White-robed Minister

Chapter 247 0245 [A Young Man Arrives at the Editorial Department]

By the mid-Northern Song Dynasty, emperors rarely bestowed residences.

Generally, only three types of people are granted residences: princesses, veteran officials, and meritorious officials.

The house where Wang Anshi now lives is rented by him; it is neither large nor small.

While the petitioners were still on their way, Wang Pang received the news and rushed to find Wang Anshi, who was at work.

"Thousands of people?" Wang Anshi exclaimed in surprise.

Wang Pang nodded and said, "It's said there are over a thousand people. Dongming County is over a hundred miles from the capital; someone must be stirring things up, otherwise it would be impossible for so many to gather."

Wang Anshi was caught off guard, but his house was surrounded by the people, so he had to go back immediately to deal with the matter.

He and his son got into the carriage, and they spent the whole way thinking about a solution.

"Lord Wang has arrived!"

A voice emerged from the crowd.

The crowd from Dongming County surged forward instantly, surrounding Wang Anshi's carriage. Many residents from nearby streets and alleys in the capital also came to watch the spectacle, thoroughly enjoying themselves.

"My family is a fourth-class household, why should we be promoted to a third-class household? You want to pay corvée labor fees? Fine, I'll pay. With each promotion in household class, my tax burden will have to increase!"

"That's right, I'm willing to pay the service fee, please quickly downgrade my household status!"

"Prime Minister Wang, you are the prime minister; you must act reasonably!"

""

The petitioners argued back and forth, making Wang Anshi's head buzz.

After a household's rank is upgraded, it's not just a matter of paying exemption from corvée labor; other taxes and fees will also rise accordingly. It would be strange if these people, who were unwittingly promoted, didn't cause trouble. Once someone organizes, they will inevitably come to the capital.

The Exemption from Service Act was piloted last year and has been extended to Jingdong, Jingxi and Huainan this year.

The heaviest taxes were levied in Henan Prefecture (Luoyang) because the current prefect of Henan was ousted by Fu Bi, and Henan Prefecture was Fu Bi's hometown.

Fu Bi was likely behind the scenes orchestrating this mass petition by the people of Dongming County.

Both sides started acting recklessly.

Driven by personal grudges, the reformists deliberately levied arbitrary exemption fees in Fu Bi's hometown. Fu Bi, in turn, colluded with Wen Yanbo, instructing Jia Fan to incite the people to petition higher authorities and lead them to storm Wang Anshi's residence.

This was a landmark event marking the intensification of the struggle between the old and new parties.

Kaifeng Prefecture has already dispatched local militia and yamen runners to separate the people from the carriages.

After ensuring his own safety, Wang Anshi stepped out of the carriage and said, "The arbitrary promotion of household registrations in Dongming County was absolutely not authorized by the Prime Minister's office. You should all go home first, and I will immediately send people to thoroughly investigate and demote your household registrations."

A voice rose from the crowd again: "Why would Minister Wang deceive us? If we return to Dongming, no one will care about this matter!"

"Yes, we can't go back."

"We demand an explanation right now!"

"If you don't lower the household registration level back, we'll stay here and not leave the house."

'

'

Wang Anshi had no choice but to send his son to invite Zhao Ziji, the judicial commissioner of Kaifeng Prefecture.

Zhao Ziji revealed his identity and agreed to go to Dongming County immediately to personally investigate the case of the unauthorized increase in household registration.

Moreover, Wang Anshi repeatedly assured that the household ranks that had been raised due to the exemption from corvée labor would definitely be lowered back to normal after the investigation was completed.

Most people were still afraid of the government, but with the prime minister's personal promise, the crowd gradually dispersed.

Wang Anshi finally breathed a sigh of relief and returned to his residence to work. He then summoned Lü Huiqing, Zhang Dun, Zeng Bu, and others to discuss matters.

"What are you doing?" Wang Anshi asked angrily.

The pilot program of the Exemption from Service Law in Kaifeng Prefecture was illegal from beginning to end.

The Ministry of Agriculture (the core institution of the reform) bypassed Kaifeng Prefecture and issued decrees to the counties under its jurisdiction.

Each county actually reported specific household classifications to the Ministry of Agriculture. However, when the Ministry of Agriculture issued its decree, it increased the number of superior households reported by each county by one-third.

Where would the extra third of the upper-class households get the exemption fees they were supposed to pay? If the county government wanted to complete its task, it could only upgrade some of the fourth-class households to third-class households in order to collect enough exemption fees to meet its quota.

