Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 633 Salt Gang and Cao Gang

"Students understand." Wen Qing hurriedly said.

"You should prepare well these few days. In a few days, the public opinion will be almost ready. Then we will go to Shandong together, and I will also visit the shipyard." Li Jing said.

Wen Qing nodded, thought for a while and asked: "Marshal, how do you plan to go? The students arrange your itinerary, and then prepare for the boat school."

Li Jing smiled: "There is no need to arrange in advance, you have to arrange it in advance, and the people below will be ready, and I will not be able to see many things."

After pondering for a while, Li Jing continued: "However, when I go out of the capital with the emperor, it is impossible for the people below to hear the news, so I have to set up a ecstasy formation for the people below. In this way, help me figure out how to hide it the people below."

"This..." Wen Qing pondered for a while and said, "Unless the general and the emperor's uniforms go first, and the guard of honor of the general and the emperor follows behind, but then the safety of the general and the emperor must be carefully arranged."

Li Jing smiled and said: "This is a good idea. Safety is not a problem. I will let Xiao Wu bring a few capable team members to go with me and the emperor. With Xiao Wu protecting me and the emperor, there is no need to worry about safety. Let's do it like this! You, Xiaojiu, and the prince followed with the empress and the guard of honor, and the emperor and I led Pingzhi and Xiaowu to go first."

Wen Qing thought for a while and said: "The student has to tell General Zhou, otherwise, General Zhou will not be able to see anyone, and we will all be scolded."

"Okay, just tell Zhou Huhu and ask him to keep it secret. As for the local officials asking for an interview, just say that the emperor and I are unwell." Li Jingting nodded.

After pondering for a while, Li Jing said again: "Let's go to Tianjin Wei first when we go out of Beijing, and buy a batch of grain in Tianjin, and then we go straight to Rongshanwei Shipyard. After seeing the shipyard, the emperor and I will go ahead. The technicians will stay in the shipyard, let Cheng En and Xiao Jiu follow the empress along the road to help the disaster, you can draw up the route, don't take the same road as me and the emperor."

"Yes!" Wen Qing hurriedly said.

A few days later, Li Jing gave a clear account of all the affairs in the court, and then he, Zhu Youjian, Empress Zhou, a group of accompanying officials and a group of guards left Beijing for a tour.

Two days later, Li Jing and others arrived in Tianjin Wei. Seeing the change of Tianjin Weiyi's old appearance, Li Jing was in a good mood. He and Zhu Youjian immediately met with Tianjin Weiyi officials and several business leaders.

In the main hall of Tianjin Weixin Yamen, Li Jing and Zhu Youjian sat side by side in the middle, flipping through the account books sent by the officials, smiling and nodding from time to time.

After looking at it for a while, Zhu Youjian smiled and said to Li Jing: "Brother Li, I didn't expect Tianjin Wei to collect so much tax in just half a year. I think that in half a year, the capital invested by the court will be recovered."

Li Jing smiled and said: "I want to build Tianjin Wei into a trade operation center in the north, but the supplies here are only enough to supply the capital and surrounding areas, which is far from what I expected.

I took a look just now. The main reason is that Tianjin’s storage capacity is insufficient to store too many materials. In addition, the size of the terminal is too small, and many ships cannot dock, which affects the entry and exit of goods, so we have to increase investment. Don't be eager for quick success, and you can't be satisfied with the current tax revenue. "

Zhu Youjian nodded slightly when he heard the words.

Putting the account book back on the table, Li Jing looked at the officials in the hall and said with a smile, "Tell me, what's the problem, I'm here today to solve the problem for everyone."

All the officials in the hall looked at each other, and no one dared to speak for a moment.

No wonder, normally, even the highest-ranking officials of Tianjin Wei are not qualified to see Li Jing and Zhu Youjian, let alone the officials below. an official.

Hearing Li Jing's questions now, especially asking them what difficulties they have, how dare these people speak out?

Seeing that everyone was silent, Li Jing smiled and said: "I'm not a tiger, why are you still afraid that I cannibalize people? I'm going to say something ugly, if I ask you today if you have any difficulties, don't tell me. I'll come back later. If there is no big change here, I will ask for guilt."

Hearing Li Jing's simple words and extremely kind attitude, the tension in everyone's hearts could not help but be greatly relieved.

After taking a sip of tea lightly, Li Jing said with a smile: "Wang Jingtang, you are the head of the Construction Department of the Ministry of Industry and responsible for the supervision of various projects in Tianjin Wei. Tell me what difficulties you have now."

Hearing the name of Li Jingtang, Wang Jingtang hurriedly got up and said: "Since the commander-in-chief wants to speak humblely, then the humble official should speak up boldly."

Li Jing smiled and waved his hands, "But it's okay to say."

Wang Jingtang bowed and gave a salute: "Marshal, in fact, your master Fang has explained your idea carefully to Beizhi. After Beizhi arrived in Tianjin Wei, he also planned to build a large-scale construction project and complete the errand explained by him in one step. However, Beizhi When I started working, I realized that things were not as simple as I thought, mainly because we couldn’t recruit so many workers. There was not enough manpower, and I could only do one by one.”

"There are no workers?" Li Jing couldn't help being surprised when he heard the words: "When I came last year, there were thousands of people living outside this city. How could there be no workers?"

