Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

"Your Majesty, to be honest, I have wanted to say this for a long time. The salaries of officials are too low.

Look at Lord Hai, a second-rank official, with patches on the collar of his inner garment.

Last year, tens of thousands of corrupt officials were executed, but sometimes we cannot put all the blame on corrupt officials. Our court should also look for its own problems, right?" Zhang Shikang added.

After hearing this, Hai Zhongqi, who was standing by, subconsciously pulled up his court robe to cover the patch on his inner garment.

Before he was promoted by Emperor Chongzhen, he was just a fifth-rank official. Although his salary was not high, he always used it to support the civilians who had no food to eat.

"Your Majesty, I serve as an official only for the benefit of the people of the world. I only seek to have enough food and clothing. I have never been hungry, so I have no complaints about this." Hai Zhongqi replied.

Zhang Shikang was furious when he heard this.

"You, Lord Hai, can do this, but can you expect all officials to think the same way as you?

You have all studied hard, and I believe you all know how difficult the imperial examinations in our Ming Dynasty were.

It is unreasonable that people who study hard for ten years and finally pass the imperial examination and become officials find that their achievements are still not decent enough.

They have put in unparalleled efforts in their work, and if they can handle government affairs well as officials, the court should give them the respect they deserve.

You can't expect the horse to run and not eat grass at the same time.

Others don’t say anything, but if I really became an official through hard study and found that I couldn’t even live a decent life, I would probably be greedy. ” Zhang Shikang retorted.

Only Zhang Shikang dared to say this openly. If it were anyone else, he would have been dragged away and beaten to death.

How hard-headed must one be to say that one is greedy in front of the emperor!

But Emperor Chongzhen didn't even change his expression.

"Officials' salaries were set by Emperor Taizu and have not changed for more than two hundred years. I am in the deep palace and have never heard of this rumor before. What do you think, elders?"

“Reporting to Your Majesty, let’s take the most common county magistrate in our Ming Dynasty as an example. The county magistrate is a seventh-rank official with a monthly salary of seven stone and five dou.

If we look at this number, it is just slightly lower.

But the court pays out salaries, most of which are in the form of in-kind deductions, but the price of the in-kind deductions is generally much lower than the deductions." Minister of Personnel Ni Yuanlu replied.

"You're not telling the whole story!" Zhang Shikang said dissatisfiedly.

This year he has truly spent a year wandering among the people and has learned more about the situations at all levels of government.

"It is indeed outrageous to use in-kind salary reduction. I remember that the court used to use sumac and pepper as salary reduction. Officials from poor families had to carry a sack on their backs to the market to sell their salaries.

Also, because all the pepper was distributed to all officials, the price of pepper fell sharply in a short period of time and the officials were unable to sell it at all.

This is just one of the reasons. Even if you receive half of the salary, taking the seventh-rank county magistrate as an example, this half of the salary still has to be divided into several parts, including for the legal advisor and so on.

These people were hired by the county magistrate to help handle government affairs. If the court did not pay them, they could only pay from the county magistrate's already meagre salary. If it was not enough, corruption would breed.

If this problem is not solved, no matter how ruthless the Censorate and the Imperial Guards are, it will be difficult to control corruption.”

Zhang Shikang explained further.

It has always been a common practice for the court to take physical objects. If there is something in the Taicang warehouse that cannot be handled, it will be used as salary.

But during the Wanli period, the outrageous practice of using wood to pay salaries was actually adopted, which was truly shameless.

Officials are not decent enough, this is a problem from the root.

When Emperor Chongzhen saw that other cabinet ministers remained silent, he understood that they were probably unable to speak up due to their status as officials, so he agreed to Zhang Shikang's proposal.

Anyway, all the money was obtained by this kid, so he can raise the price if he wants. Then the officials will be grateful to him as the emperor.

There is nothing wrong with raising the salaries of officials, as their salaries do not account for a large proportion of the court's fiscal expenditure.

Of course, if there were any problems in the future, such as the court was short of money again, the first person Emperor Chongzhen thought of would be Zhang Shikang.

