New Shun 1730

Since they don't believe Wu Jingzi's intentions at all, or they don't believe in practice and the chivalry of Yu Rang and others, the salt merchant's situation becomes even more difficult.

Originally I just had to compete with the court in a battle of wits and courage.

Now, we still need to beware of "backyard fires." In particular, beware of Liu Yu using the name of reform to promote the "capital verification and purchase of votes" system, allowing capital groups from Songjiang Prefecture to rush into the salt industry.

Historically, it is difficult to calculate how much money these Yangzhou salt dealers made in the Manchu Qing Dynasty. But the most common and very conservative estimate is 250 million taels to 400 million taels of silver, pure profit, in fifty years.

It goes without saying how profitable the salt industry is. Originally only they could eat such a large piece of fat, but now there is a group of people who are eyeing it, and the situation is extremely difficult...

Without the method proposed by Wu Jingzi, these people can only adopt the method they are most familiar with.

They no longer have the ability to even try to change the approach, and will only use their past skills in the areas they are familiar with.

…………

"The Duke is unaware of this. The world says that official salt is very expensive nowadays, and it is all because of large contractors. In fact, this is not the case."

"There are so many fools in the world. They only know one thing but not the other."

Not long after, in Haizhou City, a well-known lobbyist from Yangzhou came to see Liu Yu with the wishes and wishes of the salt merchants.

Keeping up with the times, they brought a gorgeous wooden box, which contained silver exchange coupons and banknotes exchanged from Songjiang Prefecture Bank, which were said to be Yangzhou dim sum. Neither jewelry nor rare items were given.

After Liu Yu smiled and said that Yangzhou dim sum was actually quite delicious, the lobbyist began to speak.

This is the rhetoric that came up, but it is actually a standard trial bribery method. If Liu Yu simply refuses to answer the call and tells him to get lost, that would show his attitude.

Similarly, if Liu Yu continues to let him speak, it means there is something going on.

After the salt merchants rejected the method proposed by Wu Jingzi and were wary of the Songjiang Prefecture Consortium's intervention in the salt industry, the method they came up with ultimately pinned all their hopes on their judgment - that is, the emperor wanted to ask for more money, but The Huaihe River had to be repaired once before, and the emperor was a little embarrassed, so he deliberately asked Liu Yu to scare them.

In fact, Liu Yu was begging for food on behalf of the emperor.

So, if you think this way, the key to the matter is not true.

But steps.

It doesn’t mean much whether what you’re talking about really makes sense.

The key is to pretend that the truth is a truth and just make it a step.

That’s why we chose to talk about the key issues of salt policy reform.

Liu Yu did not directly tell him to get out, but also smiled and said that it was good for Yangzhou to worry, which gave the lobbyists hope.

After waiting for the lobbyist to finish what he said, Liu Yu lightly twirled the beard he had grown to prevent himself from looking like a Dongchang eunuch, and said slowly and logically: "This salt policy is related to the national finance. If the country has no money, then How to stabilize the border and relieve floods and droughts?”

"Nowadays, private salt is rampant. Everyone knows that it originated from the general merchant system, which made official salt more expensive. If official salt is more expensive, it will retreat, and if private salt is cheap, it will advance. Is there any other reason for the proliferation of private salt?"

The lobbyist smiled hurriedly and said: "My lord, I'm telling you the truth. How do you say this..."

"yes."

"No."

"Yes, it means that the general contractor did ask the sub-contractors to pay. If you really want to say that, it is correct."

"But if you don't want to say otherwise, you can't just look at things on the surface. Su Ziyan: Viewed horizontally, there are ridges and peaks, with different heights near and far. If you don't know the true face of Mount Lu, you just feel like you are in this mountain. On the other hand, if you don't enter this mountain, what will happen? Do you know your true identity?”

"If you are brave, please try to speak out for the country."

Liu Yu coughed lightly, said nothing, and just drank tea slowly.

