Chapter 302: Take from the Noble, Use on the People |
Zhang Fei didn’t like chasing down payments—he only liked issuing fines. After calculating each household’s debt, he would issue them a tax bill and let them take it to pay their taxes themselves.
They could choose not to go.
Then they’d have to go to court.
This would increase the income for the pen-in-caps.
By now, those powerful families were truly at their wit’s end. After all, Zhang Fei held the legal high ground, and they would certainly lose if they went to court.
But they weren’t rushing to pay either.
Looking back, the key to Zhang Fei’s success lay in how he had the common people in his grasp. But the problem was that if you tore down people’s sheds, you had to provide some compensation.
The General Police Bureau had made promises too.
Imperial Avenue alone wouldn’t be enough.
If your General Police Bureau truly has the ability to resolve this matter, then we’ll pay this money.
One could only say you’re ruthless enough.
General Police Bureau.
“Reporting to the Commissioner, we’ve made preliminary calculations of the accounts. Including the previous profits from license plates, we can obtain around seven hundred thousand strings this year.”
Upon hearing this, Cao Ping not only gasped, “That much?”
Almost simultaneously, Zhang Fei frowned and said, “Only that little?”
Cao Ping couldn’t help but turn his head to look at Zhang Fei. “Are you very wealthy?”
Seven hundred thousand strings?
Only that little?
Are you speaking human language?
Zhang Fei said sheepishly, “No, it’s just that I’ve gotten so used to claiming poverty that…”
Cao Ping blinked and sighed, “Actually, what you said is right too. It sounds like a lot, but compared to our General Police Bureau’s expenses, it’s not really that much.”
“Exactly, exactly.”
Zhang Fei nodded repeatedly, then asked the clerk, “How much can we get from street encroachment taxes and license plate fees each year going forward?”
The reason this year was so much was because there was a batch of premium license plates waiting to be auctioned, and the people had to pay a lump sum for wall fees. Most of these were merchants, and almost every shop had these issues. Little by little, it added up to quite a lot, but this was a one-time payment—they wouldn’t have to pay it every year.
The clerk answered, “Around three hundred fifty thousand strings.”
That much? Cao Ping was secretly shocked. License plate fees, no matter how much, were still limited. The key revenue came from street encroachment taxes. Renting public housing only brought in one hundred sixty to seventy thousand strings per year—this was essentially doubling it.
But thinking about it, his own household had to pay nearly seventy-six strings annually for license plates and street encroachment taxes, and his family didn’t even occupy that much space. A family like the Gu family had to pay one hundred twenty strings in street encroachment taxes each year.
The Gu family’s residence alone occupied considerable land, plus their shops. Take the renovation of Spring Breeze Ten Li—it wasn’t like they had to give up everything they had encroached upon. They probably only demolished half, keeping the other half, which still had to be taxed.
But Cao Ping said aloud, “This is far from enough for our General Police Bureau’s expenses.”
The clerk replied, “The imperial court still has to provide us with annual funding, so altogether…”
“Altogether it’s still really not enough,” Zhang Fei interrupted him.
Cao Ping nodded directly.
The clerk said no more, deeply despising these two men in his heart—they had raked in so much money and still complained it wasn’t enough.
Cao Ping nodded, “Alright! I understand. You can go back to your work now.”
“Yes.”
After the clerk left, Zhang Fei was still muttering, “Only this little—looks like we’ll have to use it sparingly.”
Cao Ping heard him clearly and snorted, “Enough already. The man’s gone and you’re still crying poverty here. Are you hoping I’ll pay to subsidize you?”
Zhang Fei was startled and said sheepishly, “That’s not what I meant. It’s just that, actually, when you calculate it, it’s just barely enough.”
Cao Ping said irritably, “What do you mean just barely enough? I think it’s more than sufficient.”
Zhang Fei hurriedly said, “You can’t calculate by the old standards—you have to use the current standards.”
“What current standards?” Cao Ping asked curiously.
Zhang Fei said, “We can’t avoid talking about this—in the past, many of the dirty and tiring jobs were done by corvee runners or soldiers, but now we have to hire people to do everything.”
“Hire people?”
Cao Ping asked in surprise.
Zhang Fei nodded and said, “You cannot demand that current patrol officers accept the same compensation as before. The key issue is that they simply won’t do it. In the past, they had plenty of ways to make money on the side, but now all of that is forbidden, so their compensation must definitely be increased. A patrol officer must receive at least sixty strings of cash per year.”
