Qing Yao

Chapter 310 Think it over carefully!
Donations were a major way for the Qing government to solve its financial problems. During the Kangxi era, 520 county magistrate positions were sold over three years to quell the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories, accounting for half of all county magistrate positions in the country.

When the campaign against the Dzungar Khanate was hampered by insufficient military funds, Emperor Kangxi issued an edict encouraging wealthy households to donate funds. As a result, Shanxi Province donated 12,000 county magistrate positions within a year, and Gansu Province collected 17,000 positions within six months.

This policy continued, and whenever there was a need for military operations or a shortage of funds, a large number of official positions and titles would be sold, gradually forming a system where the Ministry of Personnel would lead the regular donation system.

As the Qing Dynasty's rule stabilized, the donation system came into normalcy, with various rules and regulations in place. It was not as exaggerated as it had been during the Kangxi era, and donations accounted for only one-fifth of the total number of officials, mostly below the fourth rank.

Because donating to become a student of the Imperial Academy did not pose a significant threat to the rule, it was quite rampant. As long as it wasn't taken too far, it was fine. For example, Gansu falsely reported a prolonged drought and managed to produce 300,000 students of the Imperial Academy in just a few years, which was utterly suicidal.

Of course, due to the Gansu case, all 300,000 people who paid money to get imprisoned became victims, and their academic qualifications were not recognized by the imperial court.

Consider it a lesson learned.

Overall, the income from donating official titles and supervisory positions accounted for roughly one-fifth of the Qing government's annual fiscal revenue, amounting to about ten million taels of silver.

After the Taiping Rebellion broke out, donations surged to 50%, becoming the main source of funding for the Qing government's suppression of peasant uprisings and foreign reparations.

The other two major sources are tobacco tax and customs duties.

The donation system has also experienced extreme inflation. In a few decades, a student of the Imperial Academy could be sold for 3000 taels of silver!
The official degree of Xiucai (秀才) from the imperial examination was put on the market after the Xianfeng Emperor's reign, and the price was shockingly high, a full 10000 taels of silver!
This is not an exaggeration. What is exaggerated is that the price of a minor official in the county government in the Jiangzhe region is higher than the price of buying a Xiucai degree, a Jiansheng degree, or a candidate for county magistrate.

During the Guangxu era, Ding Richang, the governor of Jiangsu, reported to the court that the position of a clerk in a county government office in Jiangsu was priced at 13,000 taels of silver, and even then, there was no market for it; many people were desperate to buy it.

It's estimated that only the Jiangzhe region could sell a Xiucai degree for 10,000 taels of silver, since becoming a Xiucai was probably a mandatory requirement for civil servants in county governments in Jiangzhe.

Conversely, one can deduce just how lucrative the petty officials in county governments in the Jiangzhe region were, perhaps even more so than the prefects of other provinces.

It's not hard to understand. In modern times, the clerks in the government offices would be bureau chiefs or section chiefs with real power. It would be very cost-effective to spend a few million to get such a position.

So, at first glance it seems outrageous, but upon closer inspection, you'll find it's actually quite cheap.

For Zhao An, if he didn't have money, he had to make money.

There are only two ways to make money: cutting costs and increasing revenue.

Zhao An certainly wouldn't cut costs, as that would offend all the officials in Anhui province. When he took office as the Grain Commissioner, although he abolished many of the bad practices in the Grain Commissioner's office, he also raised the salaries of the office staff as a whole.

A comparison of the two shows that the staff's income has not actually decreased.

The beneficiaries were the common people who went to the government office to handle affairs, while the losers were not the Qing government, but Zhao An himself.

Apart from a few officials with formal ranks, the salaries of all staff members in the Grain Transport Office were to be paid by the Grain Transport Office and its officials themselves.

If a grain transport clerk has a thousand men under his command who eat with him, then the clerk is responsible for paying the wages of these thousand unregistered personnel.

