Chapter 1961 - The Harbor Treasury

At the prospect of finally launching substantive tax work, Ai Zhixin felt a quiet surge of anticipation. His months in Guangzhou had yielded accomplishments in finance, but taxation remained entirely aspirational—all blueprints and planning, with nothing concrete to show. The plague had stolen precious time, and the chronic shortage of qualified personnel had done the rest.

The Wang couple's arrival changed everything. Not only were the two of them arriving, but they brought with them a cohort of cadres fresh from the taxation short-course training program—a vast improvement over his current subordinates, a motley assembly of veterans and novices who were, in essence, self-taught improvisers. There was critical work Ai Zhixin simply couldn't entrust to them, and so it had languished.

He reviewed the telegraphed arrival date and headcount, then summoned Ai Yixin to arrange appropriate offices and quarters within the Salt Administration compound—which doubled as the Finance and Tax Bureau headquarters.

With little operational work to occupy him these past months, Transmigrator Ai had poured his energies into infrastructure. He'd repaired crumbling structures throughout the old Salt Administration compound, renovated derelict buildings, installed septic tanks and public latrines, and—in the small courtyard serving as both his office and residence—laid modern drainage. He'd had quite enough of chamber pots.

By razing the most dangerous structures, he'd cleared space for an exercise yard where he drilled daily with Finance and Tax Bureau staff—much to the suffering of the retained Ming clerks.

The Salt Administration compound was sprawling but ancient. Guangzhou's humid, oppressive climate made sanitation a constant battle, and the long-serving clerks suffered from respiratory ailments and joint pain that flared with every seasonal shift. In the six months since Ai Zhixin had taken office, three retained clerks had been lost to illness or medical retirement. Determined to stem the attrition, Transmigrator Ai launched a "fitness movement" within the Bureau—both to bolster the health of the retained staff and to preserve the exercise discipline ingrained in the naturalized citizens transferred from Hainan.

While the compound could hardly be called "fully renovated," it was at least leagues beyond its initial state. A marginal improvement, but perhaps enough to make it tolerable for the Wangs.

On the morning the Wang couple was due to arrive, Ai Zhixin rose early—not to greet them, but to attend to another routine harbor treasury audit. As Director of the Finance and Tax Bureau, it fell to him to travel to the Great World and conduct an inventory of the Australian Song national treasury—the harbor treasury—verifying transferred goods and signing off on the records. Staff from the Monopoly Bureau would accompany him.

The harbor treasury was, in truth, the Executive Committee's central vault, as well as the depository for Delong Bank's various branches. Though policy dictated the establishment of the Central Reserve Bank as the Committee's central institution, the fledgling Reserve Bank lacked the requisite branch network. For now, much of its mandate remained delegated to Delong's local offices.

The Committee's finances served war above all else. The Finance Ministry established supply centers at key transit hubs—primarily ports—positioned behind the front lines in secondary or tertiary roles, shadowing military operations. These supply centers eventually evolved into regional treasuries. With Australian Song commanding the seas and transport conducted almost exclusively by ship, treasuries were naturally sited at ports, earning the designation "harbor treasury." The nomenclature also reflected an earlier era when openly proclaiming statehood remained impolitic, making "national" an inconvenient term.

The harbor treasury's origins traced back to the wealth seized during the raid on Gou Family Manor. The looted precious metals and valuables had been shipped to Lingao and stored aboard the Fengcheng at Bopu Port—the safest vault available at the time, and conveniently positioned for liquidating assets in Guangzhou to procure materials the Committee desperately needed. As the initial crisis subsided, dedicated warehouses rose at the port, and the Fengcheng's cargo gradually migrated ashore.

After the Chengmai Campaign secured effective control over Qiongshan County—if not Qiongzhou Prefecture City or Haikou Garrison—the finance sector established the Qiongzhou Prefecture Supply Center, tasked with collecting and transshipping materials across Hainan. Military grain procured through the "reasonable burden" system around the prefecture capital flowed directly to the Qiongshan County Supply Center, where it was tallied, registered, and shipped onward to sustain the expeditionary force in Guangzhou. The streamlined process maximized both efficiency and resource utilization. After the war, these supply centers seamlessly transformed into harbor treasuries. As the Committee's financial, commercial, and industrial apparatus expanded, all requisitioned materials—from taxation, industry, commerce, monopolies, customs, agriculture—funneled through the harbor treasuries. Ai Zhixin's experience managing the Qiongzhou harbor treasury earned him assignments establishing others, gradually constructing Australian Song's foundational treasury system. Each harbor treasury was staffed by a small cadre of naturalized clerks managing disbursements and receipts, supported by rudimentary accounting systems.