Cao Ping said, “Do we really need to pay that much? That’s already equivalent to the salary of the Divine Guard Army.”
Zhang Fei nodded and said, “That’s exactly what I based my calculations on. Only with such compensation can we require them to maintain discipline and enforce the law strictly, lest they lose their positions. Additionally, we need to hire people to clean the streets, and that’s another expense.”
Cao Ping coughed and said, “Aren’t there corvee runners?”
Zhang Fei said, “My intention is to give those corvee runners permanent positions, because most corvee runners come from well-to-do families, and they’re actually the most suitable candidates to become patrol officers.
Many of them can count and read, and they also have concerns about their reputation. They’re not like those veteran soldiers in the Three Military Divisions, who are all cunning. If we let them collect taxes, there would definitely be trouble.
At the same time, I would hire residents from densely populated areas to clean the streets, which would help stabilize them, since we can’t provide that many market stalls for them.”
His intention was to give all these corvee runners permanent positions, and they would continue to recruit corvee runners in the future, since Emperor Zhao Xu had a grand plan.
Sons of the middle class were the best candidates, no matter how you looked at it. As for those soldiers recruited from the Three Military Divisions, they were either bandits or beggars.
If they were all slippery and cunning, their quality was just that level. It would be fine to just keep them from breaking the law, but to have them enforce the law would be truly suicidal!
They simply couldn’t serve as police officers.
Cao Ping listened with sweat beading on his forehead. “If you spend money like this, it would indeed be just barely enough, and might not even be sufficient.”
Zhang Fei said, “But there’s one source of wealth that hasn’t been calculated yet.”
“What wealth?”
“Violation penalties. We’re in charge of violations, and we can try to impose fines as much as possible. This money can be given to them as bonuses.”
“…?”
Cao Ping felt somewhat comforted when he heard the first half, but when he heard the latter part, he felt uneasy again. “Does your family also spend money like this? Spending every penny you have?”
Zhang Fei smiled and said, “Commissioner, this money cannot be stinged on. Only by spending it all can those powerful nobles have nothing to say, preventing them from accusing us of amassing wealth. If we keep no surplus, we can speak with more confidence. Moreover, what you want is political achievements. As long as they work hard, you can achieve political success, which is much more useful than money.”
Cao Ping indeed didn’t need to make money from this, so he said, “Alright, I’ll leave this matter for you to coordinate.”
Upon hearing that the funding was so tight that they might even have to put in their own money if things went poorly, he quickly passed it off – this was a hot potato.
Zhang Fei said awkwardly, “Commissioner, I’m just a corvee runner. It would be better to have your son handle this, but I will do my best to assist him.”
Cao Ping said, “How about I promote you to police captain?”
Zhang Fei chuckled and said, “I’m just here to serve my term. I have many things to handle at home.” He thought to himself, with my net worth, can you afford to hire me?
Cao Ping said irritably, “You’re the one who started all this. When the time comes and you pat your behind and leave, how can Dong’er manage it all by himself?”
He knew perfectly well what kind of person his son was.
Zhang Fei said, “First, I will handle the aftermath properly. Second, the General Police Bureau can also hire our Bianjing Law Firm – it won’t cost much per year.”
Cao Ping snorted, “Even if it doesn’t cost much, it still costs money to hire you.”
He couldn’t do without this troublesome kid!
Zhang Fei could only smile apologetically.
This Cao Ping could be considered accomplished in both civil and military affairs. His archery was first-rate in the army – he could draw the bow with either hand – and he wrote quite well too. But when it came to these complex financial accounts, he was completely clueless, so he dumped everything on Cao Dongdong and Zhang Fei.
He was responsible for institutional matters – how to divide police stations among the various streets and personnel allocation.
This arrangement was very reasonable.
Because Cao Dongdong and Ma Xiaoyi were both wealthy young men, they had no concept of money and never thought about skimming profits for themselves – they were very generous.
They were happy to spen freely.
He had no objections to that.
After all, it was money everyone had earned together.
It was better to share joy than to enjoy it alone.
Just as they were planning at the police station, Xu Zhiqian suddenly arrived.
“Miss Xu.”
Cao Dongdong winked and said, “Are you here to see Zhang San?”
“She’s here to assign tasks.”