As the Grain Commissioner, Zhao An was responsible for distributing the salaries of the staff in his office and the personnel in the warehouses under his direct management. Given Zhao An's legally mandated salary and benefits, it was impossible for him to pay the staff's salaries. Therefore, the Qing court allowed the official in charge to collect various forms of illicit income to maintain the office.

It's similar to being a county magistrate.

If Zhao An allowed his subordinates to continue accepting these corrupt practices, his share would be reduced. Now that he's forbidden it, he can only use his own share to pay for them.

Whether the salary is paid in large or small amounts, the Qing government doesn't care; if salaries can't be paid, it's because the official in charge is incompetent.

As for how much the officials exploited the people for this purpose, the Qing court did not care.

Anyway, it looks good on paper. A county with hundreds of thousands of people only supports a few officials in name. Isn't that a sign of the court's virtue?

In reality, a county needs to support anywhere from a few thousand to tens of thousands of government-funded personnel.

The burden on ordinary people is far heavier than imagined.

Zhao An is now temporarily acting as the Provincial Treasurer of Anhui, no longer just a mere Grain Bureau Chief. His responsibilities have expanded too far; all projects, large and small, throughout Anhui require funding from him as Provincial Treasurer. This funding also covers his direct staff, dispatched staff, outsourced staff, official receptions, major affairs, and the imperial examinations.
Can you manage without money?

It can only be open source.

There are only two ways to open source: one is to attract investment to develop the local economy and increase fiscal revenue through taxation; the other is to sell everything that can be sold and convert it into cash.

Given the major disaster in Anhui, attracting investment is out of the question; selling goods is the only option.

Therefore, Prefect Dai's suggestion was like scratching an itch for Zhao An, making him very pleased.

Previously, commercializing education essentially involved selling degrees, which was relatively cumbersome. It was not as cost-effective as directly selling diplomas.

Wang Danwang is too ruthless and audacious. Selling tens of thousands of copies would be one thing, but he stupidly targeted the old man like Ge You and sold 300,000 copies at once. How could he not get into trouble?

Zhao An's plan was that if the report was approved, he would sell 50,000 copies and raise 3 million taels to fill the hole.

In addition, official positions should also be sold. Sell one or two hundred of the candidates below the sixth rank. In this way, you can raise at least five million taels of silver.

The imperial court was well aware of the actual situation in Anhui, and the old master was unlikely to argue with him over a few million taels of silver.

After all, Zhao An was genuinely committed to disaster relief and reconstruction, not just distributing the money among himself and others.

If the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Personnel have any objections, that's fine; you can provide the funds for disaster relief!

If there's no money, this temporary donation has to be made.

However, this matter needs to be discussed with a trusted confidant.

Where did this confidant come from?
Old Song, who just came from Yangzhou.

Old Song had already completed his resignation procedures and was now just an "outsider" with the title of Juren (a successful candidate in the imperial examinations). Zhao An was eager to find talented people and hired him as an official in the Anhui Provincial Treasury.

He is the chief secretary of the provincial government.

For a person of the sixth rank, there is no need to request approval from the Ministry of Personnel; they only need to submit their personnel file to the Ministry for verification.

Because this is the power of the Provincial Administration Commissioner, and it is not up to the Ministry of Personnel to interfere.

Old Song arrived in Sizhou with the grain transport team. This batch of grain was 300,000 shi (a unit of dry measure) of grain procured by Fang Weidian, the prefect of Yangzhou, based on documents from the provincial administration. Another 400,000 shi would be procured later. Yangzhou was an international metropolis, and the Yangzhou government was wealthy; raising several hundred thousand shi of grain wouldn't be too difficult as long as the documents and reports were prepared well. Moreover, it was a crucial task assigned by the province, and the receiving party was Zhao An, who had just been promoted from Yangzhou to Anhui.

