Chapter 272: Eliminating Corrupt Practices

“I wouldn’t dare,” Fu Xi subconsciously tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “When you go back, I can go back to the National School. The farm leave is almost over. The mistress of the house insists that I can only leave after you do.”

“Soon. I’ll leave after I teach them how to store grain,” Wanli Hui said. “Do you like school?”

“Yes!” Fu Xi nodded. “School is a hundred times more interesting than here!” She suddenly lowered her voice. “I really don’t want to come back here.”

The knowledge the National School taught her, the concepts it instilled in her, and the way it influenced her life habits. The native children were already being subtly changed. This is the power of education, Wanli Hui thought. We are beginning to cultivate a new generation of people who are neither 17th-century nor 21st-century.

“It’s easy if you don’t want to come back. Just find me then,” Wanli Hui said casually. The National School trained them, of course, for their own use, not to be left to calculate accounts for local landowners. This girl was probably being trained in agriculture, the same department as him. He could just say a word to Wu Nanhai and arrange for her to work at the farm.

“Really?”

“Of course, it’s true,” Wanli Hui found it strange. He saw the young girl staring at him, her cheeks flushed. He secretly felt a sense of unease. This girl is only fourteen, fourteen. Wanli Hui constantly reminded himself to remain firm.

Fu Xi looked at him silently for a few seconds, then suddenly ran off. Wanli Hui watched her braids, his mind in a bit of a turmoil.

A few days later, Wanli Hui left Meiyang Village. Compared to his first arrival a few months ago, the Heaven and Earth Society had become a mythical organization that brought wealth. The families in the village with more land were all planning to join the Heaven and Earth Society, except for Fu Yousan—this old man continued to respond to all changes by not changing.

The grain receipts from the Grain Collection Bureau also arrived in Meiyang Village. When Chen Minggang was playing his “land measurement” trick, Meiyang Village didn’t have much of a stir because there were no large landowners—the wastage rice burden here was as high as five dou, which was already very heavy.

After the new grain receipts were issued, everyone was surprised to see that the wastage rice had been reduced to three dou per shi. For the people who were already suffocating under the weight of additional taxes, this was undoubtedly a stone lifted from their shoulders, allowing them to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Life has gotten a little better for everyone since the Australians came,” Fu Bu’er sighed. Small landowners like him had no power or influence, and their tax burden was extremely heavy.

Not only in Meiyang Village, but the people in many villages in the county felt the same way. The local area was peaceful, and they no longer had to fear encountering bandits or pirates when they went out. After harvesting their grain, they didn’t have to worry about bandits or pirates coming to rob them, and they could work and rest in peace. Even those who were destitute could find work and make a living with the Australians.

Since life was stable, the newly established Grain Collection Bureau had unified the “wastage rice” collection amount for the county, greatly reducing the burden on the people. This made the autumn grain collection work proceed very smoothly. Not only that, but the landowners who had already paid excess wastage rice received a notice that they could get back the overpaid grain.

This news soon caused a sensation throughout the county—no one had ever heard of grain that had reached the hands of the government being returned! The sun was truly rising from the west.

Wu Ya had strongly advised Wu De not to return the excess wastage rice.

“The wastage rice was originally uneven, some more, some less. For what has already been collected, it’s not a big deal not to return it.” Wu Ya also reminded him: although equalizing the wastage rice to three dou was a good thing for the people, the total amount of wastage rice collected would probably decrease. In that case, the various expenses might not be covered, and they might even have to subsidize it.

Wu De, however, insisted on treating everyone equally to ensure “fairness.”

“It doesn’t matter if we have to subsidize it. What we want are the two words ‘equality and fairness’!” Wu De said without a care. In fact, the Planning Committee had already made a simple calculation. As long as they ensured that every landowning household paid at the rate of three dou, the amount of wastage rice would not be less than in previous years. Even if a little subsidy was needed, the cost would be limited.

The landowners who had already paid their grain could go to the Grain Collection Bureau to complete a procedure with their grain receipts and then go to Delong to collect the excess wastage rice that the Household Office had originally collected. At this time, Wu De once again experienced the chaos of doing business in ancient society.

Unexpectedly, many landowners came to the Grain Collection Bureau to complain that they had paid the grain but had not received a grain receipt. Upon inquiry, it turned out that many small landowners had never received a grain receipt. Wu De quickly had someone check the account books—the numbers on the official grain payment account books did not match what the landowners said at all—they were much smaller. Only after checking Chen Minggang’s private ledger did they find out the actual numbers. The landowners had indeed not lied. The household scribe was playing the trick of collecting more and recording less, so naturally, he didn’t give out grain receipts.

“For anyone who comes to check, help them clarify everything. Give them a refund voucher according to the account books.” Wu De thought, if it weren’t for the fact that they had cleanly seized all of Chen Minggang’s private ledgers this time, and had the help of a turncoat like Zhou Qi to sort things out, no one would have been able to figure out this mess.

