The Apothecary Diaries, volume 10 by Natsu Hyuuga (Translated by Kevin Steinbach)

[james_davis_nicoll]

In which the consequences of short-sighted political machinations come back to haunt the Empire of Li.

The Apothecary Diaries, volume 10 by Natsu Hyuuga (Translated by Kevin Steinbach)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Li seems to be based more on China than Japan. Also, if there was an obvious political explanation ("paying more taxes means more influence and power"), I think Jinshi, at least, would have mentioned it.

I think the author is perfectly comfortable leaving dangling plot threads for a later book. The best we can do is guess.

One thought that occurred to me was this: Let's say the imperial taxes on crops cost X, but the imperial tariffs on imported crops cost Y. If Y is significantly higher than X, then it might be cost-effective to smuggle in crops from foreign countries, and pay the taxes as if they were home grown. Why bother paying those taxes? Because if the taxes reflected the actual (low) crop yields, there would be questions of how the people are getting enough to eat at all, and bring in imperial auditors. There's also the political boost of stronger ties with the trading partner countries that the smuggled crops are coming from.

Another thought is that perhaps the governor is making a long-term play for independence, or for rule of the empire, even. It was mentioned that the farmers of the village are former nomads, who still have their weapons ready in their homes. The governor is building up loyalty to himself personally from these potential soldiers by not demanding too much farm work from them, and then making sure they are properly fed when their own crops fail.

Then there's the subplot about the Windreaders (who were perhaps preventing or mitigating locust swarms), and the fact that the governor's mother was mentioned to be a Windreader. Could the governor be paying for the foreign grain with Windreader-related messenger-pigeon communications and intelligence services, kept very well hidden from the empire?

And could it be that the governor, educated by his mother about how the Windreaders worked in the past (but are no longer doing so), anticipated an empire-wide locust swarm by stockpiling smuggled imported grain for years, ready to feed an army of former nomad warriors and point them at the empire?

Well, I have no idea. As above, these are just guesses.