Chapter 58: The Mess

Su Ze suddenly asked:
"Are the properties in Jixiang Alley also managed by you?"
"Jixiang Alley? Does the Chief Executive mean the cluster of residences near the Southern Office?"
Su Ze nodded. Jixiang Alley was precisely where the strange demon monk had been making trouble. According to Yang Zhi, those properties belonged to the Office of Housing and Property, and the tenants living there were mostly officials working at the Southern Office.
Feng Shiyuan shook his head and said:
"No, those properties are not among the three thousand properties."
"Why is that? Didn't you say the best housing of the Office of Housing and Property had all been allocated to you? Are the houses in Jixiang Alley not good?"
Feng Shiyuan immediately replied:
"Good? Of course they are good! But those who can afford to rent in Jixiang Alley are officials working at the Southern Office. How could someone like Feng ever afford to provoke them? Even if they default on their rent, we cannot evict them. Whenever there are issues, they constantly demand people for repairs. Such properties bring no profit, so naturally they are not included among the three thousand households."
So that was how it was.
"Have you heard about the demonic apparition in Jixiang Alley?"
Feng Shiyuan shook his head. Only then did Su Ze remember that Feng Shiyuan had spent the entire month locked up in prison, so he probably had no opportunity to know about these matters.
However, since Feng Shiyuan had once served as a scribe for the Kaifeng Prefecture and was adept at reading people's expressions, he said to Su Ze:
"Since the Chief Executive asks, this humble commoner can help inquire about it."
Su Ze nodded, feeling that he had truly made the right choice in protecting this man.
Feng Shiyuan possessed both capability and connections, acting as a local serpent in Bianjing. With him around, he could indeed quickly grasp the situation of the Office of Housing and Property.
"Then let us first go and inspect those three thousand properties."
The carriage started moving. Although they spoke of three thousand properties, most of the houses belonging to the Office of Housing and Property were connected, often with entire alleys owned by the office. In reality, these properties consisted of only a few dozen streets, alleys, and neighborhoods.
After walking for an entire morning, Su Ze finally understood the general living conditions within Bianjing.
Summed up in three words—dirty, chaotic, and poor.
Only then did Su Ze realize what a wonderful property the small courtyard he had inherited through transmigration was in Bianjing, and it was no wonder Feng Shiyuan had been willing to offer a thousand strings of cash to buy it at the time.
Most of the three thousand best properties belonging to the Office of Housing and Property, as Feng Shiyuan described, featured dilapidated houses, muddy roads, and a pervasive stench all around.
Within these residences, the population crammed inside often far exceeded the number of people the spaces were designed to accommodate. For instance, Su Ze saw a house similar in size to his own small courtyard packed with more than twenty people spanning three generations. The efficiency of their space utilization was so high that even modern housing renovation experts would be left in utter admiration.
Only a tiny fraction of the properties were maintained reasonably well, yet these dwellings still faced the same problems of overcrowding and inconvenient transportation.
Moreover, the houses within Bianjing were quite different from modern residential districts.
Urban residents of the Northern Song Dynasty did not have factories, but they were likewise handicraftsmen who had lost their farmland.
Therefore, these houses served not only as residences fulfilling living functions, but also as their handicraft workshops.
For example, Su Ze spotted a small courtyard where the inner rooms were used for living, while the front yard served as a workshop for making oil-paper umbrellas. The yard was piled high with materials for umbrella manufacturing, and hired laborers and peddlers bustled in and out.
Along the way, Su Ze had truly broadened his horizons. Oil-paper umbrella workshops, carpentry workshops, paper-making mills, and dyeing houses were available in every variety, scattered haphazardly across the major streets and small lanes. This was the commercial landscape of the pre-industrial era.
By evening, Su Ze had already visited nearly ten streets, alleys, and neighborhoods belonging to the Office of Housing and Property, and he finally had a clear mental picture of what a hopeless mess the office was.
