Chapter 476 - Autumn Levy (Part 31)
"Pick it up!" Zhou Dongtian scolded, his voice sharp with disapproval. "State your personnel number and rank!"
"Yes..." The girl snapped to attention, trembling, her eyes darting frantically to avoid the sight before her. "He Chun. Political Security cadet. Personal code: 1629042749545210."
"You can't handle seeing a naked man? How do you expect to do your job in the future? Get ready to take notes!"
"Yes!" He Chun sat down, face burning with embarrassment, keeping her gaze strictly on her clipboard, daring not to look up at the interrogation scene again.
It seemed the Political Security training program still had gaps, Zhou Dongtian noted. For people in this line of work, the enemy had no gender and no age. They needed to be thoroughly desensitized.
"Good." Zhou Dongtian turned back to Chen Minggang, his voice dropping to a gentle, almost soothing register. "Take your time. No rush. But don't leave anything out."
"The fish-scale registers are... they're at..." Chen Minggang murmured through trembling lips, revealing the hiding places one by one.
Based on his confession, several concealed caches were unearthed containing not just the fish-scale registers and past collection accounts, but also the current year's ledgers used for extorting major households under the pretext of "land surveying." Most crucially, the essential "black ledgers" were found. Unlike the official fish-scale registers, these clearly recorded the locations and amounts of "hidden fields" belonging to many grain households in Lingao. Details of various gentry and major households who had bribed him to alter their official entries were also meticulously documented. Though Wu De couldn't immediately decipher all the terminology and formatting, with all the Household Office clerks now under control, decoding them would present no difficulty.
Of course, Zhou Dongtian wasn't satisfied with just this. These findings would please Wu De, but the Planning Committee colleagues were watching eagerly for something else. Chen Minggang's family had served as Household Clerks for generations. The accumulated wealth couldn't be trivial—it would be a shame not to squeeze it all out.
"Where is your cached silver?"
"This lowly one has no cached—"
Zhou Dongtian nodded slightly, and Chen Minggang's body immediately began to spasm.
"Just tell me. Wealth is but worldly goods—" he coaxed.
The interrogation continued for most of the afternoon. Zhou Dongtian had specially summoned a nurse to measure Chen Minggang's blood pressure and heart rate every hour, ensuring the continuous electric shock interrogation remained within limits that caused maximum pain without endangering the subject's life.
"Just say it. Once you do, it'll be over."
"You've been Household Clerk for all these years. You expect me to believe you only have this much? Who are you trying to fool?"
...
In the end, the Planning Committee's search team uncovered three caches stuffed with valuables. One was at his residence in the county seat. Another was at the estate where Qiuhong was housed. The last was at a farm outside the city registered under a relative's name.
From his own residence's cache alone, they seized a massive quantity of silver. The cache at Qiuhong's estate contained chests of jewelry and valuables.
From the three caches combined, they recovered nearly forty thousand taels of silver—a staggering sum for the locality. This was equivalent to three years of Lingao County's total fiscal revenue. And this didn't include the many valuables that hadn't yet been appraised. The wealth of a "Household Clerk" was truly shocking.
Besides this, they recovered large quantities of various living supplies: substantial amounts of grain, cloth, oil, salted meat, salted fish, and wine.
"I really don't understand," Zhou Dongtian said, looking at the inventory list sent by the Planning Committee. "I can understand him hoarding silver and valuables—that makes sense. But what's the point of all this grain and cloth? Leave them long enough and they'll just rot away."
Du Wen replied, "One of the main characteristics of feudal society is that the upper classes endlessly accumulate life necessities far exceeding their own needs..."
"It can be used for lending. When people run short between harvests, old rice and spoiled grain can be lent out, and in autumn you collect fresh rice in return." Yan Ming was quite pleased about this windfall. He had studied Lingao's socioeconomic conditions thoroughly.
"That's really dark."
"Not especially. Just simple capital management techniques." Yan Ming shrugged. "Modern financial industry tricks are truly dark. But this does indicate one thing: there's great potential for rural microfinance!"
"Immediately organize the retained Household Office personnel. Have them work with our people to translate and compile these account books. Zhou Qi will be in charge," Wu De ordered. "Grain runners from the study class who performed well and have less public resentment can also be brought in to help. Also—" Wu De thought for a moment, "—within one week, I want a complete summary of this year's grain collection situation, including the base and tribute rice already collected, the bribes they took, inflated land claims, and so on. Everything must be clarified!"
"What should we do with Chen Minggang?" Zhou Dongtian asked for instructions.
"Execute him secretly after the ledger processing is complete."
"And his family?"
"All to be handed over to the labor reform camp," Wu De instructed. "No fixed term."
"Yes!" Zhou Dongtian remembered something. "Should Qiuhong be sent there too?" His tone suggested it would be a waste—Lingao had a serious gender imbalance, and giving a young woman to an indigenous employee would be a nice benefit.
