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

Lin Jiading and Chen Jitai were polite to Li Daoying, and Li Daoying was also polite to them.

He is a fourth-generation student in the military and political class taught by Liu Sheng himself.

I quite understand Liu Sheng's temper and principles of doing things.

He knew that Liu Sheng might be partial to the early Yuan heirs and old subordinates, but he definitely had principles and bottom lines.

Liu Sheng will never tolerate anyone who dares to violate issues of principle or touch the bottom line.

Rectifying the salt industry is the first major government issue for the imperial court this year. Liu Sheng must attach great importance to it. As the local chief official, Li Daoying does not dare to neglect it.

After the Yamen serve tea.

Li Daoying expressed his attitude first.

"You two are on business in Yangzhou this time. If you need my office's cooperation on anything, please feel free to speak up. Within your power and responsibilities, I will never shirk."

Lin and Chen were slightly surprised by Li Daoying's straightforward way of talking.

They had been officials for several years in the former Ming Dynasty and were accustomed to the more euphemistic way of talking in officialdom. Even after entering Dawei, this trend still continued in the officialdom.

But I felt relieved when I thought that Li Daoying was an old man from the Wei tribe and was originally a military and political officer of the Wei army.

As the general office and co-organizer of the "Dawei Huaiyang Salt Company", the two of them work in Huainan and South Zhili provinces, but they choose to go to Yangzhou for business. Naturally, there are places where the Yangzhou government needs to cooperate.

Lin Jiading simply got straight to the point.

"Prefect Li should know that we were ordered to handle errands for the Huaiyang Salt Industry Company. The work area was said to span the two provinces of Huainan and South Zhili, but in fact it involved Huai'an and Yangzhou."

"There are more large and small salt fields of Huaihua Salt in Yangzhou. Therefore, we decided to set up two branches in Yancheng and Rugao, and the head office will be located in Yangzhou..."

When describing some things about the company to Li Daoying, Lin Jiading couldn't help but recall the scene when he played in Tianxin Palace.

He was a native of Putian, Fujian. He was promoted to the imperial examination in the third year of Chongzhen's reign and became a Jinshi in the seventh year of Chongzhen's reign.

The top pick on the same list is Liu Lishun.

However, Lin Jiading's ranking is not high, only ranked 2nd and 52nd.

He successively served as a traveler, county magistrate, and director of the Ministry of Rites, and later moved to become a doctor in the Ministry of Household Affairs.

Then he went to Beijing to negotiate the Jiujiang tariff.

This pass was one of the ten major banknote passes during the Chongzhen period and was quite important.

At that time, due to the continuous war, the road between Jingxiang and Xiang was blocked by war, and Sichuan and Huguang were impassable by boat. It was difficult to complete the customs duties on time.

However, the imperial court added a tax of 10,000 taels to Jiujiang on the grounds that it had no money to pay salaries to the clan.

From today's perspective, the tax amount of 10,000 taels of silver is nothing.

But in the Ming Dynasty, most banknotes could only collect tens of thousands of taels of silver every year. The sudden increase in the tax amount by 10,000 taels will undoubtedly make the taxation task even more difficult.

Under such circumstances, it is simply impossible to rely on additional tariffs to complete the tax task.

Lin Jiading used his consumption to offset the increase, and the merchants were delighted and went through the customs to pay taxes.

Only then was Jiujiang Chaoguan able to complete the imperial tax task.

However, his move offended many colleagues and even big shots in the DPRK.

Because consumption is money in the pockets of these officials.

Huo Xian is the collective name for Huo Xiao and Xian Yu.

Huoyu refers to the loss caused by the resmelting of silver, while Xianyu refers to the part that officials deliberately collected in addition to the taxes designated by the court to attack the royal family.

In the early Ming Dynasty, consumption was not much, and it was basically within a reasonable range.

But by the middle of the early Ming Dynasty, the consumption was as high as 20 to 30% of the regular tariff.

During the Tianqi and Chongzhen years, some bank officials even dared to charge double or even two or three times the regular amount!

