1848 Great Qing Charcoal Burners

Chapter 315 New Thief, Old Thief
Peng Gang walked to the armchair next to the official's desk, lifted his robe, and sat down.

Chen Xingwang was very perceptive. Before Peng Gang could speak, he picked up the key, unlocked the bookcase, took out a small locked nanmu box, opened the lock, and took out several blue ledgers from the box, handing them to Peng Gang for inspection.

"The total amount collected for the four gates of Jianghan Chaozong, including the yatie and yaji fees, is 3,838,435 taels, 8 mace, and 4 fen." Chen Xingwang was already very familiar with the accounts in the blue ledger.

"The dental plaque is a one-time transaction, and the dental commissioner can collect around 780,000 taels of silver every year thereafter. Both of these are entirely in silver."

Jianghan Chaozong was a tax station in the three towns of Wuhan during the Qing Dynasty before Hankou was opened as a treaty port, and it was the most important tax collection agency for import and export goods in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

Wuchang was called Jiangguan, the east of Hankou was called Hanguan, Yingwuzhou in Hanyang was called Chaoguan, and the west of Hankou was called Zongguan. Thus, the four passes of Jianghan Chaozong were referred to as the four passes.

Benefiting from its unique comprehensive geographical advantages, the four passes of Jianghan Chaozong are located in the largest and highest tax revenue trading post in the inland region.

During the Daoguang era, the tax revenue contributed by the four customs offices of Jianghan and Chaozong to the Qing court was second only to that of the Yuehai Customs (Guangzhou Customs) and Jianghai Customs (Shanghai Customs), and it was already showing a trend of surpassing the increasingly declining Yuehai Customs.

After the Second Opium War, the powers extended their reach into the heart of the Yangtze River region, and regarded the four passes of the Yangtze River and Hankou as the most valuable assets in the Yangtze River basin, choosing to establish concessions in Hankou.

When the late Qing government borrowed foreign debt to repay indemnities, it often used the Jianghan Customs House as collateral.

Although the Hankou Tax Bureau was located in Hankou, it was responsible for the tax revenue of the Hankou Customs, as well as the tax revenue of the other three customs offices.

The so-called dental plaque fee is similar to the modern business license registration fee or franchise fee.

The fee is usually charged in one lump sum, and the amount depends on the location of the brokerage firm, its scale of operation, and the type of business. Brokerage fees are very high in prosperous areas and for bulk commodities (such as grain, silk, and salt).

The price of dental plaques at the four passes of Jianghan, Chaozhou, and Zongli was the highest among all the trade passes in the inland region.

Dental fees are similar to annual fees or business taxes.

After obtaining a license to operate a brokerage firm, brokers or brokers are required to pay a fixed tax to the state government or their own provincial governor every year in exchange for the right to continue operating.

Therefore, the dental tax is sometimes also called the annual donation or dental tax.

In fact, Chen Xingwang only collected fees for three of the four gates of Jianghan Chaozong's dental work and dental records.

Jiangguan in Wuchang was occupied by Hong Yang and others last year. When Peng Gang took over Wuchang, the brokerage firms and brokers in Wuchang no longer existed.

"Continue," Peng Gang said, flipping through the ledgers while gesturing for Chen Xingwang to continue his report.

Chen Xingwang cleared his throat: "Currently, the other two largest stable sources of income are customs duties and door-to-door tax. Customs duties are 5% of the value, and door-to-door tax is 3% of the value, collected monthly."

Although the tax rate set by our palace is higher than that of the Qing court, our palace does not impose any other miscellaneous levies on merchants and people, nor does it have any local vagrants or bullies making things difficult for them. As a result, the burden on merchants and people in the four passes has been greatly reduced, and they dare to openly sell their goods, and the volume of transactions has actually increased.

Last month, customs duties alone amounted to 78,000 taels; taxes collected from various businesses totaled 32,000 taels; and miscellaneous taxes, including ship fees and cargo taxes, amounted to approximately 68,000 taels of silver.
For the aforementioned items, both cash and silver payments are accepted; the subordinates have already converted the cash payments into silver.

It feels so good to have no middlemen taking a cut.

Although Wuchang Jiangguan, one of the four passes of the Jianghan Chaozong, was already defunct in name only, and the war had severely impacted trade between the four passes, Chen Xingwang's tax revenue was actually higher than before the war.

It goes without saying who benefited from the four passes of the Yangtze and Han Rivers converging on the river.