He is a good money-maker.

"Since the current situation is no longer suitable, then let's increase the price. But how should the extent of the increase be determined?" asked Emperor Chongzhen.

“Your Majesty, without investigation, you have no right to speak. Everything in this little notebook of mine has been verified on the spot.

Still taking the seventh-rank county magistrate as an example, based on the current situation, I believe that the monthly salary of a seventh-rank county magistrate should be raised to ten stones.

In addition, from now on, salaries could not be paid in kind, but must be paid directly in silver, with twenty taels of silver being appropriate for ten shi.

In addition, since the county magistrate is unable to handle all government affairs, he has to rely on the assistance of clerks such as legal advisors.

Mr. Ni, you are the Minister of Personnel. You should discuss with the officials of the Ministry of Personnel and incorporate these clerks into the official system of the Ming Dynasty as soon as possible, and have the court pay their salaries to prevent possible corruption."

Although the position of county magistrate was not high, the county at that time was larger than that in later generations, and the county committee in later generations had to set up so many deputies to assist the county magistrate in management.

But the county magistrate at that time was not only the county chief, but also the director of the Public Security Bureau, the director of the Education Bureau, etc. He not only had to try cases, but also had to take care of the people's livelihood of the entire county. It was simply too much for one person to manage all of this.

Upon hearing this, Ni Yuanlu looked at Emperor Chongzhen, and only after getting Emperor Chongzhen's approval did he gladly accept the order.

In any case, it would be a good thing if the court could increase the salaries of officials. It would not be a big deal to include clerks such as legal advisors in the official evaluation system. It would just be a matter of giving them an eighth-rank or eighth-rank official position.

Seeing that no one had any objection, Zhang Shikang then announced the salary increases for officials of other ranks.

Taking the seventh-rank county magistrate's monthly salary of twenty taels of silver as a reference, the lowest monthly salary was six taels for the ninth rank, eight taels for the eighth rank, eleven taels for the eighth rank, and fourteen taels for the seventh rank.

The median monthly salary for a fifth rank official was 48 taels, and the highest monthly salary for a first rank official was 200 taels.

That is to say, the annual salary of the first rank will reach 2,400 taels, but there are not many official positions of the first and second rank in the Ming Dynasty. For example, the ministers of various ministries, which are the second rank, have a monthly salary of 140 taels.

The reason for this decision is mainly related to Zhang Shikang's expectations for future grain prices. Now grain prices have risen to more than one stone and three taels, which is mainly due to the disaster in the north.

This problem will have to be solved later. Zhang Shikang plans to use two to three years to restore grain production and return grain prices to the previous reasonable range of one liang per dan.

If calculated in this way, the lowest-level official in the Ming Dynasty, the ninth rank, had a monthly salary of six taels of silver, while the servants of a wealthy family generally received a little over one tael of silver per month. Compared with the common people, the lowest-level officials still had very good income and status.

This principle was also followed in the treatment of royal family members. For example, the annual salary of a prince was 10,000 taels, and the annual salary of a duke was 4,000 taels. However, after this reform, the number of princes and dukes will decline rapidly in the future.

Below the rank of Prince, the monthly salary of the General Guarding the Country was cut in half to thirty taels, and the lowest rank of Lieutenant General Fengguo's monthly salary was only two taels.

This is mainly because the royal family members started to spread from General Zhenguo, and the number of Lieutenant Fengguo was the largest, but the lowest royal family member also had a higher income than the servants of a wealthy family.

What's more, Zhang Shikang also relaxed the restrictions on the lower-level clan members.

Ni Yuanlu roughly calculated the increase according to the standard given by Zhang Shikang and frowned.

"My Lord, if we follow this standard, there are about 21,000 officials in the country, and the annual salary will be more than 8 million taels.

The royal family received much less, but still more than two million taels.

Isn’t that a bit too high?”

"That's fine. Lord Ni, do you know how much money the officials across the country embezzled in the previous year?"

……