1905: Beer Hall Speaker

Page 106

Premier Zhang Mingqi and Vice Premier Lu Zhaoxuan are both from Hunan, so Hunan naturally became their base and stronghold.

It was only because this stubborn young man from Hunan made a huge fool of himself and Zhang Mingqi was in the wrong that Zhang Xinghua was able to take advantage of the situation and have the opportunity to take charge of a region.

Currently, each province is the base of the central government's ministers and committee members. They all rose from local to central government positions, so they attach great importance to the places where they rose to power. The central government can decide on the appointment and removal of provincial governors, but these ministers and committee members still have considerable advisory power.

When Zhao Yan wanted to send his apprentices to take charge of a region, he could only send them to border provinces, such as Tibet, Xinjiang, the newly established Northeast China, or the northern part of North Korea.

This is the power of checks and balances. The leader has the right to make arbitrary decisions, but he cannot use it arbitrarily. Just like the veto power of the Party Secretary in later generations, he has it, but he cannot use it arbitrarily!

The younger brother respects the older brother's authority, and the older brother must also respect the younger brother's base; it's a mutually beneficial relationship.

Zhang Mingqi, seeing that things were settled, said, "Since the die is cast, I won't say anything more. Let Xiao Zhang also serve as the governor of Hunan Province, so he can do it legitimately. As long as he doesn't do anything reckless and can benefit Hunan, I won't object to him serving as governor for another ten years!"

Zhao Yan returned the favor: "Vice Governor, you can pick someone to go there. I wouldn't agree to let Xiao Zhang serve as governor for ten years. Send someone over to help keep an eye on things. Xiao Zhang is still young and may not have considered things thoroughly. The Vice Governor can also help oversee things!"

Zhang Mingqi nodded: "No problem, I'll arrange it."

The two men casually decided the personnel arrangements for the top two leaders of a province. Unlike other officialdom novels, the competition between the top two leaders of a province, from the local level to the central level, would take at least a hundred chapters to finish.

But at this moment, the head of state of the Republic, Zhao Yan, and the premier, Zhang Mingqi, could make a decision with just a few words. That's how domineering the authority of the founding emperor and his prime minister was.

Zhao Yan would usually ask a few questions about the appointment and removal of the top official in an ordinary province, but he almost never paid attention to the appointment and removal of the second-in-command, because the second-in-command was not even worthy of his attention.

The appointment and removal of central ministers is Zhao Yan's true power; without his approval, no one can be promoted.

Zhang Mingqi continued, "Furthermore, it's one thing for Xiao Zhang to embezzle all the embezzled funds in Hunan, but issuing local bonds is really going too far. We can't set this precedent, otherwise other provinces will follow suit, and the national treasury will be in chaos."

Zhao Yan turned his gaze to Yu Jingqian: "Since Minister Yu is here, then I'll trouble Minister Yu to cover this up and have the central Ministry of Finance take the lead in collecting the claims on those local government debts in Hunan."

"Huh?" Yu Jingqian was completely stunned: "Your Majesty, I came to ask you for money, but before I even got the money, you've already dumped a debt on my Ministry of Finance?"

Zhao Yan advised, "Xiao Zhang has just taken charge of a region. He and Liu Shangsheng are fellow disciples and have a pretty good relationship. Just help him out this time; he'll appreciate it!"

Out of consideration for Liu Shangsheng, the most promising young man in his Huaiyang Chamber of Commerce, Yu Jingqian nodded in agreement.

Zhao Yan continued, "By the way, what did you just say?"

Yu Jingqian was speechless, and Zhang Mingqi immediately understood. Zhao Yan was pretending to be deaf and dumb again. You asked someone to help you cover your debts, and they agreed. But when they ask you for money back, you pretend to be deaf and dumb.

Yu Jingqian was, after all, the Minister of Finance, and belonged to the Prime Minister's Office, so Zhang Mingqi naturally couldn't sit idly by: "Your Majesty, don't play dumb. The Ministry of Finance hasn't collected the quarterly taxes yet, and the drought in Shanxi and Shaanxi can't wait any longer. Please give us some money!"

Zhao Yan said irritably, "I've already been drinking soy milk and eating steamed buns, what am I supposed to give you?"

Zhang Mingqi said mysteriously, "Just agree first, and the money will be provided soon!"

Zhao Yan waved his hand: "Okay, okay, I agree, but where will the money come from?"

Yu Jinggan stammered, "This morning, the Ministry of Finance received a batch of spoils from the Pingpan Army in Tibet, totaling 175 tons of gold, 564 tons of silver, and 1.6 tons of other gems and treasures."

Zhao Yan was furious: "This brat has gone too far! This is defying the heavens!"

"This is all my money, my money!"