The hundreds of thousands of taels of silver confiscated by Yang Xiuqing and others from the Governor's Office probably mostly came from the four passes of Jianghan Chaozong.

This is only the silver that Cheng Yucai left in the mansion; the silver that Cheng Yucai transported back to his hometown of Nanchang has not yet been counted.

"The collected silver should be transported to the Imperial Treasury as soon as possible." Peng Gang already had a general idea of ​​the revenue from the four passes of Jianghan Chaozong.

"Your Highness, the newly established brokerage firms in the four passes, upon learning of Your Highness's upcoming wedding, have specially raised 330,000 taels of silver to repay Your Highness's kindness by granting them brokerage licenses and to fund Your Highness's renovation of the palace and the wedding ceremony," Chen Xingwang said.

Peng Gang nodded slightly: "Xingwang, judging by the time, you've been in charge of the four passes of Jianghan Chaozong for five months now, haven't you? What are your thoughts on managing the four passes of Jianghan Chaozong? Do you have any strategies for increasing revenue?"

After pondering for a long time, Chen Xingwang replied fluently: "Your Majesty, in my humble opinion, the key to managing trade routes lies in keeping promises and ensuring smooth operations."

Upholding integrity means that the tax rules and market regulations set by our palace must be clearly stated to the merchants and the people. These rules must never be changed arbitrarily, and tax officials must not be allowed to manipulate the system or exploit merchants. Merchants pursue profit but also fear risk. If they know that our Northern Palace's words are lawful and that we conduct fair trade, their hearts will be at ease, and they will dare to invest large sums of money here.

Smooth flow means protecting the waterways, at least ensuring that the waterways under my control are free from blockages. We must constantly eliminate river bandits, ensure sufficient manpower and manpower at the docks, manage cargo warehouses effectively, and ensure unimpeded roads for vehicles and horses.

If goods can flow freely and commodities can circulate smoothly, then money will naturally circulate continuously. These two factors are the long-term strategies for the stability of the four passes along the Yangtze and Han rivers, and are far more important than the amount of tax revenue at any given time.

The transportation of Sichuan and Huai salt through the four passes of the Yangtze and Han Rivers is unparalleled, followed by medicinal herbs from Yunnan and Guizhou, tea from Hunan and Jiangxi, silk from Suzhou and Hangzhou, and local products such as tung oil, fish, and sausage casings.

In my humble opinion, the solution to increasing revenue lies not in raising taxes, but in expanding the market. We could offer some preferential treatment to merchants from other regions to attract more maritime merchants from Jiangnan, Guangdong, and Fujian provinces, bringing their goods to Hankou. Merchants from other regions wouldn't return empty-handed; they would more or less take some of our inland goods with them to sell elsewhere.

With more out-of-town merchants coming, the transit of goods has become smoother, naturally broadening the tax base. The resulting increase in taxes far exceeds any additional levies imposed on existing merchants, without burdening local merchants or causing them to harbor resentment towards us.

Chen Xingwang basically applied his experience in managing Bitanxun to the four passes of Jianghan Chaozong.

Back then, Bitanxun became the largest trade distribution center in the Pingzaishan section of the Qianjiang River. Even the Shi brothers from Nabang Village in Guixian County came to Bitanxun to buy gunpowder.

It was because Chen Xingwang was considered to be trustworthy.

Although Chen Xingwang was not good at fighting, he would occasionally give Xie Bin some silver and entrust Xie Bin to clear out the bandits near Bitanxun. Therefore, the security situation in Bitanxun was relatively good at that time, and ordinary bandits did not dare to harass Bitanxun.

Peng Gang was pleasantly surprised that Chen Xingwang had the vision to expand the pie rather than focus on extracting cash, and he thought more highly of Chen Xingwang.

Peng Gang nodded and said, "I wholeheartedly agree with your proposal to expand the market! Please write a report outlining your specific plans for how to proceed."

The setting sun was like blood, over Dagutang, at the border of Nankang Prefecture and Jiujiang Prefecture.

The air was thick with the stench of blood and the acrid smell of gunpowder.

The shouts of battle had subsided, replaced by the painful groans of the wounded, the rude shouts in Shaanxi-Gansu and Jiangxi accents, and the clanging sounds of rummaging through spoils.

Shi Xiangzhen's detachment of over 1,200 troops stationed at Dagutang ultimately lost Dagutang, the waterway gateway to Dehua, Jiujiang Prefecture, under the combined attack of the Eight Banners general Fu Cheng, the Xi'an garrison commander, and his deputy Yin Peili's 3,000 Shaanxi-Gansu soldiers, Li Mengqun and Cheng Fupei (Cheng Yucai's eldest son)'s 2,000 Jiangxi soldiers, and Liu Yuxun's 1,000 Jiang soldiers.