"No. Give Qiuhong to Zhou Qi."
"Eh? That kid really lucked out."
"Not only are we giving him Qiuhong—we're also going to hold a grand wedding for them."
"What's this about? Buying his loyalty doesn't require going this far."
"You spread all those rumors about her and Zhou Qi. Now we make it real and ensure the whole county knows about it," Wu De said with a smile. "Zhou Qi is now firmly branded as a traitor who betrayed his master. He'll have no choice but to serve us loyally from now on."
After disposing of Chen Minggang's assets, the county seat purge also came to an end. The Leadership Group convened again.
"The county yamen is now completely under our control. We have all the necessary ledgers. It's time to resume grain collection work," Wu De said.
"We already have sufficient grain reserves. Why not just skip collection this year and directly start the new tax system reform? A one-year moratorium could give the people some respite."
"The new tax system isn't something that can be accomplished overnight. Stopping grain collection would cost us too much." Wu De shook his head. He then conveyed the Executive Committee's opinion: the new tax system reform would begin immediately, but this year's grain collection would also continue.
Though the transmigrators had stockpiled enough grain for advance payment, this was mainly for emergencies. The transmigrators themselves needed grain too. Local resources had to be utilized as soon as possible.
"We'll take a two-pronged approach, doing both simultaneously," Wu De explained his plan. "One track continues grain collection under the old system, using the fish-scale registers as the basis. I know the fish-scale registers are far from ideal in essence, but right now they're the only thing that everyone more or less recognizes as a basis—at least until we produce our own land registration records, we'll have to use them."
Besides the fish-scale registers, they had also obtained the collection accounts. These weren't the perfunctory official records, but Chen Minggang's actual "working ledgers." With these, they could clearly know who had paid and who hadn't, and what the actual amounts were.
"...With these figures in hand, we can implement supplementary collection and refunds..."
"You're going to issue refunds too?"
"To maintain the principle of fairness, of course we'll refund overpayments," Wu De said. "Since we can't implement the new tax system just yet, while using the old system we must strive for fairness—minimize abuses and earn the people's trust."
Specifically, collection would follow the amounts registered in the fish-scale registers. The countywide standard for tribute rice would be set at three dou per shi, with no additional levies. Any overpayments would be refunded.
"As for 'flying apportionment,' 'false registration,' and all the other countless abuses—they're too tangled to sort out quickly, so this year's grain collection won't address them. The focus will be on cleaning up the collection process itself: standardizing weights and measures, eliminating heaping, and reforming rice quality assessment."
"Won't we switch to metric units?"
"Not yet. Suddenly changing collection instruments would cause great confusion. I've had the woodworking shop produce a batch of standard official measures based on the iron bushels stored at the county yamen—the official bushels used for collection are all undersized."
Back when Zhu Yuanzhang founded the dynasty, he had specifically manufactured iron official bushels as standard measuring instruments and distributed them to counties throughout the realm to eliminate abuses of large and small measures in collection—though based on this county's current situation, the measure clearly hadn't had lasting effect.
Second was prohibiting heaping—naturally, the tricks of "kicking the granary measure and skimming the top" would also be discontinued.
Finally, for rice quality, the Agricultural Committee would specially develop a rice quality standard and produce sample cards for distribution to collection personnel.
"It's already October," Sun Xiao expressed concern. "According to Wang Zhaomin, the grain needs to be ready before November to be submitted on time. We've been busy with this upheaval for over ten days... without experienced hands now, we might not make it..."
"That's what the Vietnamese rice is for," Wu De said. "Emergency backup—that's exactly what it means. Use Vietnamese rice to cover the quota first, then handle grain collection at a more leisurely pace."
"Understood."
"Don't keep fixating on Vietnamese rice, everyone," Wu De warned them. "Our grain reserves aren't plentiful. Next year we're developing iron mines, and immigrants keep arriving—all these people need to eat and wear clothes. The sugar season in Leizhou is about to end."
Moreover, as they dumped large quantities of sugar into Vietnam and bought rice, local sugar prices were falling while rice prices were rising. The exchange ratio was no longer as advantageous as before.
"The specific collection operations will be handled by Delong."
Delong Grain Trading Company now had branches in Nanbo and Bopu in addition to its headquarters at East Gate Market. All three locations could accept grain, which was very convenient for grain households—previously, everyone had to go to the county seat to submit payment.
"Additionally, we plan to open a branch in the county seat," Yan Ming said. "Since we're managing the county treasury, we should be as close as possible to our clients. It's more convenient for everyone."
"That's good. The natives still respect the county seat's authority."
"Also, we need to establish a specialized agency," Wu De said. "Let's call it the Grain Collection Bureau."
(End of Chapter)