Ming Zhengzhi, I am Zheng Kezang

Updated: 2012-11-09

Despite the continuous disasters in the south, the city of Nanjing at the end of September was full of people. Merchants from all over the country who won the bid for the official Zhongyan farm came in droves. The slightly depressed market due to the death of Emperor Wu Ding was eliminated.

"Why did you stop?" A voice came from the sedan chair carried by two people.

"If you go back to the master, the road ahead is blocked." The servant standing beside the sedan looked at the two-wheeled carriages that filled the road with hostile eyes, and responded by bowing by the windows on both sides of the sedan. "It looks like a carriage hit someone, and the police are dealing with it."

The curtain covering the car window was opened a crack, and then the passengers in the car looked at the chaos at the street intersection with scrutiny, and there were also intriguing expressions on their faces.That's right, recently, carriages originally made in Dongning have suddenly become popular in Jiangnan. car.These carriages have won the favor of merchants and gentry from all over the world with their exquisite appearance and stability far surpassing that of ox carts. live ads.However, there are still some problems in the use of these carriages, the biggest of which is that the hand cannot pass and pedestrians do not know how to avoid, so traffic accidents often occur when vehicles hit people

Unlike ordinary people's envy and following the trend, the passengers sitting in the sedan chair have actually seen through the inner purpose of Zheng Fan pushing the carriage.Yes, there is a shortage of horses in the south, and there is also a shortage of horse farms suitable for grazing, but if the carriages are booming, the trend of raising horses among the people will also be stimulated, so that it will be relatively convenient for Zheng Fan's military to purchase various horses in the future.

The people in the sedan chair also admired this kind of playing hard to get.However, the conflict between him and Zheng Fan is fundamentally irreconcilable, so the more skillful Zheng Fan is in governing, the higher his hatred value will be.What's more, there were several patrolmen from Yingtianfu at the scene of the accident. If by chance, the other party discovered his appearance---although the portrait on Haizhun's graphic was not the same as his current appearance---that would be a mistake. trouble.

So the person in the sedan chair closed the curtains and rushed out to order: "Turn around and go around Laifeng Lane!"

"Yes!" The servant standing outside responded, and immediately arranged for the bearers to turn around, while cursing softly. "No one who praises the stinky feet of rebellious ministers and thieves is a good thing"

Just as the servants in the sedan chair were uttering curses in a low voice, in the Jiangxi Guild Hall in Yingtian City, a dozen merchants with northern Jiangxi accents were chatting and laughing. Observe carefully, everyone has a look of anxiety on their faces.

"Come on, come on, Master Lu is back." A voice from outside to inside broke the communication in the room, and a servant in Tsing Yi came to the outside of the hall in three steps at a time, and directed at the people in the room bowed and reported. "So that the masters know that Master Lu's carriage and horses have already entered the courtyard."

Before the servant finished speaking, more than a dozen merchants rushed out, but pushed the bewildered Qi to the side.

"All of you, all of you." Facing the chaotic situation of calling from more than a dozen people, it was impossible for the businessman surnamed Lu to answer one by one, so he said after saluting in circles. "Please be quiet, be quiet." With his efforts, the noisy questioning finally calmed down. "If you have anything to say, you'd better go back to the house and talk about it."

Most of the merchants present had seen big scenes before. If the news they were waiting for was not too important, they would not have been so miserable. Now that they have calmed down, they all returned to their original shrewd appearances. The proposal will naturally not be rejected.So, the group returned to the room, removed the residual tea, replaced it with new tea, closed the door, and then started to get down to business.

"Household Department, no, the "Salt Tax Collection Regulations" of the General Shogunate's Salt and Iron Department has been promulgated." The businessman surnamed Lu was the most concerned issue of the people present when he opened his mouth. "In the future, the salt tax will only be collected from the side of the salt field. For every stone, thirty copper coins will be collected."

Although the faces of all the people present were calm, they couldn't hide the joy in their eyes.

You must know that although the so-called "Gang Salt Law" has been in place since the 45th year of Wanli, according to which the imperial court has withdrawn from the direct production and circulation of salt, it still maintains a monopoly on the production and circulation of salt. The core content of the "Gang Salt Law" is "salt introduction". Normally, a salt introduction is [-] catties including packaging utensils. How much is the [-] catties of salt worth?The silver is six cents and four per cent, plus three taels of tax and silver, and three liang of minister (transportation) silver, totaling six taels and six cents and four per cent.This is still the base price. When it is sold to the common people, the salt is already so high that the seller has to add various impurities to lower the price.

In addition, as long as there is no salt quota or the salt that exceeds the salt quota is regarded as illegal salt, once it is found out, it will be confiscated.

As a result, the sale of official salt had to face the problem of high price and low quality, and the illegal salt that was originally tried to be curbed could not be stopped because of huge profits, which in turn encroached on the legitimate income of the official salt seller.

