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

After listening to Lin Jiading's lecture that lasted for two to three quarters of an hour, he and the salt merchants in the congregation finally understood the salt law policy that the Da'ei court would implement.

Generally speaking, it still inherited the gangyun method and salt introduction system of the previous Ming Dynasty. (Shiohiki is actually a note permitting the wholesale sale and purchase of salt.)
But many reforms have also been made.

The production reform policies were largely implemented two to three years ago.

This time, most of the reforms were in transportation and marketing.

The main reason is to strengthen the supervision and reasonable restrictions on salt merchants.

For example, in order to avoid multiple price increases by middlemen, salt merchants are not allowed to engage in secondary distribution.

That is, either be a wholesaler in a region or a local distributor.

Taking Huaiyang Salt Industry as an example, only nine wholesalers are still allowed to exist, plus the official one, the number becomes ten.

Within the area in which it operates, there must be a certain number of distributors, and the retail price of salt must not be higher than the local maximum salt price stipulated by the government.

In this set of rules, salt is no longer allowed to be bought and sold, but has become a pure permission note.

It can be said that if large salt merchants (wholesalers) want to make more profits, they can basically only start from the logistics link.

Or cooperate with manufacturers to try to produce lower-cost salt.

However, it is difficult for manufacturers to take advantage of opportunities and pass off inferior products as good ones, because the government is very strict on the qualification review and supervision of manufacturers, and any violations of the law will be severely punished.

Experienced big salt merchants such as Wang Wende and Cheng Xinyan found that the salt law policy after Da'ei's reform was indeed more rigorous and superior than the previous one.

But more officials are also needed to implement it.

This will undoubtedly increase the administrative costs of the court in supervising the salt industry.

But as long as this policy can be strictly implemented, the Damei court will definitely earn much more than the previous Ming court as a whole.

but.

Why didn't the salt method before the Ming Dynasty intersect with the Kaizhong method and Gangyun method and make progress?

Isn’t it very suitable for the national conditions in the first place?

Unfortunately, as time goes by, these salt laws have been eroded by human greed and are full of loopholes.

Therefore, how long Da'ei's salt law can be implemented and how much salt tax revenue it can bring to Da'ei's court ultimately depends on how well Da'ei's officialdom is managed.

At the end of the meeting, bidding for the qualifications of the nine major Huaiyan wholesalers was held on the spot.

"Next, I will be responsible for presiding over the bidding meeting."

Chen Jitai, co-organizer of Huaiyang Salt Company, stood up.

"Only merchants who have obtained the wholesale license from our Da'ei Salt Industry Group can participate in this bidding."

"There are a total of twenty companies that have qualified to bid this time. I will announce the list below: Wang Wende..."

Although Wang Wende guessed that he should be qualified to bid, he did not expect that his name would be the first to be read.

From this point of view, he is considered to be well qualified and trustworthy in the eyes of the government.

But having the qualification to bid does not mean that he will be qualified as a wholesaler, so he quickly thought about countermeasures.

When Chen Jitai announced the list, most of the twenty big businessmen who had qualified to bid were flushed with excitement.

After all, being able to obtain this bidding qualification represents the official recognition of their financial resources and credibility.

Even if he fails to obtain wholesaler qualifications in the end, if the news spreads, it will be a face-saving matter in the Lianghuai business community.

"Next, I will announce the specific rules for the bidding."

"We have divided the transportation and sales areas of Huaiyang Salt Company into ten areas. In addition to the area under official responsibility, the other nine areas are participating in this bidding."

"At the same time, we will provide a minimum deposit for wholesale operations in these nine areas and secretly reserve a maximum deposit amount."

"Everyone bids on the spot with a secret note, writing down the area you want to bid on and the amount of deposit you are willing to pay."

“Then the bidder with a deposit amount closest to the highest amount we set for the area will be the winning bidder.”

“But if the amount written exceeds the maximum amount, it will be invalid.”

