The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 539: Zhang Juzheng's Reforms Are Full of Holes

The general income and expenditure of the Ming Dynasty court seemed to have been calculated.

These corrupt officials are really good at accounting.

Judging from the account books, they don't seem to be greedy at all!

The problem is that the two largest expenditures of the Ministry of Revenue did not exist before.

In the past, there was basically no money to pay the laborers recruited by local governments and even the government offices in the two capitals, and no money to purchase supplies for the Ministry of Revenue's warehouses.

Both of these came into being after Zhang Juzheng's reforms.

Originally, when local areas recruited laborers, they recruited young and strong men to serve for free, but now they have to pay for it.

As for the supplies in all the warehouses of the Ministry of Revenue, taxes used to be collected in kind, including grain, various agricultural products that could be used to offset taxes, and even timber, which were free of charge.

Now that all taxes are converted into silver, we do need to spend money to buy supplies.

There doesn't seem to be any problem with the extra expenses for these two items.

The problem is, it's an outrageous amount of money.

Just kidding, these two items of expenditure are nearly 25 million taels a year!
This means that Zhang Juzheng might as well not change the law, right?
If the law had not been changed, there would not have been an additional expenditure of nearly 25 million taels that year.

Absolutely ridiculous!
Wanli narrowed his eyes slightly and then asked, "Yu Ye, can't you see that there are huge problems with the wages of the conscripted laborers and the money the Ministry of Revenue uses to purchase supplies?"

Alas, there are indeed big problems with these two items, but there are no problems on the books.

Li Hualong sighed slightly and said, "Your Majesty, I know that these two expenditures are indeed very problematic, but judging from the accounts alone, there is no problem at all.

The wages of the conscripted laborers were indeed different in different places, and their accounts were kept very detailed, with every detail recording exactly how many laborers were conscripted from which place and what they did.

There is also money used by the Ministry of Revenue to purchase and replenish various supplies, which is calculated based on actual prices and is not arbitrarily priced.

They are indeed using these two expenditures to engage in rampant corruption, but on paper there is really no problem."

These corrupt officials are really good at accounting.

They all knew that there was something wrong with these two expenditures, but they couldn't find any problems on the books!

Wanli frowned and thought for a while, then asked: "What problems do you think there are in these two expenditures?
Now, let's not worry about how well they do their accounting, just tell me what's fishy about these two expenditures."

There are many problems here.

Li Hualong thought about it carefully, then said carefully: "I have also been in the local area for a few years.

Although there are not many yamen in the Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan Provincial Administration, there are still quite a few in Chongqing Prefecture. I know exactly how many officials of various types there are in the yamen.

In the accounts they made, many of the government offices had full staffing, which meant that there could not be any more. This rarely happened when conscripts were recruited free of charge.

After all, although conscription was free in the past, people had to be provided with food when they came to the yamen to perform labor. If there were many people recruited, the monthly food expenses alone would be no small amount.

If local officials don't even provide people with food, they will be denounced as corrupt officials and people will not work hard for them.

For example, the county magistrate used to recruit two to four yamen runners, who were enough to guard the gate, try cases, and beat people with sticks.

If they were recruited nearby, they would be sent home in the morning and evening, and the magistrate would only provide them with lunch and one or two dan of grain a month, which would be enough.

Nowadays, many county yamen are fully staffed with twelve people. Even just providing lunch would cost five or six stone of grain, and the key is to pay the wages.

At this time, the cheapest laborers had to earn one tael of silver a month, and in some places they could earn two or even three taels a month. Just for this item, a county government would have to spend an extra 20 to 30 taels a month, which means 200 to 300 taels a year. For a thousand county governments, that would be 200,000 to 300,000 taels.

There is also the construction of bridges, roads, and water conservancy projects. It is impossible for local areas to carry out construction every year. When I was in the Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan provinces, I was the most frequent dredging official. However, the dredging work has been stopped in the past two years as most of the work has been done, and the labor expenses have been getting less and less.

In their accounts, some places are repaired every year, either building bridges and roads or developing water conservancy projects, which would have been impossible in the past.

In the past, it was considered a good thing for local government offices to recruit laborers to build water conservancy projects. Building bridges and roads was basically funded by donations from wealthy local gentry and officials.

I guess that some local officials must have colluded with the Ministry of Revenue officials and deliberately used this to make money.

In addition, local officials may also tamper with the conscription of laborers or laborers. They may conscript their own relatives and friends, or they may not conscript that many people but falsely report a large number of people.

As for the purchase and replenishment of all the warehouses of the Ministry of Revenue, this kind of thing did not exist originally, because all the warehouses of the Ministry of Revenue were basically used to store taxes and various materials collected from local areas, and there was no need to replenish them.

Also, it is true that they always quoted market prices when making purchases, but most of them were based on the market prices in Beijing, and all kinds of materials were entering and leaving the warehouse too frequently, resulting in excessive depreciation.

There is a big trick here. They purchase so many supplies every year. Even if the prices are calculated based on the capital's prices, they should be calculated based on wholesale prices, not market prices.

In addition, when purchasing supplies, they can also purchase from their relatives and friends, allowing their relatives and friends to make a profit, or even accept money from certain merchants and purchase specifically from them.

