“Oh, right.” Hua Zhi suddenly recalled something. “Did Zhu Fang return last night?”
“Yes, she did.”
“How badly is she injured?”
“Not lightly. But more serious, I fear, is the matter of her reputation.” Jia Yang reminded her, “She was held in solitary confinement for more than half the night, and was taken away by soldiers in full view of everyone.”
“That was my miscalculation.”
“You need not blame yourself. Had you known that Zhu Ling was acting against his will, you would not have moved against Miss Zhu in the first place. If she had truly been a Chaoli tribesperson, any treatment would have been warranted.”
Hua Zhi shook her head. No matter how much more was said, Zhu Fang’s reputation was ruined. Finding her a husband in the future would not be easy — though with her identity as a descendant of the Chaoli tribe, marrying into a good family would have been difficult regardless. Zhu Ling may not have been without that concern himself, otherwise why would he have never arranged a match for his daughter early on?
Setting the matter aside, Hua Zhi drank half a cup of tea, rose to her feet, and said, “Take me to the yamen’s records vault.”
“Yes.”
The records vault was guarded by a single archivist of around forty years of age, no one else present, yet the room was clean — none of the dust-laden disorder she had anticipated. Glancing at the archivist, who stood with eyes downcast and manner submissive, Hua Zhi turned and instructed, “For all yamen affairs, go to Zhu Ling. When the heads of the various households arrive, come and fetch me.”
Jia Yang acknowledged the order.
Hua Zhi then looked toward the archivist. “Come and guide me.”
“Yes.”
The records vault was vast. Hua Zhi walked slowly through the aisles between the shelves, row after row, drifting from the far left all the way to the far right.
A room full of case files, yet not a trace of ink fragrance reached her. She found herself missing the book tower at home — missing the leisurely pleasure of pulling out any volume at random and sitting down right there to while away half a day. Her grandfather had always indulged her even after discovering the cozy little corner she had secretly arranged for herself in that tower, knowing she was a creature of comfort. Looking back now, she supposed it was thanks to her maids keeping a strict eye on her that her eyesight had never deteriorated.
Bowing her head with a quiet sigh, Hua Zhi thought: it was not merely the book tower she missed. She missed home. She missed her family.
She ran her fingers along the top of a stack of case files a meter high. Her fingertips came away perfectly clean. Hua Zhi stepped out from the shadows. “Your honorable title is…”
“I dare not accept such address. This subordinate is Xu Ze.”
Hua Zhi settled into the chair behind his writing desk. “I would like to learn about the situation in Jinyang over the past few years. Archivist Xu, please bring out whatever you think is fitting for my review.”
Xu Ze did not comply immediately. He remained bent at the waist, his tone unchanged. “May I ask what position the young lady holds? Though the records vault contains nothing that cannot be shown, it is the foundation of this locality. This subordinate, serving as records archivist, dare not casually bring them out for others to view.”
That was fair. Hua Zhi nodded, retrieved the seal of the Seven Lodges Bureau, and slid it forward across the desk.
Xu Ze begged her pardon, stepped forward to examine it carefully, and after a moment straightened into a bow. He then picked up a basket — somewhat worn yet visibly well-maintained — and moved among the shelves, lifting one volume after another and setting them gently inside.
Hua Zhi watched his movements in silence, and felt an immediate sense of approval. Whether he had ability she could not yet tell, but in the role of archivist, he performed admirably.
“The young lady may begin with these.”
“Call me First Young Lady. Go about your own work; there is no need to attend to me.”
“Yes.”
Hua Zhi picked up the topmost volume, labeled Population Records, and the moment she opened it, her eyebrows rose sharply. Calculating the years, this one was from eleven years ago. She picked up the next volume — seven years ago — and from there they continued year by year. She then selected the volumes for tax revenue and land records; the same pattern held.
Eleven years ago: when Yuan Shifang had first arrived in Jinyang. Seven years ago: when Zeng Xiangling had just been brought under their control. This archivist was a perceptive man.
