Hmm.
After leaving Wu Laoer’s place, Zhao An felt as if he had discovered a Roman road leading toward a bright future. If Ding Zhenglong could borrow five thousand taels of high-interest loans to purchase the position of Tax Bureau Ambassador, then it stood to reason that as long as he had the cash, Zhao An could do exactly as Ding had and buy himself a section chief position.
Little did he know that if Wu Laoer heard such a thought, the old man would laugh his teeth out.
That was because in the Great Qing, one could purchase not only minor administrative posts but even legitimate official positions with money. This was the donation system, which the Great Qing treated as a standard organizational structure for the state. To put it plainly, as long as you had the money, the imperial court would give you an official title.
This wasn't an innovation of the spendthrift Qianlong Emperor, but rather a system established by his grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor. During the Kangxi reign, due to insufficient military funds for the campaigns against the Dzungars, the Emperor issued an edict encouraging wealthy households to make donations. As a result, Shanxi Province alone produced twelve thousand "assistant magistrate" titles in a single year, while Gansu churned out seventeen thousand in just six months, effectively alleviating the military funding shortage.
However, a province couldn't possibly have ten thousand counties for these donated officials to take up, so ninety-nine percent of these so-called assistant magistrates were given the title "awaiting appointment," which meant they simply waited—waiting for a vacancy to open up.
And when would a vacancy open? That depended on whether your follow-up funds were in place.
Without further funding, you remained an ordinary citizen bearing the mere title of assistant magistrate. With funds deposited into the Ministry of Personnel’s accounts, however, you became a formal official of the Great Qing. Since the demand far outstripped the supply, most people seeking these titles weren't actually looking to take office; they were looking for the social status that would garner respect in their hometowns and protection from being bullied by local officials.
By the time of the Yongzheng reign, the most common donors were Imperial Academy students. These donors were mostly "academic failures" who couldn't earn a degree through the imperial examinations. In the eighth year of Yongzheng, the Emperor personally oversaw an examination at the Imperial Academy. Out of over ten thousand students, more than 9,500 failed, and nearly sixty percent turned in blank papers. It infuriated Yongzheng so much that he trembled, yet he could say nothing—after all, it was he who had taken their money.
By the Qianlong reign, because the Emperor was ambitious, loved glory, and was endlessly extravagant, the national treasury could not cover his expenses, and so the practice of selling offices flourished once more. Especially in the last dozen years, the trend had reached its peak. In the halls of the Qianqing Palace, officials who had earned their status through the legitimate path—the *jinshi* or *tong jinshi* scholars—had originally refused to stand in the same ranks as those who had bought their way in. But that distinction no longer mattered, as a glance at the crowd revealed that almost everyone was wearing a cap decorated with a purchased finial. Compared to the purchased officials, those who had risen through the legitimate imperial examinations were pitifully few.
Among those who bought their offices, there were indeed some capable individuals, such as Li Wei, Ortai, and Tian Wenjing—the three Governors-General whom Yongzheng held up as examples—as well as Minister of War Li Shijie and Governor of Zhili Liu E during the Qianlong era.
Ultimately, as long as you had the money, becoming an official in the Great Qing was no problem at all; the only issue was that the competition was fierce. The reason Wu Laoer had mentioned that some officials had to borrow high-interest loans before taking office was not only because they had emptied their family savings to buy the title, but because there were so many candidates for the same post; to actually get the appointment, one had to pay more than the other candidates. Furthermore, one had to front the funds before taking office. Thus, high-interest loans became the only choice for these officials. If they didn't borrow, their initial investment would vanish into thin air. If they did borrow, they could not only pay off the debt through extortion after taking office but, if they were lucky, fill their own coffers to the brim as well.
No matter how you calculated it, it was a profit. It was only the common people who suffered.
There were pragmatists who specialized in studying this donation system—which positions were worth buying, at what point in time to buy them, how to obtain the most valuable position with the minimum cost, and how to transition from one role to another. It was a sophisticated field of study, leading to the emergence of a profession in the civilian world similar to those "career guidance teachers" Zhao An remembered from his past life.
Just as there were people studying the officials, there were people studying the clerks. Ding Zhenglong, the Tax Bureau Ambassador, had been guided by a master to purchase his position from a newly appointed County Magistrate for the bargain price of five thousand taels. In just over a year, the high-interest loan had long since been paid off. As long as no major disasters occurred during the remaining three-plus years of his term, he would easily make over ten thousand taels the next time the local magistrate decided to auction off the various posts in the county.
The imperial court sold positions to officials, and officials sold positions to clerks. It was a virtuous cycle. From Governors-General and provincial governors down to Prefects and Magistrates, everyone was on the same boat. No one should laugh at anyone else, and no one should look down on anyone else.
When Zhao An returned to the Accounting Office, he continued to calculate the ledgers diligently, but his mind was preoccupied with the vital information Wu Laoer had revealed. When a shortcut exists, who would choose to suffer hardship unnecessarily?
However, two insurmountable mountains stood before Zhao An: the mountain of money and the mountain of academic credentials.
The lack of money was easy to understand. Given Zhao An’s current salary, he would have to work for three or four hundred years just to scrape together enough to buy a position like an Ambassador, and even then, it might not be enough—prices always went up, after all. Borrowing at high interest wasn't realistic either. Ding Zhenglong could borrow five thousand taels from a money shop because his family had served in the County Yamen for generations; he was a "notable figure" in Ganquan County with real connections and a steady job to guarantee the loan. His investment project had visible, tangible prospects, so the money shop was naturally willing to cooperate with him.
And what was Zhao An? Just a lowly helper who had recently entered the Tax Bureau. Which money shop would dare lend him five thousand taels? It would be like a fresh graduate running to a bank and asking for millions to buy a department head position, promising to repay the principal and interest later. Which bank manager would dare to agree? Clearly, when it came to money, Zhao An was currently helpless.
The academic credential was also a major headache. Even a lowly helper in the Accounting Office required the status of a Licentiate. To become a department head or a section chief, one naturally had to be a *xiucai*. Being a *xiucai* was a prerequisite for being registered with the Ministry of Personnel as a clerk; ever since the Great Qing was founded, there had been no precedent for a mere Licentiate serving as a clerk. It would be a loss of face for the bureaucracy! Furthermore, even Zhao An’s Licentiate diploma was a fake.
He pondered it over and over, but besides feeling an itch of desire, he was completely at a loss. He could only secretly abandon the idea of taking a shortcut for now and focus entirely on doing his current job well.
There is a difference between having high ambitions and being impractical.
Zhao An calculated the figures for the desilting project that afternoon, but he didn't rush to hand them to Wang Tai, waiting instead until it was almost time to leave.
When Wang Tai discovered that Zhao An’s final results matched his own, he nodded in satisfaction. He thought to himself that although this little fellow was a bit green, he didn't do sloppy work, and after a bit of training, he could become a proper assistant. He offered a few words of encouragement and told Zhao An to practice his abacus more in his spare time to improve his calculation speed.
Zhao An readily agreed and truly took Wang Tai’s words to heart. He was clicking away at the abacus even before going to sleep at night, and it wasn't until Liu Xiaolou told him to stop several times that he finally put the abacus down and went to bed.
And so, for over a month, Zhao An spent his days in the Tax Bureau dealing with abacus beads and various ledgers. His work remained flawless, though it was incredibly dull.
It wasn't until the end of the month that Wang Tai suddenly told him to accompany him to the County Yamen.