The Battle of Dagutang was the biggest defeat the Winged Palace had suffered since the uprising began.

Of the more than 1,200 Taiping soldiers stationed at Dagutang, half fled back to Dehua, the capital of Jiujiang Prefecture, while the other half were killed or captured by the Qing army.

The Shaanxi-Gansu soldiers and the Jiangxi militia, in groups of three or five, carefully moved through the battlefield strewn with corpses, cleaning up the battlefield.

Their first target was the wounded Taiping soldiers who were still alive.

Those with severe and incurable injuries were often killed with a single blow. Those with minor injuries or who had been captured were roughly dragged up, tied together with hemp rope, and escorted to Nanchang, the provincial capital, to present the victory report to Imperial Commissioner Sai Shang'a and Jiangxi Governor Zhang Fei.

After dealing with the prisoners, the Qing soldiers buried themselves in searching for spoils of war, prying open the tightly clenched fingers of the dead and taking away the weapons that were still relatively intact.

These weapons were mostly spears, broadswords, muskets, and bamboo spears, with the occasional straight knife or waist knife.

Sometimes, loose silver or copper coins could be found on the corpses of those minor leaders, which immediately caused a small commotion and looting. The commotion and fighting were only calmed down by the officers' reprimands.

Li Mengqun, the Minister of Militia Training in Jiangxi, stood side by side with Fu Cheng, the General of the Shaanxi-Gansu Green Standard Army, and others on a slightly elevated slope, overlooking the devastated battlefield that had just witnessed a bloody battle. The setting sun cast their shadows long and thin.

Fu Cheng's face was flushed with barely suppressed excitement. He removed the black lacquered plume from his Eight Banners helmet, threw his head back, and laughed loudly, "Brother Shao Qiao! That was exhilarating! Damn, that was exhilarating!" As he spoke, Fu Cheng's thick arm pointed to the corpses and flags of the Taiping Army on the battlefield, and he became more and more excited as he spoke: "Look! Look at these Taiping rebels! How arrogant they were in Hunan before, but now they've been slaughtered by us, running away in a panic, abandoning their armor and dragging their weapons! This strategic location of Dagutang has finally fallen into our hands! This is a great victory! We can report our achievements to the Emperor and to Minister Zeng Sai!"
I will immediately draft a victory report, truthfully recounting how we fought side by side, bloodily battling and crushing the powerful enemy! Even the Taiping rebel leader Shi Xiangzhen is no match for him! It seems his rebellious fate is sealed! How exhilarating! Damn, how exhilarating!

During the Battle of Changsha, the Shaanxi-Gansu troops remained holed up inside the city and did not come out. Even after the Taiping army lifted the siege of Changsha and moved north, Sai Shang'a did not dare to order the Shaanxi-Gansu troops to go out of the city to pursue the retreating Taiping army.

Fu Cheng had long been fed up with this humiliation. Now that he had defeated the Taiping rebels at Dagutang, Fu Cheng and his men felt a great sense of pride and exhilaration!

The Jiangxi militia had won their first battle. Logically, Li Mengqun, as the Minister of the Jiangxi Militia and the commander of the Jiangxi militia, should have been equally excited. However, Li Mengqun, dressed in a plain-colored short robe with a factory collar, was not as excited as Fu Cheng and others.

Li Mengqun frowned slightly, his gaze sweeping across the battlefield, lingering for a long time on the prisoners and fallen Taiping soldiers.

Hearing Fu Cheng's excited words, Li Mengqun sighed slightly and said, "General Fu, victory is certainly a victory, and retaking Dagutang brings us closer to Dehua and Hukou, which is indeed a joyous occasion. However..."

At this point, Li Mengqun changed the subject, lowering his voice to ask Fu Cheng and the others, "Has Commander Fu carefully examined those thief corpses and captives?"

Fu Cheng was taken aback and asked, puzzled, "Oh? What's the difference? Aren't they all just Taiping rebels?"

Li Mengqun shook his head, disagreeing. He stepped down the slope, approached the corpses of the fallen Taiping soldiers, observed them for a while, and then pointed at the corpses, saying, "General Fu is mistaken. There is a world of difference between the new and old Taiping rebels."

