The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

Liu Sheng withdrew his gaze from Xu Du and looked at a report with many pages on the imperial case.

Since he is planning to rectify the salt industry, he has naturally made arrangements for it.

Huai Salt is an important part of Da'ei Salt Industry and can even be called the leader of the salt industry.

Therefore, as early as the year before last, Liu Sheng ordered the Xiuyi Guards to secretly inspect the salt farms in Huaiyang and related salt merchants.

At the end of last year, Liu Sheng asked Xu Du, who was in charge of Jiangbei Embroidery Guard in Nanzhili, to prepare a summary report on the work.

On the tenth day of this year, this report was sent to Liu Sheng's case.

After reading this report, Liu Sheng had to admit that Xu Du was really suitable to be an embroidered guard.

First of all, he was a scholar, gentry, and landlord in the former Ming Dynasty, and he was just one step away from entering the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, he had an understanding of many of the activities of the gentry, scholars, landlords, and officials in the pre-Ming Dynasty, and even knew them clearly.

Secondly, in order to cause trouble, he once "recruited warriors and formed friendships". In fact, he was just a gangster.

He has enough ability and a big picture view. He also attended the Nanjing Military Academy and finally received professional training from the Xiu Yiwei.

With such background, experience, ability, and potential, after joining the Xiuyi Guards, he was naturally at home, and he was promoted repeatedly through meritorious service.

Xu Du obviously realized very early that Liu Sheng was going to take action against the salt merchants, so this report was quite good.

However, after all, not everything can be written clearly in the report.

Therefore, before preparing to rectify the salt industry, Liu Sheng still summoned Xu Du to Nanjing to make targeted inquiries.

"This work report you wrote is very good." Liu Sheng first affirmed Xu Du's labor results, and then said: "However, I still have some things that I need to understand carefully..."

Xu Du's performance in Tianxin Palace lasted for nearly an hour.

When he left, his face was red and his fighting spirit was high.

Xu had a premonition.

After the rectification of the salt industry, he will probably be able to jump into the upper echelon of Xiuyiwei and become one of the high-ranking officials in Damei!

···
Yangzhou.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, this city, which had become more prosperous (and deformed) due to the wars in the late Ming Dynasty, has gradually returned to normal.

Now its prosperity has caught up with that of the Wanli period of the former people, and even surpassed it.

Because during the Wanli period, the officialdom was already quite dark, and corruption and power-seeking officials abounded.

There are even more foreign envoys coming out to collect taxes and set up obstacles to hinder business.

Today, the overall governance of Da'ei is relatively clear. Although the formal commercial taxes have increased a lot, other messy local taxes have almost disappeared.

The most important thing is that the roads are peaceful and bandits are almost extinct.

This gave many small and medium-sized businessmen the courage to go out to do business, making business prosper rapidly.

Yangzhou naturally also benefited from this.

This big city has a permanent population of 700,000 to 800,000.

Even in the Qing Dynasty, it was a first-tier city second only to Nanjing, and tied with Beijing, Suzhou, Hangzhou and other cities in terms of population.

Yangzhou was famous for many things in the world.

There are Yangzhou thin horses that make the wealthy gentry and wealthy people in the north and south excited after hearing about them, and there are also Yangzhou salt merchants who are the richest in the world.

As for the food, luxury houses, gardens, etc., they are also on par with famous cities in the south of the Yangtze River such as Nanjing, Suzhou, and Hangzhou.

Yanchun Tower.

It is a low-key and elegant restaurant in Yangzhou City.

The refreshments, drinks and dishes are all expensive, and only private banquets are open, with a limit of 20 tables per day.

The consumption per table is no less than one hundred taels.

Oh, this is the old rule of Qian Ming.

Nowadays, the consumption per table is no less than two hundred silver dollars.

The private rooms in Yanchun Tower are also divided into grades.

There are ordinary private rooms that are similar to ordinary restaurant rooms, but more elegant and spacious.

There are medium-sized private rooms on a quarter floor.

There are also top-level private rooms that use an entire floor of the pavilion as the venue.

