridor to the front of the Wenhua Palace. When they arrived, sixteen eunuchs were already quietly waiting at the palace entrance. At Wang An's simple wave of his hand, they trotted over, swiftly and politely removing the cloaks of the eunuchs and ministers, then folded them gently and held them in their arms.

As if everything had been rehearsed, when Xu Guangqi, the Minister of Rites at the end of the line, was also helped by the eunuchs to take off his bright red cloak, the door of Wenhua Hall was opened from the inside.

The officials from the cabinet entered in a flock of geese and came to the Sumeru throne placed in the center of the hall, and performed the ritual of five bows and three kowtows to the emperor sitting on the dragon throne.

After the ceremony, Wang An and Fang Congzhe led the chanting: "Long live our emperor! Long live our emperor! Long, long live our emperor!"

The emperor waved his hands left and right and replied, "Get up. Go to your seats."

The twelve ministers didn't waste time lining up and finding their seats, as the long rosewood tables to the left and right of Xumi had already been decorated with wooden triangular arched table signs inscribed with the government offices and names of officials. These table signs all had the same design. For example, Fang Congzhe was "Ge·Congzhe," Wang An was "Si Li·An," and Xu Guangqi was "Li·Guangqi."

Similar to the layout of the Nine Ministers who had once visited the Cabinet to demand that the other ministers appease the wrath of Heaven, the Wenhua Hall was also arranged facing left and right. However, the two opposing sides, instead of Cabinet members and the Nine Ministers, became civil officials and eunuchs. The order of precedence also changed from the Seal Holder and the Prime Minister in the center to the left and right, with the first closest to the Emperor, while the other ministers lined up in a row, following the Emperor's order from closest to farthest.

The Silijian (official censorship) was still composed of Wang An, Wei Chao, Cui Wensheng, Wei Zhongxian, and Liu Ruoyu, except that after Liu Ruoyu, there was also the eunuch Cao Huachun, the superintendent of the Silijian. He and Liu Ruoyu had already been in the hall, and when they kowtowed, they did not stand but followed suit.

On the civil service side, Fang Congzhe naturally led the charge, followed by Ye Xianggao. However, the third-place candidate was neither Shi Jixie, the cabinet's default appointee, nor Shen, who had previously served as acting Prime Minister. Instead, it was Liu Yirong, the Donglin Party's top cabinet official. This arrangement gave Liu Yirong a sense of joy and security.

After the Cabinet, the six ministries came up, and their rankings had also been adjusted. The first position was no longer held by the Minister of Personnel, Zhou Jiamo, but by the Minister of Revenue, Li Ruhua, with Zhou Jiamo now ranked second to him. Following him were the officials of the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Works, and the Ministry of Rites.

The entire Wenhua Main Hall has only three chairs besides the dragon throne on the Sumeru pedestal. They belong to Wang An, Fang Congzhe, and Li Ruhua respectively.

After everyone was seated in their pre-arranged positions, Wang An spoke first: "Close the door."

Upon hearing this order, all the eunuchs in the hall left.

Of course the door had to be closed, otherwise the stove inside the hall wouldn't be able to keep out the early spring chill. But starting with the door closing was a bit sloppy, and it was hard not to think too much.

"Before we begin, let me say something." Wang An's voice remained steady. "This meeting is the first of the year, but it won't be the last. From this year onward, a financial meeting will be held in Wenhua Hall on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month every year. This will be a permanent rule. From the twenty-first day of the twelfth lunar month to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month of the following year, the Silijian financial review period will begin.

"The Imperial Household Department and the Cabinet have designated the eleventh day of the first lunar month, the day of the first regular court session, as the final date for accepting financial and budget reports. By then, we hope that all ministries will submit their expenditure and budget reports using the 'Ash's Number' and 'Duplicate Table' formats, in accordance with the regulations agreed upon by the Cabinet and the Imperial Household Department. The Imperial Household Department has instructed the factory to print the detailed specifications into a booklet. After the meeting, the Imperial Household Department will distribute the booklet to each ministry. Starting next year, the Imperial Household Department and the Cabinet will no longer accept books written solely in Chinese."

There was a brief outline in front of Wang An, but he never looked at it while speaking. Instead, he kept glancing left and right at the civil servants present.

Fang Congzhe's surprise was palpable, because the Imperial Household Department hadn't even discussed the timing with the Cabinet, yet Wang An kept mentioning the Cabinet. Fang Congzhe wasn't sure if Wang An was showing respect or putting him on a pedestal, so he could only smile quietly.

