Chapter 225: Constraining Benevolence with Law
“Preserving wealth amongst the people?”
Emperor Zhao Xu couldn’t help but let out a bitter laugh: “That’s just nice-sounding talk.”
He truly didn’t believe in this approach anymore.
He even thought that the current situation was caused by this very ideology of preserving wealth amongst the people.
It had resulted in neither the state nor the common people having money.
He still completely favored Wang Anshi’s concept of enriching the state and strengthening the military.
Wealth should be controlled by the state.
Zhang Fei explained: “My intention is not to implement Academician Sima’s ideology, but to borrow this concept to provide them with a legal channel for tax avoidance.”
Zhao Xu asked in confusion: “What do you mean by this?”
Zhang Fei answered with a question: “Does Your Majesty know that many wealthy merchants and scholar-officials use Xiang-guo Temple to avoid taxes?” Zhao Xu nodded: “Of course I know.”
Zhang Fei asked again: “Does Your Majesty also know that many common people choose to take monastic vows at Xiang-guo Temple to escape corvee labor and taxes?”
Zhao Xu sighed: “There are over a thousand people cultivating Xiang-guo Temple’s vegetable gardens alone. How could I not know?”
Zhang Fei continued: “And most of these people are unable to bear the court’s taxes and corvee labor, leading to bankruptcy and homelessness. If Xiang-guo Temple didn’t take them in, they would probably just starve to death on the streets.”
Zhao Xu nodded slightly.
Zhang Fei said: “If Xiang-guo Temple could play a greater role in society, using its profits to benefit the people, and if these profits came from those large landowners and wealthy merchants, wouldn’t this be the ‘preserving wealth amongst the people’ that Academician Sima and others advocate?”
Zhao Xu laughed: “You’re thinking too naively. How much of Xiang-guo Temple’s profits actually go toward benefiting the people?”
Xiang-guo Temple was already an open secret, but Zhao Xu had no solution. Empress Dowager Cao was a very devout Buddhist, and many imperial relatives and scholar-officials were faithful Buddhist adherents. The political cost of touching Xiang-guo Temple would absolutely be higher than taxing landowners.
“Your Majesty speaks truly.”
Zhang Fei said: “I also never believed that relying on Confucian benevolence and righteousness or Buddhist compassion could make those people willingly contribute money to benefit the common people. That would be wishful thinking. Therefore, this requires the legal system – using laws to force them to do so.
But if the imperial court directly legislates to collect their taxes, I’m afraid they won’t easily agree. Therefore, the court must find an appropriate reason that leaves them with nothing to say.”
“What reason?”
“Charity.”
“Charity?”
“Yes.”
Zhang Fei said: “Your Majesty could integrate charity with law, using legal means to compel them to do charity. In this way, I believe no one would dare oppose Your Majesty.”
Zhao Xu seemed not to understand clearly: “Using laws to compel them to do charity? How could this work? Charity should originate from good intentions. If forced by law, could it still be called charity? Wouldn’t they oppose it?”
Zhang Fei said: “The court certainly cannot say this explicitly, but it can guide them to do so.”
Zhao Xu quickly asked: “How to guide them?”
Zhang Fei said: “May I ask Your Majesty, does doing charity require paying taxes?”
Zhao Xu said: “Of course not.”
Zhang Fei asked again: “If those large landowners donated their land to charity, would they need to pay taxes?”
Zhao Xu said: “Of course not, but they wouldn’t be willing to donate it!”
Zhang Fei said: “If they were allowed to donate with their left hand to their right hand, would they still be unwilling?”
Zhao Xu became more confused: “What would be the point of that?”
Zhang Fei said: “As long as laws are added, all of this can become meaningful. For example, once property and land are donated for charity, they certainly no longer belong to oneself. So who do they belong to?”
Zhao Xu was stunned: “Yes! To whom are they donated?”
Zhang Fei said: “Therefore, before this, they must also establish a charitable organization to store what they donate, so they can donate with their left hand to their right hand.”
Zhao Xu wondered: “Wouldn’t doing this still be condoning their tax evasion?”
Zhang Fei smiled: “Your Majesty, who allows this charitable organization to be tax-exempt? This requires the imperial court to legislate and affirm it, and the imperial court can take this opportunity to intervene through law. For example, stipulating that this donated money belongs to the public, not to private individuals, and cannot be misappropriated.”
Zhao Xu shook his head: “How would they agree to this?”
Zhang Fei said: “But with so much property, people are needed to manage it, and land would still workers need to cultivate it. Generally speaking, the donor would naturally be the leader of this charitable organization. He could arrange all his descendants into this charitable organization and pay them monthly wages.”
Zhao Xu was confused again. “This is still tantamount to condoning their tax evasion!”
Zhang Fei said: “The imperial court cannot force anyone to do charity work – this is purely a matter of personal will, and the law cannot intervene. But charitable organizations are different. The significance of establishing charitable organizations is to do charity work. They accept this obligation to perform charitable activities in exchange for tax exemption privileges. If they don’t do it, it would constitute fraud and be illegal.
The court can stipulate that these charitable organizations must spend a certain percentage of their annual profits on charity work. Even if this amount is equivalent to the taxes they would have to otherwise bear, they would still be willing.”
Zhao Xu shook his head: “If that’s the case, then why wouldn’t they just pay taxes directly?”
Zhang Fei explained tactfully: “Doing charity work allows them to follow their own wishes – how to donate, to whom to donate – these can all be freely chosen. Paying taxes is forced. Even if they spend the same amount of money, they would definitely prefer doing charity work.