Dilapidated housing and rent arrears were two interrelated and mutually reinforcing problems.
Because the houses were rundown, tenants were unwilling to pay rent or withheld payments while demanding repairs from the Office of Housing and Property.
The office could not spare the funds for repairs, and failing to collect sufficient rent, its finances grew even more desperate, leaving the houses in an even more dilapidated state.
Compound these issues with various other compounding factors, and it ultimately degenerated into a complete mess that no one was willing to take over.
Scions like Lu Gongbi were willing to serve here simply because he had a prime minister for a father and could abandon this cesspool at any moment, grabbing whatever money he could during his tenure.
For ordinary officials, taking charge of the Office of Housing and Property was nothing short of a sewage pit, and no one knew when this mountain of administrative waste would detonate.
Along the way, Feng Shiyuan had also been observing Su Ze.
Feng Shiyuan had seen no shortage of officials, but he had never laid eyes on anyone quite like Su Ze.
Officials and commoners of the Great Song Dynasty were as far apart as the clouds and the mud; they could almost be considered two entirely different species.
Even Liu Yong, that ill-fated scholar whose official career had encountered setbacks, was still a favored guest in the luxurious brothels and never once had to worry about his livelihood.
After passing the imperial examinations and becoming a jinshi, Liu Yong had also continuously held official posts. He had just stepped down as the Magistrate of Yuhang County (equivalent to the district chief of Hangzhou urban area) and assumed the post of Zhejiang Salt Supervisor—positions of considerable importance governing local regions.
Which proper official would ever allow their official boots to be soiled by stepping into the rundown alleys of the housing estates?
Let alone conversing with the commoners living within them.
Lu Gongbi rarely even spoke to Feng Shiyuan simply because Feng Shiyuan was a merchant, and Lu Gongbi was unwilling to tarnish his scholarly reputation.
Those officials who deigned to listen to reports from their subordinate clerks to understand the conditions of their governed territories were already considered benevolent officials who loved the people.
The problems plaguing the Office of Housing and Property were deeply rooted and intractable anyway, and since they were not created during Su Ze's tenure, he only needed to gloss things over until they could be passed on to his successor.
Yet looking at him now, did Su Ze genuinely intend to solve the problems?
Regarding this, Feng Shiyuan felt profoundly pessimistic.
The single greatest issue remained: where would the money come from?
Whether for repairs or reconstruction, everything required funds.
The Office of Housing and Property was already suffering consecutive losses; even if they obtained a sum of money to renovate the houses, there was no guarantee they could collect the rent.
Taking a step back, even if the rent were collected, it would still be difficult for the office to turn a profit.
Given Bianjing's increasingly expensive housing prices, soaring living costs, and rising labor expenses, maintaining these houses would inevitably result in financial losses.
Not to mention that the eastern and western wing maintenance corps of the office were frequently commandeered by powerful elites, making it utterly impossible to complete repair work.
In Feng Shiyuan's eyes, this was quite simply an impassable dead end.
Su Ze appeared much calmer than Feng Shiyuan imagined. He merely had someone move the account books from Feng Shiyuan's carriage into his own bedroom, and then arranged for Feng Shiyuan to continue visiting other properties of the Office of Housing and Property the next day.
Feng Shiyuan bowed with cupped hands to Su Ze and drove the carriage away. Su Ze returned to his room, clutched the chest filled with account books, and stepped into the Peach Blossom Spring.
Inside the Peach Blossom Spring, a building resembling the Kaifeng Prefecture Scribe Hall had already been completed. Ah Zhang, the clerical spirit boy, sat behind the long table in the Scribe Hall dressed in official attire.
Su Ze dragged the chest into the Scribe Hall, handed the box of account books over to Ah Zhang, and asked:
"Ah Zhang, how long will it take to read through all these account books?"
Ah Zhang glanced sideways at the box brimming with ledgers, raised a chubby palm, and said:
"Five days! Five days will be plenty!"