After Wang An finished speaking, the emperor spoke: "Thank you all for your hard work. This year, all officials who participated in the final accounting affairs will be rewarded with half a month's salary. The reward will be paid from the palace."

"It is the duty of officials to carry out their duties according to the emperor's orders. The emperor works day and night, so how can officials get external rewards for their duties?" Fang Congzhe turned around and bowed to decline.

"You don't have to decline, Mr. Fang." The emperor clearly didn't want to waste any more time on this matter. "Wang An, please continue."

"On behalf of all the ministers, I would like to thank the emperor for his grace." Fang Congzhe had no choice but to accept it with a bow.

Wang An waited until Fang Congzhe stood up before continuing, "Let's start from the complicated to the simple. Let's talk about the Ministry of Revenue first."

Minister of Revenue Li Ruhua was startled when he heard this. He had not expected that this would be mentioned right away. He stood up and tried to clear his throat, but coughed violently several times.

After the Lunar New Year, he felt increasingly powerless, barely able to get out of bed for days, as if he had some serious illness. Fortunately, Director Liu performed two acupuncture treatments on him and prescribed some medicine, which helped him regain his composure.

Since the 38th year of the Wanli reign, when Zhao Shiqing, the former Minister of Revenue, unable to bear the devastation of the "Chu Zong Case," secluded himself at home and resigned, Li Ruhua, acting as Left Vice Minister, has been in charge of the Ministry of Revenue for a full ten years. If Li Ruhua were to sum up these years, and were allowed to curse, he would at least say: Working at the Ministry of Revenue is a damned hellish job.

Due to the emperor's chronic inaction and the lack of vacancies, Li Ruhua was left to oversee the entire Ministry of Revenue on his own. Eventually, he even had to recruit several officials from the Ministry of Personnel. Although he was proficient in accounting, the Ministry's complex and complex work was beyond his ability to handle alone.

He had to rely on the clerks who had been handed down from generation to generation in the Ministry of Revenue. Although Li Ruhua knew that these clerks would definitely exploit the Ministry's accounts, he had no real recourse. Without them, the Ministry would be paralyzed. Furthermore, for several years, Li Ruhua simultaneously held the seals of the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of Personnel, and the Ministry of Works.

The Ming Dynasty's fiscal system exemplified "centralized command, decentralized management." Taxes, whether in cash or at a discount, were rarely transported on a large scale. Consequently, the Ministry of Revenue's workload was incredibly complex. A single receiving warehouse in Beijing might have to deal with several different transporters, and a single transporter might have to serve multiple departments simultaneously. So, sometimes, Li Ruhua would think it was okay to let the clerks take a few puffs, considering it just a reward.

This situation, coupled with the purely Chinese accounting method, resulted in an extremely large accumulation of account books every year. The Ministry of Revenue had to review all accounts in detail. Sometimes, the central account books in Beijing would even record the surplus or debt of a county due to a small errand. For example, this time, the Ministry of Revenue provided the Imperial Household Department with several large carts of original account books. Even in the end, Li Ruhua's own total ledger was still a book. When reporting to the lower level, Li Ruhua even read out that a certain county in a certain prefecture in Nanzhili owed the court 32 taels of silver in kind. The kind of thing that was used to exchange this silver was honey, a local specialty.

The emperor couldn't bear to listen any longer. But seeing the old man trembling as he reported his work results in his notebook, he couldn't interrupt. The trivial report lasted for almost two quarters of an hour. Later, the emperor discovered that Li Ruhua was actually flipping through the pages from the back to the front.

"Why don't you turn it right side up?" Zhu Changluo couldn't stand it any longer.

"Didn't Master Wang say to go from complex to simple?" Li Ruhua explained, "In the general ledger, the miscellaneous items are complex, while the main taxes are simple."

Zhu Changluo looked at Wang An, his eyes seemed to be asking: Is this what you mean?

Wang An's mouth twitched twice, and then he said to Li Ruhua, "Let's talk about the regular section first."

Li Ruhua was startled, lowered his head slightly, then turned the account book around and began to talk about the land tax statistics. Unexpectedly, he set a pessimistic tone for the statistical results of the land tax right from the start.

"Ahem!" He coughed violently twice and said, "The Ministry of Revenue has recorded the total amount of farmland and tax grain in the local areas in its books, but I have to admit that these figures are not necessarily true and reliable."

"Why?" Zhu Changluo asked.

"In reply to the emperor, the land figures are all reported by local officials one level at a time. The Ministry of Revenue records them according to the reports from below. The Ministry of Revenue has never had the means or the power to verify these figures. The most we can do is make slight adjustments based on the memorials submitted to Beijing by the governor and the inspector," said Li Ruhua.