Furthermore, what they fear most in their hearts is not paying this small amount of tax. Your Majesty should understand this better than I do.”
Zhao Xu glanced at Zhang Fei. “I understand very well, but I didn’t expect that you also understand it so clearly!”
Zhang Fei said sheepishly: “This is human nature.”
Were those people so opposed to this case really because they couldn’t bear to part with that little bit of money?
Not entirely.
If it were just spending this money to avoid disaster, they would certainly be willing.
What they truly cared about was the imperial government’s taxation powers.
If we so easily pay taxes today, and tomorrow the imperial court wants to increase taxes, then we’ll have to pay again. If you increase again, we’ll pay again, and eventually everyone will be ruined.
Commoners were the best example of this – they had no way to resist, so the imperial court often targeted them.
The scholar-officials had all read history books and knew how this game was played. The imperial court could never consistently tax according to the law.
Therefore, they had to raise the political cost for the court to tax them.
This was why asking them for even one more coin was such a difficult matter.
Because only this way were they safer.
This was essentially a power struggle.
The law wasn’t even part of it.
Zhang Fei continued: “And this charitable organization could avoid this issue. The money would still be controlled by them, but the imperial court would lose the power to tax them.
At the same time, the imperial court would also occupy the moral high ground. The court has already exempted them from taxes and encouraged them to do charity work. If they fail to fulfill their obligations and the court punishes them, neither Lord Wen nor Academician Sima would have a word of complaint.”
Wen Yanbo and Sima Guang’s concept of “preserving wealth amongst the people” contained a very important idea: that the rise and fall of the empire was the responsibility of scholar-officials, not of common citizens.
Because they believed that the emperor ruled the empire together with scholar-officials, not together with commoners.
Naturally, commoners didn’t need to bear this responsibility – they just needed to fulfill their legal duties.
These commoners hadn’t studied and only sought survival. How could they know the responsibilities of governing? When trouble arose, if you didn’t arrest them, they would certainly flee.
Scholar-officials, however, were deeply educated in Confucian thought and understood what it meant to be loyal to the ruler and serve the country. They understood the principle that “when the skin is gone, where can the hair attach?” With wealth controlled by scholar-officials, they could shoulder this responsibility.
Of course, this was currently just their ideal, the goal they strived for.
Speaking of which, this group of civil officials in the Northern Song could actually be said to represent Confucianism’s last moment of brilliance. After this, everything truly became a mess, with Confucian thought completely becoming a tool of the ruler, losing its ideals.
But it must also be said that even so, reality was still far from Confucianism’s ultimate goal.
In the end, it still couldn’t overcome human nature.
Human nature still needed to be constrained by law.
Therefore, Zhang Fei’s introduction of the charitable organization concept was actually meant to bind the Confucian idea of “preserving wealth among the people” within the law.
You constantly talk about “ruling the empire together” – fine, the court will first grant you tax exemption rights, and then we’ll see your performance.
If you don’t shoulder responsibility, that constitutes illegal behavior.
But this still differed slightly from Zhao Xu’s ideals.
What about imperial authority?
What about enriching the state?
Emperor Zhao Xu said quite tactfully, “If they all donate their money into this, the court won’t be able to collect tax revenue. The court’s finances have already reached an unsustainable state!”
Zhang Fei smiled and said, “Didn’t I just mention that these charitable organizations also need to operate? This is a business, and since it’s a business, it needs to trade with people. The commercial taxes that should be paid still need to be paid.”
Emperor Zhao Xu’s eyes lit up upon hearing this. That’s right! The money could be collected from other places.
Zhang Fei continued, “This actually aligns perfectly with the idea of shifting focus to commerce. We shouldn’t repeat the mistakes of agricultural taxation.
Furthermore, if every prefecture and county establishes this type of charitable organization, they can provide tremendous assistance to the government in disaster relief. If everything is allocated by the central government, the waste would be unimaginably enormous.”
On this point, Zhang Fei’s philosophy differed greatly from Wang Anshi’s.
Wang Anshi hoped for the central government to control all wealth and then have the center allocate it. But Zhang Fei believed that given current transportation conditions, it was nearly impossible for the center to achieve efficient allocation. It would be better to cultivate the self-rescue capabilities of each prefecture and county, with the central government providing assistance.
Emperor Zhao Xu strongly agreed with Zhang Fei’s policy of prioritizing commerce over agriculture. In terms of agricultural taxation, the court’s ability to exert influence was very limited. This game was simply too complex—impossible to cut through cleanly or sort out clearly. It would be better to find an alternative path. He asked again, “Then how will you make them willing to donate money to charitable organizations?”
Zhang Fei smiled and said, “Didn’t I just mention it? We win this lawsuit and then force them to seek safer, legal tax avoidance.”
After pondering for a long while, Emperor Zhao Xu nodded and said, “Very well! I am willing to try this and see whether they truly are, as you claim, willing to contribute money equivalent to taxes for charity.”
This conversation with Zhang Fei also prompted Emperor Zhao Xu to make up his mind to fight this lawsuit.
However, upon returning to the palace, Lan Yuanzhen reported to Emperor Zhao Xu, “Your Majesty, the Grand Empress Dowager asked her attending ladies today how long it has been since Your Majesty last accompanied her for a meal.”
It seemed they were serious this time, having even brought the matter to the Grand Empress Dowager. Emperor Zhao Xu asked, “Where is the Grand Empress Dowager now?”
“The Peach Pavilion.”