While material allocation remained the purview of the Planning Commission, actual disbursement fell to the Finance sector's harbor treasuries.

Guangzhou's harbor treasury occupied the Great World complex, specifically the "Inner World" precinct adjacent to the docks. Rows of warehouses lined the waterfront, with administrative offices housed in the outer row.

The harbor treasury hummed with constant activity. Messengers bearing satchels shuttled in and out, ferrying correspondence detailing material flows from disparate agencies. Every hour, a runner from the communications center delivered updated data from the Planning Commission and Delong's scattered branches.

At wooden counters, cashiers processed material requisition slips and warehouse receipts from various departments, directing the appropriate warehouses or ships to release or receive goods. Each transaction was logged—time, slip number, item description—onto a rolling blackboard for public display. Copyists transcribed the announcements into ledgers while telegraph operators simultaneously transmitted critical entries to the Finance Ministry and Planning Commission in Lingao, who maintained the master books. When inventory levels approached designated thresholds, or when a warehouse faced depletion before the Transportation Department's next scheduled delivery, notifications went out to the Commerce Department, Industry Department, or nearby transfer warehouses to arrange supplementary shipments.

Rather than proceeding directly to the harbor treasury offices, Ai Zhixin headed straight for the warehouse district at the Inner World docks.

It was inventory day, which meant no incoming or outgoing traffic at the warehouse complex. The usual bustle—horse carts, hand carts, porters—was entirely absent. Warehouse doors stood sealed, the docks empty save for the occasional footfalls of patrolling National Army soldiers. Behind those closed doors, crews tallied stock.

Ai Zhixin checked his wristwatch. Plenty of time remained. He would not personally count inventory—that wasn't his role—but he made a point of attending every inventory day, sometimes conducting unannounced inspections of specific warehouses or items. Even dedicated work eventually succumbed to fatigue, and signs of pro forma compliance had begun surfacing even before the Two Guangs Campaign. The Executive Committee's administrative apparatus was, in truth, alarmingly fragile. If the transmigrators themselves didn't maintain visible presence on the front lines—or at least the credible threat of appearing there—execution faltered.

"Old Liu!"

Liu Gang, who had been trailing him, quickened his pace.

"Your Excellency..."

"Head to the salt warehouse first," Ai Zhixin instructed. "Check on the inventory progress. A new shipment arrived yesterday. Verify that the salt matches the manifests."

With the Executive Committee now controlling Hainan and Guangdong, every salt field in both regions fell under its jurisdiction. Yet for the time being, they lacked the capacity to directly manage production or deploy sufficient qualified naturalized cadres to oversee the fields. Their only recourse was strict oversight of distribution checkpoints to enforce the salt monopoly.

Embezzlement schemes in the salt trade were legion, and salt workers were no naive lambs. Private salt merchants would not meekly surrender their profits—whether under the Song, Yuan, Ming, or the Australians, those who trafficked contraband salt had always been willing to court mortal danger.

Liu Gang, who'd emerged from the private salt trade himself, knew every trick intimately. Precisely why Ai Zhixin had recruited him into the Monopoly Bureau's Salt Affairs Company.

"Yes, Your Excellency!"

Liu Gang departed with his entourage. Supporting the new currency issuance required maintaining price stability and ensuring adequate supply of essential goods—themes repeatedly emphasized at economic work conferences. Ai Zhixin's salt monopoly strategy aimed to stabilize market prices through abundant low-cost supply: first, flood the market; second, eliminate private salt; stabilize, then gradually increase prices.

Easier prescribed than executed. Liu Gang's former associates were proving less than cooperative, exploiting the Committee's release of cheap salt to stockpile massive quantities. So while salt prices had dropped in areas where the Committee's commercial network reached directly, prices in the vast rural hinterlands remained stubbornly high.

Ai Zhixin lit a cigar. Without a state-owned commercial distribution network, effective market regulation appeared impossible. The released supplies were simply being hoarded by unscrupulous merchants.

Busy mornings pass swiftly. Throughout the hours before noon, Ai Zhixin conducted random spot checks across multiple warehouses, reviewed countless accounting ledgers and vouchers, signed stacks of documents, and met with several naturalized citizens. By the time he finally paused to eat the bento Ai Yixin had brought, it was past two in the afternoon. As he ate, he glanced through the window and noticed the "scheduled arrival" signal flag rising on the harbor observation tower.

The arrival times of the Executive Committee's steam-sail hybrid transports could rarely be pinpointed to the hour—at best, they knew whether a vessel would arrive morning, afternoon, or evening on a given day.