Chapter Twenty-Seven: Land Tax

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Land Taxes

The next day, before Zhu Qizhen had even awakened, he heard a crackling noise outside, as if countless cavalry were thundering over the ground, or innumerable swords clashing together. The sound was dense, stretching on without end.

Zhu Qizhen threw on his clothes and immediately attendants came to dress him properly. He pushed open the doors of the Palace of Heavenly Purity, and at once a wave of damp air surged in, accompanied by a roaring sound as raindrops splattered more than a meter, drenching the entire threshold.

Seeing this, Zhu Qizhen stood at the doorway, undeterred by the rain. Though it was only the splashes that reached him, in moments the corners of his robe were dampened.

Wang Zhen hurried to pull him back, saying, “Your Majesty, take care of your health. You mustn’t get caught in the rain.”

Zhu Qizhen laughed. “I am happy.”

Had one not lived in this time, one could not understand why Zhu Qizhen would rejoice so for a rainstorm. Since the fifth month, the drought in Henan had been worsening, even here in Beijing it had not rained for days. This downpour was as if the Milky Way itself had burst.

It seemed the drought had finally passed.

“I wonder how things are in Henan now?” Zhu Qizhen asked with a worried look.

“Your Majesty, I have come to bring you good news. As soon as the gates were opened this morning, the Embroidered Guards delivered word: three days ago, Henan was blessed with heavy rain and the drought has been relieved. The people, comforted by Lord Yu, have returned home. The disaster has passed in Henan,” Wang Zhen reported.

Zhu Qizhen smiled. “That is well.”

Suddenly, a thought struck Zhu Qizhen. “Have any other places reported disasters in the recent memorials?”

He had come to realize that for the Ming Empire, a year without calamity was incomplete. Yu Qian’s swift pacification of the people was not due to any extraordinary talent, but because disaster relief had long become an established practice. By acting accordingly and making up for any oversights, Yu Qian could see matters through to completion.

Thus Zhu Qizhen asked directly where disasters had occurred, not whether any had.

“Only Haining has reported a tidal disaster,” Wang Zhen replied.

Zhu Qizhen sat back down and signaled a young eunuch to close the doors. Instantly, the sound of the rain was shut outside. He settled on his throne and asked, “How did the Cabinet handle it?”

“They put the South Inspector, Lord Zhou Chen, in charge of relief. Haining County requested to build a stone embankment, but the Cabinet rejected it, telling the local authorities to handle it themselves. They only exempted Haining from three years of taxes,” Wang Zhen said.

Zhu Qizhen pondered, trying to discern Yang Shiqi’s reasoning. Perhaps Yang was not entirely opposed; perhaps he simply wished for the locals to resolve the matter themselves.

This left Zhu Qizhen uncertain. He decided to wait and see how things developed. Suddenly he realized that most tax exemptions included not only current dues but also arrears that had previously been uncollected.

Today he was supposed to hold court, but the rain was relentless. In both Ming and Qing times, imperial audiences took place outdoors—what was called “listening to government at the palace gates.” In such rain, it was unthinkable to have the officials standing in water, especially since these gatherings were more a formality, a show that the emperor was alive and well. True state business was processed through the memorials sent from the Cabinet to the palace.

Even Li Shimian’s lessons were canceled today.

In this era, a child catching a chill in the rain might not survive. The Empress Dowager cherished Zhu Qizhen dearly, and she was quite pleased with his academic progress lately. With summer approaching, she was even considering letting him forgo lessons during the hottest days.

With the extra time, Zhu Qizhen had Wang Zhen lead several dozen eunuchs to calculate the total amount of tax arrears exempted from the Hongxi to the tenth year of Xuande, that is, over the past ten years.

When Zhu Qizhen received the total, he was shocked. The arrears exempted due to disasters and unrest amounted to over ten million shi of grain.

What did ten million shi represent? The Ming annually collected around thirty million shi, but after various expenditures, not much was left. Zhu Qizhen wasn’t even sure if the grain stored in all the great granaries of Beijing and Tongzhou added up to ten million shi.

