The most reckless man in the Ming Dynasty.

Chapter 385 Hui Merchants Take Action
Xu Mengchun looked at a middle-aged man.

This person was dressed like a scholar, and was gently waving a folding fan in his hand.

"Hu Wenchang, it's time for you to take action!"

Hearing this, everyone present was shocked.

Because this Hu Wenchang is not a simple person, but the son of the Huizhou merchant Hu family and the future successor of the entire Huizhou merchant group.

Huizhou is located at the "head of Wu and the tail of Chu", a marginal area with high mountains, dense forests, varied terrain, and was developed relatively late.

Before the Han Dynasty, the population was small, but at the end of the Jin Dynasty, the end of the Song Dynasty, the end of the Tang Dynasty and three other immigration waves in Chinese history, a large number of people migrated from the north to Huizhou in southern Anhui.

With a large population and many mountains and little land, what should we do? Going abroad to do business is the only way out.

The earliest Huizhou merchants dealt in mountain products and grain from other places. For example, they used the abundant wood resources for construction, ink, paint, tung oil, and papermaking, which were the bulk commodities shipped abroad. The famous teas included Qimen Red and Wuyuan Green. The main businesses outside the province were salt, cotton (cloth), grain, etc.

Hui merchants with huge wealth began to appear in the Pre-Song Dynasty. The brothers Cheng Chengjin and Cheng Chenghai of Qimen became rich through business and were respectively called "the Great Duke of Shiwan" and "the Second Duke of Shiwan", and collectively known as "Cheng Shiwan".

The shops and inns run by Zhu Xi's maternal grandfather Zhu Que accounted for half of Huizhou Prefecture (She County), and were known as "Zhu Banzhou"!
During the war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Jiang Jia, a businessman from She County, lent money at high interest rates in Huizhou and made huge profits.

The capital of Huizhou merchants in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty increased greatly compared to the Song Dynasty. When Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang entered Anhui and was short of money, Jiang Yuan, a native of She, donated 100,000 taels of silver at one time, which was a huge fortune.

Therefore, Huizhou merchants became synonymous with wealth in this era.

Hui merchants do not refer only to merchants from Anhui Province, but also include the Huaiyang area of ​​Jiangsu Province.

Because of the availability of salt in the Huaiyang area, countless big salt merchants were born, and salt merchants were the richest representatives of this era.

In the Ming Dynasty, if you wanted to obtain salt permits, you had to transport grain to the nine important towns in the border areas. But soon after, this was forced to change because private salt was prevalent, and the court officials arbitrarily petitioned the emperor to occupy and monopolize the salt market, resulting in the distribution of salt permits far exceeding the salt industry's production capacity.

This forced a large number of merchants in border areas to have salt permits but no salt to collect. They could only wait at the salt fields for new salt to be produced. Some even had to wait for decades. This greatly dampened the enthusiasm of merchants in border areas to transport grain to support the border areas, making the implementation of the Kaizhong Law difficult and difficult to operate as well as it had during the Hongwu and Yongle periods.

And the most important point is that the court implemented the tax collection and gave away part of the salt profits to merchants. However, due to various reasons, the court did not achieve the expected goal. The number of merchants supplying grain to the border decreased. Although the court had clearly given out salt, the military expenditures of the nine border garrisons continued to grow, resulting in an increase in the court's fiscal expenditures, which eventually led to an empty treasury.

Therefore, in the fifth year of Hongzhi, Ye Qi, who was the Minister of Finance of Emperor Hongzhi at that time, under the impetus of the forces behind the scenes, proposed the method of paying silver to obtain salt permits, changing "paying grain and getting salt permits" to "paying silver and getting salt permits", which is the so-called "Zhese Method".

After Ye Qi's reform, it was stipulated that merchants no longer needed to transport military supplies and grain to border towns. They could obtain salt permits by paying silver to the national treasury.

Therefore, in the past, if these salt merchants wanted to do salt business, they had to transport grain to the border towns in exchange for salt permits, which undoubtedly facilitated the Shanxi merchants living near the border military towns.

