Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 641 Vitargent

Square-shaped, bright and bluish-black green salt is a treasure among Rong salts. These Rong salts were also called Qiang salt in the past. They were tributes from Qiang Rong to Huaxia, so they are also called monarch salt. Ordinary people are not entitled to enjoy them. Rich in many minerals, mainly salt lake salt.

The green salt produced in Qinghai is of the best quality. The green salt sold by Tokyo Supply and Marketing Co., Ltd. is the first-class Qinghai Rongyan. Exchanged during trade.

It was transported back to Sichuan from distant Qinghai, then went down to the sea along the river, and then shipped to Penglai.

Because it is thousands of miles away, the price is extremely expensive, several hundred Wen per catty, especially the first-grade Qinghai Rongyan, which is even more exquisite, costing a thousand Wen per catty.

This kind of high-quality green salt, even in Qinghai, where it is produced, is only enjoyed by Khan kings and Taiji people. Generally, such good salt is not used.

Of course, it is so expensive, mainly due to high taxes.

Every store that sells salt must have a salt sales department sticker (license). The license fee is 50 yuan a year for wholesale stores, 20 yuan for specialized retail stores, [-] yuan for concurrent retail stores, and [-] yuan for street vendors.

In the Shaotian Dynasty, the salt was collected by the government and sold by the merchants. The imperial government was only responsible for the unified purchase, and the production and sales were all owned by the people. There was no such system as special merchants and special shores. The imperial court set up salt warehouses in various salt production areas and sent officials to supervise them. Salt production was purchased and stored in warehouses, and a production tax was levied on the salt people.

Anyone who wants to sell salt can come to the salt warehouse to buy salt.

It is relatively cheap to apply for a license, which is equivalent to license tax.

Then you can buy salt, order the quantity, and then pay the tax and invoice. This is the special salt tax, which is the most expensive. It is taxed at 100% of the wholesale price. For example, a bag of salt per [-] catties, the salt warehouse is Two hundred cash per bag, two cash per catty, then you have to pay two hundred cash in tax, two cash per catty, double the tax.

After paying the tax, pay the salt payment, and then issue an invoice to receive the salt, then you can freely transport and sell it, and sell it wherever you want, without any restrictions. There is no professional distribution area, and there is no special dealer. Adulteration and shortage of weight are not allowed. Less than two, or exorbitantly raise the price, etc.

Of course, if you go through customs and customs, you have to pay customs duties, and you also have to pay travel allowances.

The land tax is levied [-]% of the value, where it is landed, and [-]% is also levied.

The line rate is equivalent to a tariff surcharge, which is only levied once during transportation, and the tax rate is [-]%.

The government collects and sells, and the public sale fee is still [-]%.

In order to better collect taxes, the imperial court is currently trying to pay taxes at the salt warehouse at one time. Except for the output tax of the salt people themselves, all the others are paid by the merchants who bought the salt first.

The total is 100% salt tax, [-]% customs duty, [-]% travel tax, [-]% land tax, [-]% residential tax, and [-]% public sales fee, so the actual collection is [-]%. one hundred and four.

The salt tax is ten percent.

The salt here in Shandong is sea salt, and its production cost is very low. The purchase price of a catty of salt used to be less than a penny, but the imperial court uniformly purchased table salt.
According to the quality of salt produced by common people in various places, the purchase price is about [-] Wen per [-] catties. This year, the imperial court raised the purchase price.

If one cent and one hundred catties of salt were used, they would have to pay ten cents for a bag of salt.

When the salt warehouse sells salt to salt merchants, the price is doubled, two cents and one hundred catties, and the salt merchants pay two cents and eight cents for various taxes at this price, and a total of four cents and eight cents for salt price and salt tax.

Before the Ming Dynasty, salt taxes were levied on salt people, which were generally extra salt taxes. According to the rules, each salt was collected for two cents and one cent of silver, and for one quotation of two hundred catties, one cent of silver was collected per hundred catties. For example, if one mu of salt fields is expropriated for three qian, in fact, there is a shortage of silver and so on.

The actual salt tax rate of the salt people in the Ming Dynasty was very high, so the salt people sold their salt privately to salt dealers, which became the source of the flood of private salt in the Ming Dynasty.

But now in the Shaotian Dynasty, the salt class was canceled and changed to a salt production tax. The tax was collected according to the actual production of salt at the time of paying the salt, [-]%, and only about ten coins per [-] catties, compared with the previous [-] cent per [-] catties. Silver actually reduces the tax rate by ten times.

In the past, salt people had to pay various additional apportionments, which led to the flood of illegal salt sources.

Salt merchants pay taxes in salt warehouses, issue invoices, collect salt and sell it to various places. The biggest cost is not only tax but also freight. Therefore, the price of salt is different depending on the distance.

Denglai is very close to the salt field, and even has its own salt warehouse, so there is almost no transportation cost.