Wang Anshi originally wanted to impose a greater tax burden on the truly upper-class households, but it was Zeng Bu and others who came up with the idea that caused such a huge mess.

Zeng Bu's main considerations are as follows:

If the upper-class households are burdened with excessive taxes, they will certainly feel it is unfair. In particular, many upper-class households have already colluded with clerks to be demoted to lower-class status.

If the levy is too high this time, more and more upper-class households will try every means to be demoted to lower-class households. In the future, not only will it be difficult to collect exemption fees, but even other taxes will be difficult to collect.

So they set an extra number of upper-class households out of thin air, forcing local officials to find ways to make up the difference.

Why did Wang Anshi agree?

Even without the exemption from corvée labor, local officials were still engaging in corrupt practices. They even directly imposed the heavy corvée labor that should have been performed by second-class households onto fifth-class households.

Wang Anshi weighed the pros and cons and believed that although his proposed exemption from corvée labor would also cause some fourth-class households to suffer, it was definitely better than the previous absurd situation.

There is no absolute fairness, nor is there a perfect policy; what is relatively fair and perfect is acceptable!

Moreover, this is still in the pilot phase, and modifications can be made if problems are encountered.

In fact, the counties of Henan Prefecture collected even more, but Fu Bi simply didn't want to cause trouble in his hometown. Otherwise, if things had escalated there, it would have definitely stirred up public outrage.

Zhang Dun said, "It needs to be changed. It's not just the problem in Dongming County; Huainan has also reported that officials are extorting money excessively. They say it's some kind of surplus money, and the extra money they collect is being kept for later use."

Wang Anshi frowned and asked, "Are we keeping more for future use?"

Zhang Dun nodded: "Let them charge 100, they can charge 200 or 300. We must set a limit, and absolutely not allow them to charge more than the limit."

Zeng Bu said, "The amount of the exemption fee also needs to be re-evaluated."

While they were discussing amending the exemption law, the petitioners did not leave the city.

It is unclear who was secretly instigating this, but the people first went to beat the Dengwen Drum. However, because soldiers blocked the Dengwen Drum, the people turned to the Censorate to appeal their grievances.

The censors were overjoyed!

Several successive Censors-in-Chief were demoted for opposing the new laws, and the current one still opposes reform. They happily received petitioners, listened attentively to their opinions, and some censors even wrote impeachment articles on the spot.

Xu Lai doesn't care about any of that, and it's no use trying to persuade him now.

Did the emperor and Wang Anshi not understand the underlying principles? They did, but once they were in their positions, it was difficult to stop the implementation of the new laws. They were caught in a dilemma.

Xu Lai's daily routine consisted of going to work, following the frontline battles, and incidentally studying classics and history and writing academic articles.

Let's build up our reputation first.

The emperor seemed to have forgotten about the matter of relocating the imperial guards to Runan to reclaim wasteland, or perhaps it was inconvenient to move the imperial guards again. In any case, Zhao Xu no longer mentioned it, and Xu Lai was too lazy to ask.

Zhao Ziji, the judicial commissioner of Kaifeng Prefecture, led his men to Dongming County that very day.

The case was not complicated and was quickly investigated.

Just as Zhao Ziji was about to ask Jia Fan a question, he suddenly discovered that the county magistrate had disappeared.

Where did the county magistrate go?

He's been promoted and is returning to the capital!

At this time, the Jinzouyuan was under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council, and Wen Yanbo was the Privy Councilor.

With a single transfer order, Wen Yanbo could urgently reassign an official to the Jinzouyuan (a government office for reporting official matters). As long as the rank wasn't too high, he could bypass the prime minister and other institutions like the Gaoguanyuan (a government office for reporting official matters).

This is an emergency order, and it's usually only triggered by a major event. Otherwise, the magistrate of Dongming County must obediently wait for the next magistrate to take over.

Wen Yanbo's excuse was that the border situation was urgent, and the Song Dynasty was fighting on two fronts with Liao and Xia, so he urgently transferred Jia Fan to the Jinzouyuan.

"My lord," Lü Huiqing said to Wang Anshi, "the people of Dongming had barely arrived in the capital when Magistrate Jia Fan was transferred to the Imperial Secretariat. This must have been orchestrated by Wen Yanbo; he even arranged Jia Fan's escape route!"

Wang Anshi said, "I know, let's discuss how to revise the exemption from corvée labor law first."

Zhao Ziji had already reported the details of the case to Wang Anshi.

Jia Fan actually didn't act recklessly; he was collecting taxes strictly according to the quota set by the Ministry of Agriculture. As for the extra money collected by the clerks, Jia Fan could simply claim ignorance. And the arbitrary promotion of households could also be attributed to acting in accordance with the Ministry of Agriculture's documents.

