Salt and Iron

June brought the dog days, and the capital was as hot as a steamer. Ice basins stood in the imperial study from morning until night, and Liu An had to replace the ice three times a day. Cicadas clung to the parasol trees, screaming themselves hoarse, but inside the study, nothing broke the silence except the rustle of paper. Today, Xiao Huaijin was writing a policy essay.

Xiao Huaijin leaned over a low table, with Zhou Rucheng's latest essay topic spread before him-"Discourse on Salt and Iron." It had been assigned yesterday, and today he had already written three pages. Salt and iron had been state-run since Great Liang's founding. The court established saltworks along the coast and iron offices inland, and the profits from salt and iron went into the national treasury. But over years of state operation, abuses had gradually arisen-salt prices remained high, ironware was shoddily made, and repeated bans failed to stamp out illicit salt and iron. Zhou Rucheng had asked him to write a policy essay on the merits and drawbacks of salt and iron policy.

He had listed every argument he could think of. His handwriting was neater than it had been a year ago, his strokes steadier. He no longer rushed to start a new line halfway through a sentence as he had when he first began practicing policy essays. But when he reached the sentence, "Do the profits of salt and iron benefit the state? Or do they benefit the people?" he got stuck. His brush tip lingered over the paper for a long time, and ink bled into a small dot on the final character.

"Grand Tutor, the court manages salt and iron. With the court managing them, the treasury grows rich. But the authorities set the prices of both salt and iron. What if the people can't afford them?"

Zhou Rucheng sat in a grand armchair, waving an old palm-leaf fan. Four characters were written on it-"Teaching and learning foster each other"-but the writing had faded almost beyond recognition. He fanned himself slowly and, rather than answering directly, tossed the question back.

"A good question, Your Highness. The state monopoly on salt and iron established at our dynasty's founding did indeed fill the treasury and support decades of military expenditure on the northern frontier. But now, problems arise every year in the accounts of local Salt and Iron Offices-salt prices are set ever higher, ironware is cast ever thinner, and illicit salt dealers sell their goods all the way from the coast to the capital's doorstep. No amount of enforcement can stop them. First, tell me your own view, Your Highness. Does this salt and iron policy do more good or more harm?"

Xiao Huaijin set down his brush, rose from the low table, and took a few steps. This was a habit he had recently developed. Zhou Rucheng said he must not always hunch over the table when thinking, or his mind would hunch over too. He stood beside an ice basin for a moment, watching the ice slowly melt on the water's surface, then turned around.

"More harm. But we can't abandon the state monopoly simply because it does more harm. Salt and iron are the nation's lifeblood. If we turn them both over to merchants, the merchants will raise prices, and the people will be even less able to afford them. With the court in charge, at least a fair price can be set."

"What about the abuses of state operation, then? You yourself just said that the authorities set the prices of salt and iron."

"The fault lies not in state operation, but in how the authorities manage it." Xiao Huaijin returned to the low table and sat down again. "The court can't concern itself only with making money. It must also put that money to good use-repairing river embankments, maintaining the army, and relieving disaster victims. The salt and iron policy itself isn't wrong. The people carrying it out haven't done their jobs properly."

Zhou Rucheng's palm-leaf fan paused. Outside the window, the cicadas were deafening. He sat in his armchair, looking at the crown prince before him, and for a long while, the fan in his hand did not move.

"This is not a view I have taught you, Your Highness. Did you think of it yourself?"

Xiao Huaijin shook his head. "Father taught me that water can carry a boat, but it can also overturn it. The people managing salt and iron have forgotten the common people."

The old man switched the fan to his other hand and said nothing more.

That afternoon, when Liu An came in to replace the ice basin, Xiao Huaijin had already finished his first fair copy of the essay. He was about to put it away when Xiao Lin rose from behind the imperial desk and walked over to the low table.

"Your grand tutor said you wrote a 'Discourse on Salt and Iron' today. Let me see it."

Xiao Huaijin presented the essay with both hands. Xiao Lin took it and read it from beginning to end, pausing when he reached the last page. That was precisely where Xiao Huaijin had gotten stuck-"Do the profits of salt and iron benefit the state? Or do they benefit the people?" Beneath it was only a single line: "They benefit the state, and they benefit the people." The characters were slightly larger than those before them, the strokes heavy, as though he had dared commit this conclusion to paper only after confirming it over and over.

"Your grand tutor said he didn't teach you this line. You thought of it yourself?"

