My life skills in Daming Liver.

Chapter 263 The Solution (Third Watch, Ask for a Ticket)

Seeing Fang Wanghai's gaze, Su Ze shook his head first.

"Nowadays, frontier merchants and domestic merchants are exhausted. If the imperial court wants to make money from them by issuing salt, I am afraid that there are not many companies that can spend it."

Fang Wanghai was silent.

What Su Ze said is correct, the former northern frontier merchants had completely withered as early as when he took office as emperor.

Many of the border merchant families who were able to organize tens of thousands of merchants on the border have gone bankrupt and turned into ordinary local tyrants.

Some changed industries, such as smuggling tea horses in border areas, and made money through more illegal smuggling trades.

And the once glorious domestic merchants, such as the Huaiyang salt merchants concentrated in Huai'an, Yangzhou, and Taizhou, have also been seriously injured. Many families still hoard a large amount of salt, but they can never be exchanged. They can only be used as waste paper The same is passed on to the descendants.

In short, Ye Qi's reform has already defeated the once prosperous salt merchant group.

Nowadays, those who can do salt business in Huainan area are either eunuchs and relatives of the emperor, nobles from Nanzhili, or the children of important ministers like Mr. Xu Ge.

Even if ordinary merchants took the salt, they would never be able to extract a ounce or two of salt from the saltworks.

But no salt means no salt. Even the above-mentioned dignitaries rushed to grab the newly produced salt in the salt field, and even if they went late, they couldn't get any extra salt.

Fang Wanghai was also scolding the imperial court in his heart, your imperial court is only sending out salt, how can you sell it without salt?
No one is a fool now, even if the Nanjing Ministry of Household Affairs sells Yanyin directly, someone has to buy it!
Su Ze said: "I have no choice but to revive the opening of China and France, but if it's just to sell this time, my son-in-law still has a way."

Fang Wanghai's eyes lit up, Su Ze really had a solution!
They hurriedly said: "Ru Lin, hurry up! Don't fool me!"

Su Ze said slowly: "Father-in-law, the salt methods of the Huaihe River and the Huaihe River are congested, but not all the salt methods in the world are congested? The salt in Shandong, Fujian and Guangdong is not as tight as the Jianghuai, especially in Shandong. , It has long been out of nothing, and there are not many people in Shandong to get salt."

Fang Wanghai's eyes lit up, yes, Su Ze is right!

The Nanjing household department is in charge of the world's salt administration, and Fang Wanghai certainly knows that Su Ze is right.

This brings us to the issue of China and France. The degree of wealth and population density of the Ming Dynasty were different, so the salt in different places was completely different.

However, the opening of the Chinese law also stipulates that the salt in a region can only be sold in the region, which leads to completely different salt prices in different regions.

For example, the Shandong area, the entire Shandong is also an old traditional salt production area. Qi State has been cooking salt since the Warring States Period, so the salt production in Shandong is not lower than that in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

But also because of this, when the law of opening China was implemented from the beginning of the country, businessmen were reluctant to open a middle school in Shandong.

Shandong has a small population and a lot of private salt. If a salt merchant succeeds in selling salt in Shandong, he may not make much money at all.

In the Jianghuai area, which is separated from Shandong, as long as the salt can be obtained from the salt field guard, the profit will be dozens or even hundreds of times.

Su Ze mentioned that there is a lot of salt in Shandong, less salt in Jianghuai, there is a surplus of salt in the Shandong salt field, and there is not enough salt in the Jianghuai salt field. Fang Wanghai immediately understood what Su Ze meant.

But Fang Wanghai frowned again and said, "However, it costs a lot of money to transport the salt from Shandong to the Jianghuai River, and there are so many people filling their pockets in the water transport yamen, I am afraid that only one out of ten salts can be transported to Yangzhou."

What Fang Wanghai said was also true.

As I said before, the water transportation of the entire Grand Canal is actually divided into two parts. One is the warehouse assistant of the Ministry of Households, who is responsible for transportation and storage, and manages the wharves and granaries along the way.

The other is the Ministry of Industry, which is responsible for water transport ships and water transport guards, and now Yan Shifan, the son of Yan Song, is in charge of the Ministry of Industry.

Fang Wanghai knew the overall level of corruption in the Water Transport Yamen under the Ministry of Industry controlled by Yan Shifan.

Even the grain transported by water transported to the capital, these water transport silverfish dared to steal grain on the gang boat, and even cut through the gang boat to steal grain.

The last time Fangdu's Yuezhou Township Party fell, the entire Nanjing household department was bloodbathed, but none of the officials of the Ministry of Industry, which also provided water transport ships to the Yuezhou Township Party, were not punished.

It's no wonder that officials like to defect to the strict party now, he can really protect people!
If it wasn't for Yan Shifan's bad reputation, Fang Wanghai would have voted for it himself.

It is better to count on the Jianghuai saltworks to produce more grain than to count on water transport.

Su Ze said: "Water transportation is unreliable, but you can go by sea."

"Sea freight?"

"Father-in-law forgot, the shortage of food in the south of the Yangtze River last year, didn't they all rely on sea transportation to mobilize food from Fujian, which alleviated the problem of food shortage?"

Of course Fang Wanghai remembered that if Su Ze hadn't contacted Mr. Tao, the guardian of Fuzhou Port, and asked the Fuzhou Shipping Department to deliver food to the Shanghai wharf, the lack of food in the south of the Yangtze River last year would have really starved to death.

In that sea trade, Jiangnan paid some silk and got food.

Shibosi got the silk and sold some grain.

It can be said to be a win-win result.