Pushing aside the other volumes on the desk, Hua Zhi pulled out the tax revenue records — the most revealing of the lot — and spread them open in chronological order from top to bottom. The comparison was stark: Jinyang’s current tax revenue did not reach even one-third of what it had been eleven years ago.
She then spread out the population records for comparison, focusing primarily on corvée labor. Eleven years ago, one in every ten people paid silver to be exempted from corvée duty. Seven years ago, one in twelve. In the most recent year, only one in twenty-seven paid the exemption — a clear sign that fewer and fewer residents had money to spare.
As for land: from eleven years ago to the present, newly cultivated land had decreased year by year. By the previous year, newly cultivated land across all of Jinyang had fallen to fewer than twenty-four qing.
The Jinyang of eleven years ago — that was a place that could truly be called a little capital.
Hua Zhi studied the rows of figures, asking whenever she did not understand. “Would Archivist Xu be so kind as to clarify — how is wasteland taxed under the current system?”
Xu Ze had been turning through a book nearby, and responded at once. “Wasteland may be exempt from taxation for four years. In the first two years after that, only half the tax rate of cultivated land is required; thereafter, it is taxed the same as cultivated land.”
“Have the common people shown much enthusiasm for this?”
“In earlier years, certainly. This subordinate recalls that one year, several thousand qing of wasteland were brought under cultivation. Conditioning the soil was laborious, yet the rewards were great. The Great Qing code stipulates that whoever cultivates a plot of land has it registered in their name. In the first year, once the wasteland is broken and the soil conditioned, there can already be some yield in the second year. An experienced veteran farmer can bring that yield to within one or two parts of cultivated land — and by the third year it is no different from cultivated land at all, yet that year still carries no tax obligation. Who would not want a few extra bushels of grain in the household?”
That figure — a world apart from what the records now showed.
Hua Zhi covered the numbers so she no longer had to look at them. “I have gone outside the city several times and seen some plots that were formerly fields lying barren. Has Archivist Xu heard anything of this matter?”
Xu Ze was silent a moment, then replied, “Yes. This subordinate is aware.”
“Is there an explanation?”
“It is simply that something else has drawn the common people’s attention away from their fields.”
And that something was gambling. When gambling had become an ordinary thing, woven into the fabric of household life, those living inside it could not see how much they had changed — how much their lives had changed.
During her days in Jinyang, Hua Zhi had made inquiries. Gambling had entered the homes of ordinary people. The residents of Jinyang, though their lives could not compare to years past and their funds were tighter than before, harbored little resentment among themselves — there was even a certain benefit to it: the small-stakes gambling among neighbors had apparently improved relations between families. When she had first learned of that, she had not known whether to laugh or cry.
“First Young Lady, the various household heads have all arrived together.” Jia Yang appeared in the doorway and reported in a low voice.
“Understood.” Hua Zhi closed the case files and placed them back into the basket one by one. She picked the basket up by the handle, turned to face Xu Ze, and asked, “How long has Archivist Xu served in this post?”
“Eleven years.”
Eleven years — quite a fitting number. Hua Zhi found her thoughts reaching further, though she asked no more questions for now. She nodded, shifted her grip on the basket, and said, “Please find more records of this kind and have them sent to the front hall, Archivist Xu. They would be better put to use there than left here gathering dust.”
“This subordinate receives the order.”
Hua Zhi glanced at him once more, then walked out of the records vault to find Bao Xia waiting outside. The moment Bao Xia saw her, she broke into a fawning smile.
Hua Zhi gave her a sidelong look and dropped the basket squarely into her hands. She had nearly forgotten — of her four senior maids, Bao Xia was the one who most disliked reading. Her literacy had been coaxed out of her one painstaking step at a time by Nian Qiu, and that was only possible because Nian Qiu had an uncommonly gentle temperament. Back then, Hua Zhi herself had not been able to hold back — she had given Bao Xia quite a few raps for it.