As for depreciation, the trick is even bigger. They can simply purchase certain materials for certain merchants and store them in the department's warehouse. When those merchants sell out of their own materials, they will directly depreciate and release the goods at half price, and then sell them to other merchants, but they actually collect the full price.

These corrupt officials are really good at taking advantage of loopholes.

How many years did Zhang Juzheng's reforms last?
They actually took advantage of the loopholes in the reform to come up with so many ways to commit corruption.

Zhang Juzheng's reforms were riddled with holes by them, and almost all the benefits brought by the reforms were pocketed by them!
The problem is that the method devised by these corrupt officials does not have any obvious loopholes, at least not on the books.

What to do now?

Are we going to arrest people directly?
Even if they knew that there was something fishy about these two expenditures, that fishiness was not evidence of guilt.

As the saying goes, catch the thief and seize the stolen goods. They can't just arrest people as soon as they see the trick. More importantly, even if they arrest people as soon as they see the trick and make a presumption of guilt, they still need to have a target.

Who are they arresting now?

It is true that most officials in the Ministry of Revenue have problems, but should we arrest them all?

This is a bit ridiculous.

Wanli frowned and pondered for a while, then suddenly asked, "By the way, they must have someone's approval to purchase so many supplies to replenish the inventory, right?

I don't think I've ever seen any of their related memorials. Who proposed these, and who approved them? Have you checked?"

This person is also playing tricks.

Li Hualong said carefully: "The purchase of these materials was not proposed by one person, but by many officials in the Ministry of Revenue.

After they put forward their proposals, Li Dai, the Viceroy of the Granaries, would submit them to the Minister of Revenue, Chen Sheng, for approval before they were submitted to the emperor. The official documents they procured were all approved by the Cabinet and the Imperial Household Department.

As for why you haven't seen similar memorials, this is probably because they are frequently in and out of the warehouse.

They deliberately broke up the memorials, and the materials they purchased each time were worth only a few thousand taels at most, and some were even worth only a few hundred taels.

Even if it was more than 8 million taels a year, if they split it up into several volumes and submitted memorials every day, the total would not exceed 10,000 taels."

This bunch of corrupt officials have taken advantage of loopholes to get to me!

He also wanted to save trouble, so he would not handle it personally unless it was a big deal. Expenditures below ten thousand taels were not considered a big deal, so he did not need to approve it personally.

Unexpectedly, these corrupt officials actually came up with the idea of ​​tearing the documents apart and submitting them in a memorial!

It seems that Li Dai, the Governor-General's Minister of the Granaries, is most likely the mastermind behind this. There is definitely something fishy about this guy.

Otherwise, this guy wouldn't have deliberately split the memorial into parts. That would be so troublesome. Wouldn't it be better to submit one memorial every day? Does it have to be split into several parts?

This guy is really careful. He has been doing this for so long without revealing anything.

Do you think I can do nothing if you don't reveal your true identity?
I have many means.

Even if you don't reveal your true identity, I can still force you to reveal it!
Originally, he wanted to follow the rules strictly and let Yuan Keli, Li Hualong and Luo Sigong investigate in an open and honest manner.

In this way, all the government offices in the imperial court will gradually become able to get things done, and he won't have to be in charge of everything.

The problem is that it takes too much time to investigate openly. They have been investigating for such a long time and still haven't found any clues.

It's no use dragging this on. It looks like we need to do something.

Wanli was frowning in thought when Yuan Keli and Luo Sigong also arrived.

Judging from their appearance, there is most likely no progress.

After the emperor and his ministers exchanged greetings, Wanli asked directly, "Zhang Chao still doesn't want to recruit, right?"

Yuan Keli said helplessly, "Yes, Your Majesty, he has been beaten unconscious several times, but he just won't confess.

I am worried that he might not be able to bear such harsh torture. If he can't bear it, this most important thread will be broken."

This guy can't take it anymore, right?

Wanli thought for a moment, then asked, "Did you interrogate him during these days and get him to sign his confession?"

This is naturally indispensable.

Yuan Keli nodded repeatedly and said, "Every time he looked through it carefully, he signed and sealed it."

You won't make a false confession?
Wanli reminded: "Isn't his handwriting very special?"

Handwriting?

What does this mean?
His Majesty's intention is to find someone to imitate Zhang Chao's handwriting!
As for why someone was hired to imitate Zhang Chao's handwriting, it's the same reason as the empty seal case.

If they don't use the real Zhang Chao's signature, then they can write the confession however they want!
Is this okay?
The problem is, if I don’t do this, this guy will never speak.

Can they let these corrupt officials go unpunished?
No way.

Then do as His Majesty says!
Yuan Keli was stunned for a moment, then said carefully: "There is nothing special about his handwriting. The words I wrote when I was a scholar were almost the same as his."

Good, you understood.

Wanli nodded slightly, then asked, "Sigong, the rumors about Li Dai and Zhang Chao should be true, right?"

This means using Zhang Chao's false confession to deal with Li Dai!
Luo Sigong nodded repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty, it should all be true. Rumors are usually not groundless."

Very good, you get it.

Wanli nodded slightly, then said coldly: "Li Qing, don't worry about anything. If Zhang Chao refuses to confess, then beat him to death. Even if he is beaten to death, he deserves it."

This means that Li Dai will die without any evidence, right?
Upon hearing this, Yuan Keli slowly nodded and said, "I understand."

(End of this chapter)