"If the deposits written on the secret sheets of bidders in a certain area exceed the predetermined maximum amount, the bidding for that area will be restarted until someone wins the bid."

"In addition, a wholesaler can only be responsible for one area, and you cannot select multiple items when bidding."

"The bidding rules are as above, do you have any questions?"

Although the salt merchants present were afraid of the government, especially since several large salt merchants had their homes confiscated in the past few days, they thought that this matter involved money. After everyone whispered for a few words, some people still had the courage to ask questions.

A salt merchant bowed his hands and said, "May I ask Co-organizer Chen, what is this deposit used for?"

Chen Jitai said: "As the name suggests, the deposit is to allow wholesalers to guarantee the total sales volume of salt in the area where they win the bid."

"To take an extreme example, the imperial court handed over the annual salt demand of the people in a certain area to a salt merchant. If the salt merchant had evil intentions and deliberately reduced the sales of salt in the area, not only would the imperial salt tax be greatly reduced, but the people's consumption of salt would also be greatly reduced. It will also be very difficult.”

"Afterwards, the salt dealer could even evade responsibility by claiming ignorance. The existence of the deposit meant that the salt dealer must sell a certain amount of salt in the winning bid area that year."

"As long as the total principal of salt transportation and sales in the bidding area exceeds the minimum deposit set by the court, the deposit will be used to offset the wholesaler's cost of purchasing salt."

"If there is any leftover, it will be returned to the salt merchant."

"But if the actual total amount of salt sold is less than the minimum deposit amount, then the court will confiscate the deposit paid by the salt merchant and investigate the reasons for this result."

"If it is due to objective reasons such as natural disasters or man-made disasters, the court will forgive it and refund part of the deposit."

"If the salt merchant takes the initiative to cause this problem, the court will not only disqualify him from bidding next year, but also hold him legally responsible!"

Hear this.

Only then did a group of salt merchants realize that it was not easy to become an official merchant of the Da'ei imperial court and get a share of the salt industry.

But after all, the Da'ei imperial court did not directly ask for a large sum of money from the salt merchants, but it made the salt merchants feel relieved.

It is regarded as accepting the deposit requirements.

Then, another salt merchant braved another question.

"I would like to ask Co-organizer Chen, if someone in the government had an affair with a certain salt merchant and disclosed the maximum deposit amount reserved by the government in advance, how could we win?"

Chen Jitai was obviously displeased upon hearing this and felt that this was a profiteer provoking the authority of the government.

If he had known it beforehand, he would probably not have given this person a good look, and would have even refused to explain.

But at this time, he explained patiently, "The maximum guaranteed price for reservations in the nine major regions will be decided by the general office, myself, and a few people including the Supervisory Salt Censor on the day of the bidding meeting."

"After the decision is made, the relevant documents will be sealed immediately until the bidding conference is completed."

"During this period, several of us will live in the same compound and supervise each other."

"In addition, the documents related to each bidding process and results will be sent to the Salt Industry Group and the Supervisory Office for review to ensure compliance and reasonableness."

"So, do you still have any questions?"

To be honest, although what Chen Jitai said is strict, it cannot prevent the occurrence of corruption incidents involving collusion between government and businessmen - even in later generations, such things will be difficult to prevent.

But none of the big salt merchants present were stupid, and no one wanted to go against the court—at least no one did so openly.

Therefore, after hearing what Chen Jitai said, the person who asked the question hurriedly said, "I have no doubts."

Other salt merchants also nodded slightly, indicating their approval of this system.

Chen Jitai looked around at the salt merchants and said, "If you have no other questions, we will start this bidding."

No one asked any more questions and the bidding began.

In the end, except for Wang Wende, Cheng Xinyan and another veteran salt merchant from Shanxi who won the bid, the remaining six areas were basically divided up by "newcomers".

Among these six newcomers, one each came from the two major business gangs of Huizhou merchants and Shanxi merchants, and the remaining four came from other places.

