GBP Chapter 153 The Essence of the Blank Seal Case
Chapter 153 The Essence of the Blank Seal Case
The deliveryman who was delivering Ningyang braised chicken to the capital had only been gone for two days when Magistrate Yang Shaofeng received some wonderful news.
Or rather, it's a series of incredibly good news.
First, Emperor Zhu Chongba finally showed mercy and, in the name of Zhu Biao, the Executive Vice Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, transferred two medical households to Ningyang County. Moreover, these two medical households would then settle in Ningyang County and would not need to return to the capital like Zhu Liuqi and Chen Choulu before them.
The second piece of good news is that the many "medicinal herbs" that Magistrate Yang had specially pleaded for have been shipped from the capital and are expected to arrive in Ningyang County in about a month.
The third piece of good news was that Emperor Zhu Chongba issued an edict ordering the establishment of public pharmacies in all prefectures and counties. The prices of medicines would be settled according to the lowest market price. If people really didn't have the money, they could pay on credit first and then find a way to repay the money after they recovered. If they really couldn't repay, they could go to the pharmacy to clean up the dust as a way of paying off their debt.
Yes, this idea is very Zhu Chongba, very much like the Zhu Emperor.
Although Emperor Zhu Chongba specifically declared that local officials must keep good records of people's visits to doctors and purchase of medicine on credit, and that he would occasionally send people to check the accounts, the officials of the Ming Dynasty would teach Zhu Chongba a lesson through their actions, letting him know what it means to have lofty ideals but harsh reality.
There was no way around it; the loopholes left by Zhu Yuanzhang were simply too big. For example, if some "passing" people in a certain county needed medical treatment but had no money, and the officials, out of kindness and a sense of responsibility to the court, allowed them to receive treatment first, but then the people couldn't pay their debts after they recovered, would the officials simply have to let them leave?
For example, an ordinary person goes to see a doctor, gets the treatment, and receives the medicine. But does the person have to take the medicine after taking it home? What if they don't want to take one of the ingredients and decide to sell it instead?
As for whether someone will eventually take a hundred taels of silver to some general store to buy a fake painting worth a few hundred coins, can you, Emperor Zhu, control that? You can't afford to misjudge it!
These messy methods were a matter of whether the officials of the Ming Dynasty wanted to use them, not whether they knew how to use them.
Even the officials of the Ming Dynasty might have used the blank seal method in the Huimin Pharmacy. After all, Emperor Zhu had already declared that he would send people to audit the accounts and required the government offices of various prefectures and counties to send account books to the Ministry of Revenue. This was a perfect opportunity for the blank seal method to come into play.
But the thought of the blank seal case made Magistrate Yang want to laugh again.
What is the essence of the blank seal case?
On the surface, the blank seal case is just a large-scale accountability case caused by blank paper with an official seal. In reality, everyone involved in the blank seal case is a shady character who can't even fabricate data properly.
The documents related to the blank seal case contained data on local taxes, land area, and number of households and population. Among these, the taxes were all physical goods. Apart from a portion of the tax grain that was to be transported to the capital, the rest were delivered to designated units according to needs and specific procedures.
For example, in Ningyang County, the taxes due in the first year of Hongwu were 1,000 shi of grain, 1,000 jin of cotton, and 1,000 jin of fodder. Of the 1,000 shi of grain, about 500 shi had to be transported to the capital for storage in the imperial granary. The remaining 500 shi were sent to Xu Da's army in Shanxi according to the court's instructions. The 1,000 jin of cotton might have to be sent to several different places, and all the fodder might have to be sent to the army.
This results in two records: one is the disbursement record from Ningyang County, and the other is the income record from the corresponding unit.
What Emperor Zhu Chongba wanted was this original record of income and expenditure—as long as it was the original record, the inflows and outflows would definitely match up, and even if something went wrong on the way, whether it was raining, burning, or the ship sinking, all of these could be verified.