As for the kind of restaurant that uses a large house or even an entire garden as a "private box" and only receives one guest a day, of course it exists in Yangzhou, but it is not the business model of Yanchun Restaurant.

Tanchun Pavilion.

One of the two top private rooms in Yanchun Building.

Wang Wende came upstairs with his servants and saw three other servants drinking tea outside.

The slim female intellectual came up with a smile and led him to the inner room. As for the servants, they were led outside by the waiter to make arrangements.

After pushing the door open and walking in, Wang Wende saw the three people who invited him over, sitting on each side of the room in the large inner room, drinking tea and chatting.

"Brother Wang is here? Hurry and take a seat."

"Brother Wang, you are so slow to come. We have already drank half the tea pot."

"Hahaha, Brother Wang is busier than us, so it's okay to come late."

Seeing Wang Wende, the three of them stood up to say hello.

"Brother Cheng, Brother Fang, Brother Wu."

Wang Wende also said hello and sat down.

After drinking some good green tea, I asked, "What were the people talking about just now?"

Cheng Xinyan said: "There is news from the capital (Nanjing) that the emperor wants to build a royal school in the Forbidden City so that the princes and the descendants of nobles and ministers can study there."

Wu Minqing followed, "So, we were talking. The emperor wants to expand business. I wonder if he will select a few children of big businessmen to accompany him in the palace, so as to improve the status of us businessmen."

Wang Wende laughed when he heard this.

"Then you are overthinking. Since ancient times, among scholars, farmers, industry and commerce, merchants have been at the bottom."

"Even if the Holy Emperor wants to develop business today, it is impossible for us people to have the same status as real scholars."

"Not necessarily." Wu Minqing disagreed with what Wang Bozhang said, "The current emperor is the founder of the country. How many new things have been done in the two or three years since the founding of the country?"

"If you don't want to talk about anything else, let's just open up the sea. How could anyone in the past dynasties pay so much attention to maritime trade when they founded their country?"

"There are also the establishment of science and the construction of railways, which are unprecedented things. How can it be impossible to improve the status of us businessmen?"

Wang Wende smiled and said nothing, not arguing with Wu Minqing.

They are both giant businessmen in Huizhou, mainly engaged in the salt industry. They usually cooperate on many business matters, so it is not worth the harm to their friendship over this matter.

Wu Minqing is only in his early forties and is not mature enough yet. He seems to still want to debate this matter.

Cheng Xinyan, the oldest, saw this and said, "Now that everyone is here, let's let them serve the food?"

Wu Minqing was awakened and realized that he had just been taken advantage of, so he immediately agreed to order.

soon.

Four maids dressed like ladies from wealthy families came up and stood beside the four of them.

Then the well-dressed waiters filed in with portions of meals.

However, the four of them did not sit at the same table, but ate at separate tables like the ancients before the Yuan Dynasty.

First, there are appetizers, including frosted cashew nuts, sweet-scented osmanthus glutinous rice cakes, sweet-scented osmanthus yam puree, pickled ginger, etc.

Then there are the cold dishes, beef in sauce, shredded rabbit in garlic sauce, vegetarian chicken in sauce, braised pork belly, assorted vegetarian dishes, etc.

Then came the hot dishes, fried kelp with crabmeal, emerald catfish and lion head, stewed pheasant with matsutake mushrooms, stewed raw meat, emerald shrimp balls, eight-treasure gourd duck, etc.

The portion of each dish is very small, and you can probably finish it in three to four, or at most five, bites. But every dish is delicious and delicious, especially when the beautiful maid helps to deliver it to the bowl, and you can even feed it to your mouth. It is the ultimate enjoyment.

However, the price of every dish here is more than ten silver dollars, or even dozens of silver dollars, which is more than what ordinary people spend in a year.

In this meal, each person had to eat hundreds of silver dollars.

In addition to the private room fee, service charge and other expenses, the meal for four people will probably cost more than a thousand taels of silver.

And this is just the daily diet of four people.

They may not eat so much at home, but they are no less exquisite and delicious.

