Chapter 45
Chapter 45
Customs duties were the tolls merchants paid at checkpoints along official roads when traveling to other regions for business. Every time they passed through a prefectural checkpoint, they had to pay another duty.
Sales taxes, meanwhile, were a set share of a merchant’s earnings after goods were sold. Relevant officials at the prefectural yamen usually audited and collected them at fixed intervals. The more merchants earned, the more tax they paid.
Neither tax was to be underestimated. Every traveling merchant knew that the rates depended entirely on the mood of the officials above. With bad luck – or deliberate targeting – a merchant might teeter on the verge of bankruptcy before even entering the city. But with a permit personally stamped by a Prefect to rely on, a merchant would receive a measure of respect not only in Yizhou but even in other prefectures.
After all, people would assume some “important lord” had his back!
If selling grain during a famine was an opportunistic windfall, then a tax-reduction permit was a merchant’s license to swagger wherever he pleased. It was priceless and virtually impossible to buy!
Even if Liang Wanda fell from power one day, the permit represented the authority of the Yizhou prefectural yamen itself. It would never expire!
The merchant bosses exchanged looks, each seeing desire and competition in the others’ eyes.
“What are you still hesitating for, honored proprietors?” Seeing them continue to weigh the pros and cons, Liang Wanda reminded them indifferently, “The grain you brought must all be old stock, correct? Here in Yizhou, summer brings little besides rain. We just suffered another flash flood recently, and who knows whether a third one will come.”
“If all that old rice rots in your shops, don’t say I failed to warn you~” Liang Wanda shook his head with a sigh.
The merchant bosses: “…”
Lord Liang certainly knew how to strike where it hurt.
They had indeed brought old rice. Was that not the whole point of selling in a famine zone, where they could immediately unload aging stock? They could clear their warehouses and make a killing at the same time. Only a fool would pass up the chance!
After brief calculations, the merchants each named a price they considered suitable, but Liang Wanda was still dissatisfied. “It seems the honored proprietors lack sincerity. My original thought was that the better your rice and the lower your price, the greater the tax reduction on my permit would be, and the more years it would last…”
“Oh, and the permit won’t bear anyone’s name. If any of you go bankrupt in the future, you might even resell it at a high price… Of course, I’m not cursing you with bankruptcy. I’m merely saying that misfortune can strike without warning, so think of this as insurance…” Liang Wanda said carelessly. “Miss this chance, and you won’t find another one – ”
The merchant bosses: “…”
Enough! That was enough!
Lord Liang, you cannot do whatever you please just because you hold a little power! It was a damned tragedy that you had not gone into business instead!!!
The merchants gritted their teeth and lowered their prices again. The northern merchants were especially willing. This journey had been difficult, but if they obtained a tax-reduction permit, then even if they failed to open a trade route between north and south, they could sell the permit to a wealthy southern merchant for far more than the old grain would ever earn them.
In the end, Liang Wanda purchased every last measure of grain, along with the carts and horses, for only slightly above the market price.
As promised, he took out the prefectural seal and wrote each merchant a tax-reduction permit specifying the reduction rate and number of years, then stamped it with the official seal.
Only after the transaction was complete did the merchant bosses ask, “Lord Liang, what is this enormous project Yizhou is about to begin?”
Liang Wanda smiled faintly. “For the next several years, all of Yizhou’s labor will be devoted to cutting through Mount Yuji and digging countless channels for the Min River, so every farmer will have a plentiful yet properly controlled supply of river water to irrigate the fields in every season.”
The merchant bosses: “!!!”
Good heavens. That really was an enormous project!
They had learned something of Yizhou’s plight on the way. In particular, His Majesty had issued an open examination question to scholars across the realm concerning Yizhou’s chronic and intractable floods. Presumably, he intended to seize this opportunity to solve the region’s flooding for good.
They simply had not expected the present emperor to commit years of human labor to excavating artificial waterways –
Many merchants could already smell countless business opportunities. The quickest-witted southern merchants saw even further.
Once the waterways were complete, Yizhou would inevitably become extraordinarily prosperous. The sooner they opened shops here, the sooner they could seize the market and eventually become leading magnates not only in Yizhou, but across the entire south.
When that day came, the permits in their hands would be more precious and coveted than ever!
The merchant bosses who grasped this immediately guarded the permits tucked against their chests with even greater care. This deal had been worth every coin.
“I never imagined His Majesty possessed such resolve. We are truly impressed!” another merchant exclaimed. “But this will surely cost several million taels, won’t it? It seems the imperial treasury must be quite full.”
Liang Wanda smiled from the side. “How could the court possibly have that much money?”
“Oh?” The merchant bosses looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
Were the banknotes he had shown them not disaster-relief silver from the court? Then again, the relief silver issued by the court had always been official bullion, never banknotes – much less notes drawn on so many different banks…
“If the honored proprietors are truly curious, you may remain a few more days. Once I finish counting the grain carts and open the city gates, you will learn where the money came from.” Liang Wanda deliberately left them in suspense.
The merchant bosses looked at one another, their curiosity mounting.
Three days later.
