Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

"Over a million taels, this is a lot of money!"

Zhu Youjian sighed at the standing meeting to deal with the affairs of the Ministry of Revenue.

The silver sent by Yuan Shizhen solved the urgent need to reward meritorious officials, and also gave the Privy Council the capital to build new firearms.

This made Zhu Youjian feel that he had not recognized the wrong person. He was very happy and said immediately:
"Among the three heroes of the early Han Dynasty, Xiao He ranked first because he helped Emperor Gaozu of Han to solve the problem of money and grain."

"Yuan Shizhen also made contributions to this war, and he was granted the title of hereditary knight and allowed to open up territories overseas."

"I hope he will continue to work hard and raise the salt tax revenue for the entire South."

This reward also made Bi Ziyan and other ministers of the Ministry of Revenue feel honored.

Because this is the honor of the entire Ministry of Revenue, it means that they may also be granted titles by the emperor by solving financial problems.

Han Yu felt even more comfortable because he was in charge of the Finance and Economics Committee, which was responsible for taxation. When the emperor mentioned Xiao He, he was talking about him.

If he could put down the Jianlu Rebellion, he would definitely be among the first few to be rewarded when meritorious officials are awarded in the future.

This made him try to recommend him to the emperor:

"Your Majesty, Yuan Shizhen's law has been successful."

"I think he could be transferred to the imperial court to take charge of the Salt Administration."

"The Salt Industry Group is not running smoothly, so it is better to implement the Gang Law for all of them."

This made Zhu Youjian frown, and his good mood was ruined.

Why was the Salt Industry Group not operating smoothly? Doesn’t Han Yu know the reason?

This made him stare at Han Yu with eyes as sharp as knives.

For a moment, the cheerful atmosphere in the Wenhua Hall quickly turned cold.

Many officials did not know why the emperor changed his face so suddenly.

The Minister of Revenue, Bi Ziyan, knew the reason.

The obstacle to the establishment of the Salt Industry Group came from Shanxi businessmen.

In particular, the Zhang family from which Zhang Siwei came and the Wang family from which Wang Chonggu came, one of the two families controlled Changlu and the other controlled Hedong, and their assets amounted to hundreds of millions.

They naturally wanted to resist the salt group established by the imperial court. The auction of the salt company's operating rights was also very unsuccessful.

Han Yu was Zhang Siwei's son-in-law. He proposed to implement the Gangfa throughout the country, which obviously had selfish motives.

Zhu Youjian also thought so. Under his stern gaze, Han Yu felt very uncomfortable.

Although the imperial court did not completely achieve victory in the war against the Jianlu in the year of Jisi, it swept away the previous decline and became able to fight back against the Jianlu.

This obviously raised the emperor's prestige. Even he, the prime minister, could not bear the emperor's gaze.

This made him hurriedly explain:
"The court is short of money and grain. I think we should solve the financial difficulties first."

"The Gang Law was implemented smoothly in the south, and it will surely be implemented in the north as well."

"If the Gang Law is implemented throughout the country, I think we can get at least 2 million taels of salt tax every year."

"Compared to the previous 1.1 million, it is nearly doubled."

This was the reason why he proposed to implement the Gangfa, and he believed that he was indeed considering the court's revenue.

When Zhu Youjian heard Han Yu's words, he could hardly hold back his high fives and praised him. If he were an emperor who didn't know the inside story, he would have been moved by Han Yu's words and implemented the Gang Law in an all-round way.

However, knowing the pros and cons of the Qing Dynasty's implementation of the Gang Law, he was certainly unwilling to fully implement the Gang Law, which would cause endless troubles. He asked Han Yu:
"When the salt tax was at its highest, how much did you earn a year?"

"After the implementation of the Gang Law, how does it compare to it?"

Han Yu did not answer, Bi Ziyan replied for him:

"During the early years of the Wanli reign, the salt tax reached a maximum of two million."

"Among them, one million are transported to the Ministry of Transport, half a million are transported to the military towns, 220,000 are transported to the military guards, and 280,000 are left."

"Later, the salt law was severely damaged, and the price gradually dropped to more than 1.2 million. Last year, it was only 1.1 million."

"If we strictly follow the old system, we can also earn two million."

This means that the implementation of the Gang Law will not actually increase the court's revenue, but will make tax collection more efficient.

The reason for this change is that when Yuan Shizhen implemented the Gang Law, he promised the so-called "occupying the nest":
As long as the salt merchants leave their names in the register, they can "use it as their capital forever and ever."

This method is obviously beneficial to the big salt merchants. They only need to establish good relations with the Salt Administration Office to occupy the capital and pass on their family business from generation to generation.

In order to keep their names on the list, they dared not default on the payment of salt tax to avoid losing their registration books.

As for the collection of salt tax, it seems to be a good thing at the moment.