Wang Jingtang smiled wryly and said: "The commander-in-chief didn't know something. At first, he thought it was not difficult to recruit workers in a humble position, but he didn't know that the people here are organized when they waited for the recruitment.

The people here are divided into two groups. One group is called the Salt Gang, and there are about 400 people. They are responsible for transporting most of the salt in Changlu Salt Factory, and it is said that they also sell it.

The other group called themselves the Cao Gang, and there were about 700 people. These people depended on water transport for food. Most of the water transport ships belonged to the Cao Gang, and they also loaded and unloaded the water transport goods, and no one else could touch them. "

Li Jing couldn't help frowning upon hearing this.

Li Jing, an organization called the Salt Gang, had heard of it before, and it originated earlier, dating back to the Han Dynasty.

The original salt gang was actually a salt merchant organization recognized by the government. The imperial court issued salt quotations to some merchants, and the merchants sold official salt for the imperial court.

Later, officials in charge of salt colluded with each other and sold official salt privately, and later, officials and businessmen colluded to sell official salt privately for huge profits.

In the end, it was completely using the government's salt to sell private salt.At this time, the Salt Gang is equivalent to holding the imperial court's license to engage in smuggling business by itself. To put it bluntly, they are smuggling salt dealers.

In addition, the reason why the Salt Gang has been able to last for nearly a thousand years is not entirely due to the salt merchants. After all, every time the dynasty changes, the imperial court will support a group of merchants again.

Those who really support the Salt Gang are those salt people who rely on the salt industry for their livelihood, including workers who boil salt, dry salt, and transport salt, all belong to this organization.Because no matter who is in power, who is in charge of salt affairs, or who sells salt, they cannot do without these people.In other words, the Salt Gang has monopolized the entire production, transportation and sales of the salt industry, which is why the Salt Gang has survived for thousands of years.

At the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty, Zhang Shicheng was from the Salt Gang. Unable to bear the oppression of the government, he called his brothers and some comrades to kill the Yan officials and rebelled.

Li Jing knew a little about the affairs of the Salt Gang, and he didn't pay much attention to the salt people who depended on the salt industry for their livelihood. These people were ordinary people, and as long as they had enough to eat, they wouldn't cause any trouble.

What Li Jing suppressed were salt merchants who sold private salt, and Li Jing suppressed private salt by lowering the price of official salt.Since the price of official salt has been greatly reduced, even lower than that of private salt, it is not profitable to sell private salt, and private salt has naturally disappeared.

In addition, Li Jing's supervision of the salt factory is very strict, and the punishment for the malpractice of salt factory officials is also extremely severe. Officials of the salt factory dare not sell official salt privately.

Since Li Jing came to power, the income of the salt industry has been rising steadily. Li Jing has rarely heard of any problems in the salt industry, so he doesn't care about the Salt Gang.

As for the Cao Gang, Li Jing has never heard of it, and no one has reported to him that there is such an organization.

After thinking for a while, Li Jing asked: "Wang Jingtang, when did this Cao Gang appear and who organized it, do you know?"

Wang Jingtang hurriedly said: "Reporting to Commander-in-Chief, I have inquired about it. This canal gang was established last year. It was established after the Commander-in-Chief ordered the dredging of the canal so that the food from the south could pass through the canal to the North Canal. I heard that the initiators were several A big grain merchant, it is said that there are grain supervisors in various provinces."

"Is the initiator a grain merchant?" Li Jing couldn't help thinking when he heard this.

If the Cao Gang is organized by the government, the court can still control it, but it is not a good thing if it is organized by businessmen.

You must know that the canal stretches for thousands of miles and passes through several provinces, and the water transportation is all in charge of the water gang. Once these people go on strike and quit, there will be great chaos in the provinces along the canal, and even the provinces that indirectly rely on water transportation to transport materials.For example, there is a locust plague in Henan and Shandong. Once the Cao Gang goes on strike and stops working, the people in these two provinces will go hungry.

Now that the Cao Gang has just been established, its foundation is not yet stable. Once these people gain a foothold and threaten the government with water transport, or even threaten the court, the court may have to look at the faces of these people.At that time, the imperial court could no longer control the price of grain.Similarly, if the Salt Gang goes on strike, it will become a problem for the people all over the country to eat salt.

Wanting to clarify this verse, Li Jing asked in a deep voice: "Wang Jingtang, that means that the people working at Tianjin Wei Wharf have joined the Salt Gang and the Cao Gang?"

Wang Jingtang hurriedly said: "Most of them joined the Salt Gang and the Cao Gang. Those who didn't join didn't have any work. Because of the competition for jobs, there have been several fights at the dock. But the Salt Gang and the Cao Gang are both There are so many people, and the idle common people can't beat them at all. So in order to get jobs, more people joined the Salt Gang and Cao Gang.

The workers recruited by humble jobs are those idle people, but there are not many idle people who can work here, so they can only recruit workers from the surrounding areas. However, the surrounding areas of Tianjin Wei are sparsely populated, and it is really difficult to recruit workers. "

Li Jingjing nodded, and then asked: "Why don't those who joined the Salt Gang and the Cao Gang refuse to work here? Is someone not letting them come out to work?"

"The main reason is that there are too many boats coming and going here, and the people of the two gangs are not worried about having no work to do, but it is not ruled out that the two gangs will not let the people below do other jobs, because sometimes the docks can't pick up jobs. When they are not working, these people do not come to work here." Wang Jingtang said.

(End of this chapter)