However, the income gained from spending money basically went into the pockets of local officials and court bosses, and all the money given to the royal family was small, and the national treasury was not even a penny!
Therefore, officials care more about consumption than taxes.

The most painful thing for businessmen when passing customs is the cost of envy, not the positive tariff.

Lin Jiading decided to "use consumption to offset the tax increase", which actually means charging less or even no consumption.

This means that merchants actually need to pay less money to pass the customs than in the past, so merchants are rushing to pass the Jiujiang Banknote Pass - merchants also understand that in the Ming Dynasty, this policy was temporary and could not last long.

that's the truth.

Lin Jiading had only collected enough taxes for one year in Jiujiang Chaoguan, so the government issued a transfer order to transfer him to the Ministry of Rites and sit on the bench to prevent him from getting involved in tax matters anymore.

However, before he took office, the Tai army moved southward from Runing and Nanyang, and successively captured Hubei, Hunan, Huainan, and even Nanjing.

Lin Jiading was disappointed with the Ming Dynasty and simply returned to his hometown to live in seclusion.

Unexpectedly, in just over a year, the Yi army captured Fujian.

He was recommended by others and simply joined Da Wei.

After studying politics in the Da'ei court for a period of time, he first served in the Ministry of Finance, and later he was ordered to be responsible for handling salt fields and salt taxes.

The Holy Spirit intended to vigorously rectify the salt industry this year, so he established the "Da'ei Salt Industry Group".

The group's subsidiaries include "Huaiyang Salt Company", "Changlu Salt Company", "Southeast Sea Salt Company", "Sichuan Jing Salt Company" and "Northwest Salt Company".

Among them, Huaiyang Salt Company is the most important.

Therefore, after the beginning of the new year, Liu Sheng’s conversation with him in Tianxin Palace was so heartfelt that he still remembers it vividly——

"Han Zong (Lin Jiading) not only served in the Ministry of Household Affairs of the former Ming Dynasty, but also made bold changes in the customs taxation. So, do you know anything about the salt tax, which was the largest commercial tax in the former Ming Dynasty?"

"Weichen has some understanding."

Lin Jiading didn't know what other people actually wanted from studying, but he really wanted to help the country and save the people by studying.

In addition, he once served in the Ministry of Household Affairs, so he actually studied the salt tax issue in depth.

Therefore, he felt that this answer was relatively modest.

But when he continued to chat with Liu Sheng, Lin Jiading discovered that compared with Liu Sheng's understanding and understanding of salt tax, the little things he had studied were simply not worth mentioning.

Thinking back now about his self-effacing attitude at that time still made him blush.

Liu Sheng not only had a profound understanding of the changes in the salt tax system of the Ming Dynasty, but also studied the changes in salt tax in the past dynasties.

"As far as I know, as early as before the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, salt was just an ordinary commodity and was not worthy of the state's special tax policy."

"In the Spring and Autumn Period, Guan Zhong carried out reforms in the Qi State and implemented a series of strategies to enrich the country and strengthen the army, such as the 'Guan Shan Hai', and then began to specifically tax salt and even make it a monopoly by the state."

"Later, various countries competed to imitate it after reform. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty implemented a 'salt and iron monopoly' policy in order to enrich the country and strengthen the army."

"However, this policy caused a lot of controversy in the former Han Dynasty, and it was implemented repeatedly after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty."

"At the time of Emperor Guangwu of the Later Han Dynasty, he shared the world with the powerful clans and completely abolished the salt and iron monopoly policy, established salt officials and levied salt taxes."

"During the hundreds of years of chaos in the Three Kingdoms, Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties, when various countries were competing for power, they would not give up on the huge profits in the salt industry. Most of them focused on monopoly, and even strictly prohibited people from boiling salt privately."

"When Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty came to dominate the world, in order to allow the people to recuperate and recuperate, he not only lifted the salt ban, abolished the monopoly, and even exempted the salt tax." "From then to the founding of the Tang Dynasty for more than a hundred years, there was rarely a salt tax levied in the annals of history. According to records, it can be said to be a period without salt tax.”

