Good Financial Officials Are Extremely Scarce Talent; No Country Would Easily Kill Them

@HistoryAndCultureHub: In 1402, Zhu Di's army captured Nanjing, and the old regime collapsed. Xia Yuanji, serving as the Right Vice Minister of Revenue in the Jianwen court, was placed on Zhu Di's kill list. Soldiers escorted him to the steps of Fengtian Hall, where Zhu Di, wearing a battle robe covered in dust and blood, prepared to order his execution.

Xia Yuanji did not beg for mercy; instead, he requested a three-day reprieve to finish auditing the unfinished state accounts. The guards locked him in a side hall and placed a coffin outside the door to warn him that his death was imminent. Inside the room were only a table, a chair, an abacus, and a few candles.

Over the next three days, Xia Yuanji rolled up his sleeves and went through the ledgers page by page. He focused on verifying the engineering funds for repairing the Hongze Lake levee in the 35th year of Hongwu: 23,000 taels were reported, 19,000 taels were actually allocated, and 4,000 taels were unaccounted for. He also cross-checked the grain records for the Shandong canal rerouting; the transport officials claimed the grain was lost to flooding, yet Shandong had experienced a spring drought that year. He circled every discrepancy with a red brush and noted which ones could be investigated and penalized. The beads of the abacus clacked from morning till night, and the candles were replaced one after another.

Xia Yuanji's predicament was related to his position. He was a jinshi from the 27th year of Hongwu and managed the national finances under Emperor Jianwen. Jiangnan's grain provisions and river engineering funds all passed through his hands, and the ledgers were piled higher than his knees.
After Zhu Di entered the city, no one dared to touch these accounts because they would reveal the Jianwen court's massive deficit, still bearing Emperor Jianwen's red seal. Because Xia Yuanji refused to submit to the new regime and was highly capable, he was seen as a potential threat and placed on the kill list.
Zhu Di gave Xia Yuanji two options: explain the whereabouts of the Jianwen court's treasury silver, or be carried out by afternoon. Xia Yuanji, however, insisted on balancing the accounts first. Zhu Di had long been frustrated by chaotic logistics accounts during his campaigns; his attack on Jinan had even missed a strategic opportunity due to unclear grain registers. He reviewed Xia Yuanji's ledgers, deciding that if the accounts were not balanced in three days, the execution would proceed.

As a result, Xia Yuanji actually finished the accounts. On the morning of the third day, he organized the ledgers and presented them, stating that the numbers were balanced, with a total deficit of 4,176,000 taels, and the whereabouts of every single tael were clear. Zhu Di had Ji Gang conduct a spot check, and the numbers matched. When Zhu Di asked why he did not beg for mercy, Xia Yuanji replied that begging would compromise the impartiality of the accounts.

After a moment of silence, Zhu Di said, "Keep him for now; it would be a pity to kill him." Xia Yuanji was not executed but was imprisoned in the imperial prison, where he was treated quite well. Six months later, when Zhu Di moved the capital to Beijing, a pile of old accounts needed to be settled, and Xia Yuanji's accounts were the clearest in the entire court. He was appointed as the Minister of Revenue for the Yongle court, a position he held for twenty-nine years. When Zhu Di went on northern tours, he often left Xia Yuanji in charge of Nanjing. When someone asked Zhu Di why he did not hold a grudge, he replied that killing Xia Yuanji would make it too troublesome to find someone else who knew how to work the abacus.

In May of this year, the International Monetary Fund praised the Singaporean government for its meticulous accounts. In the comments section, someone mentioned Xia Yuanji's story from over six hundred years ago, saying that in the East, someone had long valued numbers more than life itself.

Xia Yuanji adhered to a simple professional bottom line: no matter how the outside world changes, first balance the accounts. Only when the numbers are balanced can one feel at peace. The abacus that accompanied him through those three days and nights has long disappeared, but the story of "a three-day reprieve" has been passed down. It tells future generations that in the face of monumental changes, one must first do what is right before discussing anything else.