"Grand Tutor asked for my opinion. I thought they benefited both the state and the people." Standing before Xiao Lin, Xiao Huaijin tilted his head up to answer. "If they benefit only the state and not the people, and the people can't afford salt, someone will sell it illicitly. Once there are too many illicit dealers, official salt won't sell, and the treasury will still run dry. So if it doesn't benefit the people, in the end, it won't benefit the state either."

He paused after speaking, then added, "Father, am I right?"

Xiao Lin did not answer directly. He closed the essay and placed it at the corner of the desk, then opened several old memorials Sun Jingtang had submitted a few days earlier-the annual accounts of the Hejian Prefecture Salt and Iron Transport Office. He turned to one page and pointed out a row of figures for Xiao Huaijin to read.

"This was Hejian Prefecture's salt tax revenue the year before last, nearly forty percent less than ten years ago. Do you know why?"

Xiao Huaijin took the ledger and examined it carefully. The figures were densely packed, and he did not recognize every term, but he spotted one problem: salt tax revenue fell every year, and the decline kept growing steeper.

"Have the people stopped eating salt?"

"No. It's illicit salt."

Xiao Lin drew a vermilion brush from the brush pot and spread a blank sheet beside the ledger, explaining as he drew. Hejian Prefecture lay along the coast. Illicit salt dealers boiled salt by the sea and sold it inland along the canal. They paid no taxes and did not have to follow official prices, so their salt cost half as much as official salt. Every year, the court cracked down on illicit salt, and every year, it failed to stamp it out, because the patrolmen enforcing the ban were people too, and people needed money. The dealers slipped them silver, and they kept one eye open and one eye shut.

"Then why not lower the price of official salt? If official salt were cheaper, the people wouldn't have to buy illicit salt."

"It can't be lowered. From the saltworks to the Salt Office, then to the Transport Office, and on to each prefecture and county, taxes are levied at every checkpoint. Those taxes are imposed by both the court and the local authorities. If you lower salt prices, the local authorities lose income."

"Then try another way." Xiao Huaijin stared at the canal line on the paper, his brow furrowed exactly as Zhou Rucheng's did when reading policy essays. "Rather than ban it, regulate it."

Xiao Lin's brush tip stopped.

"Bring illicit salt under regulation too. Instead of making it completely illegal, set rules for it. Make the dealers pay taxes and register, and let them sell only in designated places. That way, the court can collect taxes, the people can have cheap salt, and the illicit salt dealers won't have to sneak around."

Xiao Huaijin abruptly broke off, because he saw his father staring at him.

The hall fell quiet for a moment. A fine crack split a block of ice in the basin with a faint, crisp sound. Xiao Lin set down his vermilion brush and leaned against the back of his chair. This idea had not come out of thin air. In his previous life, ministers had proposed similar salt reforms, but they had never truly been implemented because they encroached on too many people's interests. A child naturally knew nothing of these tangled webs of interests, but having this idea was already impressive.

"This approach makes sense. But actually implementing it would be very difficult." Xiao Lin looked into his son's eyes. His tone was no longer that of an emperor testing his heir, but more like a discussion between equals. "Behind the illicit salt dealers are powerful local families, and behind those families are officials at court. If you touch their interests, they'll turn around and bite you. Do you have a way to keep them from biting?"

Xiao Huaijin did not answer immediately. He took the sheet with the canal drawn on it, turned it over, and began drawing again. He drew a river, a saltworks, several little figures representing salt dealers, and a larger figure representing the court.

"We could give them a sweetener first. Have them register and pay taxes, but don't charge too much for the first few years. Just a little less than the tax on official salt would do. Once they're all used to registering and paying taxes, we can slowly raise the rate."

Xiao Lin looked at those crooked little figures and fell silent for a moment. In his previous life, this child had stood in court for so many years and submitted so many memorials, yet every proposal had been left at the corner of his desk, retained without a response. Back then, Xiao Huaijin's policy essays had been even better than they were now, but he had never listened seriously. Now, as the boy leaned over the corner of his desk, drawing little figures and explaining salt policy, he felt these were the most reasonable words in the world.

"Father?"

"Mm. Keep drawing."

Xiao Huaijin continued drawing, adding a small city beside the canal, with a little tax collector standing at its gate. "We could also let the local authorities share in the benefits-after collecting the salt tax, leave a portion for the local government. Then the local authorities won't help the illicit salt dealers, because they'll be collecting the taxes themselves."

