What is meant by confiscation income? What is meant by maritime law enforcement? Let me tell you a true historical story from hundreds of years ago: During the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Wanli trusted eunuchs very much, so he sent eunuchs across the country to serve as mine supervisors and tax officials, collecting mineral and commercial taxes on his behalf. But the question is: did all this money really go into Emperor Wanli’s private treasury? Not necessarily.

In the 28th year of Wanli’s reign, Shanxi Governor Wei Yunzhen submitted a memorial to the court, accusing the eunuch mine supervisors Wu Yingqi and Wu Youcheng of corruption. He said these two “greedy and unrighteous, embezzling state funds, half filling their private purses,” meaning that half of the collected taxes were pocketed by them. For example, in Shanxi, they collected 27,500 taels of salt tax, but only about 13,000 taels were actually sent into Wanli’s treasury, with the rest mostly swallowed by themselves.

In March of the 37th year of Wanli, local officials also submitted a memorial to the court, saying that the tax supervisor eunuch Zhang Ye collected 26,000 taels of silver annually locally, but only 10,000 taels were sent into Wanli’s treasury, with the remaining 16,000 taels taken by the eunuch himself.

Minister of War Li Hualong also submitted a memorial accusing eunuchs Gao Huai, Zhang Ye, and others of extorting and oppressing locally, leaving “nine out of ten households empty.” But more than half of the silver they extorted was swallowed by themselves, and none was truly handed over to the court.

In the 40th year of Wanli, Left Censor Weng Chun submitted a memorial condemning Guangdong tax supervisor Li Feng, saying that Li Feng’s subordinates ran rampant in Guangdong, even raping 66 women. The wealth looted by Li Feng in Guangdong was loaded onto ships, filling sixty ships. Weng Chun estimated that if transported by manpower, these goods would weigh at least 3,000 dan (a traditional Chinese weight unit). But the actual amount delivered to Emperor Wanli was only about 300 dan, less than one-tenth.

Censor Li Sixiao from Zhili also submitted a report exposing eunuch Chen Zeng. Originally just a mine supervisor in Shandong, Chen Zeng sent people to Yangzhou to loot over 200 merchants, extracting nearly 130,000 taels of silver. Clearly, not all of this money could have been handed over to Emperor Wanli.

Faced with this situation, Minister of Personnel Li Dai made a rough estimate: Emperor Wanli’s secret treasury probably only received about one-tenth of the total income; the eunuchs themselves took one-fifth; their attendants took one-third; and the remaining one-fourth was divided among thugs hired by the attendants.

Of course, this was just Li Dai’s estimate, because no one could say exactly how much the eunuchs embezzled.

However, one thing can illustrate the issue: Chen Zeng’s subordinate, a follower named Cheng Shouxun, was later caught and found to have accumulated over 400,000 taels of silver. Even a single eunuch’s subordinate could amass such a huge fortune, making it even harder to imagine how much the eunuchs themselves had greedily taken.

Therefore, the grand mineral tax collection during Wanli’s reign ultimately turned into an absurd loot-sharing farce. And with the end of this farce, the Ming Empire gradually entered a countdown to decline.