Zhu Di: My fourth son is a great emperor of all time?

Chapter 124 Heaven Blesses Xunzhou
Although sweet potatoes are not as refined as rice, their high calorie content and filling properties are enough to save lives.

"Your Highness is a divine being! May Heaven bless Xunzhou! May Heaven bless all people!" Wang Ao and the others were so excited that their voices trembled.

The news spread like wildfire throughout Xunzhou. When the Prince's Mansion organized people to dig up and distribute the first batch of harvested sweet potatoes in the hardest-hit villages such as Qingshi'ao, the entire Xunzhou was in an uproar.

Seeing the mountain of life-saving food, and the villagers holding the sweet and soft cooked sweet potatoes, their eyes filled with renewed hope, Zhu Gaoshuo's reputation as the "King of Survival" and "Rebirth Parent" spread like wildfire among the people.

Sweet potatoes have taken root in Xunzhou.

Zhu Gaoshuo immediately ordered a full-scale promotion of sweet potato cultivation, prioritizing planting on suitable slopes and sandy loam land. The Prince's Palace provided seedlings and technical guidance free of charge, and organized personnel to study long-term preservation methods such as cellar storage, slicing and drying (dried sweet potatoes), and grinding into powder (sweet potato flour).

We should select large, sweet, and high-yielding tubers for seed production and conduct preliminary breeding to pave the way for future planting, making it a long-term plan.

The alarm bells of a food crisis were temporarily suppressed by these tropical vines, public morale was unprecedentedly high, and Zhu Gaoshuo's prestige reached its peak.

At the same time, Zhu Gaoshuo did not forget another long-term undertaking, namely afforestation.

Although the growth of trees and the improvement of the environment are not things that can be accomplished overnight, Zhu Gaoshuo was well aware of their strategic significance. In order to eliminate the chronic problem of "planting trees every year but not seeing trees" and to protect the hard-won afforestation achievements, he once again demonstrated his swift and decisive approach by launching an unprecedented initiative.

Effective immediately, the position of 'Forest Ranger' will be established throughout Xunzhou.

Notices from the Prince Qi's residence were posted throughout the city and countryside, with the three large characters "Forest Ranger" standing out prominently.

Forest rangers are responsible for patrolling the mountains and forests, preventing theft and illegal logging, preventing fires and disasters, publicizing the benefits of forest protection, and guiding the people in scientific thinning and tending.

He also has specific rights: he can arrest those who steal or illegally log trees or set fire to forests and bring them to justice; and he can mobilize nearby militia to fight major fires.

The salary and benefits were unprecedentedly high, with all benefits being paid directly from the royal treasury, in accordance with the standards for a seventh-rank official.

Referring to the last clause regarding the treatment of a seventh-rank official, it was like a boulder thrown into a calm lake, stirring up towering waves. No one paid any attention to how terrible the working hours of forest rangers were; it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say they didn't go home all year round.

The public was in an uproar over the notice.

"Forest ranger? This...this is an official position?"

"The treatment is comparable to that of a seventh-rank official? My God! How much salary and grain would that require?"

"This job is great! Patrolling the mountains and protecting the trees, and I can get a government salary?"

"Your Highness has really gone all out! It seems this tree is truly going to be protected like a treasure!"

In no time, applicants flocked to the government office registration point. Hunters familiar with the mountains and forests, retired soldiers, respected elders, and even some educated young men from poor families who longed to change their fate all rushed to the registration point.

Zhu Gaoshuo personally oversaw the selection process, choosing only young and strong men who were truly familiar with the mountains and forests, of good character, and with a strong sense of responsibility to serve as forest rangers. Soon, teams of forest rangers, dressed in uniform and wearing waist badges issued by the Prince's Mansion, began to operate in the mountains and forests of Xunzhou.

Their presence acted as an invisible barrier, deterring those who coveted the timber and attempted to burn the wasteland. For the first time, the forests were truly protected under the dual guarantee of the system and human resources.

With the food crisis initially resolved and the forest protection system initially established, Zhu Gaoshuo's vision did not stop there.

The root of the corruption case in Qingpan County—the suffocatingly low salary system and the enormous gap between the actual needs of officials—stung like a poisonous thorn in his heart. He knew that simply killing corrupt officials as a deterrent was not enough; he had to find a feasible way to both promote integrity and avoid excessively increasing the burden on the people.

On this day, the study of Prince Qi's mansion was brightly lit with candles. Zhu Gaoshuo did not summon any officials from Xunzhou, but instead invited several old accountants who were quite famous in Xunzhou and even in Fujian and Guangdong.

These old gentlemen have spent their entire lives working with abacuses and are extremely knowledgeable about commodity prices, government revenue and expenditure, and merchant transactions.

"Please have a seat, gentlemen." Zhu Gaoshuo said humbly, personally pouring tea for several elderly men with white hair and beards.

"I have invited you all here today to ask you to help me calculate an account, an account that concerns the thousands of officials and common people of Xunzhou and even the Ming Dynasty."

He ordered his men to bring over a huge wooden board covered with sheets of paper filled with data.

"This is the salary details of Zhou Bapi, the magistrate of Qingshi County, before his home was confiscated: 90 shi of rice per year."

"This is a record of the fluctuations in the prices of rice, meat, cloth, and firewood in Xunzhou Prefecture from the early years of the Yongle reign to the present."

"This is the minimum estimated cost to maintain a respectable life for a seventh-rank county magistrate: food for family and servants, official robes, writing materials, carriages and horses, social obligations, hiring staff and clerks, and daily miscellaneous expenses of the yamen..."

"This is the actual amount he embezzled, converted into silver and grain..."

"This is a comparison of the total amount of embezzled funds and goods confiscated over the years in Xunzhou, in contrast to the total amount of salaries allocated by the imperial court..."

"This is the additional expenditure that Xunzhou Prefecture's treasury would need to make if the annual salary of a seventh-rank official were increased to 150 shi of rice..."

"This is an estimate that if salaries are increased, the actual burden on ordinary people will be reduced due to decreased exploitation by officials..."

Zhu Gaoshuo pointed to the wooden board, meticulously dissecting the cold, hard numbers and the cruel reality, laying them bare before the old accountants.

"I would like to ask you gentlemen to set aside your reservations and, with your decades of experience, use these abacus beads to give me a clear answer!"

"Can a seventh-rank official really survive on a salary of ninety shi (a unit of dry measure) in the present day? Can he even live like an official?"

"If not, what is the gap?"

"If his salary is increased to 150 shi (a unit of dry measure), can the Xunzhou treasury afford it?"

"If raising salaries effectively curbs corruption, will the actual burden on ordinary people increase or decrease?"

The only sound in the study was the clatter of the abacus. The old accountants were focused, their wrinkled fingers dancing quickly across the shiny beads. Sometimes they frowned in thought, sometimes they whispered to each other, and their red pens recorded one number after another on the scrap paper.

Time passed slowly, and Zhu Gaoshuo waited patiently, while Zhang Xiuping and Wang Ao held their breath.

Finally, the head accountant, surnamed Chen, with trembling hands, put down his abacus. He took a deep breath, bowed deeply to Zhu Gaoshuo, his voice carrying the vicissitudes of life and a hint of barely perceptible excitement:
"Your Highness is wise; we have figured it out."

"Ninety shi of rice as salary, based on the current rice price in Xunzhou, is equivalent to about forty-five taels of silver. However, maintaining the minimum decent expenses of a county magistrate requires at least one hundred and twenty taels of silver per year! The shortfall is as high as seventy-five taels!"

(End of this chapter)