Wang Anshi suffered a loss he couldn't speak of; he couldn't investigate the case any further, nor could he convict Jia Fan of anything.

Once Jia Fan is convicted, all the local officials who implemented the exemption from corvée labor will also be guilty!

"Knock knock knock!"

A few days later, the drum for petitioning was sounded.

The task of striking the Dengwen Drum was handled by the Tongjin Division, which at that time was also a subordinate agency of the Privy Council.

Upon hearing the reason for the injustice, Wen Yanbo was overjoyed: Han Zhen had beaten a commander to death, and the commander's wife had come to appeal to the emperor.

Wang Anshi was in a state of utter distress.

The censors were still impeaching the reformists when the people of Dongming County filed a collective petition. Now, another woman came to lodge a complaint with the emperor—it was like adding insult to injury.

Lu Huiqing couldn't help but complain: "What's wrong with the Han brothers? One of them caused the mutiny in Qingzhou, and the other caused the woman in Qinzhou to beat the drum to appeal."

Wang Anshi was speechless.

Both of these members of the Han family were key figures in the reform movement, with Han Jiang even being the number two figure in the reform movement.

He used to think the Han brothers were very capable, so why are they all doing all sorts of inexplicable things?

The censors have gone mad, writing memorials to impeach Wang Anshi every day, making it difficult for him to cope.

Even the emperor questioned it to his face.

Wang Anshi spoke until his throat was dry before finally persuading the emperor to continue implementing the exemption from corvée labor. As a result, the emperor had to compromise, allowing some regions to retain their original policies.

The exemption from corvée labor that was subsequently implemented nationwide has become a complete hybrid, granting local officials even greater freedom. Even the yamen service system, which Wang Anshi most wanted to reform, is still retained in many prefectures and counties.

The reformists feared that too much freedom would lead to chaos, so they set a limit on the amount of exemption from service fees, which could be collected at most 20% above the limit.

Yes, it's explicitly stated that an extra 20% can be charged.

These extra exemption fees, nominally kept for emergency use, were actually divided up by officials.

"Excuse me, is the editorial office of *Duosheng* magazine located here?"

"Go into this alley, and it's the third house."

Thank you.

Chang Anmin strolled forward slowly.

Chang Anmin was from Qiongzhou, the same hometown as Yang Shu's wife. He entered the Imperial Academy at the age of fourteen and was a classmate of Xu Lai, and was also Xu Lai's senior.

Now, many of his classmates have passed the imperial examinations and become Jinshi, while Chang Anmin is still studying at the Imperial Academy.

He is only twenty-two years old this year, but he has already studied at the Imperial Academy for eight years!

While his classmates were all eager to take the imperial examinations, Chang Anmin was incredibly leisurely, enjoying reading all kinds of books, often unrelated to the examinations.

His brother-in-law, Cai Que, is now a key figure in the reform faction, but Chang Anmin dislikes Cai Que intensely.

He counted the doors and came to the third house in the alley.

This is a very ordinary courtyard in Beijing, with a very simple couplet hanging at the entrance.

The couplet was made from two pieces of rotten wood, which looked like they had been used as door panels before. The paint was mottled and there were traces of insect infestation. The carpenter cut them and reused them.

But Chang Anmin stood there for a long time, his eyes fixed on the content of the couplet.

To establish virtue, words, and deeds, a scholar must first establish his aspirations; with plans, actions, and principles, his writings will surely be verifiable.

Chang Anmin really liked this couplet and felt he could use it as his motto.

As for the couplet "The sound of wind, the sound of rain, the sound of reading," Xu Lai felt it was unsuitable for hanging in the magazine's editorial office, but it could be used if they were to establish an academy in the future.

"Knock knock knock!"

Chang Anmin knocked on the courtyard gate.

A servant opened the door and asked, "Scholar, are you here to submit your writings?"

"Submitting my manuscript." Chang Anmin took out his manuscript.

"Please come in quickly."

Chang Anmin was led inside and found it empty except for a boy reading.

Hearing footsteps outside, Wang Hou rose to greet him, saying, "The magazine is newly established, and everything is simple. Scholar Xu can only come on his days off. I can do a preliminary review of manuscripts such as poems and short stories. But academic articles must be submitted to Scholar Xu."

Chang Anmin, who had only intended to submit his work, asked upon seeing this, "Are you hiring here? I can come and help. I am a classmate of Scholar Xu, and I entered the Imperial Academy a year earlier than him."

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