Xiao Lin picked up the sheet from the low table and studied it from top to bottom. He spread out another sheet, listed Hejian Prefecture's salt tax accounts for the past five years, and explained them one by one. Xiao Huaijin leaned over the low table and listened, asking whenever he did not understand, then picking up his brush to jot down a few notes beside it. One basin of ice melted and was replaced by another. Outside the window, the deafening chorus of cicadas dwindled to a few scattered calls. Before they knew it, dusk had fallen.

That evening, Xiao Yu came to the imperial study to find Xiao Huaijin. He poked his head through the doorway and saw his crown prince brother bent over the low table, writing with his brow tightly furrowed. Not a single piece of the osmanthus cake before him had been touched. Xiao Yu hesitated, then looked down at the packet of freshly made mung bean cakes in his hands-Noble Consort Jing had made them. He gently set them just inside the threshold, made a shushing gesture to Liu An, who stood guard at the door, then tiptoed away.

In the passageway, he met Xiao Yue, who had come looking for him. Xiao Yue had grown another stretch taller. Seeing Xiao Yu, he tipped up his face and asked, "Second Brother, Second Brother, where's Crown Prince Brother?"

"Doing his lessons. Don't disturb him."

"I won't! I'll just look from the doorway, just look-" Xiao Yue was about to run toward the imperial study when Xiao Yu caught him by the back of his collar.

"Come on, let's look at ants. A new colony has moved into that hole from last time."

"Really? Are they bigger than the last ones?"

"Yes. The biggest is this long-" Xiao Yu measured out an exaggerated length with his fingers. Xiao Yue's eyes went round, and he immediately forgot about seeing his crown prince brother, obediently following Xiao Yu toward the corner of the wall. The two small figures crouched there, their heads together, as Xiao Yu pointed a twig at the ant hole in the ground, his voice low, as though he were sharing some earth-shattering secret.

Xiao Huaijin did not put down his brush until night was falling. He made another fair copy of the essay and appended the new material. These were the measures he had spent the entire afternoon devising, each accompanied by the figures his father had just explained. He picked up the essay and read it aloud from beginning to end, corrected two wrongly written characters himself, then went into the main hall to hand it to Xiao Lin.

After reading it, Xiao Lin closed the essay, stood, and bent slightly to meet his son's eyes.

"You've written very well. But writing a good policy essay is only the first step. The real work lies beyond the essay."

He straightened and took the Ministry of Revenue ledgers, frontier maps, and Hejian Prefecture's local gazetteer from the shelves one by one, placing them on the low table.

"Starting today, Sun Jingtang will come to the Hall of Mental Cultivation every three days to teach you how to read the Ministry of Revenue's ledgers. Kong Wu will come every five days to teach you how to read Great Liang's frontier defense maps." He rested a hand on the stack of ledgers. "You must read every one of these. If you don't understand, ask, then think about the answer. If you can't think it through, look it up. Once you've done that, write it down for me to read."

Xiao Huaijin looked at the stack of books without complaining that there were too many. He merely nodded, then took down the top volume and opened it. The first page was densely packed with figures. He recognized the vermilion annotation at the very top-it was his father's handwriting. He looked up and asked, "Father, don't you get very tired, reviewing so many things every day?"

Xiao Lin paused, his eyes growing warm. In his previous life, no one had ever asked him this question. No one in this world had truly cared about him. He ruffled the child's hair.

"I do. That's why I'm having you learn. Once you know how, you can share my burdens in the future."

Xiao Huaijin took those words to heart. That night, he pored over the ledgers until very late. The candlewick on the low table was trimmed several times, and when Liu An came in to replenish the tea, he found the boy asleep over the desk, a deep impression from the edge of a page pressed into his cheek.

Xiao Lin came over from the main hall, lifted him from the desk, and laid him on the cushioned couch. He drew the ledger from his hand and placed it at the corner of the desk, then tucked the thin quilt around him. Moonlight filtered through the window paper and fell on the stack of ledgers on the low table. A few specks of ink stained the flyleaf of the top volume, accidentally smeared there while Xiao Huaijin was taking notes that night.

Xiao Lin stood beside the couch and watched him for a while, then turned and returned to the main hall. More than a dozen memorials still awaited his review, including one from the Hejian Prefecture Salt and Iron Transport Office requesting additional funding for patrolmen. He picked up his brush and wrote a line at the end: "The fault in salt policy lies not in insufficient patrolmen, but in unfair pricing. The Ministry of Revenue and the Salt and Iron Office are hereby ordered to jointly deliberate on a method of stabilizing salt prices and produce regulations within three months."

After writing his annotation, he set the memorial aside, took the canal drawing Xiao Huaijin had made that day from a drawer, and unfolded it on his desk. My son will surely become a better emperor than I am, he thought.