It can be said that it broke the monopoly of Huai merchants and Shanxi merchants on the transportation and sales of Huai salt in one fell swoop...

on the way home.

Wang Wende, who won the bid, was not happy.

Because not all of the areas he selected were areas that the Wang family had previously operated. In fact, none of the nine Huai salt wholesale areas designated by the government completely overlapped with his traditional distribution area.

The difference is just that a certain area overlaps more and a certain area overlaps less.

The same situation happened to several other senior salt merchants.

This was obviously intentional by the Da'ei imperial court.

Not to mention how long Xiu Yiwei and other government officials had secretly investigated several of their major salt merchants.

Just during the few days they spent "drinking tea" in Xiuyiwei, they spilled all their secrets.

In this way, the Da'ei imperial court naturally knew their traditional shipping and marketing areas very clearly.

In order to break their strong influence on the salt industry in a certain area, they deliberately divided their traditional distribution areas.

Seeing this, Wang Wende originally intended to buy a wholesale area that accounted for the largest proportion of the Wang family's traditional transportation and sales area, so as to facilitate his own business.

As a result, there was a mistake in estimating the margin, and a "newcomer" took advantage of the margin.

Later, he repeatedly participated in the bidding, and finally bought the second largest wholesale area in the Wang family's traditional distribution area.

But the amount of the deposit he wrote in the tender document was quite close to the maximum amount of deposit set by the government.

The maximum deposit amount set by the government is similar to Wang Wende's estimate of the wholesale area's maximum salt profit in a year.

This means that the Wang family may not make much money this year, and may even suffer some losses.

Originally, the Wang family, as one of the top officials and merchants in Huaiyan, could earn millions of taels of silver every year just sitting at home.

Nowadays, we have to work hard to reopen the transportation and sales routes, not to mention that we may not be able to make much money in a year, and we may even lose money.

The changes have been so drastic that Wang Wende naturally couldn't be happy.

As for giving up the salt business?
Not really.

Wang Wende believes that as long as a group of people who can adapt to the new rules can be trained as soon as possible, it is best to buy bids from the same wholesale area next year to save transportation and marketing costs. After one year, you can still make some money.

As for how big the profit margin is, he is not sure now. He will have to try it to find out.

Wait until you get home.

Wang Wende already has some ideas in mind.

Therefore, without even taking a sip of the tea, he said to the old servant who was waiting with him: "Send someone to summon the big shopkeeper and the big manager who are responsible for the salt business at home."

"Yes!"

···
The grass grows and the orioles fly.

Before we knew it, March was here.

Nanjing Forbidden City.

Tianxin Palace.

Liu Sheng was looking through the memorials sent by Lin Jiading, Xu Du and others from Yangzhou.

Because of sufficient preparation in advance, six former Ming Huai salt officials and merchants in Yangzhou were raided!

Dozens of small and medium-sized salt merchants were inspected!
In addition, some other large and wealthy households involved in the case were also confiscated. This time the court actually confiscated a lot of money in Yangzhou.

Among them, there are more than 156 million taels of gold alone, and the amount of silver is as high as 5278 million taels!

However, Liu Sheng was not very surprised by this number.

According to some documents from the pre-Ming Dynasty and information from the Xiuyiwei survey, it can be inferred that in the last years of Wanli, the total annual trade volume of Huaiyan salt was likely to be as high as 30 million taels of silver!
But why did the Ming Dynasty collect up to several hundred thousand taels of salt tax in Lianghuai and Huaihe Rivers a year?

Not only because of the abolition of the Salt Law, but also because of rampant illicit salt sales.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Huai salt market accounted for almost half of the world, but the share of official salt was probably only one-tenth.

That's three to four million taels.

Under such circumstances, the profits from Huai salt were naturally captured by the salt merchants involved in the private salt trade.

In fact, although the Gangyun Law was implemented in the last years of Wanli, salt smuggling was quite rampant as early as the middle of the Ming Dynasty.

