Why did the emperor rebel?

Chapter 254 Shen Shangshu got excited
When he said this, the corners of Shen Shangshu's eyes were twitching.

You must know that all royal banquets, no matter whether it is a banquet for a married woman or a foreign minister's clan, are usually in charge of the inner court, and the money spent is the money from the inner carrier.

But for the flowers of Honglu Temple, the Ministry of Households came to allocate money.

This is enough to see that in order to dissuade the emperor from making up his mind on Yanyin, the great Situ made up his mind so hard that he even did not hesitate to bleed again.

However, Shen Yi's performance made Zhu Qiyu a little dumbfounded.

The old man Shen thought that the emperor's internal transport warehouse was in urgent need of money when the clan came to Beijing recently, so he wanted to use salt to get a sum of money?
Immediately, Zhu Qiyu's face darkened, and he said displeased.

"What is Shen Qing talking about? Could it be that I don't even have the money for the banquet?"

Shen Shangshu knelt on the ground numbly and said.

"I don't dare. Your Majesty misunderstood it. It's just that the imperial family is going to Beijing and the reception of banquets is for the court to respect. I fear that the inner court will be short of manpower, so I want to ask Honglu Temple to do my best."

Well, this old man Shen really knows how to behave, and he has given enough face.

If Zhu Qiyu really wanted money, he would have to go downhill.

It's a pity that he really only wants Yanyin, not the money in the treasury of Shen Shangshu who is about to die of poverty.

Shaking his head, seeing Shen Shangshu's "sincere" and "voluntary" expression, Zhu Qiyu couldn't hold back anymore, waved his hand, and said.

"Don't say these polite words. I really don't want to covet the money from the Ministry of Accounts. You might as well tell Shen Qing that I definitely need salt and tea."

Shen Yi's complexion quickly collapsed, as if hesitating to speak.

Seeing this, Zhu Qiyu lowered his hand and said again.

"However, what Shen Qing said just now is not unreasonable. In this case, I thought of a compromise."

"Although these salt and tea quotations can only be used in Chinese, I will not take them away in vain. I will convert the grain that should be transported to the border into taels of silver by twice the amount and send it to the Ministry of Households."

"The Ministry of Households uses this money exclusively for the repair of the border city wall, and it is not allowed to be embezzled. The extra part is regarded as compensation for not transporting grain and directly converting it into silver."

"In this way, it can be regarded as not destroying the method of opening, what does Shen Qing think?"

This……

Shen Shangshu rolled his eyes, a little hesitant.

The so-called open-China method is actually a broad term, and it doesn't just refer to transporting grain to the border in exchange for salt.

In fact, in addition to food, when Emperor Taizong's military expenditure was insufficient, cloth, horses, soybeans, and even silver could be used in exchange for Yanyin.

Of course, the essence of Kaizhong remains the same, no matter what material is used to medium salt, it needs to be sent to the border for exchange.

This is also the core of Kaizhongfa, and the private sector shall bear the damage during transportation.

So in fact, the workaround mentioned by the emperor is not impossible.

It is also a kind of opening to pay the silver taels to the household department, and the household department purchases the materials for repairing the city wall and transports them to the border to strengthen the city wall.

However, the transportation process is undertaken by the household department.

However, people gave more money!

The emperor can say that the household department should be paid twice the amount of silver that should have been transported to the border to compensate for the loss in transportation.

25 salt and [-] tea, if according to the method of Kaizhong, the grain received at the border is converted into silver taels, about [-] taels.

However, it is actually insufficient, because Chayin does not strictly implement the opening system, and the management is relatively loose, which cannot generate such a large profit as Yanyin.

But since the emperor said so, then Yanyin and Chayin must follow this.

25 taels, doubled to 50 taels.

Food and other goods, even if they are lost on the road, it is impossible to reach this point.

Therefore, according to this method, the court must have made money!
Shen Shangshu had to admit that he was a little moved.

You know, the last time more than 20 relatives joined forces and only collected 30 taels of silver.