Commander Fu, please look at these bandits. Their hair is short on their foreheads, some even with stubble less than an inch long. Their uniforms are messy, and most of them are newly recruited.

Just now, I heard the accents of those Taiping prisoners, and most of them were from Jiangxi and Hubei, with a few having a Hunan accent. There were very few Taiping prisoners with the distinctive Cantonese accent of that old Guangxi thief.

The old thief from Guangxi is the real driving force behind the rebellion in western Guangdong.

In today's battle, the rebels of Dagutang showed weak will to resist and appeared flustered during their retreat, unlike the slippery and difficult old thieves we encountered in Changsha. It is evident that these Taiping bandits of Dagutang are mostly new recruits forcibly recruited from Jiangxi, Hubei and other places.

What we have defeated today is likely not Shi Dakai's main force, but merely a minor branch of his army. It is hardly a great victory. Shi Dakai is known for his cunning in warfare, and his brother Xiangzhen is no mediocre man either. This small setback is unlikely to shake their foundations; on the contrary, it has alerted them.

Li Mengqun observed more closely and discovered early on that the bandits of Dagutang were very different from the bandits of the past.

The long-haired bandits in Dagutang were clearly not on the same level as the long-haired bandits he had encountered in Guangxi and Hunan in terms of fighting spirit and tactical skills.

The old thieves from Guangxi and Hunan are the core of the rebels. No matter how many new thieves from Hubei and Jiangxi are killed or captured, it will be difficult to shake the foundation of the rebellion.

Moreover, although they won the battle of Dagutang, killing and capturing more than 500 Taiping rebels.

But they didn't have an easy time in this battle, and it certainly wasn't a brilliant one.

Of the more than 500 Taiping rebels killed or captured, only about 100 were veterans from Guangxi and Hunan. Furthermore, Fu Cheng and Yin Peili's Shaanxi-Gansu troops suffered nearly 200 casualties, while Li Mengqun's Jiangxi troops and Liu Yuxun's Jiang troops suffered more than 300 casualties.

Even with the advantage of overwhelming numbers, such a casualty ratio in the battle against the Taiping rebels is nothing to be complacent about.

Li Mengqun was not happy at all; on the contrary, he was somewhat worried.

Judging from the performance of the Jiangxi militia today, although they were stronger than the usual militia, they were still far from being a match for the old long-haired and old short-haired militia.

Fu Cheng's excitement gradually faded, sobered up by Li Mengqun's words, but he was still somewhat dismissive: "Isn't Shao Qiao being too cautious? Even if they are new bandits, they are still rebels! If we can annihilate a portion of them and seize their key locations, it will still be a great achievement!"

Li Mengqun smiled wryly and said, "The merit is certainly merit. I just think that now is far from the time to celebrate. The main force of the Shi rebels has not been lost, and the generals of the Fa rebels are mostly vindictive people. I'm afraid they will soon look for an opportunity to retaliate against us."

We must be even more vigilant against their counterattack, strengthen the defenses of Dagutang, and report the true situation of the bandits to Lord Sai and Governor Zhang in detail. This is the best course of action.

If we become complacent because of a small victory, and allow Shi Ni to take advantage of our weakness with his old and elite troops, then today's victory may turn into tomorrow's defeat in the blink of an eye.

Upon hearing this, Liu Yuxun, a scholar from Nanchang and commander of another Jiangxi militia, suppressed his smile and asked with skepticism, "Shaoqiao, is the old rebel you speak of really much stronger than these new bandits in Dagutang?"

The Liu family of Nanchang was also a powerful clan in Nanchang. However, the Liu family was a rising star, and its foundation was much shallower than that of the Peng and Cheng families of Nanchang Prefecture. It was only in Liu Yuxun's generation that they began to show signs of rising in power.

Liu Yuxun was an anomaly among Jiangxi scholars, a rare individual among them who was skilled in martial arts and fond of war.

When Jiangxi organized local militias, Liu Yuxun was the most enthusiastic Jiangxi gentry. He almost gambled the future of the Liu family, emptying his family's coffers to get all the children of his clan into the militia in order to set up the Jiang Army.

Liu Yuxun had previously fought bandits, and today's battle at Dagutang was the toughest he had ever fought, both in terms of intensity and scale.

Li Mengqun praised the old bandit so highly and belittled the Taiping rebels of Dagutang so much that Liu Yuxun felt somewhat uncomfortable.

"The answer will be clear after Yang Su and that old traitor have clashed," Li Mengqun said.