The spoils sent from Tibet must have been the work of Wu Zifu, but he didn't send them to the head of state first; instead, he sent them to the Ministry of Finance.

It's like a son finding 10,000 yuan outside and giving it to the police instead of his father. How can Zhao Yan possibly keep that in check?

"Your Majesty, Wu Zifu did everything perfectly this time, he didn't do anything wrong!" Zhang Mingqi quickly stepped forward. Wu Zifu had delivered the spoils directly to the Ministry of Finance of the Prime Minister's Office for them to receive, which pleased Zhang Mingqi greatly. He couldn't let Zhao Yan continue to scold him.

The reason behind it is very simple: young people are hot-tempered and might act a little willfully.

Are you sending this seized item to the presidential palace so that Wu Zifu will give Zhao Yan a wedding gift? To reward Zhao Yan for sleeping with his own mother?

Sending it to the Ministry of National Defense wouldn't be appropriate either, since the Ministry of National Defense is headed by Wang Dingyun's father, Wang Chongshan. It would be inappropriate for Wu Zifu to offer benefits to the father of his rival.

Therefore, sending it to the Ministry of Finance of the Prime Minister's Office was the most appropriate option, and it would also be good to establish a good relationship with Zhang Mingqi and Yu Jingqian.

Once he came to his senses, Zhao Yan didn't care about anything else. It didn't matter where the gold and silver were sent, since they would all end up in the same pot anyway. He wondered deeply, "Where did all this gold and silver come from in that godforsaken place, the Tibetan Plateau?"

"Could he be heading south to plunder India?"

Yu Jingqian quickly explained, "Your Majesty, which of your disciples, Wu Zifu, demolished the Potala Palace?"

Zhao Yan's mouth dropped open: "Huh?!"

Zhang Mingqi secretly gave a thumbs up. As expected of Zhao Yan's top disciple, he is brave. Not only did he cut off other people's heads, but he also demolished the Potala Palace!

Yu Jingqian continued to explain: "At first, the pacification army did not want to demolish it. After all, it was a palace with a long history. But later, Wu Zifu went in to observe it in person, and then ordered the execution of the Living Buddha and all the monks in the palace, and the demolition of the Potala Palace."

"Lhasa was also massacred. None of the nobles and lords with any standing escaped; they were all beheaded. Wu Zifu even built a mound of heads!"

Zhao Yan gasped upon hearing this. He knew Wu Zifu well. Although Wu Zifu was extreme, he was still law-abiding. He preferred liberation to killing. Zhao Yan had done many things like massacring cities and building Jingguan (a mound of corpses), but Wu Zifu never did them.

Zhao Yan asked with great curiosity, "What did those people do to make Xiao Wu so angry? What did he see at the Potala Palace?"

Yu Jingqian looked around and, finding no children present, said with relief, “Skulls are like mountains, bones are like forests, human hair is like felt, and human flesh and blood are rotten into dust.”

They extracted human tendons and veins to bind the silver tree, sprinkled human blood to coat the vermilion wall, used bones as bricks, and bound together flesh.

Above this was a scene of exquisite beauty, with wide screens on either side, vibrant flowers, a golden Buddha seated high, and curtains draped in crimson brocade!

Zhao Yan's fists clenched tighter as he listened, and he said in a low voice, "Speak plainly!"

Yu Jingqian quickly changed his tune: "That Potala Palace, they build walls with human skulls, and the trees inside are covered with human tendons. In short, it's unbearable to look at."

Above that, it was incredibly extravagant. The Buddha statues were all cast in pure gold, the curtains inside the temple were all made of the finest brocade, and all the calligraphy and paintings were engraved with gold and silver!

The beams and pillars were inlaid with jewels, and the monks' ritual implements over there were priceless!

Zhao Yan gritted his teeth so hard they almost broke. He was so poor he was practically urinating blood, and they dared to use gold to make Buddha statues and silver and gemstones as decoration materials.

The construction of a palace has claimed countless lives. This is the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and the palace is being built on a mountain. The number of deaths is simply uncountable.

It's one thing if people work themselves to death building your palace, but to use their bones to build walls is just too much. Even Emperor Yang of Sui was impressed.

Yu Jingqian continued, "And..."

Zhao Yan said, "What else? Tell me all at once!"

Yu Jingqian said, "The walls of the Potala Palace are entirely white, supposedly because they were constantly painted with milk and honey."

"Huh!?" Using milk and honey to paint the exterior walls of a palace? Zhao Yan glanced down at the soy milk on his table, which had barely any sugar in it, and immediately couldn't hold back any longer.

"Pass on my order: let Wu Zifu do whatever he wants, without any scruples!"