As for service, it depends on personal preference.

The four of them were not in a hurry.

Their business affairs are taken care of by shopkeepers outside, and housekeepers and stewards are responsible for their home affairs. Only "big things" require them to think and decide.

So the four of them ate and chatted, preparing to go back when the lanterns started to light up.

Or go to a certain room to keep a concubine in another courtyard, or go directly to a certain upright official to talk about life and folk art.

When the meal was almost finished, they finally got down to business.

Cheng Xinyan first waved his hand to the maids serving him to leave.

Afterwards, he spoke, "The founding king of our country, Dayei, seems to be more ambitious and capable than Emperor Hongwu. Within two or three years of the founding of the country, he implemented many policies that were very different from those of the previous dynasty."

"Although the changes in our salt industry are not big, they are not small either. I don't know if there will be new changes this year, and what the final salt law will be like."

In Liu Sheng's view, the pace of his various changes has been very gentle.

But for people like Cheng Xinyan, who are used to slow and inefficient administration, the salt industry has changed a lot in recent years.

When Damei conquered Huainan Province and his army captured Yangzhou, among the evil gentry and local tyrants who were publicly tried, there was only one salt merchant, a merchant from Shanxi - that salt merchant had a really ugly reputation and was even looked down upon by his peers.

after that.

There are two main actions taken by Dayei in the salt industry.

One is to recruit kitchen households from the refugees to restore some of the abandoned salt fields in Huai'an and Yangzhou, or to open new suitable sites and set them up as official salt plants, using the sun-dried salt method as the main method to produce salt.

The official salt factory produces salt, allowing salt merchants to exchange it for salt from Da'ei, and also organizes its own manpower to transport and sell it.

Second, the Zao household system was abolished and all Zao households were reclassified as civilian households.

It should be noted that in the Qianming Dynasty, due to the corruption of the Kaizhong Law and the implementation of the Outline Movement Law in the last years of Wanli, the salt industry in the Qianming Dynasty changed from a "civilian system, official collection, commercial transportation, and commercial sales" to a "civilian system, commercial operation, and commercial sales". Collect, transport and sell.”

In other words, the government was removed from the salt industry production and sales chain.

At the time of the Ming Dynasty, although the relevant yamen such as the Salt Fields Salt Department, Salt Transfer Department, and Salt Class Lifting Department were still there, they only had a supervisory role and were not involved in the production and marketing of salt at all.

Oh, the salt tax department also has another role, which is to collect taxes from kitchen households - pay taxes based on the salt tax payable in silver.

Therefore, after producing salt, Zao households must try to convert the salt into silver to buy grain and pay taxes.

Obviously, in this way, whether the kitchen households can survive depends almost entirely on the price charged by the salt merchants.

Because according to the laws of the Ming Dynasty, Zao households were not allowed to engage in other industries and could only make a living by making salt.

If the salt price is right, they can survive; but if it is too low, the kitchen households will not even have money to buy grain, let alone pay taxes.

As a result, the livelihood of the kitchen household and even the life of the whole family were in the hands of the big salt merchants who owned the chain.

At this point, the kitchen households were more dependent on the big salt merchants than the tenants were on the landlords!

The Shanxi merchant surnamed Wang who was put on trial after the Yi army captured Yangzhou was famous for his extreme exploitation of the salt farm households.

In the years since the Ming Dynasty Movement Law was implemented, the price of salt collected by this salt merchant named Wang has been getting lower every time.

Some kitchen households were miserable and could not stop working because they would starve to death, so they had no choice but to flee.

The salt merchant surnamed Wang organized private armed forces in the name of cracking down on illegal salt sales, captured the fleeing Zao households, and beat them to death in public to threaten other Zao households.

Because this person bribed officials from the Salt Class Department, Salt Class Promotion Department and even the Salt Envoy Department of the former Ming salt field, the kitchen households of the salt field contracted by him had no choice but to accept their fate.

Within ten years, many families in the salt fields died, making it difficult to continue producing salt.