But in the long run, it locked the upper limit of the salt industry and fixed the structure of the salt industry.

Even if the population increases in the future and more people eat salt, the salt merchants will not take the initiative to pay more silver. The entire salt industry will not change much and will always be dominated by certain salt merchant families.

This is also the reason why salt merchants were famous for their wealth during the Qing Dynasty, which implemented the Gang Law.

If Yuan Shizhen had not previously implemented the Gang Law in Lianghuai, the court would have been in urgent need of money. Zhu Youjian did not want to implement this method at all to stabilize the salt industry.

What he hoped more was to use the salt group to promote salt monopoly and use the salt sales company to occupy the spot and obtain the monopoly rights in a place.

Compared with the changes in the Gang Law, the only change is that the salt merchants’ names were recorded in the Gang Book instead of the salt companies’ names.

The members of the salt company are not limited to one family. Moreover, half of the shares of the salt company are held by the salt group. The other half will be raised by businessmen and qualified people will participate.

In the future, the salt company's shares will be listed on the stock exchange, allowing a portion of them to circulate, allowing shareholders and the public to supervise the salt company's profits.

This method can also guarantee the court's salt tax revenue. If any company dares to evade taxes, its monopoly will be revoked.

Moreover, under the supervision of shareholders and the public, the Salt Industry Group can still obtain half of the salt sales profits with half of the shares it holds. Salt sales will also be supervised to some extent, and there will be room for improvement as the population increases in the future.

In the future, the court will be able to collect salt taxes by setting up specialized companies to supply the food processing, medical, chemical and other industries with salt.

Moreover, the Salt Group can rely on its half of the shares to strengthen its control over the salt industry and prevent certain salt merchants from acting recklessly and affecting social stability.

Bi Ziyan and other officials in the Ministry of Revenue, who knew the pros and cons, were very supportive of this. However, when it was implemented, it encountered major problems.

The Zhang family and the Wang family, families that controlled the salt industry in the north, were obviously unwilling to only control a local salt company or even become just one of the shareholders.

They joined forces with the nobles and relatives of the emperor who were involved in the salt industry and came up with various ways to boycott the Salt Company, making the auction of the Salt Company's shares very difficult to execute.

Officials from the Ministry of Revenue also disagreed with Han Yu's proposal to implement the Gangfa in the north, because it would obviously benefit large families such as the Zhang and Wang families, but would be detrimental to the Salt Administration.

Han Yu wanted to explain himself, but he knew that because of his relationship with the Zhang family, whatever he said would be wrong. He could only remain silent and let the officials of the Ministry of Revenue interpret his views.

After Bi Ziyan came forward, Zhu Youjian nodded approvingly and continued:

"How much salt does the Ming Dynasty consume every year?" "According to the tax rate set by the court, how much salt tax should be collected in a year?"

Bi Ziyan responded:
"The Ming Dynasty currently has more than 51 million people..."

Zhu Youjian interrupted him and said:

"According to 100 million!"

"Shaanxi immigrants have shown that the actual population of the Ming Dynasty is more than twice the statistics."

This is a well-known fact. Bi Ziyan could not calculate with more than 50 million people. He recalculated according to the emperor's request:

"Based on a population of 100 million, each person needs about 10 kilograms of salt per year, which means 100 million kilograms for 100 million people."

"Salt taxes vary from place to place. The price of salt permits in Lianghuai is the highest. The permit price is five cents, and one permit contains 285 kilograms."

"Salt permits in Shandong are the cheapest, at 205 cents per permit, and one permit carries jin."

"The price of Changlu is slightly higher, and the price is two coins, and one leash is also 205 jin."

Such a complicated tax system made Zhu Youjian frown and said:

"The old system weighs 205 jin, so according to the new system it should be around 200 jin, right?"

Bi Ziyan calculated and said:

"According to the new system, it is about 203.5 catties. The weight of the rope is about 3.5 catties, so the actual salt is 200 catties."

This made Zhu Youjian nod his head and say:
"Then use this as the standard. One ton of salt is set at 200 catties, plus 203.5 catties for the rope. An error of one and a half catties is allowed, but no error is allowed."

"The salt tax is directly included in the salt permit. The permit price is uniformly set at two cents, which includes 200 kilograms of salt. That means one kilogram of salt is taxed at one cent."

"If we consume 1 billion catties of salt every year, the imperial court will receive 1 million taels of silver in salt tax."

This number caused a stir among the officials of the Ministry of Revenue, because it was reduced by half compared to the previous 2 million taels of salt tax.

Li Changgeng, the left assistant minister of the Ministry of Revenue, who was in charge of supervising the frontier pay, could not help but make a suggestion:
"I think if we want to unify the salt tax, the price of a 200-jin salt permit should be set at 4 cents, and a 2-li tax should be levied on one jin of salt."

"This way, one billion catties of salt can collect two million taels of tax silver."

