White-robed Minister

Chapter 271, page 0269: [The Operating Logic of the Sitting Position Method]

At the end of the month, the tenth day of the month is repaired.

Near the East Water Gate of the Bian River, at the Lihe Zhezhong Warehouse.

Around mid-morning, Wang Cun came to inspect the area. Xu Lai even left Chen Xiaoyi and two guards with Wang Cun as temporary attendants.

Wang Cun himself also brought two attendants.

"This is a restricted area; unauthorized personnel are prohibited from entering!"

Wang Cun, who was not wearing official robes, was immediately stopped at the door.

Soldiers (or their families) could enter to collect their rations by presenting a ticket to verify their identity. Wang Cun looked like he wasn't a soldier at all, so the guards at the granary didn't even bother to check him and simply blocked them.

Wang Cun could only show his official badge to indicate that he was there to supervise.

"Wang Jianxiang, please wait a moment. I will go and report immediately." The guard in charge of the warehouse was somewhat flustered.

"No need to report."

Wang Cun led his men straight in.

The two guards that Xu Lai assigned to Wang Cun forcibly pushed aside the guards at the warehouse.

Wang Cun's two attendants stood guard anxiously beside their master.

Chen Xiaoyi rebuked, "I am a close aide to Minister Xu of the Privy Council! Who dares to stop me again?"

This display of force terrified all the guards at the warehouse.

Wang Cun led his men to forcibly enter the warehouse. When they were still dozens of steps away from their designated seating area, the tax official in charge of the seating area came to greet them:

"I am Chen Zhong, paying my respects to my superior!"

In the Song Dynasty, "liwu guan" was a general term for officials specifically in charge of finances. These included officials in charge of tea and horse trade, mining, maritime trade, wine tax collection, transportation, and smelting.

The so-called "sitting-in-the-granary" method meant that the grain officials were allowed to sit in the granary and collect grain.

Wang Cunzhi questioned, "Since you are stationed here in the granary, why is there no grain there? Are there no soldiers willing to sell their grain?"

The tax official named Chen Zhong said, "We've collected them. Because we collected too many, we put them back in the granary; it's inconvenient to pile them up here."

The unit responsible for distributing salaries and rations to officials and soldiers was the Grain and Provisions Bureau.

However, the Grain and Provisions Bureau only issues coupons. Officials and soldiers must take the coupons to the granaries under the Ministry of Agriculture to collect their stipends and rations (cash is collected at other granaries).

As for the tax official in front of us, he was sent by the Three Departments. The grain they bought back from the soldiers would be stored directly in the granary.

Both the Three Offices and the Ministry of Agriculture are now under Wang Anshi's control.

"What about the ledgers for the repurchased grain?" Wang Cun asked again.

Chen Zhong argued, "There was a problem just now, and we've taken it to the grain distribution office for verification. That's why the repurchase has been suspended, and that's why no soldiers are here."

Wang Cun then walked towards the grain distribution point in the granary.

He stopped a soldier who was leaving to collect his rations and asked, "How much is your monthly ration?"

The soldier replied, "One stone and eight pecks."

"Bring the measuring vessel here, and inspect it on the spot!" Wang Cun ordered.

There was a resident supervisor on site. Upon seeing this, he brought out a measuring cup and said, "Please inspect and verify the grain."

Wang Cun asked, "Should it be this kind of small container?"

The supervising official replied, "All granaries in the capital, except those distributing rice to officials' salaries, use this measuring tool. If there are any doubts after inspection, you may report to the court for correction."

This involves a series of complex issues such as corvée labor, canal transport, losses, embezzlement, and deductions.

Wang Cun didn't come here to investigate this; he brought up Xiao Dou only to put pressure on him, but the supervisor directly rebuffed him.

"Bring me the ledgers for the repurchase of military rations!" Wang Cun stopped pressing the matter of Xiao Dou.