For example, if Ningyang County allocates 500 shi of grain to be transported to the capital, 400 shi will remain by the time it reaches Xuzhou, 300 shi by the time it reaches Fengyang, and only 200 shi will remain by the time it reaches the capital. More than half of the grain was lost on the way. The account book will clearly show that: Yang Shaofeng, the magistrate of Ningyang County, allocated 500 shi of grain, and the lame man who escorted the grain caused 300 shi to be lost on the way. Only 200 shi were put into the Taicang warehouse.
Can you tell the real from the fake at a glance?
Since it's obviously fake, we should arrest Limpy Wu and interrogate him to find out how he lost 300 shi of grain. Was it flooded, burned, or robbed?
If he can give a clear account of what happened, and if Xuzhou and Fengyang can prove that they were flooded or burned, then Limpy Wu will naturally pass the test. But if Xuzhou and Fengyang cannot prove it, then Old Zhu will naturally demand an explanation from Limpy Wu.
Therefore, the "blank seal case" actually involved Yang Shaofeng, the magistrate of Ningyang County, the prefect of Xuzhou, the prefect of Fengyang, and an official from Taicang. They all took a blank account book with an official seal and sat together to discuss how to fill in the data.
How much grain did you transport? Five hundred shi? Just say four hundred shi. Xuzhou and Fengyang can testify that you lost one hundred shi due to normal circumstances, so only three hundred shi were left in my hands. I happen to have some other things here, such as salt and iron, which you can take back. We brothers can help each other balance the accounts.
Of course, some might say that sending account books to the capital takes too long and is too cumbersome, and it would be easier to just print blank account books.
So please remember, anyone who uses this as a reason is either genuinely stupid and easily fooled, or simply malicious. During the Tang Dynasty, the official post stations from Beiping to Guangdong took at least a month and at most twenty-four days. Even if the Ming Dynasty was incompetent, it shouldn't have taken two or three years to travel back and forth, right?
Unless it's a remote place with really inconvenient transportation, or the people delivering the ledgers are all bastards who can only crawl and not ride horses.
More importantly, which of these ledgers can be filled in arbitrarily? Which one doesn't need to be carefully checked?
If an official receives a salary from the imperial court but cannot even do the most basic data verification, then what is he good for?
To put it bluntly, the biggest problem with the blank seal case was that the accounts of local officials and the imperial court did not match. The only reason for this discrepancy was the practice of embezzling salaries without working, imposing exorbitant taxes, land annexation, or manipulation. In order to solve the problem, the only option was to falsify records and attribute the problem to transportation losses.
Zhu Yuanzhang, a man of steel and tough character who has survived countless hardships, rising from monk and beggar to rebel leader and eventually ascending the throne, has seen far too many people and events. How could he not know about the scheming involved?
What's particularly interesting is that most of the officials involved in the blank seal case were from the provinces where they were stationed, while officials from other places were relatively more law-abiding. Some remote provinces that had an objective need for blank documents due to their long distances were actually quite proper and didn't get involved in the blank seal case at all.
The most interesting thing is that there were two people who were particularly active in the Empty Seal Case. One of them was Fang Xiaoru. His father was involved in the case and was executed. He asked a great Confucian scholar to write an epitaph for his father, portraying him as a pure and innocent person. The second was Zheng Shili, a fellow villager of Fang Xiaoru. His brother was involved in the case. He, a commoner, wrote a long letter to Zhu Yuanzhang to try to beautify the Empty Seal Case, but he was punished by Zhu Yuanzhang. Then Fang Xiaoru wrote a biography for this guy, which was later included in the Qing Dynasty's History of Ming.
Magistrate Yang Shaofeng is now eagerly anticipating the officials of the Ming Dynasty to quickly investigate the blank seal case, rather than waiting until the ninth year of Hongwu's reign. This Huimin Pharmacy is a perfect opportunity now—as long as you dare to play the blank seal game, I, Yang, will find an opportunity to secretly uncover it, and then wait for all the officials' relatives to come to my Ningyang County to build roads!