Zhao An did a lot of work in Yangzhou and helped Lord Fang achieve many political accomplishments. The significant increase in the student admission rate alone was enough to make Lord Fang proud and earn him a top-notch evaluation. He also gave a considerable share of the property of the gangsters when he investigated and confiscated their assets. Moreover, he was always very polite to Lord Fang. How could Lord Fang possibly refuse to do anything about it?

Anyway, it was a requirement from the province, and he was just following orders. If anything went wrong, the provincial governor would take the blame; it had nothing to do with him.

Because of the unrest in Anhui, Yangzhou was worried that the grain being transported would be looted by disaster victims, so they sent another 300 Green Standard Army soldiers to escort it along the way.

The team leader, Zhao An, recognized him; he was Hou Feng, a subordinate of the acting guerrilla commander. Hou Feng had made a fortune by following Zhao An in investigating and confiscating the property of the canal gang. Hearing that grain needed to be transported to Anhui for disaster relief and that Censor Zhao had been promoted to acting governor of Anhui, Hou Feng volunteered to come and help.

The person in charge of transportation on the canal gang side was Ye Zhigui, who had nearly killed the Fuzhou general at the mouth of the Yangtze River. He also brought two helpers, Zhuang Yingjiu and Ren Chaoyang, both of whom were valued by Zhao An.

I guess Ding Jiu specially arranged for the two of them to come.

More than 700 brothers from the Yangzhou branch came to transport grain, along with more than 100 large and small grain transport boats. That's no more than that, because this year's grain transport mission has already started, and the Yangzhou branch has mobilized all its members to participate in the northward transport of grain. There simply aren't enough people available for the young lord to dispatch.

Under Ding Jiu's coordination, the canal gang branches in Huai'an and Xuzhou also spared manpower to assist the local government in transporting grain to Anhui. The Yangzhou branch would have to repay these favors later.

As soon as Lao Song and his entourage arrived, Zhao An immediately received them.

Before Zhao An could ask, Old Song excitedly said that all walks of life in Yangzhou were responding to Zhao An's call and actively raising funds to support Anhui.

The most active participants were the education sector in Yangzhou.

Vice Principal Ma, who was recommended by Zhao An to take over as professor at Yangzhou Prefectural School, called on all teachers and students to donate money and supplies to the disaster area. He also issued documents in the name of Yangzhou Prefectural School to the prefectures and counties below, requiring them to mobilize teachers and students to donate money as well.

He even took the initiative to donate half a year's salary. Under Vice Principal Ma's exemplary leadership, the Yangzhou education community had raised 23,000 taels of silver for disaster relief by the time Lao Song left.

"well!"

Zhao An was very pleased. He had indeed not misjudged Lao Ma. Lao Ma hadn't abandoned him after his departure.

Little did they know that a large portion of the more than 20,000 taels raised by the Yangzhou education community was forcibly imposed on students by Vice Principal Ma. Students who did not donate money were not allowed to attend school, with the euphemism, "If you don't do good deeds, what kind of education are you going to have?"

Old Ding also made a great contribution, trying every means to raise 120,000 taels of disaster relief funds for his grandson-in-law. Of these, more than 20,000 taels were voluntary donations from various levels of government, while the rest were high-interest loans borrowed by Old Ding.

However, Lao Ding is finally getting a promotion.

Jiangsu Governor Fu Song submitted a memorial to the imperial court recommending Lao Ding for promotion to the fifth-rank position of Haimen Tongzhi.

During the Yongzheng era, Haimen Prefecture was a directly governed prefecture under Jiangsu Province. During the Qianlong era, due to the continuous stretch of Tongchong Sandbar, Haimen Prefecture was renamed a directly governed prefecture, located at the mouth of the Yangtze River.

Although Lao Ding's official position was Tongzhi, he was commonly known as the Director of the Department.

In other words, Ding County is now Ding Prefecture.

Old Ding is currently waiting for his successor to take over, and he will probably take office in Haimen next month.

