Magistrate Jie's words carry wisdom. It's no wonder a wealthy family was able to give birth to three magistrates and an official in just three generations." Ying Fuliang chuckled, this story reminding him a bit of his own family's background.
Yet with important matters to discuss, he threw them out of his mind and asked, "Official Jie,-"
"Please call me Yunyin, or junior, it makes me shy being called Official Jie!" Yunyin suddenly interjected, instantly killing the serious aura that was about to appear.
Fuliang looked at Yunyin, a new understanding appearing in his mind. This person might act seriously but he still didn't like it.
Considering that he seemed like he could reply seriously, he didn't force a change of aura and instead smiled, his words serious yet the atmosphere one of casual chatter.
"The Yueling Province's earthquake this time has caused great harm to the whole province, requiring the assistance of many people. The matters in court, budget, is just a lower concern.
For us, the Ministry of Revenue, the most important is not the silver and gold we have, but the silver and gold we get.
Official Yunyin, could you tell me your thoughts on this?"
Yunyin's eyes focused slightly for just a moment, nodding in response while happy about the change of name, "Assistant Minister Ying,"
"Haha, you can also just call me senior Fuliang!" Ying Fuliang interjected just as Yunyin had.
"Assistant Minister Fuliang is too kind!" Yunyin cupped his hands in thanks, continuing, "My insight is lower than that of the Assistant Minister, so I value the treasury too highly," he admitted his mistake directly.
"The concern over the tax that will be paid… it can be seen from this that Assistant Minister probably means three things:
By having the people participate in Corvée labour, we promise certain tax reductions, which is actually just a delayed payment for us.
Broken fields lead to low harvest, while destroyed homes hinder the daily business, both of which leads to lower tax.
Assistant Minister isn't worried about using the treasury to take care of this issue, but worried about business remaining stale for too long a time, leading to a year of low tax and several years of people fearing disasters, which also leads to lower consumption and lower tax…" Yunyin first analysed what the minister meant, then thought about it.
Indeed, once a disaster strikes, people won't use their money but save it.
So the core of this isn't to save or use money, but rather to allow the people to regain their trust in everything, not fearing a disaster to come.
'Disaster relief issued by the court is the bare minimum, so when it's there, people will have expected it, when it's not there, people will be even more unwilling to pay taxes. So the approach here shouldn't be to give more disaster relief, but rather find another way to build trust!
Assistant Minister Fuliang is in charge of this disaster… so this means there is a whole provincial ministry looking for solutions.
He's not asking me expecting a good answer but rather a satisfactory answer he has heard already, using it to compare it to other's answers and judge me based on that.
Did I directly land on the final test?'
While Yunyin was contemplating these, Assistant Minister Fuliang was calmly drinking a cup of tea his steward had come to serve, not pushing or forcing Yunyin to hurry up.
After a few minutes of contemplation, Yunyin's eyes rose again, a thought having taken root in his mind – impress the minister!
"Assistant Minister Fuliang, this matter mainly focuses on gaining the trust of people. But the trust between subjects and rulers is inherently too weak. It's not that they don't trust the government, but that the government is too far away.
I would rank their trust in three categories:
First, it's their family and friends, the closest people to them. Second, they are their acquaintances and neighbours, those visible close to them. Third is the government, with the Yamen holding their direct trust and the imperial authority holding their indirect trust.
Everyone outside these three does not have their trust, but their trust in the third category defines their general attitude towards strangers.
Regardless, when looking at these three ranks, we can see that the government is last.
To gain the people's trust, we have to rise in the ranks. But how can the far away government, even the Yamen sitting in the city centre, compare to acquaintances and neighbours?
So instead, we have to establish a connection to a rank closer to the people than us.
For obvious reasons, we can't establish close contact with family members.
I think based on this observation, we should attempt to contact various neighbourhoods and establish the trust from inside –
The government is far away, but if the neighbours you see day in and day out suddenly start helping each other, won't you feel more secure?
After all, you might be harmed but your neighbour might not.
Instead of allowing a feeling of jealousy to fester and rot people's hearts, it's better to encourage helping each other and establishing mutual aid."
Yunyin stopped at this point, looking clearly and directly into the Assistant Minister's eyes!
His own eyes were clear, Fuliang's on the other hand…
Being an official for so long, he was able to follow Yunyin's thoughts easily and go even further, make various plans for the direct execution of this idea.
What truly shocked him was that he hadn't heard of such a matter before, even the clean categorisation of trust was found in various forms, but the idea of assisting the neighbours and encouraging mutual aid…
Generally, good neighbours are like that already, while bad neighbours will feel jealous.
Various thoughts entered his mind and he couldn't stop planning, his eyes gradually gaining brighter light.
"Official Yunyin… this idea is very novel!"
Yunyin nodded, "I thought about this a long time ago, and in our Jie Families' Magistrate, the Radiant Silver County, we have also established such mutual aid subsidies."