"I will take full responsibility for this. Tell him that I, Zhao Yan, will not allow such a powerful being to exist!"

"I don't even dare to put too much sugar in my soy milk, how dare they use milk and honey to whitewash the city walls?"

Zhao Yan was furious. He hadn't known much about Tibet before, but now that he did, he really thought it was a poor and backward place. He never expected it to be so extravagant. Even the Forbidden City didn't dare to use milk and honey for painting!

Even capitalists would be unable to contain themselves if they saw something like this, let alone proletarians!

Chapter 180 Whoever Has Money, We'll Take Them Down

Are all monks this rich?

"In Hunan province, only a handful of corrupt officials have been investigated, yet the Potala Palace, built on a desolate mountain, contains so much gold and silver?"

Zhao Yan let out a sound of genuine confusion. He was puzzled as to how these monks could be so ruthless and so adept at making money.

In his early years, when Zhao Yan was a fraudster, he had considered taking advantage of monks, but ultimately he didn't have the guts because those people had too powerful a background. Religion was a transcendent entity at that time, and the government gave it a very high status.

Moreover, those monks were not just religious believers; they had many unfathomable figures behind them. Even the audacious Zhao Yan at the time could not bring himself to do anything to them.

Think about the billions of yuan that temples have in circulation every year. Is that all they have from donations from worshippers?

Now Zhao Yan can have plenty of confidence to take action against those monks, because any behind-the-scenes forces are just paper tigers to him. In China, if Zhao Yan thinks you're powerful, then you're bound to be in trouble.

Yu Jingqian had met some religious people in his early years and knew a little about this, so he stepped forward to explain: "Your Majesty, you are unaware of this."

"Back in the early days of the Qing Dynasty, the wealthiest people in China were the Buddhist monks and nuns. They were so rich they could rival the wealth of a country!"

"Leaving aside the golden Buddha statues in the temples, their greatest wealth lies in their land holdings and loans!"

Buddhist farmland is exempt from taxes.

"Hmm?" Zhao Yan frowned, interrupting Yu Jinggan: "Under my jurisdiction, are there people who dare not pay taxes? Don't they even have ten mu of land per person?"

Yu Jingqian said, "That's definitely more than ten mu per person. The tax department has already spoken to me. They said they'll wait two years until the animals are fattened up before slaughtering them. Collecting taxes now would only be a drop in the ocean, at most a fine. We'll wait a few more years until their tax arrears reach a certain amount."

"Then we can fine them until they're bankrupt, send them to reformatories, and all the land assets and loans they're left with will be state-owned!"

Zhao Yan stroked his chin and asked, "How much money do they have? How much land?"

Yu Jingqian thought for a moment, and finally realized that he couldn't remember everything. He could only take out a small notebook from his pocket, spit on it to wet his fingers, and then flip through it.

After looking at it for a long time, he said, "According to the incomplete statistics from the tax department's multiple secret investigations, there are currently about 8700 registered religious temples across the country. After deducting some impoverished Taoist temples, City God temples, and other religious temples, there are about 7400 Buddhist temples remaining."

There are over 300 of them near Beijing alone!

"These temples own a total of about 621 million mu of land and about 77,000 properties and shops. The amount of loans involved is equivalent to about 49 million yuan. As for how much wealth they have in the temples, the tax department can only estimate it to be about 30 million yuan."

Zhao Yan's eyes lit up as he listened, and he continued to ask, "How many divisions were there among those presiding officials?"

"Huh?" Yu Jingqian was dumbfounded after hearing this.

Zhao Yan said with some concern, "I've heard that those bald Shaolin monks are all very skilled fighters, and there's also the Shaolin Thirty-Six Chambers and Seventy-Two Ultimate Skills. It's said that all martial arts in the world originated from Shaolin!"

"Their Eighteen Bronze Men formation seems capable of withstanding bullets?"

"This is a bit tricky. It feels like we'll need to send in a field army to deal with them, and we'll have to bring over heavy machine guns and artillery as well."

Zhao Yan had already figured out how to get those bald monks' money into his own pocket; otherwise, what would monks need so much money for?

Yu Jingqian quickly waved his hand: "Your Excellency, where did you hear these things from? Invulnerable to swords and bullets? They are just fat monks. They do have some kung fu, but it's not like we need to use heavy machine guns and cannons to deal with them."

"No need for field troops, our government can handle it by mobilizing the police force. Just don't call in the national defense forces!"

Yu Jingqian knew the old rules of the National Defense Army: 30% was kept by the army and 70% was distributed to the public. This was a rule established by Zhao Yan during the revolution, and it still stands today.

But that's how they treat Zhao Yan! If the Prime Minister's Office dares to order their National Defense Army to do dirty work, then it won't be a 30/70 split, it will be at least 50/50, and the National Defense Army might even get the lion's share!