Although the emperor said that the money was earmarked for special purposes, even if the money was in the hands of the household department, it would still be used to repair the side wall.

However, for Shen Da Situ, who is poor and crazy, this thing is not a matter of turning his left hand into his right hand.

Since there is silver on the frontier to be used first, then next year's budget can be reduced a little bit, and the place where the imperial court needs to use silver will go to sea.

What, Your Majesty, do you disagree?

How about reducing the budget of the Ministry of Industry for repairing rivers?
Can't cut it?

"Chen Yi, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, Please Send an Official Book"

In just a few months, Shen Situ has already mastered all kinds of tricks of being a rascal, as long as he can get money, he can do whatever he wants!

However, just when he opened his mouth to agree, Shen Shangshu stopped the car in time.

There is no free pie in the sky!
Years of official career told Shen Shangshu that if things go wrong, there must be demons.

Since the emperor is eyeing salt and tea, he just wants money to enrich his internal funds, but according to this method, although it does not violate the principle of opening up Chinese law, the emperor himself will pay for it sooner or later.

You know, if you say that the most profit-seeking people in this world are merchants.

But whenever there is such a slight gap to drill, they will squeeze out a big hole.

The reason why China and France have been able to operate stably until now is because the merchants are willing to honestly transport grain to the border in exchange for salt.

It is because it is the easiest and least expensive way to obtain salt.

The profits of selling salt and tea are indeed very high.

However, the imperial court had strict regulations on the sales prices and regions of salt and tea.

40 salt and [-] tea, according to the normal price, even if they are all sold out, the result is [-] taels.

Among them, the food cost of 25 taels, if it has something to do with it, may save [-] to [-] taels.

However, taking into account the loss and labor on the road, the total cost of the salt merchants stabilized at around 30 yuan, and the final profit was around 10 taels.

One-third of the profit, and almost no loss, is already very high.

But according to the emperor's payment method, not to mention the labor, the cost will be paid 10 taels first. Although this can prevent others from following suit, it also makes Shen Shangshu doubtful.

Although he wanted the money very much, many years of experience told him that it would be better not to agree to it easily until he figured out why the emperor did this.

Frowning and thinking for a while, Shen Shangshu suddenly found that he had overlooked a very crucial question.

The emperor said that he did not intend to use these salt and tea as rewards, but to send salt and tea to the imperial shop.

Then the problem is coming.

With 60 salt and [-] tea, you can get nearly [-] shi of salt and [-] shi of tea.

There are a large number of people in the capital now, but only about 70.

There is so much salt and tea that the entire capital can't be consumed in a year. I'm afraid it will have to expand to several prefectures in the entire capital before they can all be sold out.

If the Son of Heaven does not want the salt merchants in the entire Gyeonggi area to be squeezed to death, then the salt and tea can only be thrown into his hands.

Or, the emperor has other ways to consume the salt and tea.

Shen Shangshu's mind suddenly flashed the account book that the emperor handed him just now.

If he remembered correctly, the emperor's imperial stores were basically shops for daily expenses.

Although there are not many records in the account books, Shen Yi is a veteran among them. It can be seen that these shops are working hard to buy in bulk, but they rarely sell.

This is not normal.

Now is the New Year's Eve, which is the peak sales season for various stores.

However, these royal stores of the emperor are uncharacteristically buying a lot and selling less, which is not in line with the law of doing business.

Come to think of it, the eunuch in charge certainly didn't have the guts to make his own claims, otherwise, if he lost the money, the emperor would definitely take his skin off.

In other words, this abnormal behavior was planned by the emperor behind the scenes.

Nowadays, these imperial stores have hoarded a large amount of cloth, food, jewelry, and porcelain, and the emperor came to ask him for salt and tea, isn't he afraid that he won't be able to sell them?
If you don't make money when you can make money, there must be greater profits behind.

A gleam flashed in Shen Shangshu's eyes, he suddenly became interested in this matter, took two steps forward, rubbed his hands together, and asked.

"I dare to ask Your Majesty, where are you going to sell such a large amount of tea, salt, grain, and cloth?"

(End of this chapter)