The Royal Supply and Marketing Cooperative under the supervision of the Royal Shaofu also operates the salt industry. With the royal name, it occupies more than half of the salt sales in Tokyo. There are also salt wholesale outlets in various places, selling wholesale to salt dealers, and also wholesale to their own distribution agencies.

It's just that the salt transport firm and the salt wholesale distribution and distribution agencies in various places are separate and independent, and each calculates its profit and loss.

The supply and marketing cooperative acts as a salesman. When he buys salt from the salt merchant, he has to pay the [-]% of the public sales fee to the salt merchant, and he himself has to pay the salt license fee, Fixed business tax, residence rate.

Salt merchants sell the salt to salt merchants everywhere according to the distance of the sale, plus transportation and other costs. However, because the sale is allowed to be trafficked, the salt merchants do not dare to increase the price randomly. If the price is too high, others will buy other salt. Sellers of salt.

Therefore, even the operation of Royal Salt will control the price more reasonably, and the supply and marketing cooperative will not raise it too high as a terminal wholesale and retail.

Under the market economy, any excessive price is often an opportunity for competitors to snatch the market.

This is one of the benefits of breaking monopoly.

The Tokyo supply and Marketing Co., Ltd. directly buys salt from the salt warehouse. It costs only four cents to eight hundred catties of salt. He has a license of 50 yuan a year, and the business tax quota is not high. As long as he sells a lot, the cost is very high. few.

Based on the sales volume in Tokyo, the cost of labor and other taxes and fees is only five yuan a catty, so the salt price in Tokyo is generally six to seven yuan a catty, and there are still some profits.

Of course, the price of good salt is more expensive. For example, the best green salt from Qinghai sells for a thousand yuan per catty.

The cheapest Shandong local sea salt eaten by ordinary people even sells for only six cents a catty, but it is still good salt without any soil. Although the grains are a bit larger, it is much better than the official salt before.

Even more refined seven pennies per catty is already very good.

If it was eight cents a catty, it would be as fine as powder and white as snow.

Six hundred yuan and one hundred catties, this price is already very cheap compared to the Chongzhen period, especially the quality, which was not as good as the private salt in the past.

During the Wanli period, Jiangxi smuggled Huai salt for at least [-] yuan per catty, which was the price of a catty of pork at that time.

When the price was relatively stable in Jiajing Wannian, the smuggled raw salt in Guangdong was only sold for seven to eight yuan a catty in Jiangxi, Guangdong. What is raw salt is the kind of natural seaside salt field or salt lake, without processing Filtered, some are shoveled up and sold directly, and some are directly dried and packaged without dissolution, purification, or processing. If this kind of salt is used to feed livestock to pickle fish and pickles, it is okay, but if it is eaten, it is actually very bad.

It is agglomerated, bitter, and has many impurities.

But the price of cooked salt is high, especially when the price of official salt is high. This kind of smuggled raw salt is cheap, and the common people don’t care about it. It is set at fifty Wen a catty.

The Anhui area is also close to the Yangtze River and close to the Lianghuai saltworks, and can also be sold at a wholesale price of more than 30 yuan per catty.

In times of war and floods, a bag of salt can even be sold for ten taels of silver. In Sichuan, Guizhou and other places, the price of salt has long been hundreds of yuan a catty, or even three to five hundred yuan. Many people simply cannot afford salt.

This is also the reason for the flood of private salt in the Ming Dynasty. The salt tax of the imperial court was heavy, so officials, salt merchants, salt merchants, and common people were all selling smuggled salt. The salt tax is only one million taels a year.

Originally, according to his salt tax, the actual salt tax amount should be at least more than 1000 million taels.

The result is that the small salt kitchen households suffer from the salt tax, the common people cannot afford salt and have to eat lightly, and the court has not received the salt tax but is scolded. In the end, the salt merchants and those salt officials are actually fattened, forming many salt merchant oligarchs .

Yangzhou was able to become a place of great wealth in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, precisely because of these salt merchants and salt officials who colluded with government and businessmen. The garden raises lean horses, sets tables and banquets for thousands of taels, and buys a prostitute for thousands of taels, so Yangzhou is famous for its gardens and prosperous brothels.

Since the late Ming Dynasty, the market share of private salt has been extremely high, perhaps as much as [-]% to [-]%. This has also formed a very strange phenomenon. The salt tax and salt price of official salt are high, but the annual sales are very small.The salt used by the common people is mostly private salt, and the price is relatively low, but the country's salt tax and salt profits are also embezzled.

During the reign of Chongzhen, in Wang Fuzhi's hometown of Hengzhou, the salt cost three to four cents of silver per catty. This was private salt shipped from Guangdong. The private salt route from Guangdong to Wuchang, Changsha was extremely profitable.At the beginning when he and Du Yinxi set up an army, they immediately relied on controlling this salt transportation line, and obtained millions of taels of silver every year to fund the rebel army's military expenses.

For example, in Huazhou and other places in Guanzhong, the price of salt even rose to nine cents per catty.