Now Zheng Kezang implements the so-called ban on salt policy, merchants can directly cooperate with kitchen households (i.e. sell salt farms), kitchen households only need to increase production, merchants sell directly, and the profits are distributed according to share capital. It is actually impossible for the imperial court to formulate only one The emergence of price ceilings and extremely low taxes after the production of salt, no longer intervening in the production and sales links, this is tantamount to loosening the two links at the same time, and in fact blocking the channels for private salt, how can this not make The merchants present were gearing up.

Of course, after the legalization of private salt, the price of salt will inevitably drop sharply. However, this part of the income was not in the plan of the salt merchants, but now it can be pocketed openly, which is just right to make up for the original loss.

"In addition, the Ministry of Salt and Iron produced a brochure, which included the salt production of Jiangbei Salt Field, Songchong Salt Field, and East Zhejiang Coastal Salt Field over the years. It was priced at [-] guan, and I bought it on my own. "When some people were still thinking about the pros and cons, the businessman surnamed Lu continued. "This booklet is nothing to Lianghuai salt merchants, and the figures in it may not be accurate, but I think it is worthwhile to laymen like us."

Everyone nodded in agreement with this sentence. After all, with these figures, they can discuss how to mark the price. What's more, compared with the huge cost of auctioning the salt farm, the cost of fifty guan is not even a drop in the bucket, so naturally no one will Raise objections.

"Lu Chaofeng." A businessman stood up and asked at this time. "Didn't you say that when you were accepting sow, you couldn't win the bid, and you could start your own saltworks? What regulations does the Ministry of Salt and Iron have for this?"

"I also asked about this, and several adults from the Ministry of Salt and Iron said that the lot of self-opened saltworks will also be sold this time." Lu knew that some people were not going to bid but directly wanted to open their own saltworks. Hence the admonition. "The land price and start-up fee are indeed much lower than those of the existing salt farms. But the price is low, but you get what you pay for, and the location will never be better. On the other hand, the salt farm has to be rehabilitated , In addition, the lack of veterans is also a big problem."

Some chattering voices began to appear in the room, so the businessman surnamed Lu took a sip from the tea bowl, waited for the noise to subside, and then spoke again: "This time, our Jiangxi businessmen have six opportunities for direct bidding and two joint stock bidding opportunities. Each bidding opportunity can only bid for one salt farm, so it must be negotiated clearly, after all, we are no match for local snakes in Jiangnan, Jiangbei, and northern Zhejiang, if we miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, some people will regret it in the future."

This is true. Zheng Jun’s performance on the battlefield convinced everyone that even if Zheng Kezang could not wipe out the Manchus from the land of China, at least one of the Northern and Southern Dynasties could not escape. If this is the case, then what else You can hesitate, those present are either capable or ambitious, naturally it is impossible to let go of this opportunity

On the first day of October in the fourth year of Wuding, the bidding meeting for the sale of salt fields in Jiangbei and other places was finally held in Yingtianfu City.The Ministry of Salt and Iron contracted a large restaurant in the city as a bidding venue. A total of 190 gentry and businessmen from Jianghuai, Jiangnan, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and other places attended the event in person or sent representatives to participate. The scene was extremely lively.

Before the first moment, the auction will begin.It is more about the sale of the salt farm than the sale of the ownership of coastal tidal flats and sandbars from the south bank of the Sheyang River in the north to Tongzhou and Chongming in the south, as well as the ownership of similar tidal flats in some coastal areas of Ningtai Wen and Songjiang. Not all areas are suitable Salt production, especially in the Ningtaiwen area, has a complex terrain. Historically, the salt-producing areas have been divided and messy, far inferior to the Jiangbei and Songnan areas in Yimapingchuan, so there are many differences in prices.

In addition, according to Zheng Kezang's request, the bidding silver actually consists of two parts, one is the start-up fee for the government, and the other is the redemption silver for the kitchen household Yanding.Among them, after the bidder pays the redemption silver, Zaohu Yanding's residence in the salt area grassland and the privately cultivated land will belong to the bidder. As for whether the bidder is willing to continue to accept employment in the future and what price the bidder will hire, it will be up to the bidder Winners negotiate with themselves.

At the end of the unitary hour, the two-hour auction ended, and all the existing salt farms and the coastlines of the coastal counties except the existing fishing ports and fishing villages were successfully sold, raising a total of 120 and 410 cash. Wen, about 420 guan of income will be used to pay Zaohu Yanding, while the rest will be Zheng Fan's net income.

After the incident spread to Beijing, it caused an uproar, and the Qing government once considered following suit to make money, but was forced to cancel it due to threats from the sea.Kangxi was depressed because the end result of his many years of emigration from the sea was that Zheng Fan had obtained huge profits, and even suffered from a minor illness because of it.