Qing Yao

Chapter 40 I still have to play later
Upon hearing that no one had paid, the prefect urgently summoned the relevant parties for consultation.

In addition to Ganquan County Magistrate Ding Chengen, the meeting was also attended by Jiangdu County Magistrate Zheng Sanwan, as well as the Experience Office and specific staff from the two counties.

As the actual organizer of Ganquan County, Zhao An is of course qualified to attend the meeting. He is also the only student among the crowd. The rest of the staff have at least the title of scholar.

It's really like a chicken standing out among a group of cranes.

The prefect arrived and immediately expressed his displeasure: "Tell me why those merchants won't pay. Isn't this for their own good? If we weren't interested in developing the local economy and improving people's livelihoods, why would we be doing this?"

With just one sentence, he took all the positive benefits of this matter.

What could the instigator, County Magistrate Ding, say? He could only exchange a knowing look with County Magistrate Zheng of Jiangdu, who was sitting opposite him, and they both said in unison that "Your Excellency the Governor is right."

The rest of the staff were submissive and no one dared to speak.

Seeing that no one spoke, Eqina couldn't help but snort: "These merchants don't know our government's painstaking efforts, don't you know it either? I think if it really doesn't work, we should just send a letter."

"Paiting" is a euphemism for going to someone's door to demand something.

The consequences of being shameless when given face.

It's not the prefect's fault for being shameless. He is actually in a difficult situation. As the official of the richest place in the Qing Dynasty, he bears more financial pressure than officials in other places.

Not to mention that the province treated Yangzhou Prefecture as its money bag, just the preparations for the emperor's birthday celebrations had already cost as much as 100,000 taels.

And it is far from enough. The Jiangsu Governor's Office sent a direct document to Yangzhou Prefecture yesterday. The only content in the document was that Yangzhou Prefecture should bear the cost of the Ministry of Rites setting up a 20-mile colorful tent outside the front gate for the emperor's 80th birthday.

Not much, just three hundred thousand taels.

Logically, this expense should be borne by the Ministry of Revenue. If the Ministry of Revenue does not bear it, it should be allocated from the Imperial Household Department. However, since ancient times, which emperor could celebrate his eightieth birthday!

Therefore, this was no longer just the emperor's birthday celebration, but an event that all the subjects of the Qing Dynasty had to participate in and feel honored to participate in.

So, the emperor has no money now, and the national treasury has no money either. Shouldn’t the ministers be considerate of the emperor and the court?
It's a must.

If you have money, you will be able to do your best.

We can't let the Emperor's 80th birthday be shabby.

However, the expenses for celebrating the emperor's birthday are too high. The Ministry of Revenue has made a preliminary calculation that the entire process will cost at least 16 million taels of silver.

Compared with the emperor's 70th birthday, the expenditure was more than 2 million taels of silver, which was really scary.

Why use so much silver?
Because the emperor's birthday is August 13th and he was born in the Mountain Resort, according to convention, a large-scale celebration must be held in the Mountain Resort first.

The festival lasts for half a month, during which time all the trees along the road from the capital to Chengde, which is more than 300 miles long, will be covered with red and decorated with colorful patterns.

Various celebrations were held one after another without stopping. After the emperor returned to Beijing, the celebrations would continue for another month, and would be even more lively and varied than those in the Summer Resort. In this way, money was spent like water.

The national treasury has long been in deficit due to the frequent military operations, and the Imperial Household Department is the emperor's personal purse. How much can be expected from the Imperial Household Department?

In desperation, the Ministry of Revenue could only list all the expenses and allocate them to each province for crowdfunding.

Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces are the first to be hit.

The province of Jiangsu was required to contribute a share of 2.6 million taels, but Yangzhou only had to pay 300,000 taels, thanks to the fact that the prefectures and counties in Jiangnan were all wealthy.