In addition to equalizing the wastage rice and refunding the over-collection, another major measure was to implement the policy of using circulation coupons to pay for the grain tax.

Since the Transmigration Group began issuing circulation coupons, they had repeatedly promised that the grain circulation coupons could be used to directly offset the reasonable burden. And they had indeed done so. Now, the scope of offset was expanded to the official grain tax—nothing could better reflect its value than being able to use circulation coupons to pay the grain tax. Especially in this time and place, it should be known that the Ming government had gone back on its word, forcing the people to accept the government-issued Great Ming Treasure Notes, but demanding copper coins and silver when collecting taxes. In Yan Ming’s view: the Great Ming Treasure Notes were not currency, but purely a means of plunder by the government—the government had no intention of maintaining its most basic credit, thinking that a piece of paper could guarantee its circulation.

The memory of the Great Ming Treasure Notes still lingered. In his conversations with the natives, Yan Ming often heard old people talk about these “pieces of paper.” By his count, it had been at least eighty or ninety years since the Great Ming Treasure Notes stopped circulating, but their negative impact had not yet faded.

“Now is the time for us to greatly build up the credit of our circulation coupons,” Yan Ming excitedly pointed out this rare opportunity at the Executive Committee’s financial work meeting.

The fact that circulation coupons were useful and could buy many things was already an accepted fact among the people of Lin’gao. But the circulation coupons were still a little short of being real currency. Once the state’s taxes could also be paid with circulation coupons, the resulting increase in credit would be immeasurable.

After setting this precedent, they could use circulation coupons to promote the monetization of taxes in the future, no longer carrying out such a labor-intensive and resource-intensive in-kind tax collection.

Seeing that this piece of paper, the circulation coupon, could really be used to offset the grain tax, the local farmers who still had doubts about the circulation coupons gained confidence in it—if the government was willing to accept it, wasn’t the circulation coupon equivalent to real grain?

Some who did odd jobs for the Transmigration Group or did business with them had accumulated a relatively large amount of circulation coupons. They didn’t even need to send grain to Delong; they could just bring a stack of circulation coupons and pay the grain tax directly according to the conversion rate at the counter. It was both convenient and fast. Delong even opened a special channel for paying taxes with circulation coupons.

“In the past, when the Great Ming Treasure Notes were issued, it was also said that they could be used to offset taxes, but the government went back on its word,” Wang Zhaomin, who had been closely following the Australians’ grain collection actions, sighed. “Now, the circulation coupons will stand firm.”

The flow of people paying grain tax soon crowded Delong’s three branches. For a time, the business volume skyrocketed. This excellent situation made the members of the leadership group rejoice, but it also brought worries. The scene of hundreds of people queuing up to pay grain every day greatly increased the possibility of corruption. Wu De knew the weakness of human nature well. In the face of money, one could never rely on self-discipline—a strict system was necessary.

As a key enterprise of the Transmigration Group, all the native employees of Delong were carefully selected and trained by the Transmigration Group. They were not only skilled in their work but also had a high level of loyalty.

“Loyalty does not equal integrity. It’s a delusion to rely on loyalty for self-discipline. And don’t believe that certain people are exceptions because of their beliefs,” Yan Ming said. No corrupt official was not loyal to the system that promoted him and gave him power, but this loyalty did not prevent him from digging at the foundations of the system to fill his own pockets. He wouldn’t care even if doing so would ultimately destroy the system.

He deeply shared Wu De’s concerns. He had a background in accounting. Due to his profession, he had a much deeper understanding of the use of strict systems to regulate human behavior than others. For this reason, he had long established a modern accounting system within Delong, which had so far prevented any major internal fraud cases.

Now, his system was supported by new products developed by the stationery factory. The first was carbon paper. This allowed for the issuance of multi-part documents with identical handwriting. In the past, there were also handwritten multi-part documents, but because they were written separately, it was impossible to determine during verification whether they were written at once or added later.

Another important new product was watermarked paper. There were primitive watermarking methods in ancient times, but the effect was not good. The printing factory used the newly produced watermarked paper for all the standard documents printed for the grain collection. This new type of paper, which could not be produced with ancient technology, made the previously rampant practice of altering vouchers impossible—the clerks and scribes were particularly skilled at this craft, able to scrape off words from documents and tickets, and then use paper and paste to patch them up perfectly, before rewriting them with an ink brush. It was extremely difficult for ordinary people to see.

In addition to Yan Ming’s internal monitoring and the use of various technical means for prevention and control, Wu De also organized “flight inspections,” conducting unannounced spot checks on the accounts of the various branches, verifying the amount of grain and circulation coupons collected. He also sent people to conduct secret visits to see if the prohibited practices of using different-sized dou and “heaping” were still being used.