Yu Jingqian continued to persuade, "Your Majesty, we should not rush into this matter. They are simply refusing to pay taxes right now, without any other extreme actions. Directly mobilizing a large army to suppress them could easily cause unrest. There are quite a few Buddhist believers."

Zhang Mingqi sneered, "If they don't have a reason, they'll find one. They're just a bunch of bald thieves. I know all about their shady dealings. During the Qing Dynasty, they were accomplices to evil, helping the Manchus to harm innocent people and seize land. They used the guise of religious tax exemption to help princes and nobles evade taxes on their private property."

They also engaged in usury, driving many families to ruin and death, and even committed sexual assault against young boys and girls!

"Minister Yu, you probably suffered some losses in your early years, didn't you?"

Yu Jingqian nodded and admitted, "When I was young, I was short of money while doing business, so I borrowed two thousand taels of silver from a monk. But after only half a year, I had to pay back five thousand taels!"

Zhao Yan made the decision: "Then what are we waiting for? Let's take them down! Let's do it first!"

"What do a group of monks need so much money for? How can this be allowed!"

"If we have the conditions, we will do it; if we don't have the conditions, we will create them and still do it!"

Yu Jingqian fell silent. Originally, he wanted to join forces with the Ministry of Taxation and have the two departments take action to swallow this piece of fat meat, but he didn't expect that the head of state would target him first.

Zhang Mingqi also clearly expressed his support. It wasn't just Zhao Yan who was anxious about making money; the Prime Minister of the country was also in a bind.

Are they really more powerful than the Qing Dynasty imperial family? They're just a bunch of monks.

Zhao Yan made the decision: "We are now in power, and everything we do must have a legitimate reason. Let's do it this way!"

"Let the Ministry of Justice draft the relevant 'Religious Law,' the core principle of which is that monks and nuns should be detached from worldly desires: their wallets should be empty, their warehouses should be empty, their pockets should be empty, and their houses and land should be empty!"

"The Department of Justice drafts the laws, then the Department of Taxation and the Department of Defense jointly enforce them, while the Department of Finance is responsible for accounting and distributing the spoils—or rather, for compiling statistics on illicit assets and redistributing them fairly!"

"Remember, we must use overwhelming force to thoroughly purge those bad apples! We must clearly tell the world that the religious sphere is not a lawless zone!"

"Don't think that you can act with impunity just because you've shaved your head and are carrying an umbrella! Not to mention monks, even demons and monsters coming to China must respect the law and submit to the emperor's rule!"

Zhang Mingqi added: "The charges include tax evasion, illegal lending, organizing criminal gangs, colluding with remnants of the Qing Dynasty, sexual misconduct involving minors, monopolizing religious revenue, and illegally engaging in financial business."

"That should be enough for now. The national treasury is short of money, and the reformatories are short of personnel. Your finance department and tax department must handle this strictly, severely, and swiftly, without delay."

"Whether the central government can make ends meet in the first half of the year depends on you."

"But remember, we can't generalize and condemn all people. Those who are so poor they're urinating blood, truly destitute, can be ignored, but those who are rolling in money should not be let off the hook!"

Zhao Yan suddenly remembered something and added, "Confucianism and Buddhism are not separate. Instruct your subordinates to have those monks take a bite out of the Confucian family. I don't care how exactly, but it must be done cleanly."

Since we've started, let's go all the way and see it through to the end, don't be afraid of causing a huge upheaval!

“Tell your men how much money you bring in, and I, as the head of state, will take the blame for that amount. If this year’s non-tax revenue can fill the national treasury, I will bear all the responsibility!”

Zhang Mingqi frowned slightly: "Isn't it a bit too much to implicate the Kong family in this matter? Can we really take down both Buddha and Confucius in one fell swoop?"

Zhao Yan said, "What are you afraid of? We're so poor we can't even afford to eat. Why should we care about anything else? Even I, the head of state, can't bear to put too much sugar in my soy milk. How dare those monks use milk and honey for painting? If they don't die, who will?"

"And then there's the Kong family of Qufu. They even submitted a letter of surrender to the Qing Dynasty. I, Zhao Yan, have been stationed in the capital for so long, and I still haven't seen a letter of surrender from the Kong family. Last month, they even had the audacity to send me an application to continue requesting the title of Duke Yansheng!"

"These guys are used to a life of ease. Let them experience the Republic's punishment and show them that the Republic has not only glory but also an iron fist!"

After hearing this, Zhang Mingqi immediately stopped trying to persuade them. What else could he say? The Kong family was courting death! They had submitted surrender documents to both the Mongol Yuan and the Manchu Qing, kneeling down so cleanly and gracefully.