Otherwise, at least 500,000 taels would have to be raised. 300,000 taels wasn't much, and it wouldn't be a problem to raise funds from the wealthy salt merchants. However, the salt merchants were under the jurisdiction of the Lianghuai Salt Administration, and the salt merchants had already taken the initiative to raise 1 million taels for the emperor's birthday. What was the prefect, who had no direct jurisdiction, to do?
It is not realistic to share the burden with the lower counties. This year's flood in the Lixia River has made life difficult for all counties.

After searching around, the prefect could only focus on the 60% certification fee.

More than 300,000 taels are enough to solve the current difficult problem.

Therefore, the prefect was very unhappy with the merchants' non-cooperation. Since when did the government have to negotiate with these merchants when doing things?

The two county magistrates also felt that they had to take action, as they were also waiting for money to solve their respective troubles.

Seeing that the prefect was about to make the final decision, Zhao An spoke up and offered a small personal opinion, which was that some means could be used to make the merchants pay voluntarily.

"Zhao An, please tell the prefect what you think."

County Magistrate Ding still praised Zhao An's recent work.

Zhao An’s suggestion was not to raise the price to create the illusion that you would lose out if you didn’t buy it, but to contact one of the sellers privately and let it take the lead in paying the money to take the brand back. The government would then use force to help this seller expand its influence in the market and make its business better than other businesses.

To put it bluntly, it is to set an example.

The specific method was to promote this company on all major transportation routes and docks in Yangzhou City, and at the same time use the authority of the government to force business for this company, such as "introducing" merchants from other places to this company.

In short, we must use various administrative and commercial means to fully demonstrate the value of famous and high-quality products, so that other merchants can clearly feel the lethality of this brand, so that they can pay for it obediently.

Otherwise, if it is really collected by force, it will not only be easily criticized, but also the quality certification system created by Zhao An himself will be quickly destroyed.

He also plans to rank the top ten outstanding young people and the top ten honest officials in the future.

If you mess it up at the beginning, how will you play in the future?

"In addition, students believe that all high-quality products should be listed as goods exempt from government inspection. Whether they are transported by water or land, they should be allowed to pass through customs along the way. If they are transported by canal, the canal gang should be notified to give them priority for loading and unloading."

Zhao An actually wanted to say that it would be better to make famous and high-quality products designated as government-designated products, but after thinking about it, he didn't say it.

After a brief silence in the hall, the prefect took the lead in supporting this proposal and instructed Ganquan County to carry out the specific implementation.

It’s better to save your face if you can.

And this method is really amazing.

At the same time, thousands of miles away in the Mountain Resort, Fu Chang'an, the Grand Councilor and Minister of Revenue, and Peng Yuanrui, the Associate Grand Secretary and Minister of Works, were sorting out memorials from officials from various places submitted by the Ministry of Public Administration.

There were several other Manchu and Han military officials in the room doing the same work.

The actual job of this group of officials was to conduct a "preliminary review" of memorials from officials from all over the country. Those that were unimportant or full of nonsense would be put aside first, while those with important content and related to major events would be submitted to the Grand Council first, and the Grand Council would then select the important ones and submit them to the emperor.

This year is the emperor's 80th birthday. Officials from all over the country are very sensible. The memorials they submitted are all for the emperor's birthday congratulations and none of them are meant to cause trouble for him.

These memorials were all so monotonous that the Manchu and Han officials were almost numb after reading them, until a Han official suddenly exclaimed "Huh?" and then, unable to hide his surprise, handed the memorial in his hand to the Grand Councilor Fu Chang'an.

"Is this memorial different from the others?"

Seeing that the memorial Zhang Jing handed him was from the Yangzhou prefect, Fu Zhongtang couldn't help but feel unhappy. He casually took it, opened it, and scanned a few lines with a look of surprise on his face. Then he stood up and rushed to Peng Yuanrui who was writing across from him, grabbed him and said impatiently: "Peng Zhongtang, come on, follow me to see the emperor!"

(End of this chapter)