Zhao An was certainly pleased with Lao Ding's promotion. He had originally estimated that Lao Ding might be appointed as the prefect in the north, which would make it easier for him to smuggle salt northwards. Now, his promotion to the director of Haimen in the south has thwarted his plan. However, Haimen is the mouth of the Yangtze River and has great strategic significance.

It is very beneficial for smuggling.

Thinking about it this way, I was naturally happy.

When asked about his views on Anhui's proposal to establish temporary donations for official positions, the main concern was the sale of academic titles.

Old Song was a low-level bureaucrat who had long been engaged in education, so he certainly had the right to speak on the gains and losses of selling official titles.

However, Lao Song's thought process was not on the same page as Zhao An's. Zhao An hoped to get supplementary advice from Lao Song, namely, how to operate the sale of academic titles and how to appease the Anhui education system. To put it bluntly, academic titles can be sold, but you have to drag the academic officials into it.

Otherwise, even if the imperial court agreed to allow temporary donations in Anhui, the education officials in Anhui would resist and refuse to implement it, and the policy could not be pushed forward.

Therefore, there needs to be a set of regulations regarding how the collected diploma fees should be distributed among the education system and local officials, and how they should be implemented from the provincial to the county level.

Old Song has been the county education bureau chief for so many years. If he doesn't help Zhao An make a decision now, when will he?

The problem was that Lao Song strongly opposed Zhao An's idea, believing that doing so was like drinking poison to quench thirst or draining the pond to catch all the fish.

The reason is that if Zhao An wants to gain a foothold in Anhui, the test will not only be his ability to respond to this major disaster, but also his performance in governing Anhui in the future.

Furthermore, according to the theory of the three stages of the White Lotus Rebellion, Anhui was undoubtedly a good place for the "small loan party" to take root, operate, and grow stronger, because Anhui not only bordered the "war zone" but also had Jiangsu behind it. If Anhui was managed well, it could accumulate enough strength for the future uprising and at the same time infiltrate the areas where the White Lotus uprising took place.

Such a good base of operations, the excessive issuance of official titles would definitely lead to a significant reduction in local tax revenue. And local tax revenue is not only related to the governance performance of local officials, but also to the money, grain and manpower that the local area can mobilize.

To be more specific, those who can buy official titles are definitely wealthy people who haven't suffered from disasters. If the wealthy people in Anhui stop paying taxes to the government because they have official titles, it means that there is no longer any connection between the government and these wealthy people. How can you expect these wealthy people to support you?

Most importantly, if the wealthy had official titles or honors in the Qing Dynasty, how could they be expected to support anti-Qing efforts?

The rich are the gentry.

Throughout history, there has never been a successful rebellion without the support of the gentry class.

After hearing what Lao Song said, Zhao An thought it made sense. If all the rich people in Anhui were turned into "college students" of the Qing Dynasty, wouldn't these "college students" be determined to defend the Qing Dynasty to the death?

It's a very simple principle: you finally get your diploma, and then you tell me the school has closed down. Anyone would be furious with you!
Upon further thought, he dismissed the idea, saying, "What I'm selling is the Qing Dynasty's official title and exempting them from taxes. What does it have to do with us? What, can the Ming Dynasty's imperial sword be used to kill a Qing official like me?"

"This"

Old Song felt that Zhao An was acting like a rogue, abandoning his support after using it.

“Old Song, you’re still too narrow-minded. Think about it, I petitioned the Qing court for these student certificates on their behalf, and I issued them to them. If something happens to me one day, will the Qing court recognize their certificates?”

He paused, adopting the enigmatic air of a Beijing taxi driver, and said, "Back then, Wang Danwang, the Provincial Governor of Gansu, sold 300,000 Imperial Academy student licenses in Gansu. But why didn't he get into trouble in Gansu, but instead did it while he was being transferred to the position of Governor of Zhejiang? Think about it, think deeply about it."

(End of this chapter)