A Millennium Aristocratic Family Starting from the Shang Dynasty

Chapter 486 Salt Works Salt Tax

Daqian is very interested in iron smelting technology. At the same time, iron weapons and armor are not allowed to be sold to outsiders. Daqian's army needs to ensure its external advantage.

The way to ensure an advantage is very simple. The first is to block technology. The second is to reward craftsmen heavily. The third is to absorb and learn the technology of other places. Wang established a research institute, with craftsmen as supervisors, and has been developing technology.

Wang Che even wanted to open a college to study various technologies, but he was still hesitant because he was worried that the technology would be leaked. In the end, he planned to educate and train the children of the craftsmen. These craftsmen would be easy to control and difficult to leak secrets in the future, and it could also be regarded as a compensation to the craftsmen.

For craftsmen, if they learn the knowledge of writing, they will be qualified to be officials in the future. The craftsmen and supervisors of the great cadres are officials with a rank of two thousand stones.

Daqian basically arranged craftsmen to perform various official positions that required technical skills such as water control, building cities, and palaces. Instead of letting scholars who have studied various classics take charge, let laymen guide experts.

These large-scale projects involve a lot of manpower and material resources. Once something goes wrong, the consequences will be endless, and they must be led by professionals.

Wang Che stayed in Xuzhou for five days, and then came to Huai'an along the canal. As the old capital of the Huai Kingdom and the tomb of King Haotianwen, Wang Che naturally wanted to go and pay homage.

Zijue passed away that year and was buried in Nanshan. No magnificent mausoleum has ever been built. The entire mausoleum is not large, and there is only a temple next to it for worship.

After Wang Che respectfully offered sacrifices here, he began to patrol Huaidi.

Huai Di was the place where the Huai Kingdom prospered. Although the capital was later moved, it is still prosperous, with fertile fields and dense population around it.

Wang Che sent people to invite old people from all over Huai District to ask them about the current situation in Huai District. After the inquiries were completed, these old men were granted the title of barons. This title cannot be inherited. If the person dies, the title will be cancelled. Hundreds of households will live in the city, and they will also be awarded with brocade clothes and jade belts.

After completing this, the army followed the canal to Yancheng. As the earliest salt field in Daqian, Yancheng has been an important production area of ​​sea salt for hundreds of years.

Daqian opened a salt farm here to boil salt, and used the profits from fishing and salt to trade with other countries in exchange for food and weapons, and then he was able to gain a foothold. Later, the imperial court reformed and monopolized salt and iron. After the founding of the Qian Dynasty, the profits of ironware decreased. In addition, in order to reduce the price of farm tools, ironware was liberalized, but salt was still managed by the court.

Although the imperial court operated the salt farm to obtain financial resources, it did not raise the price of salt too high. Daqian is vast and the salt tax is quite generous. However, there have been some problems with the salt tax in recent years.

In the thirty-seventh year of Daqian Tianming, the world's salt tax amounted to [-] million coins. Since then, it has been steady and rising. In the eleventh year of Yuanfeng, the salt tax reached the highest level, with [-] million imperial silver coins.

But starting from this year, the salt tax began to decrease. After Wang Che came to the throne, the salt tax was only [-] million. According to common sense, as the population of Daqian is increasing, the salt tax should increase as the tide goes up, and only increase steadily. How can it fall?

Therefore, Wang Che took advantage of this opportunity to inspect the world and planned to find out what happened to the salt tax.

When Wang Che came here, he naturally wanted to visit the salt field in Yancheng. When Yancheng officials heard that the emperor was coming, they immediately rushed to greet him, and the salt merchants here prepared countless gifts.

The current salt fields in Daqian mainly include Qidi Salt Field, Shanxi Jie Salt, Shuzhong Jing Salt, Hexi Qing Salt, and Huaidi Yancheng Sea Salt. There are also some small salt fields in other places, but the output is not much and can only be sold around.

Wang Che met with Yancheng officials and salt merchants in Yancheng, but he did not receive gifts from the salt merchants. He was also worried that if he accepted it, what would happen if the local governments learned from him when he visited other places.

Wang Che just encouraged everyone, and then went to inspect the salt field to understand the situation of the Yancheng salt field.

The salt field in Yancheng is the salt field with the highest salt production in Daqian. Because it uses the sun salt method, the cost of sea salt is low and the output is high. However, the quality of sea salt is only average. The highest quality Dagan table salt is Hexi green salt.

The so-called green salt is natural salt produced in Hexi Salt Lake. These salts are very pure, have no bitter taste, are of the highest quality, and the price is higher. The sea salt from the Yancheng Salt Farm is all on the seaside, and the technology used has not improved much. It is still the sun-dried salt method taught by Zijue.

"Are the salt workers in the salt field hired or labored?" Wang Che asked.

Xu Wu, the manager of the salt farm, replied: "We hire local people."

Wang Che asked again: "How much money does Yan Ding give?"

Xu Wu continued to answer: "According to the imperial decree, a salt worker should be paid fifty guan a year."

For a salt worker, fifty guan a year is already a lot of money. You must know that the average farmer's income is only ten guan a year. Of course, farmers do not need to buy grain. Salt households need to buy grain, cloth, etc., and the expenses are high, but even so, the income is much higher than that of farmers.

Of course, not all salt households can have fifty guan. The amount of money given depends on the output of the salt workers. If the output is low, it is not impossible for some to give [-] or [-] guan a year. Generally speaking, it is distributed according to work.

Wang Che then asked about the annual output of the salt farm, and then asked about the output of a salt field in the following salt farm, as well as the key points of each step of drying salt. Xu Wuquan can answer questions fluently. Wang Che nodded with satisfaction, got up and left the salt field, returning to Yancheng.

After returning to Yancheng, Wang Che continued to stay in the city for a few days, and then asked the local inspection censor, embroiderer and secret guards to come and report the situation they had collected for comparison. Of course, Wang Che had to do a lot more in doing so. Fishing thoughts.

I just want to see if any of these patrol censors and embroiderers have been bribed.

When the emperor goes on a tour, as long as local officials are not stupid, they will make various preparations. They will only let the emperor see what they want the emperor to see. As for what the emperor wants to see, it must be covered up. The emperor wants to see the truth. situation, it is simply impossible without a lot of effort.

"Your Majesty, the salt farm not only employs salt workers, but also requires laborers. I went to inquire about it and found that laborers account for about half."

"How brave, half of it is forced labor!" Wang Che sneered.

Daqian levied labor in exchange for money and grain, but the money and grain given was not much. When a labor was levied to go to the salt field, the money given was not even one-third of what was needed to recruit a salt worker.

"There are thousands of salt cubes in the salt field. This year alone, there are [-] pieces of salt. It's really a good way to make money!"

"Your Majesty, there may be more than a thousand salt workers in the salt field!" the embroidered cloth messenger said respectfully.

"It's not just a thousand people, isn't the imperial court allocating food and salary to a thousand people?" Wang Che said differently.

"Yes, Your Majesty, the imperial court allocated a thousand people, but there are more than a thousand saltmen in the salt field."

Wang Che understood instantly that the emotional salt farm did not care about the [-] yuan. Instead, it used the money to collect labor and produce more salt. The actual annual output of this salt farm is conservatively estimated to be twice as much as what was reported to the court.

(End of this chapter)