Yunnan and Guizhou, which has always been short of salt, mostly rely on salt from wells and Qinghai. Under the circumstances of war and chaos, many people have not even tasted salt for a year or two, so they have to scrape salt to eat.

At the beginning of the Shaotian Dynasty, Zhu Yihai changed the salt system in the controlled area. After controlling the salt field, he became a merchant to buy, transport and sell, and the tax was lower. The great advantage of doing so was to compete for market share and further crack down on smuggling.

The biggest problem with the proliferation of private salt is that selling salt can make huge profits.

For example, the salt in Wang Fuzhi's hometown is still officially sold cooked salt, and it is also transported from Guangdong.

With the help of water transportation, the cost of salt transportation is reduced, especially after the layers of levies and apportionments on the checkpoints are gone, the cost of salt has been greatly reduced, especially after the abolition of the monopoly system of salt merchants in the past. There are also fewer layers of sales links, which further reduces costs.

Although the salt seems to be selling cheaply, the tax collected by the imperial court is not a lot.

The salt bought for a penny a catty, tax and price increases in all links, increased several times, and became almost five pennies.

How much salt does the average person eat a year?If the price of salt is not too high, then seven or eight catties of salt will be eaten, so hundreds of millions of catties of salt are produced and sold every year. Based on the population in Wanli, one billion catties of salt may be eaten a year.

Even if the country only consumes [-] million catties of salt a year, this is still a big number.

Although the Tartars still control many places, they have now moved to the forbidden sea. The largest salt-producing areas in their territory, such as Jiechi, Putan in Shanxi, and Yanchi in Ningxia, are basically controlled by the Ming army. They almost completely lost their salt producing areas.

The salt needed had to be smuggled from the Ming Dynasty.

In the late Ming Dynasty, the imperial court tried every means to get money from salt. Merchants had to buy salt citations, and they also had to buy surplus salt to make up for the lessons. There are fire and salt money, salt and silver for repairing Caohe River, and there are even routine fines, cuts, and payments, as well as eight items such as foot price and package fee.

In addition, there is still a time gap between collecting the silver and getting the salt, and there is still an interest income, which is 6 to 250 taels.Of course, the imperial court can also over-issue salt quotations, asking salt merchants to donate silver and rice, water merchants to pay dental taxes, etc. In theory, these benefits add up to [-] million taels a year.

The Lianghuai Salt Fields alone can produce one billion catties per year. During the Jiajing period, the Lianghuai Salt Fields produced 370 million yuan, [-] million catties of salt, and hundreds of millions of catties of illegal salt.

The Ming Dynasty once implemented the system of salt banknotes based on household registration, and the salt for those over 15 years old was [-] catties.

In Wanli, the demand for table salt reached about 18 billion catties, but official sales were only about [-] million catties, and two-thirds of the market was occupied by private salt.

The Ming Dynasty also reformed the salt policy several times, but none of them had much effect. In the final analysis, the salt merchants colluded with the government and businessmen to monopolize, forming a salt industry oligarchy, which seriously affected the court's salt policy.

The salt market is limited, if more official salt is sold, private salt will inevitably suffer.

Zhu Yihai's current policy is to reduce the price of official salt and seize market share, so as to reduce dimensionality and crack down on private salt dealers.Although his official salt still has a lot of taxes added, but after paying the taxes and invoicing, the road can be unimpeded.

However, private salt has no tickets, and its transportation costs will be high. In the past, profits were high. Salt households, salt merchants, salt officials, local checkpoints along the way, and local officials all shared the money, and everyone colluded.

But the current price of official salt has made the profit margin of private salt very low. If he continues to maintain the smuggling network and check in checkpoints, the cost may be the same as paying taxes, and he still has to bear the burden of beheading his head and ransacking his home. Risk, it's not worth it.

Especially now that the cost and risk of colluding with officials is still high, the supervision is too strict, and officials do not dare to mess around without enough benefits.

Even after the reduction of salt lessons, the actual income of salt production has increased a lot. There is no need to take such a big risk to sell private salt, and it is convenient and profitable to sell directly to the salt warehouse.

But now under the new dynasty and the new atmosphere, there will be much fewer officials, soldiers, and subordinates involved in smuggling, after all, the investigation is strict.

When the cost and benefit are not directly proportional, there will be less risk-taking.

The cost of serious salt merchants is tax and transportation, while the cost of smuggled salt merchants is not only transportation, but also the cost of opening joints and breaking the law.

Official salt is all refined salt, and it only sells for a few pennies per catty. How can private salt be sold?
Now the imperial court collects the salt tax, and on the other hand, there are government-run transport companies and salt shops, as well as salt transport companies operated by the royal family, salt storehouses and salt shops, etc. There are also many benefits in this.

Not to mention that it is now more profitable to smuggle salt into the Tartar-occupied areas.

The price of salt has dropped a lot, but the salt tax has increased several times.

(End of this chapter)