"Huh?"
What kind of question was that?
Although it sounded completely unreasonable, it left Zhao An utterly speechless, instantly elevating Wu Laoer's image to something resembling a worldly, reclusive monk sweeping the temple grounds.
Such a perspective was truly beyond ordinary imagination.
Yet even crooked logic had its logic.
Seeing that Zhao An remained silent, Wu Laoer grinned. "Kid, think it through carefully. Isn't that how it is?"
Zhao An said with a helpless sigh, "Logically speaking, I suppose that makes sense. It's just that... well, even dredging work is shoved onto the common people. Doesn't the county go a bit too far?"
Wu Laoer dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand. "Go too far? If it's not shoved onto the common people, should the county pay for it out of its own pocket? If the county had any money, what would it need the likes of you for?"
"..."
The more Zhao An listened, the more confused he became. He understood every single word Wu Laoer was saying, but put together, they sounded utterly bizarre.
According to him, the hundred-odd people in the Tax Bureau were kept on the payroll simply because the county had no money. If the county actually had money, would the entire department be laid off on the spot?
What kind of logic was that?
Since when was staff kept on precisely because there was no money!
"See? I told you there's plenty you don't understand, kid. Don't be in such a rush to say the old man is talking nonsense. Take our Tax Bureau for instance—do you really think the imperial court is the one paying the wages of us hundred-odd souls? Bullshit! It's the magistrate who feeds us!"
Rarely given a chance to lecture someone, Wu Laoer was feeling spirited after polishing off most of a bowl of wine. He slid his little stool closer to Zhao An, pointed a finger upward, and wore an expression that clearly said *you haven't the slightest clue*.
"Why does the magistrate feed us? Isn't it because he has no money and relies on us to collect it for him? And it's not just our Tax Bureau. What about the Patrol Office, the Medical Office, the Buddhist Affairs Office, and the county prison cells? A thousand people up and down, which of them isn't fed by the magistrate? Has the imperial court ever coughed up a single copper coin for them?"
"This..."
Prompted by Wu Laoer, Zhao An recalled an article he had read in his past life. It explained that during the Ming and Qing dynasties, apart from the officially appointed magistrate and his immediate deputies, nobody else in the County Yamen seemed to receive a "imperial grain stipend"—everything depended on self-raised local funds.
Even clerical staff registered with the Ministry of Personnel were treated this way.
The root cause lay in the fact that imperial power did not extend down to the village level.
The system was originally established by the founding Emperor Taizu of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang. That great hero, who had expelled the Mongols and restored China, worried that grassroots officials frequently going down to the countryside would harass the common people, and therefore decreed that grassroots officials were forbidden from visiting rural areas except for urgent matters.
Well-intentioned as it was, local affairs still required people to handle them. This led to the creation of institutions like the Six Boards, which in turn necessitated the recruitment of a large number of local personnel into the County Yamen to ensure its normal operation.
The problem was that old Zhu set official salaries exceptionally low and was unwilling to pay wages for locally recruited personnel. Consequently, the situation evolved into a system of total responsibility for local officials.
They weren't responsible for anything else, save for paying the wages of the personnel recruited for the county.
With the upper levels providing no funding and so many mouths waiting to be fed below, what could a grassroots official do? Aside from figuring out how to fleece the common people, what other choice did he have?
It was a pure case of good intentions yielding disastrous results.
"The imperial court doesn't disburse funds, yet the county still has work to do. What do you expect the magistrate to do?"
Wu Laoer had hit the nail on the head here. "Our magistrate's basic annual salary is no more than forty-five taels. Even with the anti-corruption allowance—which is higher in our Jiangsu than anywhere else—the magistrate gets no more than twelve hundred taels a year. Aside from these two sums, the court doesn't give our magistrate a single copper. What do you expect him to use to get things done? With just that pittance, he can't even afford to feed the hundred-odd of us in the Tax Bureau!"
Zhao An nodded with a half-understanding look. "So the uncle means that because the magistrate has no money, he keeps us around to get money for him? If the imperial court gave the magistrate enough money, he wouldn't need to keep so many of us at all?"
"Ah, a child who can be taught!"
