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Chapter 702: Salt Disaster
Let's talk about salt first. The salt management of the Ming Dynasty was exactly the same as other policies. In other words, it was rigid. It was obvious that it was copied from homework, and it was not just a reference, but a complete plagiarism. Coupled with the naive assumptions of the policy makers, it not only did not add icing on the cake, but became a burden.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the salt management department was the thirteen Qinglisi of the Ministry of Revenue, which basically inherited the method of the Yuan Dynasty and registered the people who boiled salt into the stove register. Only when they handed in the amount required by the government could they get the corresponding grain and money.

The stove owners are equivalent to slaves, with neither personal freedom nor the right to choose, and they are like livestock from generation to generation. This has only one advantage, which is that it is easy to manage, but it also shows that the managers are stupid and lazy.

After the salt permit system was implemented for a period of time, the border was in urgent need of food and grass, so they made a temporary patch and came up with the Kaizhong system. This thing was copied from the compromise system of the Song Dynasty.

Like all solutions that are thought up on the spur of the moment, the Sino-French Treaty solved the border transportation problem in a short period of time. However, as time went on, its side effects gradually became apparent, which was the creation of a group of greedy officials and businessmen.

They used their power and capital to almost monopolize the salt sales channels in various places, and made huge profits by raising prices at various levels and adulterating the salt.

They then use these profits to infiltrate other industries. They do whatever makes money. They don't ask for long-term success, they just want to have it once. They will kill gods and Buddhas. They will disrupt any industry they enter.

The Shanxi and Ningbo merchants, which were destroyed a few years ago, and some court officials and nobles are among them. However, more of these merchants and official groups are still making huge profits from the salt industry, endlessly exploiting the salt farmers, deceiving the court and evading taxes, and committing all kinds of evil.

What's even more bizarre is that the Kaizhong Law formulated during the Hongwu period calculated the number of salt permits issued according to the population at that time. Nearly two hundred years have passed, and the number of salt permits has not changed at all and is still based on the population during the Hongwu period.

The population has grown so much, and the salt permits have not changed at all. However, there is no shortage of salt in any place, and the price of salt has not increased significantly. Could it be that the people of the Ming Dynasty have entered a healthy life with less salt and less oil in advance? Or is it that a large amount of salt that is not controlled by the government has entered the market?

The answer is obviously the latter. According to the records of the Ministry of Households, from the first year of Wanli to the tenth year of Jingyang, the salt production of the Ming Dynasty was around 4.8 million jin. At most, it did not exceed 5 million jin, and at least 4.6 million jin.

How many people were there during the Wanli period? No one in the Ming Dynasty knew this number, including the emperor. The Ming Dynasty had a household registration system called the Yellow Book, but it was rarely implemented seriously. Most of the time, it was handled according to ancestral teachings, including taxation, which would not change for one or two hundred years.

Zhu Yuanzhang conducted a census in the 6000th year of Hongwu, and the registered population was about 600 million. Adding more than 7000 million military personnel, the total population should be over million.

According to regulations, the Yellow Book for registering population and household registration should be updated every ten years, but no emperor has ever implemented it seriously since then. Even if the Yellow Book was updated, it was all a mess, and the data was ridiculously unreliable.

Why do I say so? It's very simple. If you compare the Yellow Book of the Wanli Dynasty with the Yellow Book of the 14th year of the Hongwu period, you will find that the population of many prefectures and counties has not changed at all, and the names of people are the same.

If these yellow books are credible, then it means that in many places not only has the population remained unchanged for more than 200 years, but the life expectancy of most people is over 200 years old, and entire villages and counties are full of living turtles.

Why did the emperors of the Ming Dynasty not follow their ancestors' teachings and conduct a census every ten years? The answer is simple: they never did it right from the beginning. Zhu Yuanzhang conducted a census for the sole purpose of collecting taxes. Without a clear count of the number of people, it would be impossible to determine the taxes.

But when it came to his descendants, no one was willing to do it. Why? Because the ancestral precepts said that taxes should not be raised. If taxes were not allowed to be raised, what was the point of knowing the population growth? The court officials were even more reluctant to investigate, because with a larger population, taxes would have to be higher, but the court did not allow taxes to be raised. Whoever collected more taxes was exploiting the people, and would only be scolded without any benefit.

In addition, the census is a task that consumes a lot of manpower and material resources. It will also involve a series of issues such as land distribution, deserters from the garrisons, the severity of labor service and taxes. Once the issues are clarified, bureaucratic capital and vested interest groups will suffer great losses.

Therefore, from the emperor to the court officials, no one made great efforts to find out the needs, or they simply could not find out because of too much resistance. Adhering to the principle of "you fool me, I fool you, and everyone is happy", it is better to do less than more.

Hong Tao ascended the throne in the 1604nd year of the Wanli reign (), just in time for the update of the Yellow Book. However, when he first came to power, he was overwhelmed with so many things to deal with that he could not even sort out the internal affairs of the court, and had no ability to conduct a nationwide census.

By the tenth year of Emperor Jing (1614), the court had basically settled the situation and was able to conduct a census. After issuing an order and carrying out the census for two years, it was discovered that the results were still unsatisfactory. Many local officials still held on to old ideas and did not take the census seriously at all, just reporting random numbers to get by.

This may be the common saying that there are policies from above and countermeasures from below. If you only deal with central officials, you can only control the general direction of the country's development. If you want to improve the details, you can't do without the cooperation of the entire officialdom. Otherwise, even if you go in the right direction, you may not necessarily get a good result.

The population census data for the past ten years in Yangyang is 1.1 million, which is definitely not accurate. Based on the census results in many places, it is estimated that the actual population size is much higher than this figure.

Well, if we take the population of 1.1 million and divide it into 4.8 million catties of salt production, we will get an average of 4.4 catties. This is just an ideal number, not including various losses, and the actual value must be lower.

Is the average of 4.4 jin per person per year enough? Let's continue with the numbers. The jin in the Ming Dynasty was more than 590 grams. After some multiplication and division, we get the daily salt consumption of each person in the Ming Dynasty, which was 7.1 grams.

When seeing this number, many people in later generations will immediately exclaim, "Oh, it turns out that the ancients knew how to eat less salt to stay healthy. We are so far ahead again!"

Is this really the case? The answer is no. The people of the Ming Dynasty did not have much fat in their stomachs, nor did they have various mechanical aids. Even if they did nothing every day, they would walk much farther than people in later generations. Heavy physical labor was common, so their salt intake was very high.

In addition to humans, livestock also need to replenish salt regularly. In addition, the ancient purification technology was not enough, and the salt contained more impurities. All in all, 7.1 grams multiplied by 3 might not be enough.

The question is, the salt supply controlled by the government can't even meet half of the national demand, so who makes up the remaining difference? The answer is also very simple, private salt dealers.

Salt was a banned commodity by the imperial court and an important source of tax revenue. Why was the scale of the private salt industry so large? Could it be that all the civil and military officials in the court were blind and deaf, and even the emperor was a fool who didn't know how to issue an order to ban it?

The officials were certainly not blind or deaf, and the emperor was certainly not stupid, but they could not do anything about it. Because the main operators of the private salt industry were officials, and the emperor could not be enemies of all officials. In order to maintain his rule, he could only turn a blind eye and let these people suck blood from both the country and the people.

(End of this chapter)