Some large salt merchants are engaged in the official salt business on the surface, but secretly they are mainly engaged in the private salt business.

In some cases, the price of official salt was deliberately set high, and sand was mixed into the official salt to make it inferior in quality, so that people would buy private salt.

In the past few decades, many salt merchants, mainly the Hui merchants and Shanxi merchants, have earned millions of dollars in property.

The Da'ei imperial court captured the most greedy group of salt merchants this time, and it was not unusual to seize so much money at once.

In fact, among the properties of the salt merchants that were confiscated, the gold and silver were still small, and the bulk consisted of real estate such as fields, houses, shops, and gardens, as well as antiques, calligraphy, paintings, and other treasures.

The total value of these non-gold and silver properties is estimated to be less than 100 million taels, but may be as high as tens of millions taels.

It can be said that this big move against Huaiyan merchants alone basically solved the financial expenditure of Damei for one year.

Moreover, this is only an action against Huaiyan salt merchants. Even though the market size of the remaining Southwest Well Salt, Changlu Salt, and Southeast Sea Salt is not as large as that of Huaiyan Salt, the total trade volume in total is still large.

After the related actions of these major salt companies are completed, the Da'ei imperial court will definitely be able to increase the revenue of hundreds of millions of taels of silver to the national treasury by confiscating the properties of illegal salt merchants.

therefore.

After reading this memorial, Liu Sheng couldn't help but sigh inexplicably, "It's a pity that this kind of thing can only happen once...or once in decades?"

For a moment, he was inexplicably moved.

But Liu Sheng thought about it and gave up the temptation to harvest the salt merchant's property every few decades.

It’s not that I feel sorry for the salt merchant.

But because if you want to harvest the wealth of illegal salt merchants, it means that you must first relax the salt merchants and squeeze the people.

To put it bluntly, salt merchants can make so much money mainly by squeezing people and eroding national taxes.

If the Da'ei imperial court uses this method to obtain large amounts of fiscal revenue, it will not only increase the living burden of the people, but also damage the country's fiscal and tax base.

Such as the Southern and Northern Song Dynasties, such as Dai Qing.

Therefore, when it comes to the salt tax, although the Qian Ming Dynasty set a bad example, the Song and Qing Dynasties could not learn from it either.

For Liu Sheng, a later generation, it would be a step backward to learn from the Song and Qing Dynasties.

Because he knew very well that in later generations when industry developed, salt tax accounted for only a negligible part of national tax revenue.

If you want to increase fiscal revenue, instead of focusing on the salt tax and squeezing the people, you should spend more time developing technology and industry.

Thinking of this, Liu Sheng shifted his attention to Xu Du's memorial.

This memorial mainly tells the life changes of a generation of people in Yangzhou after the implementation of the Salt Law and New Deal.

Yangzhou Prefecture is an important producing area of ​​Huaiyan salt. The poor people here used to be able to eat salt.

But what I eat is coarse salt, and I don’t want to use it more.

Nowadays, the price of low-grade coarse salt in Yangzhou has dropped to two cents per catty, ordinary fine salt has dropped to twenty cents per catty, and even the best snowflake salt has dropped to fifty cents per catty.

In addition, in the past two or three years, the lives of most people in Yangzhou Prefecture have been much better.

So now that the price of salt has dropped, most people can use fine salt to cook meals every day.

After all, although fine salt costs 20 cents per catty, one pound of salt can be enough to feed a family of four for a month.

In coastal areas, the proportion of fishermen drying salted fish has also greatly increased. This is because salt prices have dropped and salted fish is more profitable, so fishermen are naturally willing to make more salted fish.

Suddenly, the guards outside the palace came in.

"Your Majesty, Commander Ma has something urgent to ask for."

Ma Jinshui?
Could it be that there is some important news coming from Qinglu or Pseudo-Shun?
Liu Sheng's heart moved and he said, "Let him come in."

"Yes."

The guards went out and soon led Ma Jinshui into the hall. (End of chapter)