This person also deceived, bought and sold refugees, and sent them to the salt fields to serve as salt slaves!
As a result, the mortality rate of households in the salt farm became higher.

The Tai army was fighting evil gentry and bullies in Yangzhou. Hearing about this man's bad reputation and the disapproval of some people in the salt industry, this man became the only big salt merchant in Yangzhou to be put on trial.

In the end, he was sentenced to beheaded in half and all his property was confiscated.

Many members of his family were beheaded, and the rest were exiled to hard labor at the least.

Although the Shanxi businessman surnamed Wang met a tragic end, the fact that he was able to act so recklessly undoubtedly shows that the big salt merchants had almost the power of life and death over the kitchen households below them.

Dayei classified Zao households as civilian households, which was equivalent to giving these Zao households the right to choose their jobs.

Therefore, the salt merchants did not dare to exploit their kitchen households too much.

In addition, the salt workers in the official salt factory are actually kitchen households, and they can receive wages like workshop workers and shop workers, with a minimum of one or two silver dollars per month.

This forced other salt merchants to also increase the price of salt.

This makes the salt merchants uncomfortable.

In fact, in the previous ten or twenty years, there were occasional censors and other officials who cared about Zao households in the Ming Dynasty, asking salt merchants to increase the price of salt.

But the salt merchants never felt too uncomfortable at the time.

Because they have raised the price of salt here, they can raise the marketing price later and earn back from the people who buy salt.

If you really can't stand the censor and other officials who stand up for Zaohu.

They can also take the opportunity to raise the price of salt to a higher level, earn more, and then spread rumors to blame the officious officials.

In short, it is impossible for them to suffer losses, and they will even make more.

But after leading Liu Sheng to establish Dawei, they did not dare to raise the price of salt too high.

On the other hand, the Da'ei imperial court also had a special yamen that transported and sold salt. The price of salt was originally relatively low, so it would not raise the price with them.

Under such circumstances, if they raise the price arbitrarily, the salt will not be sold.

Therefore, in the past two or three years, although the Da'ei imperial court did not have many moves and not big moves, the life of the salt merchants was indeed much "sad" compared to the past.

However, Da'ei's official sales team is not large.

Taking the original Huai salt transportation and sales area as an example, it probably only occupied a part of the market dominated by the salt merchant named Wang.

Therefore, Cheng Xinyan and other big salt merchants are not thinking about how to fight against the Da'ei imperial court or force the Da'ei imperial court to restore the policies of the pre-Ming Dynasty.

I'm just worried that if there are new policies in Da'ei, it will make their lives even more difficult.

Hearing Cheng Xinyan mention this topic, the faces of the other three people also lost a little lightness.

Wang Wende asked, "Brother Cheng, didn't you try to find out the news?"

Cheng Xinyan smiled bitterly, "I have asked about it, but Da'ei is different from the previous Ming Dynasty. Although the important matters discussed by the court are not airtight, if there is really important information, it is not so easy to obtain."

At this time, Fang Mingrui, who had always been taciturn, suddenly said: "We still have to support a few of our own people in the court, and it is best to hold important positions such as the chief of the Ministry and Department in the Government Affairs Council."

"Of course, it would be better if you could join the Military Aircraft Department or the Secretariat."

Hear this.

Cheng Xinyan and Wang Wende's expressions changed suddenly, and they suddenly became nervous. Wang Wende even looked at the closed hall door subconsciously.

Wu Minqing's eyes lit up, he clapped his hands and said, "What Brother Fang said is exactly what I want!"

"Isn't the reason why we have been so passive in the past two years just because we don't have anyone with a high enough position in the new dynasty?"

"Nowadays, there are many ways to become an official in the Da'ei imperial court, including imperial examinations, new schools (schools), and even recommendations."

"With our financial resources and connections, if a few people can join forces and put in all their efforts, we might be able to accomplish this in five or six years!"

Wu Minqing became more and more excited as he talked and wanted to elaborate further.

Wang Wende finally couldn't help it and shouted: "Brother Wu, be careful what you say!" (End of Chapter)