In reality, the Ming Dynasty's Ministry of Revenue was an institution with a head but no body. Throughout the Ming dynasty, the Ministry of Revenue had no branches in any of the provinces, whether in Nanjing or Beijing. While officials at all levels of government had clerks in charge of finances, grain, and criminal justice, these officials were primarily responsible to themselves and only partially to the emperor. They had no connection to the Ministry of Revenue in the two capitals. Even the provincial governors and provincial inspectors who held the title of Minister of Revenue reported directly to the emperor, not the Ministry of Revenue, when deployed abroad. Any minor adjustments the Ministry made using the figures in their memorials were merely borrowed.

Li Ruhua had thought about this problem a long time ago. However, this omission that had been passed down from the early Ming Dynasty to the present day was definitely not something that he, a second-rank minister of the Ministry of Revenue, could make up for.

"Okay." The emperor rubbed the wrinkles between his brows and motioned Li Ruhua to continue.

"In the 48th year of the Wanli reign, the total farmland in the country was 714,938,429 mu. Among them, the northern Zhili area was 51,316,455 mu, and the southern Zhili area was..." This number is the basic accounting basis for the Ministry of Revenue's third additional levy of silver on the country due to the Liao incident in the 48th year of the Wanli reign.

The Ministry of Revenue excluded Guizhou from the three additional levies it imposed starting in the 46th year of the Wanli reign. This wasn't simply out of kindness; the most important reason was that the amount of farmland in Guizhou was orders of magnitude lower than that in other provinces.

"Ahem!" Li Ruhua coughed heartbreakingly a few times, then, after a moment's adjustment, prepared to continue. But the emperor stopped him and said, "Your throat is burning from reciting. Get Li Qing a glass of water to moisten his throat."

The emperor's order was not directed at anyone, but Cao Huachun, who was at the end of the eunuch queue, reacted immediately. He consciously left his position and, like a young eunuch serving someone, brought Li Ruhua a glass of warm water.

While Li Ruhua was drinking water, the emperor sympathetically said, "Please sit down and talk. Otherwise, the chair will be useless."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Li Ruhua didn't refuse and sat down directly. He was indeed a little exhausted after coughing a few times, and he even felt a faint fishy sweetness rising in his throat.

"Huguang has 231,629,651 acres of farmland. Although I don't know how Huguang made this book, I am sure that this number is absolutely inflated. When the Liao salary was increased last year, the Ministry of Revenue also levied it based on more than 90 million acres instead of more than 230 million acres." Even if it is reduced to more than 90 million acres, Huguang's taxable land is still the highest in the world.

"Why is the Ministry of Revenue so sure?" The Imperial Household Department had noticed the discrepancy between the two figures. Wang An had intended to wait until Li Ruhua finished his report before asking questions. However, since Li Ruhua dared to use the word "sure," he interrupted.

But at this moment, the Minister of Personnel Zhou Jiamo, who was standing beside Li Ruhua, suddenly spoke up: "I know a little bit about this matter. Can I say a few words?"

"Yes. Lord Zhou, go ahead." The emperor nodded. "Also, let Lord Li take a few breaths."

Zhou Jiamo was nearly eighty, yet he remained remarkably vigorous. "If you look back further, you'll find that the sudden jump in Huguang's figures occurred in the sixth year of the Wanli reign. That year, Zhang Wenzhong officially oversaw the survey of all land under heaven."

"In the sixth year of the Wanli reign, an imperial decree required all prefectures, states, and counties throughout the country to complete a land survey within three years, using this survey as a basis for official evaluations and promotions. By the end of the sixth year, the number of registered farmlands had soared from over 400 million mu to over 700 million mu. The largest increase was in Huguang, where the area more than doubled and a half."

Wang An briefly noted Zhou Jiamo's answer, then raised his head and said, "Minister Zhou, you only stated a phenomenon and did not answer the question raised by the Imperial Household Department." After that, Wang An turned to look at Li Ruhua and said,

"The Imperial Household Department followed Zhou's instructions and asked the Ministry of Revenue. Could the Imperial Household Department understand that when the Ministry of Revenue increased the Liao tax to Huguang, it was based on the number of acres of farmland before the sixth year of the Wanli reign, rather than the number of acres of farmland after the sixth year of the Wanli reign? In other words, when calculating the additional Liao tax, the Ministry of Revenue automatically ignored the achievements of Zhang Wenzhong from the sixth to the ninth year of the Wanli reign, and regressed to the period before the Longwan Reform?"

(End of this chapter)