"But during the Kaiyuan period of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, in order to increase national income, taxation on salt began to be discussed again."

"Because no salt tax has been collected for more than a hundred years, the salt tax system in the Tang Dynasty was quite chaotic from the beginning, with various changes continuing until the Five Dynasties."

"The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms fought against each other, and the Salt Law was swift and severe. It actually served as a test for many policies for the later Song Dynasty."

"So in the Northern Song Dynasty, salt law began to mature, and a relatively complete salt law system was established."

"During the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, Cai Jing created the salt quota system in order to raise money for Huizong, which is still in use today."

At that time, Lin Jiading couldn't help but feel shocked when he heard what Liu Sheng said.

Because he knew that the highlight of this conversation between the king and his ministers was coming, and that was the changes and gains and losses of salt law in the previous Ming Dynasty.

really.

Liu Sheng paused and then continued: "The salt method of the former Ming Dynasty was inherited from the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and some changes were made, and then the 'Kaizhong method' of the early Ming Dynasty was formed."

"Based on the national conditions in the early Ming Dynasty, the Kaizhong method is actually a pretty good salt method. Should Hanzong understand this?"

During the conversation, Liu Sheng did not forget to understand Lin Jiading's true talents.

Lin Jiading really needs a chance.

He immediately told in detail what he knew about the changes in the salt method of the Ming Dynasty.

In the early Ming Dynasty, after the extensive governance of the Yuan Dynasty and the war in the late Yuan Dynasty, the population of China dropped sharply, especially in the north.

In order to enrich the frontier and save a certain amount of food transportation costs, Zhu Yuanzhang came up with the method of opening up China.

Initially, in order to attract businessmen to cooperate with the implementation of the Open China Law, the policy can be said to be excellent for businessmen.

That is to say, when merchants transport the grain collected by the local area to the frontier, they only need to bear the cost of transporting the grain, and the frontier department will issue salt.

Businessmen can go to designated salt fields to get salt and sell salt in designated areas to make profits.

To obtain higher profits, merchants often choose to recruit people to the frontiers to establish trading villages.

In this way, they could not only sell grain to the court, but also save transportation costs, and then get profits from selling salt. The profit from grain and salt in one trip was a huge profit!

Even in the middle and late Hongwu period, "transporting grain" was changed to "receiving grain", that is, exchanging grain for salt, salt merchants could still make a lot of money.

In the early years, Shaanxi merchants and Shanxi merchants emerged due to their favorable geographical location.

It's just that Shanxi's geographical location is better, and Shanxi merchants are more savvy in doing business, and eventually became the largest salt merchants in the north.

Then they marched into Jianghuai and became the largest group of salt merchants in the Ming Dynasty.

Kaizhongfa solved the problem of food shortage in the frontier for the imperial court, earned a salt tax, reclaimed frontier fields and enriched the population through commercial settlements, which could be said to achieve many things in one fell swoop.

Therefore, the Kaizhong method was soon applied to Southwest and Liaodong, extending from Naliang to Nama, Nacha, Natie, Nabo, etc.

It can be said that Kaizhongfa definitely had a share of the credit for the expansion of territory during the Hongwu and Yongle dynasties.

However, no matter how good the opening method is, it cannot withstand the greed and corruption of people's hearts.

Because the huge profits made by salt merchants made many people jealous, around the end of Xuande and the Zhengtong period, the nobles and powerful officials of the Ming Dynasty used various means to obtain salt citations from the royal family in advance (salt citations were released once a year), and then resold them. Give it to salt merchants to make huge profits from the salt industry.

In business in this world, as long as there are middlemen making the difference, profits will be greatly reduced and it will become difficult to do business.

Moreover, generally if there is one middleman, there will be a second one.

Therefore, it didn’t take long for the grain and salt sales industry to change from a hugely profitable industry that could make one’s fortune into an unprofitable and even easily loss-making industry during the Orthodox period.

