Yan Yin Silent

This is a book about "accounts". Not accounting accounts, not business accounts, not any kind of accounts that come to mind when we say the word "settling accounts" today. It is an account of an empire - an account of how every tael of silver flows, how it deforms, how it disappears, and how it is watched or not watched in the body of a dynasty that has existed for two hundred and twenty years. Accounts, not numbers. Accounts are living things. A sum of silver went out from the household department, passed through six ministries, nine temples, thirteen roads, twenty-five merchants, thirty-six salt camps, eight thousand canal ships, 120,000 canal troops, 13 provincial governors, and 400,000 garrison troops. By the time it reached the hands of a kitchen household, only 10% of the original amount was left. This process of changing from one tael to one dollar is "legal" every step. Every step is "accurate". Every step is taken impartially and according to the ancestral system. But after walking around, 90% of the imperial court was missing, and 100% of the kitchen households were missing. Only an invisible hand in the middle - that 90% was missing.