Chapter 50 Official Tea and Commercial Tea

Moreover, Zhu Qizhen is not some emperor who eats one or two silver and an egg.

If you eat a little kickback, forget it, after all, if the water is clear, there will be no fish, but who is too much, Zhu Qizhen will naturally give him a ticket for a free trip to the Eighteen Hells.

At this moment, Zhu Qizhen deeply felt one thing, that is, although worshipping money is not a good habit, and there is nothing to encourage, everything is measured by money, then people are the same, it is extremely distorted.

However, it is better to have standards than not to have standards.

Using money as a yardstick, there may be such and such shortcomings, but everything is measured by power, and I am afraid that the disadvantages will be deeper.

Zhu Qizhen immediately thought of other tribute issues. The idea of exempting all the tributes arose in his heart.

Liu Dingzhi said: "Your Majesty, kindness is not light. Since His Majesty intends to reform the tea tax and give a little sweetness to all places, the minister agrees, but His Majesty wants to exempt the world's tribute, and the minister is afraid that the use of the palace will increase greatly. ”

Although it is said that this makes the people have some burdens, it can be said that it is a long way to prepare tribute compared to receiving the Qin messenger from Beijing, which involves all kinds of difficulties and ways, and then sending people to Beijing by himself.

Come to think of it, people everywhere would rather contribute a little money than do this one thing.

This is also the follow-up of Zhou Chen's silver discount plan.

When Zhou Chen was there, the government was sorted out, and a total of three things were levied, silver, grain, and cloth. But many tributes are related to the use of the palace, and Zhou Chen does not dare to act rashly.

It's kind of a small tail.

It was solved by Liu Dingzhi.

Zhu Qizhen said: "Just what Yiqing said. Let's move on to tea. ”

Liu Dingzhi said: "Yes, in addition to the tribute tea, it is commercial tea and official tea. In general, it is the southeast business tea and the southwest official tea. ”

"Shang tea, naturally, is the tea produced by merchants, generally speaking, it is taxed according to the plant, and one-tenth of the tea is taken. After Zhou Wenzhong, all of them were converted into silver. Later, there is tea to attract money, and all over the place to pass one-thirtieth of the commercial tax. And so on, the general marketing in the country, not as good as the border. ”

"As for the southwest official tea, it is different."

"At the time of the founding of the country, the imperial court obtained more than 2 million tea trees from Sichuan and Shaanxi, which were incorporated into the official government, and the tea households guarded it, and the tea obtained was all entered into the official for Western trade, tea for horses, and the tea and horse division was set up to supervise it. The officials in charge have pedestrians, ambassadors only. ”

"Xifan eats more meat, no tea can not be eliminated, so he is willing to exchange horses for tea, the lord of the government, Hongwu, more than 10,000 horses a year, one of the supplements of the imperial court's war horses."

Zhu Qizhen immediately asked: "

But war horses? ”

Liu Dingzhi said: "Really, of course, you can also exchange it for other livestock, and even sell tea with silver." Every year, the tea sold into the West is more than one million catties. ”

"In terms of the price of horses, between eighty and one hundred and fifty catties, you can exchange for war horses."

Zhu Qizhen quickly made an calculation in his heart.

In the early years of orthodoxy, the price of horses was in the range of five taels to ten taels, of course, no matter how high it was, it was the BMW level, and it could not be regarded as an ordinary horse price.

It's like a car, can an ordinary car compare with the price of a Ferrari? Zhu Qizhen directly ignored it.

Therefore, according to the number of millions of tea leaves per year, it can be exchanged for more than one million horses and as few as hundreds of thousands of war horses from the West Flower.

Of course, this is not possible.

Because the so-called Xifan refers to the tribes of Qinghai and Tibet, whether they all add up to a million war horses, Zhu Qizhen does not know, but they must have no million war horses to sell.

But even so, Zhu Qizhen couldn't help it.

Because, in the past few years of war, what is the strategic material that Daming consumes the most?

It's a war horse.

Not to mention, in the battle of Maoerzhuang, nearly 100,000 cavalry were wiped out, and more than 100,000 war horses were lost.

As for the later battle of Montenegro, although some war horses were also recaptured, the gains were not much.

Therefore, the downsizing of the cavalry of Zhu Qizhen's Beijing camp may not be the reason for the shortage of war horses.

