Normalization of the Tribute System (2)

Back then and now alike, there have always been plenty of bastards who think taxes are free money.

But Joseon, despite being unusually centralized for a premodern state, was absolutely terrible at managing taxes.

In the name of lowering the taxes common people had to pay, it barely collected any of the revenue needed to run the local government.

And until the mid-Joseon period, it didn't pay wages to clerks or soldiers at all.

Knowing that, I was willing to turn a blind eye to them skimming a bit off the top through the tribute system.

Since they were temples, it wasn't like they had to work for free, so I was going to let them take a little as a handling fee and let it slide.

"You rotten, filthy monk bastards! Have you all gone mad?"

"Oh, no, magistrate. This is unfair."

"I was willing to overlook you lot pocketing only a little handling fee for procuring the goods the office needed. But what in the world is this?"

I was unfolding the ledger the bastards had hidden in the corner and reading through it.

These bastards were complete tax thieves—no, they were blatantly spending the taxes as if it were their own money.

Joseon officials were so ignorant about commerce that, as late as the 16th century, if a market opened in any district outside Hanyang, they'd immediately send in enforcers and beat it down.

Wow, there was no way our brains weren't at monkey level if something like this could happen.

"You paid the merchants you dealt with only 3,521 seom of rice. Yet you reported to the office that it cost 8,234 seom. Then the difference you pocketed comes to more than 4,713 seom of polished rice! Where in the world does such nonsense happen?"

"Magistrate, there are reasons for that."

"Reasons? The money you demanded from the office was the people's blood and tears. The people had to shoulder crushing taxes because the office ordered it! And you shameless, greedy monks filled your bellies with that blood money and were even using it to expand the temple. Is that what your Buddha calls moral cultivation? Is that the road to saving sentient beings?"

"If Buddha found out about this, he'd probably have sent a divine guardian to smash those bastards' heads in."

I don't know much about Buddhism, but it's a religion that seeks freedom by casting off afflictions and worries.

But those bastards made the people suffer just to satisfy their own greed.

They had violated Buddhism's core principle, so Buddha himself wouldn't have left those bastards alone.

Even aside from that, as a Joseon Confucian scholar and magistrate, I had a duty to severely punish those rotten monks, the lingering specters of Goryeo.

Once I learned of that corruption, I had a duty to wipe it out immediately.

"I will report every last bit of the corruption and embezzlement you committed to His Majesty and have you punished severely. And by the authority vested in me as magistrate, I will have all of you beaten with twenty strokes in succession."

At the words "twenty strokes," those guys began to tremble.

"Oh, magistrate, please, spare us. Twenty strokes..."

"Even a stout man can't walk for days after taking twenty strokes in a row."

In historical dramas, a hundred strokes of the cane are treated as a joke, but beating a person a hundred times was practically the same as carrying out a death sentence. Even ten strokes could easily split the flesh on your legs open...

If you took a hundred in a row, you'd either die from the pain or die because the wounds festered. Either way, you'd end up dead.

That was why in Joseon, if a local official had a bandit he absolutely wanted to kill on his own authority, he would sometimes flog him a hundred times without reporting it to the king.

So in those bastards' case, even twenty strokes would mean they couldn't walk on their own two feet for at least a week.

And then they'd be on the receiving end of Yi Bang-won's iron cudgel, because he loved the people no less than Sejong did.

"From now on, I will repent my sins and save the people in accordance with Buddha's teachings."

"A tree rotten from the roots must be uprooted. You can't bring it back to life by watering it and giving it fertilizer."

We hold in high regard people who were human trash but come to their senses, repent, and spend their lives atoning for the past.

Because after committing a grave wrong, spending the rest of your life reflecting on it and living properly is no easy thing.

Look at it another way: someone who once commits a rotten act will repeat the same thing a second and third time.

Say I let those bastards off here. Would they really be grateful? No, there was no way.

They'd just grind their teeth and, once the magistrate changed, start looking for somewhere to embezzle again like before. Old habits die hard.

Besides, forgiveness? Punishing those bastards so that nobody dares do this again is a million times better.

Bluntly put, the reason the death penalty exists is to warn you that if you do bad things, the state will kill you, so don't do them. It isn't there to tell bad people to live good lives.

"In two weeks, flog those bastards with twenty strokes in the courtyard in front of the government office, and make sure the people are told why those monks are being beaten."