Zhang Fei stepped forward and said to Xu Zhiqian, “You must be exhausted these past days, right?”
Xu Zhiqian shook her head. “No matter how tired I am, it’s nothing compared to you – you don’t even have time to go home.”
Zhang Fei had been staying at the police station these days, with too many trivial matters to handle. Everything required his attention, and he was basically busy until the third watch every night. Cao Dongdong and Ma Xiaoyi were only responsible for charging into battle.
Ma Xiaoyi asked curiously, “What task are you assigning?”
Zhang Fei smiled. “Our talent as men is making money, a woman’s talent is spending money. Now it’s time to spend money, so naturally we need to find a woman!”
“Stop talking nonsense.”
Xu Zhiqian spat and said to Ma Xiaoyi, “Don’t listen to his gibberish. He assigned me the task of relocating the stalls earlier.”
Cao Dongdong suddenly understood. “No wonder you rarely mentioned the stall matters – you had already handed it over to Miss Xu!”
Zhang Fei smiled and nodded.
Demolishing houses was something they had to do, but compensation matters had to be entrusted to Xu Zhiqian. As long as there was enough money, she was every bit as capable as any man – she had rich experience helping people.
Xu Zhiqian spread the blueprints in her hands on the table. “Look, these red circles are the markets I’ve planned.”
“Markets?”
Cao Dongdong and Ma Xiaoyi were stunned.
Zhang Fei said, “Places specifically for residents to buy and sell vegetables.”
Ma Xiaoyi asked in confusion, “Didn’t you say to let them go to Imperial Avenue?”
Zhang Fei replied, “That was just a promotional slogan. Did you actually take it seriously? What those residents sell – you probably wouldn’t eat it yourself. If we put them on Imperial Street to sell, who would buy it? Those stalls will eventually be rented to wealthy merchants selling expensive goods, serving the rich.”
Cao Dongdong nodded slightly. “So it was all deception.”
“Promotion!”
Zhang Fei emphasized.
Xu Zhiqian said, “Zhang San is right. Those residents couldn’t do business on Imperial Avenue anyway.”
Ma Xiaoyi looked at those red circles and suddenly said, “Why are all these markets concentrated in the corners of the city?”
Xu Zhiqian explained, “First, because most of those residential areas are concentrated near the city edges. Second, only the city corners still have space available to build markets.”
Cao Dongdong wondered, “But who would bother going to the corners?”
Xu Zhiqian explained, “Those residents usually do business mostly with local residents, unlike the vendors on Bian River Street. If I build markets in these places, they’ll have to go to the markets to buy their daily food needs.
The streets from the residential areas to the markets are ones I carefully selected – they’re relatively spacious and usually don’t have much foot traffic. This creates space for them to set up stalls, providing wine, food, and pancakes.
Residents can solve their meal needs on their way to buy and sell vegetables. Additionally, the markets are close to the city gates, which can attract farmers from outside the city to sell vegetables here. When farmers earn money, they can also buy some good food to take back. Their business will only be better than before.”
Ma Xiaoyi could visualize the scene in his mind and said thoughtfully, “Brother, this idea sounds good.”
Cao Dongdong seemed to half-understand. “It does seem feasible.”
Zhang Fei asked, “How much funding is needed?”
Xu Zhiqian replied, “I’ve roughly calculated that we’ll need a total of thirty thousand strings.”
Cao Dongdong exclaimed, “That’s all? Aren’t we supposed to build several dozen of them?”
Xu Zhiqian said, “These grocery markets will be very simple – just brick and tile structures to build large sheds.”
Zhang Fei nodded and said, “When the time comes, we can also hire labor from the residential areas to build the grocery markets. Additionally, for the new police uniforms, we can also have those women make them.”
“New police uniforms?”
Ma Xiaoyi quickly asked, “What new police uniforms?”
Zhang Fei smiled and said, “Now we are all righteous forces maintaining public order. We can’t keep dressing like laborers, so I plan to give our police a new type of uniform that will also make us easily recognizable.”
Ma Xiaoyi said, “So our police captain uniforms will be different?”
Zhang Fei smiled and said, “Of course.”
Cao Dongdong eagerly asked, “What about Deputy Commissioner?”
Zhang Fei smiled and said, “Even more different.”
Cao Dongdong said, “I’ll find someone to make mine myself, so I won’t trouble you all.”
Ma Xiaoyi nodded repeatedly and said, “Me too, me too.”