And the Northwest Horse Breeding Land has long been confused from head to toe, Zhu Qizhen checked the number of war horses in the Northwest, and Zhu Qizhen was not angry.

In the northwest, there were only more than 10,000 horses in the end.

These war horses are not enough to supplement the consumption of the towns in Shaanxi.

And Zhu Qizhen broke off trade with the tile spur, and this negative impact also appeared.

Before tearing his face with the tile thorn, the tribute horses of the various departments of the grassland added up to more than 10,000 a year, plus there was not much consumption without a big war, and even many horses were not enough to meet the standard of war horses, but if they didn't fight, they couldn't see it.

Therefore, although Zhu Qizhen has always felt that the finances are tight, no matter how tight the finances are, Zhu Qizhen has not cut off the slightest use in the army, but on the war horse, there is no way.

If everything goes well, you can get some war horses from the West, not a million, not hundreds of thousands, as long as there are tens of thousands, it will solve the big problem of Zhu Qizhen.

In Zhu Qizhen's view, the significance of this represents no less than one million silver taels.

Because there are some things that can't be sold for money.

Especially now the price of war horses in Beijing has risen to more than a dozen taels, and has generally risen by about five taels, if this situation cannot be contained, I am afraid that in the future, millions of taels of silver will not be able to sell many horses.

Zhu Qizhen said: "How much tea does the tea horse buy every year? ”

Liu Dingzhi said: "There are more this year, about 50,000 catties. In previous years, it was only one or two thousand catties. ”

Zhu Qizhen's brows were so furrowed that he could trap a fly, he almost felt that he had heard it wrong, and asked rhetorically: "Fifty thousand catties, one or twenty thousand catties?" "That's only one or two percent of what it was at the beginning of the country.

No wonder, the annual tea tax is not as good as a gold mine in Jiajingou.

Liu Dingzhi said: "In the opinion of the minister, there are three reasons why it is like now, Taizu does not compete with the small people for profit, and the tea ban in the southeast has always been relaxed. For decades, the small people still regarded it as nothing. This is Emperor Taizu's love for the people, this is also. Official tea is often squeezed, the minister consults the archives, there are several times there are hundreds of thousands of catties of tea, squeezed for a long time, decay can not be eaten, can only be burned, the court has suffered heavy losses, so there is a strategy to fold silver before, Zhou Wenzhong and all the silver, the court has no tea, so there is no horse to change. This is also the second. The powerful peep at the benefits of tea and horses, although the law is severe, can not be stopped, the small people are greedy for the interests of the sky, never hesitate to die, even if the court regulations, selling tea and salt and other crimes, but also repeatedly prohibited, and the people are also greedy for private tea cheap, the quality is better than official tea, so they are happy to use private tea, this is also the third. ”

"In addition, the benefits of tea and horses are not only on the war horses, money and grain, but also on the West."

"Since the founding of this dynasty, the West has been restrained, the leaders of the tribes, and with gold medals, only gold medals can be traded with the imperial court, and now the imperial court tea and horse division is unfavorable, and the West Fan no longer cares about what gold medals. Even among the Jinyi Guard's intelligence, there are many tile spur envoys haunting it. After a long time, the minister was worried that the Western Fan tribes would no longer be owned by the imperial court. ”

Zhu Qizhen's face turned pale, and he said, "I know." ”

Whether it is in terms of money and food, from replenishing war horses, or in terms of Shaanxi's strategic security, this matter must be resolved.

It's just that this one thing is not easy to do.

Before doing anything, the first thing Zhu Qizhen has to judge is who is his enemy.

First of all, in the southeast, even if the laws of the imperial court are relaxed, ordinary people will not dare to evade taxes, so those who dare to do this generally have a big background.

It is very difficult to take money out of someone's pocket at any time.

However, Zhu Qizhen still doesn't take these people seriously.

After all, although the tea industry is not small, it is not enough to unite all the gentry in Jiangnan. And although these Jiangnan gentry have prestige, or there are people above the officialdom. But now is not the late Ming Dynasty, Zhu Qizhen can be suppressed.

In Zhu Qizhen, most of them will be soft. After all, what Zhu Qizhen wants is only money, not life, and according to the tax system set by Taizu, there is not much money.

Moreover, Wang Zhi is still in Nanjing, and with Wang Zhi's skill, there is no problem in doing this thing.