To put it another way: the Grand Canal annually transported four million shi, enough to sustain the capital. Thus, ten million shi could support two to three years’ worth of canal transport, equating to a third to nearly half of the nation’s annual revenue—ten years’ worth of fiscal surplus.

Reading through the records, Zhu Qizhen saw most of the exemptions were for arrears due to disasters. But once, Emperor Xuanzong had magnanimously exempted over three million shi in taxes from Jiangnan alone.

“This is not normal,” Zhu Qizhen sensed immediately.

“In many regions, even if arrears are not forgiven, they cannot be collected. Many exemptions are made under the pretense of disaster, and sometimes excuses are not even given.”

To Zhu Qizhen, a government’s ability to collect taxes was a crucial function. He vaguely recalled that by the late Ming, taxes could no longer be collected. Now it seemed this was a chronic affliction from birth.

While the empire’s power between the Hongxi and Xuande eras might not have been at its peak, financially it was still healthy. If taxes could not be collected now, what hope was there for the future?

Zhu Qizhen said, “I must go to the Empress Dowager.”

Wang Zhen quickly blocked him. “Your Majesty, the rain has not yet stopped. Why not wait a while longer? And this matter, I can perhaps offer some explanation.”

Zhu Qizhen was a little surprised. “Please speak, Grand Eunuch.”

Wang Zhen said, “The imperial tax quotas are fixed. The founding emperor, concerned about officials harassing the people, set the quotas for each prefecture and county during the Hongwu era. Grain taxes were not collected by officials, but by grain chiefs who handled transport.”

Previously, Zhu Qizhen would not have understood these words, but after months of studying the workings of the Ming court, he had acquired some basic knowledge. For instance, what a grain chief was.

A grain chief was a special position created by the founding emperor—not quite an official—mainly responsible for collecting each household’s taxes and transporting them to designated places.

“What’s the problem, then?” Zhu Qizhen asked.

“Your Majesty, grain chiefs collect according to the yellow registers, but these registers have been inaccurate for a long time. In many places, households migrate or vanish, census records are unreliable, and so taxes cannot be collected. In Hongwu’s time, grain chiefs would cover shortages out of pocket, but now the discrepancies are too great. They can no longer make up the difference.

“Of course, there are also troublemakers who refuse to pay imperial taxes, and the civil officials, being men of virtue, are unwilling to use force.

“To collect what is truly uncollectible would cost lives.

“These are the cases where taxes genuinely cannot be collected.

“But there are also cases where taxes could be collected, but are not. Local elites protect their own, manipulate documents, and deceive both higher and lower authorities. There have been cases of tampering with the registers. Without a display of severe force, some will always try their luck.”

Zhu Qizhen began to see Wang Zhen in a new light. Because of Wang Zhen’s reputation in history, Zhu Qizhen had viewed him with prejudice, thinking he was not fit for great responsibility, simply following the Empress Dowager’s wishes. But now, he saw that Wang Zhen had some insight into state affairs.

Seeing the change in Zhu Qizhen’s gaze, Wang Zhen was overjoyed and continued, “Most of the arrears are in Jiangnan, mainly because there is no clear distinction between state and private land there. State land, which was confiscated from the relatives and generals of Zhang Shicheng, is taxed heavily, while private land pays only about half as much.

“Over the decades, many land deeds changed hands, and the people felt wronged and unwilling to pay grain taxes. So Jiangnan lags behind the most in tax payments. Of these ten million shi of arrears, half are owed by Jiangnan alone.”

Examining his chart, Zhu Qizhen said, “There is another reason: the court collects too much grain from Jiangnan. One prefecture in Suzhou equals an entire province elsewhere. How can the people be willing to pay?”

Wang Zhen immediately replied, “Your Majesty is wise.”

Zhu Qizhen thought to himself: “So far, the scholars’ practice of registering land under false names is not widespread; the main cause of arrears is the heavy taxes in Jiangnan.”

“Still, many issues here deserve more attention.”

“How, indeed, does the Ming administration function at its lowest levels?”