The clerks who had opposed harsh punishment for the monks no longer defended them now.

"Since Your Honor has judged this so fairly and impartially, the people will be delighted, saying a fine magistrate who knows how to govern the people has arrived."

"Those rotten bastards must be punished harshly."

The clerks probably would have asked for leniency for those guys if they could. They knew the monks had been skimming off the taxes to some extent, but...

After all, since they'd been given proper fees—bribes, really—they knew they had to protect them if they wanted the grift to keep flowing, and were probably defending them to preserve that steady source of income.

But ripping off twice the amount going in? Even they must have thought that was too much.

"Magistrate, why bother waiting two weeks to carry out the punishment? Three days should be enough to spread the word through the county."

"If we're going to make a move anyway, wouldn't it be better not only to tell everyone they were siphoning off the tribute, but also to reveal how much they skimmed and say we'd give that money back to the people?"

Even just telling them that the money collected as tribute would be reduced from now on would make the people cheer.

Their backs had been bent under the heavy tribute, so if a fair chunk of that got cut...

But what if we said exactly how much those bastards had embezzled and that we'd return it right away?

To them, I'd look like an angel giving back the money that had been unfairly taken from them.

And the ripple effects of this would be far more dramatic as well.

I wasn't saying I'd actually do that, but if I spent the rest of my term just sitting tight and doing nothing, I might still get a Songdeokbi and go down in history as a magistrate praised forever.

Ah, getting a Songdeokbi would raise the odds of becoming a Hwang Hui... but that's fine.

First, we need to thoroughly stomp out the troublemakers.

"So, Ibang, get in touch with the merchants who were dealing with those corrupt monks right away. From now on, the government office will trade directly, so tell them to bargain properly."

"Yes, magistrate."

If we dealt directly without going through the monks, we might even be able to buy it cheaper.

On top of that, it would also stimulate the local economy.

The problem is that they only collect specialty goods as tribute. Try selling those all across the country.

It would become a core industry providing jobs for countless people.

**

Joseon had a tendency to think merchants were worms eating away at the country.

Perhaps because of that, the merchants—or, to put it more plainly, the company heads—were trembling in front of me.

They seemed to think I would bring down the hammer on them just like other magistrates did.

They must have also heard that the monks they'd been trading with until now would soon be dragged to Hanyang and face the hammer of justice from Sejong. All the more reason they must have found me frightening and hard to approach.

"I have no intention of oppressing you."

There is nothing good that comes from oppressing merchants. The more you oppress them, the more likely the county's economy is to turn into a complete mess.

Other scholars might, due to Confucian prejudice, think merchants are layabouts who want to make money while loafing around, but... I know very well how important they are.

In the 21st century, nobody looks down on merchants—in other words, the sort of people who run companies.

"Those corrupt monks greedily sought far too much illicit profit under the pretext of collecting the tribute on your behalf. So I had no choice but to punish them harshly."

At the words far too much illicit profit, the merchants pricked up their ears.

That's right, I have no intention of overlooking the fact that you were colluding with the monks. If I started nitpicking every little thing like that, commerce in the county would grind completely to a halt, and who knows what kind of chaos would break out.

Even when a person wants to reform things, they have to do it while keeping real-world limits in mind.

If you just went communist and tried to make a world where everyone lived equally, would the country actually run properly?

"So from now on, you will handle tribute procurement directly with me. Understand?"

"Understood, magistrate."

"I've heard that some clueless fools ruin things by quoting absurd prices when they deal with the government. So when I deal with you, I'll carefully work out what a fair price is and proceed accordingly."

"Is that true?"

As long as the government office bought the goods at a proper price, that would benefit them too.

Just how much had those bastards been shaking down these merchants over the years while claiming they were collecting the tribute for them?

If their standing hadn't been so high, would there even be records saying they swaggered around like envoys bearing the king's orders?

"There is just one thing you need to be careful about."

At the word careful, they swallowed hard.

"Just don't try to pull some big scam and get caught by me."

What matters here is this.

Small tricks—in other words, charging a little extra to make a profit—would be tolerated.

If I didn't allow even that and insisted on buying everything at cost, then I'd be the one exploiting them.

But if you used a big scam to fool me the way those rotten monks did, then it'd be tantamount to me declaring I'd kill you.

"Let's take our time and talk."