I don't want to be a saint

Chapter 134 This is not a reason for you to break the law!
Guo Yi and Guanshi Zhu ate and drank on their own, without talking to each other.

And Wei Jinglan frowned when he saw the two of them only caring about eating and drinking, feeling very disgusted in his heart.

Think about him, Dalang of the Wei family in Jiangling, who is also the helm of the younger generation. When did he suffer this kind of treatment?
This Prince Chu's Mansion is a bit deceptive!
If Guanshi Zhu knew that he thought so, he would definitely cry for injustice.He just simply didn't want to get involved, and didn't want to have any contact with the Wei family.

Even though he was backed by the big tree of King Chu's Mansion, King Chu's foundation on North Jingbei Road was too shallow to compare with the Wei family that had been in business for a hundred years.

The best way is not to get contaminated.

Guo Yi, on the other hand, didn't want to make friends with this kind of person.After all, Taoism is different.

Wei Jinglan twirled the beads in her hand, lowered her head and thought for a moment, as if she understood something, she glanced at Guo Yi in surprise, and said tentatively: "To tell you the truth, Erlang, I also have two pieces of that kind of wasteland in my hand.

According to Erlang, it is called saline-alkali land, right?

This time I invited Erlang here, one reason is to make friends with Erlang.Second, I want to ask Erlang about the method of boiling salt with brine. "

After the pre-dinner dessert was finished, it was finally time for dinner.The fox tail is also exposed...

Guo Yi put down his chopsticks, sat up straight, looked at the Buddhist man across from him, and answered an irrelevant question: "Wei Dalang knows that the salt fields, salt lakes, salt ponds, and salt wells are all publicly owned!
According to the laws of our Great Zhou Dynasty, where salt is produced, private individuals are not allowed to mine and sell it! "

really…

Sure enough, as I thought, this is a gentleman!
Wei Jinglan confirmed his guess.From this point of view, this Guo Erlang is worthy of deep friendship!

Thinking so in his heart, but he had a smile on his face, and said mockingly: "Then Erlang, do you know what the current Yanzheng of our Great Zhou Dynasty looks like?"

Salt administration?

Guo Yi couldn't help being taken aback when he heard the words, what do you mean?
When he was in the capital, he was the second young master of an official's family, and it was not his turn to ask about such trivial matters as daily necessities.

And after coming to Jiangling, he spent all day in the mountains and forests trying to make money, so he had no time to care about it.

Seeing him looking around in a daze, Wei Jinglan smiled lightly, turned to look at Guanshi Zhu next to him, and beckoned him to tell Guo Yi about it.

He naturally knew it very clearly, but Guo Yi might not believe what he said.

As for Guanshi Zhu, he has many years of experience, and as the foreign steward of the Chu Palace, he has dealt with many monsters, monsters, and people of various religions and nine streams, and he knows it very well.

At this moment, although I don't know what this Wei Jinglan is trying to sell, but after thinking about it, it would be better if Guo Yi knew about it earlier.

Ever since, he also put down his chopsticks, sat up straight, and told him the truth.

Salt tax income is one of the important sources of local finance. There is a saying in "New Book of Tang Shihuo Zhi" that "the best of the world, salt benefits half of it, and the palace guards, the army, and the officials, Lu and Dai all look up to it".

"Our Great Zhou Dynasty has been in peace for a long time. The population has increased significantly, and the demand for salt has also continued to increase. However, due to the relatively backward salt mining technology and the imperial government's implementation of the policy of exclusive use of table salt, there is a large shortage of table salt, which made private salt once. prevalent."

"Hehe!" Wei Jinglan was full of sarcasm when she heard the words, "Why don't you say that the imperial court has repeatedly raised the price of salt, making ordinary people unable to buy salt, so they have to cook salt and sell it privately."

When Guanshi Zhu was mentioned, he immediately looked constipated...

This was the first time Guo Yi had heard of it, so he frowned and looked at Guanshi Zhu.

Seeing his questioning expression, Manager Zhu silently nodded in acknowledgment.

"Why?" Guo Yi just asked, but suddenly understood, he asked a stupid question...

Why else?
Because salt is a necessity of life!
It is also an important source of national fiscal revenue, and the Great Zhou Dynasty not only pays tribute to Beiliao every year, but also gives Xixia a yearly gift!
These are two huge expenses.

But not only that, the imperial court also supported hundreds of thousands, even millions of Xiang troops.Although the Xiang army is also a regular army of the imperial court, it is stationed in various places and its combat effectiveness is not strong.

The main role of the Xiang Army is to repair bridges and roads, build cities, transport grain and grass, guard officials, herd horses and farmland, and other miscellaneous tasks.

Another point is that most of these Xiang armies are made up of refugees, disaster victims and criminals.

That is to say, which place has suffered natural and man-made disasters, and the people's lives cannot be sustained, and they can only wander around, cause trouble, and violate the law and discipline.

At this time, the imperial court will organize some of the victims into the Xiang army to spend money to support them and prevent them from rebelling.

This is a good thing, but as time goes on, there will be more and more Xiang troops, and the court's expenditure will also increase greatly.

And where do these expenses come from?
One of these is the rising price of salt!

The higher the price of salt, the more prosperous private salt will be.Ended up in an endless loop.

The ban on salt in the Great Zhou Dynasty was very strict. The court originally hoped to reduce the cost of intermediate sales through the monopoly of salt, thereby increasing national fiscal revenue.

In fact, this kind of policy not only did not improve the financial situation of the imperial court, but also led to the continuous rise of private salt, which affected the imperial court's income.

"Although these are the shortcomings of the imperial court, they are not the reason for you to do private salt!" Guo Yi reprimanded righteously.

Not breaking the law and discipline is his bottom line, but also his moral standard.

It's also his and Wei Jinglan's way, different!

Ha ha!

Wei Jinglan smiled contemptuously: "Stupid! Stubborn! I thought only those old officials would have such stubborn thoughts!

Unexpectedly, you, Guo Yi, are so ignorant at such a young age! "

After finishing speaking, he gave him a detailed account of the various doorways inside.

The sales areas of these official salts are extremely unreasonable. In many remote areas, Yidi tribes and regional boundaries, the supply of salt is in short supply, while in densely populated areas there is too much salt and the price is too low.

And those private salt dealers often pay higher prices than the government, so many salt producers are also willing to sell their products to private salt dealers, so as to get more money to maintain daily life and reproduction.

This situation also has a certain supplementary effect on the official salt market and promotes the development of the commodity economy.

The consequence of the monopoly of the imperial court is that the price of official salt is too high for ordinary people to afford, and the quality of salt is poor.

But those private salt dealers, in order to increase everyone's purchase demand and compete with official salt, their prices are often cheaper and the quality is better, which meets the people's demand for salt to a certain extent.

Especially some people living in poverty can buy high-quality table salt with a small amount of silver.

What Wei Jinglan said, Guo Yi thought about it for a while, and he understood the truth.

"Although selling illegal salt is beneficial to people's livelihood to a certain extent, breaking the law is illegal! These are not excuses for illegally selling illegal salt!

These are just the drawbacks of the court's salt policy, but the court's starting point is good! "

Tch, hahaha!

Wei Jinglan laughed angrily at him, and suddenly shook her head and asked, "In your opinion, how should we deal with the malpractice of the salt government?"

(End of this chapter)