In the dead of winter, Chen Zhong, who was in charge of buying back the soldiers' rations, was already sweating profusely from fright.

The accounts definitely don't match!

Small measures were used to distribute rations to soldiers, while large measures were used to buy back their rations. Even when rations were directly deducted as cash, the calculation was still done using large measures.

Wang Cun then asked the soldier's name and quickly found the records of his grain receipts and sales.

The on-the-spot calculations confirmed that there was indeed a shortage.

Wang Cun had his attendants take out paper and pen and write down the names of all the officials present. Then he said to the soldier, "Have them make up for the money you earned from selling grain."

The soldier was both apprehensive and delighted, and went to collect the difference in pay with trepidation.

The soldiers who hadn't yet received their rations were overjoyed to see Wang Cun lingering. They knew that now the officials would certainly not dare to withhold payment for the grain.

Wang Cun then asked Chen Zhong, "The imperial court has decreed that the grain storage system must not involve forced sales. Do you have any forced sales practices here?"

"No, absolutely not." Chen Zhong shook his head repeatedly.

Wang Cun asked the soldiers, "Are there any unjustly assigned soldiers?"

The soldiers all lowered their heads and remained silent.

Because the Song Dynasty had an extremely strict system for managing rations, the process of soldiers receiving their rations was recorded in detail, including their names,

Place of origin, military branch, unit number, etc.

This was to prevent officials from embezzling funds, and to ensure that the accounts were clear at a glance during audits.

Now, however, it has become a threat to the soldiers. Anyone who dares to speak out will be remembered. Next time they come to collect their rations, they will definitely face severe retaliation!

Chen Zhong said, "There was no forced distribution; all the soldiers present can testify to this." He then shouted to the soldiers, "Those who have received their monthly rations may voluntarily go to the granary to sell their grain. If they do not wish to sell, that is also fine; there will be no forced distribution. It is entirely up to you."

Wang Cun stood there, watching the officials continue their work.

The soldiers who had received their rations also "voluntarily" went to the granary to sell their grain. They were quite happy, as with the king present, they didn't need to "voluntarily" sell too much.

Wang Cun said to his followers and Chen Xiaoyi, "Follow those soldiers and ask them for details once you're far away from the warehouse."

I stayed at the warehouse to continue my inspection.

Chen Xiaoyi and his follower immediately took action.

In the afternoon, Wang Cun went to Xu Lai's home to give a detailed report.

"At the beginning of the implementation of the grain storage system, the market price of each dou of rice was about 50 wen, and the government bought it back from the soldiers for 100 wen. The soldiers eagerly sold their grain, and then used the money from selling the grain to buy back twice as much grain on the market."

"Gradually, the tax officials began to use large measures to measure rice, thereby deducting money from the soldiers' grain sales. By this time, although the tax officials were deducting money from the grain sales, the soldiers could still make a profit when selling grain to the government."

"However, the price of grain on the market kept rising. Take March last year for example, the price of rice in the capital rose from 50 wen to 85 wen. By mid-March, it had risen to 105 wen. Only after the Kaifeng Prefecture intervened did it drop back to 75 wen by the end of the month."

"Although the price of rice in Kaifeng rises every spring when food is scarce, it would never have risen this much before."

"For the next year, except for the months when grain was transported to the capital, rice prices remained very high. It became increasingly difficult for the government to suppress them."

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"And the price for grain purchased from the granary was not always 100 coins per dou. It was based solely on the official price, not the market price. Soldiers started to lose money selling grain, so no one volunteered anymore."

"In order to fulfill their duties, officials simply converted a portion of the grain into cash when distributing it."

After listening attentively and pondering for a while, Xu Lai understood the entire logic of the sitting position method.

When the price of rice was 50 wen per dou (a unit of dry measure), why did Wang Anshi offer to buy back military rations for 100 wen? Wasn't he obviously losing money?

We're not losing money!

This includes the cost of transporting goods by canal.