Seeing this, the lobbyist hurriedly said: "It is true that the general contractor did ask the sub-contractor for payment. The reason is just as the Duke said at the banquet that day: with the reward of each prefecture and county for arresting smuggled salt. For the name.”

"However, the Duke might as well think about it this way. If bonuses are not used for profit, will the prefectures and counties be willing to make efforts to arrest smuggled salt?"

"Those small traders only saw the general contractor asking them to pay and accept, and then they made irresponsible remarks and complained."

"However, if we don't work hard to check illegal salt, who will the official salt of these vendors sell to? When they sell salt, they feel that it is easy to sell, so when they see the general merchant holding a salt guide, they feel jealous. If the salt is not easy to sell, , will they still be so jealous?”

"But their salt is easy to sell, isn't it because they spent money to investigate illicit salt sales?"

"The villain dares to make an analogy, if the state taxes are levied. The people think, why should they collect their money? But they also don't think about it, if the country does not collect taxes, how can we protect the stability of the border? How can we protect the peace of the world? Is it possible? Isn’t it the same thing?”

"The Holy Dynasty started from the rebel army, ended the troubled times, and restored the world. The Holy Dynasty ruled the world with righteousness. Forbidden palaces and plaques had words of love for the people. They couldn't bear to increase taxes on the people, and all the prefectures and prefectures had no money left to arrest smuggling."

"Salt merchants provide money and give bonuses as rewards, and strictly investigate illegal salt sales."

"To put it simply, it is to protect the interests of small traders so that they do not lose money."

"To put it more seriously, it is also so that the court can sell more official salt, so that more salt taxes can be levied."

Liu Yu thought nonsense. There were not many national taxes, but there were not many local taxes. Besides, the general contractor wants money, so that’s all he does? This is really a standard case of picking beans from a pile of shit, saying that this is a pile of beans.

However, he did not mock directly as before, but slowly said: "As you said, these general contractors not only have no faults, but also have merits?"

"You don't dare. If you talk about problems, the Duke of Ming Dynasty will be clear and the court will look at you. Naturally, you will not be wrong. Indeed, there are some problems. However, if the water is clear, there will be no fish. Besides, how can anyone be without mistakes if they are not saints? If mistakes can be corrected, there is no greater good.”

The original words in Zuo Zhuan are not like this, just because Dashun wanted to avoid taboos after all. Although he also changed his name later, the four words "change it over and over" are a bit involved, so literati tried to avoid it.

Seeing that Liu Yu had no objection, the lobbyist added: "Do you know that this law was out of desperation and was only tried before? In Fujian and other places, due to the lack of control, the salt floods occurred. I don’t know how much salt has been produced, and how many smugglers have to be arrested.”

"At first, we calculated based on the area of ​​salt fields, but later I found that this was not feasible at all and the calculation was not accurate."

"In the end, we had no choice but to use the voting method."

"It can be seen that this voting method is not a new idea. It is just that in the previous dynasty, or even earlier, although there was a voting method, it was only used as a last resort because it could not be controlled."

"But what is the result? The result is that the salt from Fujian and Guangdong is moving northward day by day. Thirty years ago, it was still in northern Fujian, but now it has reached northern Hunan and central Jiangxi."

"For every additional person who buys private salt, the court will collect a few cents less. And these few cents are like a lead bullet or a cannonball."

"How can we govern the country as those corrupt scholars say? How can we ignore the lessons of the previous dynasty? The salt tax is the top priority of the country. If the salt tax is changed, I am afraid that private salt will spread and the salt law will be corrupted, so that the country will have no money to use."

"As for the salt tax that I want to collect, I think we should focus on three places."

"First, we need to control the salt fields. Cancel the salt-drying method in Changlu, Fujian, Guangdong and other places. People everywhere, like the story in the early Ming Dynasty, use stoves to cook salt and cannot dry salt."

"In this way, as long as the firewood and salt pots are controlled, there will be less private salt. The imperial court can restore the lost official salt lands in Jiangxi and Hunan."