Wu Laoer gave Zhao An an approving look, casually tossed a few peanuts into his mouth, and chugged the rest of his wine. "Take the dredging of Slender West Lake last year, for instance. If our Tax Bureau hadn't gone out and forced donations from those merchants, where would we have gotten the money to do it?"
The old man spoke without any filter, casually rebranding voluntary merchant donations as forced contributions.
"I see."
Zhao An finally understood. No wonder local personnel's salaries in his past life were ultimately borne by the national treasury and merely disbursed through local financial departments—the root of the issue lay right here.
If localities were truly left to raise their own funds indefinitely, heaven only knows how many people would be living off the government payroll in a single county.
After a moment of thought, a lingering doubt remained. "Aside from grain taxes and poll taxes from the common people, the county can collect a fair amount of commercial tax. How much could dredging possibly cost? There's no need to ruin your reputation with forced contributions over such a small sum."
"You're still young and don't understand how many things work. Don't look at how much tax money passes through our bureau every year; the magistrate is still strapped for cash. That money is nowhere near enough to spend... Just for starters, our magistrate has to give the prefect over a hundred taels every month, at least a thousand taels a year. That monthly fee alone wipes out the magistrate's basic salary and anti-corruption allowance combined."
Wu Laoer sneered. "Serving as a magistrate anywhere else might be manageable, but our Ganquan County just had to be the attached county of Yangzhou Prefecture. As the old saying goes: *In a past life lacking virtue, in this life a magistrate; in a past life committing evil, a magistrate in an attached county; steeped in heinous sins, an attached county in the provincial capital.*
"Do you know how miserable an attached county is?
" No matter who comes from above to our Yangzhou City, their food, drink, lodging, and daily needs are entirely borne by the attached county. Let me calculate an account for you: two troupes of actors, five tables of high-grade banquets, fourteen tables of middle-grade banquets. The high-grade banquets must feature bird's nest and barbecue; the middle-grade banquets must also include shark fin and sea cucumber. Do you know how much a single reception costs?"
Zhao An shook his head, thinking to himself that of course he wouldn't know.
"At least two hundred taels!"
Wu Laoer aggressively waved two fingers in front of Zhao An's face. "The prefecture treats our attached county purely as its wallet! And you can't refuse to pay! Add up all the miscellaneous expenses, and do you think the magistrate has an easy life? Since it's not easy, he can only scrape together money by any means possible. Who does he rely on to get it? Isn't it us people he feeds?"
Zhao An was once again rendered speechless. According to Wu Laoer, aside from acting as a wallet for his superiors, the county magistrate also had to self-fund all expenses within his jurisdiction, with tens of thousands of taels as a baseline annual expenditure. Being an official like this truly broadened one's horizons. Amidst his amusement, he casually remarked, "If that's the case, the magistrate wouldn't just be losing money—he'd be bleeding to death."
"Bleeding? Bleeding where, bleeding from what?"
Wu Laoer chuckled. "It's just a matter of earning more or earning less; where would losing money come into it?"
He paused, then chuckled to himself. "Though come to think of it, some actually do lose money. Two years ago, the newly appointed magistrate of Jiangning County had just taken office when the Viceroy of Liangjiang passed away. As a result, the authorities charged the entire funeral expenses of the late Viceroy to that magistrate's account. When the final tally was done, he suffered a net loss of tens of thousands of taels, leaving him drowning in high-interest loans from pawnshops and money shops. I reckon he hasn't recovered to this day."
Zhao An was stunned. "Can officials even take out high-interest loans?"
Wu Laoer laughed heartily. "Why wouldn't they? Never mind borrowing during their term in office; they can borrow even before taking office."
"Why would someone borrow at high interest before taking office?"
Zhao An was genuinely baffled.
"To take office, of course."
"..."
Wu Laoer's reply genuinely gave Zhao An a shock—borrowing money just to go to work!
"Making such a fuss over nothing! Before winning their official degrees, weren't those officials dirt poor? Once they take office, all expenses fall on their shoulders. If he didn't borrow money to get by, how could he be an official? The officials borrow, and the subordinates working under them borrow too."
Saying this, Wu Laoer tilted his chin toward Commissioner Ding's office to the southwest. "Didn't that fellow borrow five thousand taels at high interest just so he could entrust someone to buy this commissioner position? Otherwise, would it ever have fallen to him?"