Listening to Li Mengqun's calm analysis, Fu Cheng was somewhat disappointed, but he had to admit that Li Mengqun's analysis made sense. His excited emotions finally calmed down: "Alright! Let's do as Brother Mengqun says! I'll go and urge the men of Shaanxi and Gansu to build deep trenches and high walls, and send out more scouts to guard against the Taiping rebels' counterattack! Damn it, these Taiping rebels are really a tough nut to crack!"

After speaking, Fu Cheng led his Shaanxi-Gansu troops to deploy the defenses of Dagutang.

Just as Li Mengqun was about to move to join Fu Cheng in deploying the defenses of Dagutang, his gaze was drawn to a long-barreled firearm beside several fallen Taiping soldiers' corpses. The firearm was longer and heavier than an ordinary musket, and its shape was somewhat peculiar. He gestured to his personal guards to pick it up, brush away the blood and dirt, and examined it carefully.

It turned out to be a matchlock musket used by the Taiping Army, but this matchlock musket was different from the ones Li Mengqun had seen before; it did not have a match cord.

The firing mechanism resembled the Western-style self-propelled flintlock pistol that he often saw Ulantai playing with when he was in Guangxi.

Li Mengqun caught up with Fu Cheng and ordered his personal guards to hand him the heavy musket: "General Fu, you are a veteran of many battles and an expert in firearms. Please take a look at this."

Fu Cheng took it, and immediately felt its weight: "Raise the gun?"

Upon closer inspection, Fu Cheng quickly noticed something was wrong. He ran his fingers over the breechblock of the matchlock gun, a look of astonishment on his face: "Huh? Something's not right... This... This isn't a matchlock! It's... a flintlock?! The Taiping rebels... modified this matchlock gun into a flintlock?!"

“Exactly.” Li Mengqun’s tone was serious as he pointed to the modified breechblock. “The commander is an expert; he’ll know immediately. Please take a closer look and see how it compares to our matchlock muskets.”

Fu Cheng's expression turned serious. Although the imperial court had banned self-propelled muskets, as an old soldier who had handled and played with them, he naturally understood their advantages: "The difference is huge! Our army's matchlock muskets, while powerful, have many drawbacks. First, in rainy or windy weather, the matchlock is easily extinguished, making them difficult to fire, essentially just a burning stick! Second, in night combat, the lit matchlock is like a bright lamp, easily revealing our position! Third, loading is cumbersome, and firing is slow, meaning we can only fire one or two shots at a time!"

This flintlock musket is impervious to wind and rain; as long as the flint is intact and the powder bath is dry, it can fire. It is highly concealed, requires no open flame, and is especially effective at night! Its rate of fire is also faster, eliminating the need to light the matchlock, allowing a well-trained musket handler to fire much more quickly. Among the Taiping rebels… are there such skilled craftsmen? How could they have mounted a flintlock mechanism on a musket?!

"The short-haired bandits used more self-propelled muskets, which is more like their doing. In the first battle against the short-haired bandits, Prefect Jiang's Chu Yong suffered losses from the self-propelled muskets. The Chu Yong suffered heavy losses and it took several months to recover. General Fu, take another look at these bandit soldiers."

As he spoke, Li Mengqun, expressionless, pointed to the corpses of Taiping soldiers on the battlefield, dressed in haphazardly made short jackets and uniforms.

"These long-haired rebels are mostly newly recruited and poorly trained. Yet, even in such a rebel force, the core members have already begun to be equipped with such powerful weapons. Their elite troops are equipped with even more flintlock muskets."

If we were to encounter hundreds or even thousands of these old bandits from Guangxi and Hunan wielding such modified firearms on the battlefield... what chance would we have of victory if we charged like this today?

What worried Li Mengqun even more than the fact that the rebels could improve their equipment with flintlock muskets was that the Taiping rebels were actually able to equip their new recruits with such powerful weapons.

If long-haired people were like this, one can imagine how much more important and preferred short-haired people who used firearms.

Thinking of this, Li Mengqun subconsciously glanced at the muskets equipped by his Jiangxi soldiers and felt deeply worried.

Relying solely on muskets would likely be insufficient to suppress the Taiping rebels; it would be necessary to follow the example of General Wulantai of Jingzhou and purchase foreign guns and cannons from foreigners.

Fu Cheng nodded solemnly and said, "Shao Qiao's words are all gems. The rebels are not just blindly acting; they also know how to learn from others' strengths and make up for their weaknesses, and improve their military equipment. It seems that we will have to be even more vigilant in the battles to come."

(End of this chapter)