"Secondly, we have increased the tax on stove firewood with the salt farms across Sichuan. Shu people are uniquely blessed to cook salt, using the earth's energy and not wasting firewood. Therefore, the price of salt in Shu is low, and they often go out of bounds."

"If you increase the tax on salt and firewood in Shu, the court can regain the salt-lost land in Chu."

"Third, the most important thing is to suppress smuggling. Investigate and sentence severely!"

"The reason why official salt is difficult to sell is because there are too many private traders. The reason why there are so many private traders is because the salt from Shu, Fujian, Changlu and other places is mostly made from sun-dried salt, so the price is low."

"Therefore, treating Shu, Fujian, and Changlu with salt is the root cause."

"Strictly investigating illegal salt is to treat the symptoms."

“These three methods can be used together to treat the symptoms and root causes, so why worry about poor sales of official salt?”

"If the official salt is free, the court tax will be high."

"The imperial court pays more taxes, and more money can be given to investigate private affairs."

"The stricter the investigation, the more official reputation will be gained, which in turn will promote the investigation."

"Such a cycle is the real method of salt and iron!"

The truth of these words made Liu Yu laugh. He really couldn't help it. He laughed and said: "Damn it, how about restoring the well fields, establishing the Zhou rites, collecting the gold and iron from the world, and letting the people use bluestone farming again?" ah?"

While laughing, I was thinking, is it really a habit formed by the slogan "Return to the Three Generations of Ida Shuli"? When reforming, do you always think about running and retreating?

The lobbyist saw Liu Yu laughing and scolding, but he didn't panic. He didn't expect that anyone would actually use his words, just to lead to that step.

Liu Yu smiled and said, "You guys, you've made a mistake."

"First of all, the salt policy reform was not proposed by me. It was proposed by the court ministers. Your Majesty just sent me to investigate whether it can be changed? What are the pros and cons of changing it?"

"Secondly, Fujian and Shu... I have no control over it. Your Majesty sent me here to inspect the salt affairs of the two Huaihe Rivers. What I want to hear is the solution of the two Huaihe Rivers."

"Finally, in the early Ming Dynasty, there were many years of war, the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty was destroyed, the people's livelihood was in ruins, and many people died. At that time, it was arrogant and justified to follow the system. The reason for the uprising in this dynasty was precisely because the previous system was not very different from the later one. Adaptation, if the weather changes but people don't know about it, the world will be destroyed. What's the point of changing to meet the destiny of the dynasty? "

"It's just like a baby that has grown to ten years old, but you want to stuff it into a one-year-old swaddling clothes. This is a nonsense that messes up the country! I won't argue with you today, but be careful what you say in the future."

After the warning, Liu Yu said again: "Whether there is a reform or not does not depend on the change, but on why the change is made? Now, private salt is rampant and official salt is not smooth. The situation is here. How to change, there is another explanation. You don't want to Tell me this and that."

"I just want to ask, what are you going to do? Just talk about Lianghuai salt. Do you have the means to ensure that the court's salt tax increases day by day and private salt is suppressed? If so, then you can say it."

"You can't say that there are no solutions at all, or you can only give some retreat methods, and then you can only mutter and curse the reform, which is half slander and half elegy."

"You can come up with a solution. As long as it can achieve the results of cracking down on illegal salt and increasing salt taxes, we can change it according to your ideas."

"Right, change is the consensus now and cannot be changed."

"How you change is the key."

"You always think about staying the same, staying the same, or changing into Shu salt, Guangdong salt, and Fujian salt. You are obviously going in the wrong direction. Don't you understand this?"

"Today I will give you a message: how to change is one question; whether to change or not is another question. One can be solved, and the other cannot be changed."

"Now the ticket salt system is here, and the supporters have made it clear that if it is implemented in Huaibei and Huainan, the annual salt tax will increase by 500,000 taels, and there will be no more problems of salt merchants defaulting on arrears."