Even now there has been a stable trade, and ships transporting grain from Fujian regularly call at Shanghai, where they exchange it for silk and ship it back to Fujian.

As for whether doing so violated the imperial court's sea ban policy?

The one who presided over this trade was Fang Wanghai, the minister of the household department in Nanjing who had just achieved success, and the eunuch Tao Gonggong, who was favored in the palace. No matter whether they were officials in the north or south of Zhili, no one would impeach them without opening their eyes.

The Shanghai-Fuzhou trade, which is between legal and illegal, solved the last grain shortage in the south of the Yangtze River.

And Su Ze also reminded Fang Wanghai that there is also a coastline in Shandong, and there is also a wharf.

For example, the port of Dengzhou in Shandong is the port that the court stipulated for the tribute of North Korea.

At the beginning of the country, North Korea paid tribute to the capital by land.

But now there are frequent turmoil in Liaodong, and the tribute road on land has been cut off, so it was changed from Dengzhou port in Shandong, and then from Jinan to the canal to enter the capital.

So Su Ze said that it is technically feasible to go out to sea from Shanghai, go north to the wharf in Dengzhou, and then transfer salt from the salt field in Shandong to Jianghuai.

But now there are many ships coming and going at the Shanghai wharf, and it only needs to recruit some to transport the salt back.

Fang Wanghai's eyes lit up, Su Ze's method is really feasible!

Now Jianghuai Yanyin cannot be sold. The main reason is that there is no salt in the salt field, so rich people are unwilling to spend money to buy Yanyin.

As long as salt can be provided, there will naturally be people who are willing to buy Yanyin. After all, most people know that selling salt is a profitable business.

But Fang Wanghai frowned again and said, "Is there really enough salt in Shandong?"

Su Ze said with a smile: "The salt law is blocked. If you need to sell the salt quotations, you must deal with the old quotations that have not been exchanged fairly."

Su Ze already had a plan in his heart, but he didn't tell all of his plans.

He continued: "So the most urgent thing is to check out the old ones that are still on the market. First of all, you need to know how much salt you need to sell new ones."

Fang Wanghai stroked his beard and said, "It's simple. Whether it's Yanyin rewarded by the imperial court, or Kaizhong and Zheyin got Yanyin, there are records in Nanjing's household department. You only need to check it to figure out if there is any." How many old quotations have not been redeemed."

Su Ze shook his head and said: "This is definitely not allowed. Guochao has been in the country for so many years, and there are always some bad debts that cannot be settled by the household department. If you want to really find out how many old quotations there are, my son-in-law still wants to go to Yangzhou Let's go with Huai'an."

Although Yanyin is not tradable in theory, in fact, it is the same as the banknotes before the Kaizhong method was abolished for the first time. Yanyin is actually traded and circulated in the Jianghuai area as a general equivalent.

For example, some families used the family salt to repay the debt because of debts.

Or if some families want to withdraw from the salt merchant business, they will also transfer the remaining salt in their hands.

Of course, the bigger reason is actually very simple. With more and more salt imports, it is becoming more and more difficult to extract salt. The salt business that ordinary businessmen can participate in has gradually become a game for power holders.

Only powerful families can participate, and ordinary small salt merchants have been eliminated one after another, so they will naturally transfer the salt in their hands.

Huai'an is the city where Jianghuai Salt Transportation Division is located, and it is an important salt industry town in Jiangbei.

And Yangzhou is the distribution center of the entire Jianghuai salt merchants, the water transportation hub of the entire South Zhili, and Yangzhou is also a place where salt merchants gather.

So Su Ze wants to go to these two places to take a look and understand the current flow of Yanyin. This is also to find out the details of the existing Yanyin and prepare for the next step.

Hearing that Su Ze had a solution and volunteered to go to Jiangbei, Fang Wanghai was completely moved.

Fang Wanghai only felt that the most correct decision in his life was to marry his daughter to Su Ze!

If it weren't for Su Ze's help, the money customs law would not have been implemented at all!I don't want to be promoted to the position of Minister of the household department in my life!

If things are done well this time, there may be hope for the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs in Nanjing!

Fang Wanghai's ability to get into this position is not entirely due to Su Ze alone, his own vision and emotional intelligence are also possible.

Fang Wanghai keenly felt that what is lacking in the court today is a minister who is "good at financial management" like him.

This is not because Fang Wanghai feels good about himself, but because of the real needs of the court.

With the further strain on the country's finances, what the emperor needs is no longer the traditional "throttle" minister of finance, but a minister of finance who can "expand money".

Moreover, Fang Wanghai has another advantage over Yan Shifan, the master money-gatherer currently in power, that is, his method of money-gathering basically does not scrape the poor and ordinary people, and the gentry and landlords who are scraped can't pick thorns, which means that he has a better reputation. Financial experts.

Obviously, the emperor did not have any psychological pressure to use Fang Wanghai, which is why he was able to pass the banknote tariff law and was quickly promoted to the Minister of the Nanjing Household Department.

What's next?Can it be rectified?

Fang Wanghai looked at Su Ze with fiery eyes.

　It's time to add more!
　　This paragraph is very cool!I don't know how everyone sees it?
　　The issue of salt is basically explained clearly. Fat Bird can proudly say that no one who writes Ming Dynasty novels on the whole network has explained the issue of Daming salt industry as clearly as I have explained!

　　When we look at historical issues, we often fail to see the complexity of an issue.

　　The problem of Daming Salt Industry is like this. It involves a wide range of interests, and the relationship between interests is complicated. Fat Bird can be said to be very clear here!

　　To solve this problem, there will be a battle plot soon, and the main storyline of this volume is this plot, so stay tuned!

　　Please follow up!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)