The merchants were no longer willing to pay for grain and sell salt, so the Kaizhong method quickly deteriorated.

In order to save Kaizhongfa, the Ming Dynasty also made some reforms.

For example, there will no longer be strict restrictions on the salt farms where salt merchants buy salt and the areas where salt is sold, and the number and areas where middlemen can use salt to sell salt will be restricted, etc.

They are just trying to survive by opening the middle method.

By the time of Hongzhi, the Kaizhong law had finally deteriorated to the point where no one was buying salt and salt, and the people were short of salt to eat. It could be described as a complete collapse.

Therefore, the Ming court took another big step in the reform of the salt law, implemented the Kaizhongzhese method, and allowed the direct use of silver to purchase salt to enrich the national treasury and then distribute it to the border troops for military pay.

It is also supplemented by the method of "removing salt and opening the ban".

That is to say, kitchen households and salt collectors are allowed to sell surplus salt beyond the main course to salt merchants.

This move caused the proliferation of private salt, which can be said to have completely shaken the foundation of the Ming Dynasty's Kaizhong Law.

In the 20th year of Wanli, due to various reasons, the salt tax of the Ming Dynasty began to decrease rapidly again, and the unsaleable salt quota became more and more serious.

In the last years of Wanli, it even happened that the Lianghuai salt tax could not collect a penny for two or three years.

Then Yuan Shizhen, the Salt Law Dao of Lianghuai Province, presented "Ten Comments on the Salt Law", and the Salt Censor of Lianghuai Province presented "Twelve Sections of Salt Policy", and the outline of the law was published.

however.

Although the Gangyun Law allowed the Ming court to receive a "not small" salt tax every year, in fact it completely squeezed the Ming court out of the salt industry's production and sales chain, leaving the entire salt industry in the hands of merchants.

This caused extreme suffering for Zao households in the late Ming Dynasty, and made it difficult for the general public to eat salt, and they were arbitrarily exploited by salt merchants...
It can be said that the conversation between the monarch and his ministers in the Tianxin Hall clearly revealed the salt method of the Ming Dynasty.

Then Liu Sheng put forward his idea for Da'ei Salt Industry.

First of all, the court must occupy the majority of the salt production, but the existence of private salt farms is not completely ruled out.

However, when businessmen open salt farms, they must strictly review their qualifications and limit the number.

Secondly, the transportation and marketing links certainly cannot be left entirely to merchants, but they cannot also be left entirely to the government.

If it is left entirely to businessmen, it will get out of control, and if it is left entirely to the government, corruption will quickly breed, both of which are undesirable.

Therefore, the government and merchants are still jointly responsible for transportation and marketing, but in contrast to the production link, the government only occupies 10% of each market area in the transportation and marketing link. It only needs to set the benchmark for salt transportation and sales, and the rest is left to the merchants.

However, this rule only applies domestically.

Overseas, Damei Salt Industry Group can produce, transport and sell one-stop products, and fully capture the salt industry profits of other countries.

Finally, the Supervisory Yuan will also participate in this, setting up salt supervisory censors in the areas under the responsibility of each salt industry company to supervise illegal activities and avoid collusion and corruption between Damei Salt Industry Company and businessmen.

As for corruption, it is naturally possible for censors, salt companies, and businessmen to collude in corruption.

Then we must rely on other means to monitor and blackmail.

After all, even in later generations with a very sound legal system, it will be difficult to completely eliminate corruption, let alone at this time.

···
On that day, Lin Jiading, Chen Jitai and other officials from Huaiyang Salt Company came to Yangzhou City.

Wang Wende finally walked out of the cement room of the Yangzhou Xiuyi Health Camp.

Looking up at the blue sky and white clouds in early spring, and breathing in the fresh air outside, Wang Wende felt that only a few days had passed, and he felt as if he was a world away.

For a moment, the boss was alone and couldn't help covering his face and crying bitterly.

"I'm out, I'm finally out..." (End of this chapter)