This made the ministers look at each other sideways, because if such words were spread out, they would be scolded.

After all, the salt tax in the capital used to be 1 cent per pound, but now it has been increased to 2 cents per pound, which is likely to be criticized by others.

Before seeing the emperor, taxes must be paid according to the current tax rate in the capital.

Li Changgeng was under everyone's gaze, but he was calm and composed. Because the emperor had said before that even if the Sino-French treaty was not implemented, the salt tax would still be used in the border towns.

After the position of the Minister of Military Pay was abolished, he, the Left Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, was in charge of raising military pay. If the military pay was not paid on time, he would be punished.

Salt tax was so important to military pay that he had to find ways to increase it, so as to avoid being held accountable by the emperor when military pay was insufficient in the future.

Zhu Youjian nodded in approval of Li Changgeng's proposal. He actually wanted to raise the salt tax before, but it was inconvenient to say it.

Now that Li Changgeng had taken the lead, he asked the Prime Minister Han Yu:

"What does Prime Minister Han think?"

"Is there anything desirable in Minister Li's proposal?"

Han Yu opened his mouth and realized that the emperor was obviously asking him to agree and bear the blame for the tax increase.

He was unwilling to do so in his heart, but because the emperor and the officials of the Ministry of Revenue had previously suspected him of selfish motives, he knew he had to express his position, and said bitterly:
"It is imperative to unify the salt tax. I think the price of salt vouchers should be set at four coins."

"In order to prevent the price of salt from skyrocketing among the people, I think we should set up a salt company."

Obviously he had realized that the emperor had set a trap for him to fall into.

If a salt company affiliated to the Salt Group is not established, then after the price of salt permits increases, salt merchants will use this as an excuse to raise the price of salt by more than one cent.

By then, people all over the world will scold him as the Prime Minister and blame him for increasing taxes indiscriminately.

Only by establishing a salt company controlled by the Salt Industry Group can we better control the price of salt and avoid public resentment caused by skyrocketing salt prices.

Zhu Youjian finally nodded with satisfaction and regained his trust in Han Yu.

Thinking of the previous unsuccessful issuance of shares of the Salt Company, he said:

"Since the shares of the salt company cannot be sold, we can simply give them to the meritorious officials."

"The Ministry of Revenue's Salt Administration has formulated a plan to implement a salt monopoly in the north. Salt sales companies in various regions will obtain the right to operate the salt, and each region will have two or three companies competing."

"The cost of salt now is about two cents per jin, which is one cent per jin, plus the two cents salt tax, which is three cents."

"So the minimum price of salt is three cents per pound, and salt companies are not allowed to engage in malicious competition and sell at prices below cost."

Three cents of silver is worth a little more than three coins, and the price of salt in the capital is usually five to ten coins. This is because the capital is close to the Changlu Salt Field, so the freight is cheap.

In order to prevent salt merchants from raising prices arbitrarily after the salt tax was increased, Zhu Youjian said:
"Salt is an important daily necessity. Like the grain industry, it is subject to a maximum selling price limit."

"The price of salt in any place must not exceed one cent of silver per pound, which is twelve copper coins."

"If the price exceeds this, local officials have the right to monitor and apply to the salt industry group to suspend the local salt company's operating rights."

"Salt companies in nearby areas can also obtain temporary operating rights in the area after being authorized. The salt can be mobilized to stabilize the salt price and prevent the high salt price from affecting the livelihoods of ordinary people."

This policy caused heated discussion among the officials in the palace.

The price of salt is limited from 3 cents to 1 cent, which means that the profits of salt merchants will be extremely limited in the future.

Han Yu said with some worry:

"Beijing is close to Changlu Salt Field, so the price can still be set this way."

"But in places with inconvenient transportation, the price of salt is really too low."

“If there are disasters such as floods that make trade difficult, we may even lose money.”

“Some local officials would set up checkpoints to collect salt taxes.”

Zhu Youjian frowned secretly at this kind of statement which was obviously speaking for the salt merchants. But he couldn't ignore the issue of local taxation.

So after considering it, Zhu Youjian said:
"Salt permits will be issued uniformly by the Salt Administration Office in the future as a voucher for tax payment, sale, and transportation."

"With this certificate, local governments are no longer allowed to levy salt taxes privately, nor to block the transportation and sale of salt."

"The number of salt permits will be issued by officials sent by the Salt Administration Office at the salt fields in the future. The price of salt permits will be added directly to the wholesale price of salt, and the salt permits will be attached to salt bags of uniform specifications."

"In principle, there is no limit on the number of salt permits. The number of salt permits issued is based on the amount of salt produced."

"The wholesale price of salt from the salt works shall not exceed 5 cents after including the salt permit."

"If a product is sold at more than twice the cost and still loses money, it means that some people are not suitable for doing business." (End of this chapter)