For those three days, prefectural yamen personnel counted the grain carts and transported rice into the city to feed the refugees. Inside, the residents enthusiastically spread the gospel. By now, even toddlers who had only just learned to talk could chant the words “dig through the mountain.”
Mountain excavation was hard physical work, however, so the yamen runners first organized the strongest men, recording their names and places of origin in a register that could be used for future arrangements.
Once everything was ready, the city gates finally opened.
The yamen runners maintaining order waved their arms and shouted, “Residents of Danyang County, Dongyang County, Longyang County… collect your relief grain and return to your villages first. After settling your families properly, pack your belongings, assemble at the city gates, and wait to depart for Mount Yuji.”
Villagers from the eastern counties waited obediently in line, but their heads craned excitedly toward the world outside the gates. When they saw the endless procession of grain carts, relief spread across every face.
Thank goodness. They had truly held out until the relief grain arrived!
Everyone was saved!
Standing nearby, the merchant bosses watched the scene and silently pondered what Liang Wanda had told them three days earlier.
Where exactly had the money for the grain come from?
As the first villager stepped forward and reached for a sack on a grain cart, they suddenly saw a tall, powerfully built prefectural soldier plant one foot on a high rock. Raising a sheet of paper, he called out in a ringing voice:
“A drop of kindness must be repaid with a gushing spring. When Yizhou suffers, aid comes from every direction. To help the people of Yizhou survive this crisis, the people of Zhuolu County in Jizhou donated more than two hundred fifty thousand taels in charitable silver; the people of Cangfu County donated more than two hundred thousand taels; the people of Shangqing County in Yuzhou donated more than one hundred three thousand taels; the people of Ning’an County donated more than eighty thousand taels; the people of Xinyuan County in Jinzhou donated more than one hundred thirty-seven thousand taels…”
One astonishing figure after another left the merchant bosses’ ears ringing and heads spinning. The people of Yizhou were equally dumbstruck, frozen where they stood.
None of them had imagined that after the flash-flood disaster in Yizhou, so many ordinary people from distant counties would willingly donate such enormous sums to help them survive!
Hundreds of thousands of taels – what did that mean? As common people themselves, they knew all too well. It was nearly everything those people possessed!
And surely… merely keeping themselves alive was already difficult enough!
The people of Yizhou reddened around the eyes, tears welling up. Some collected their rice, then knelt and kowtowed toward the soldier reading the donation list, committing the names of those counties to memory.
As the officer had said, a drop of kindness must be repaid with a gushing spring!
If disaster ever struck those places, the people of Yizhou would risk ten thousand deaths to help them in return!
…
Atop the wall, Shen Yuan watched scene after scene unfold below. His eyes reddened as a hundred emotions stirred within him.
He turned his head slightly toward Xie Chengze, who leaned against the wall nearby with his chin propped in one hand, idly enjoying the midday breeze.
Shen Yuan had never imagined that Xie Chengze would use the banknotes here. Still less had he imagined that Xie Chengze would take the dirty money seized from corrupt officials and, in the name of charitable donations from ordinary people, bind the people of Yizhou tightly to the people of other prefectures.
If Yizhou truly became a Land of Abundance one day, its people would undoubtedly repay those counties without hesitation. Perhaps, over time, the entire Jian’an Dynasty would develop the same solidarity – when one region suffered, aid would come from every direction, and all would weather hardship together.
The imperial treasury’s burden would be much lighter then as well.
Not even the Crown Prince had envisioned such a path. Shen Yuan could not imagine what depth of mercy and compassion a person had to possess to devise such a breathtaking solution.
Xie Chengze… what had you experienced in the years I knew nothing about, to become this kind of man?
Shen Yuan could not see through the person before him. He seemed to be Xie Chengze, yet also not Xie Chengze. Everything he did differed completely from that “Xie Chengze,” yet he knew the events of the previous life as though he had experienced them himself.
What left Shen Yuan most alarmed and at a loss was that he even felt this Xie Chengze… inspired a stronger desire to follow and serve him than the Crown Prince did.
“Your Highness.” Clinging to that absurd thought he dared not examine, Shen Yuan failed to notice how tightly his nervous palm had clenched. He stared deeply at the court rival he had fought for ten years and asked,
“When one region suffers, aid comes from every direction – is this your philosophy of governance?”
If this was indeed his philosophy of governance, then perhaps Shen Yuan could –
Hearing him, Xie Chengze lifted his head and gave him a puzzled look.
“What are you thinking? ‘When one region suffers, aid comes from every direction’ only works if every coin donated by the people here reaches the pockets of the people over there. Do you think that’s possible?”
Even in the modern era, with information so widely available, no one had managed that. How could County Magistrates and Prefects possibly pass up such a perfect opportunity for embezzlement?
When had Shen Yuan become so naive? Could it be that he had not been reborn at all, but was some other ancient soul who had possessed this body???
Xie Chengze’s suspicious, distrustful gaze swept Shen Yuan up and down over and over as he began to wonder whether his original judgment had been mistaken.
The doubted Shen Yuan: “…”
Once again, Shen Yuan wanted to strangle the man he had been a moment ago.
How could he have imagined Xie Chengze truly possessed that kind of mind? He must be sick too, to have nearly let this man lead his thoughts astray!!!