The soldiers' rations were all allocated from the grain transported by the Grand Canal.

After the implementation of the "seated granary system," 100 million shi of grain could be saved from being transported annually in Kaifeng alone. This not only reduced the expenses of grain transport but also relieved people of the burden of corvée labor.

But soldiers still need to eat, so we just bought some at the market.

The grain in the market was brought in by merchants.

With so many soldiers suddenly available, the need to buy food from the market quickly led to a surge in food prices. While the imperial court did save money, all citizens suffered as the cost of living increased.

This means that the savings in canal transport costs are distributed equally among every citizen.

Historically, if this had continued, the price of rice in Kaifeng would have reached as high as 180 wen per dou three years later!

At first, the soldiers all made a profit, exchanging their grain for money and then reselling it to buy back twice the amount of grain.

However, as market prices continued to rise, official prices did not follow suit, and sometimes even decreased due to seasonal factors. Furthermore, officials began...

The deduction of money from selling grain meant that soldiers would definitely lose money if they sold grain through the "sitting in the granary" method.

Therefore, it changed from voluntary to mandatory!

Soldiers and ordinary citizens of the capital all suffered losses, while only the imperial court and grain merchants profited. Military officers and civilians who were originally required to escort the grain shipments also benefited because 100 million shi of grain were transported less annually.

Wang Anshi will reclaim the extra money that grain merchants made during the process through the Market Exchange Law.

After the market regulation law was implemented, large grain merchants did not benefit, and the imperial court could take advantage of the situation to win several times over.

How should this debt be settled?

There are pros and cons.

Xu Lai believes the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages.

Wang Anshi believed that the advantages far outweighed the disadvantages.

This thing can increase the court's revenue, so Zhao Xu most likely won't abolish it.

All Xu Lai could do was reduce the amount of money deducted. That is, at the end of each month, on the day the soldiers received their rations, he would send officials from the Privy Council to inspect and supervise the process.

However, there were many grain storage areas, and Xu Lai didn't have enough manpower, so he could only conduct random surprise inspections.

"My lord, there's been a disturbance at the Lihe warehouse!"

Chen Xiaoyi rushed over to deliver the news.

However, when Wang Cun personally supervised the process, officials dared not withhold money or grain. But after he left at noon, things returned to normal in the afternoon.

So Ping, the soldiers who received their rations before and after he personally supervised their work learned that some people had received more money and rations than they had, and the more he thought about it, the more unfair it seemed.

These people were afraid of retaliation when they received their next ration, so they didn't dare to say anything at first, at most they would complain a few times. But as more and more people complained, they got carried away and conspired with each other, and collectively went to the granary to demand that the difference be made up.

Soldiers who were receiving rations at other granaries have heard that there was a disturbance at the Lihe Zhezhong granary and are now secretly making connections.

After listening to Chen Xiaoyi's story, Xu Lai couldn't be bothered with such a mess.

Wang Anshi himself made the mess, so of course he should clean up his own mess.

Chen Xiaoyi said, "This news was brought by Li Chaoxiong, who is currently waiting in the outer courtyard."

Xu Lai said, "Bring him in."

Li Chaoxiong is Xu Lai's deputy captain of guards. Since Xu Lai is not going out today, he has given the guards the day off.

Li Chaoxiong was responsible for protecting Wang Cun in the morning, and in the afternoon he went to the granary to collect grain.

He heard the news as soon as he arrived at the warehouse.

"Are the soldiers in your Wuxiong Army making arrangements?" Xu Lai asked.

Li Chaoxiong replied, "Everyone is making connections, but not many dare to cause trouble. Everyone is still watching and seeing how things are resolved at the Lihe Central Granary. If the Lihe Central Granary receives all the reissues, then Wuxiong's army will definitely cause trouble too."

Reality is just that absurd.

If the imperial court severely punishes those who cause trouble, the remaining onlookers will be frightened into backing down.