After Ye Qi's reform, merchants no longer needed to go to border towns. They could directly exchange silver for salt permits and then resell them for profit. Hui merchants were located in the most prosperous Jiangnan region, and Lianghuai had the world's largest salt field. The Jiangnan region has been the most important grain producing area since ancient times, so gradually it became difficult to separate these salt merchants and grain merchants. The same was true for Hui merchants. They were both big salt merchants and big grain merchants, which was undoubtedly extremely convenient.

The Hu family is a representative family among the Huizhou merchants and also the most powerful family. The family power is extremely large and has extremely huge influence throughout the Ming Dynasty. Behind it are countless Jiangnan gentry.

It was also because of this that Hu Wenchang, as a son of a merchant, was able to sit together and discuss matters with court officials such as Xu Mengchun.

Xu Mengchun said calmly: "It's not good to have too much money on it." "Ever since the emperor sent Zhongshan Hou Tang Hao to sweep across Japan and build East China Sea trade, carts of gold, silver and jewelry have been sent to the treasury, and the result is that the emperor is gradually getting out of control and restraint!"

"When he wants to fight a war, he fights a war. When he wants to provide disaster relief, he provides disaster relief. Even if the national treasury is out of money and grain, he still has money and grain in his private treasury. He can completely bypass the gentry and act without considering their opinions at all. He won't listen to them. This is the most troublesome part!"

"You should know that an emperor of the Ming Dynasty who is unrestrained and uncontrolled is like this. Emperor Taizu Gao, Emperor Taizong Wen, and Emperor Chenghua were all like this. No one will have a good life when that happens!"

“So, this time we must find a way to teach the young emperor a lesson, so that he can regain his respect for the gentry!”

Upon hearing this, Hu Wenchang smiled and looked excited.

Teaching the Ming Emperor a lesson, this is really exciting!

"Whatever you want us to do, just tell us!"

"This time, we, the Huizhou merchants, will definitely give our full support and will not let the emperor continue to mess around!"

Xu Mengchun nodded with satisfaction and then smiled.

"In fact, the current emperor is quite kind and benevolent. He is diligent in his work and loves his people. He is very compassionate to the people. I have received news that famine has occurred in northern Zhili, Shanxi, Shandong and other places in recent days. With the kindness of his majesty, he will certainly do his best to provide disaster relief."

"But the treasury is empty. The grain in the treasury has long dropped to the red line and cannot be used. At that time, the officials in the court will definitely ask the emperor to use his own treasury. Then we can use this disaster relief to drain the emperor's treasury all at once!"

"Of course, how to do it specifically depends on you Huizhou merchants!"

Hu Wenchang nodded after hearing this.

"It's very simple!"

"The Emperor's treasury is only a mere one million taels of silver. It is simply not enough to withstand the absorption of our Huizhou merchants!"

Hu Wenchang's tone was very arrogant and he looked down upon even one million taels of silver, but he naturally had the confidence to say that!

It was not because he was arrogant, but because each of these big salt merchants and grain merchants was as rich as a country. Compared with them, the Ming court and the Ming emperor were just poor beggars.

Especially among the Ming emperors after Zhengtong, when it came to Emperor Hongzhi, they were basically poorer than the last.

The reason is very simple. The civil officials and gentry have become more and more powerful in controlling the government. All the money and grain go into their pockets. Naturally, the court will become poorer and poorer, and the people will also become poorer and poorer!
The court and the emperor are poor, so it is easy to restrain and control the civil officials and gentry. Otherwise, like the current Emperor Zhengde, once he becomes rich, he will be out of control!
Zhu Houzhao and Tang Hao had no other choice but to earn military funds through the East China Sea trade. Unfortunately, they have now been targeted by the gentry!

"I won't ask you how to act!"

"But the goal must be clear. We must drain the emperor's coffers dry so that he will have no choice but to bow to us!"

(End of this chapter)