Emperor Hongzhi is a good person, but it may not be said that he is a good emperor.

He was too deeply influenced by Confucianism, and he used to blindly rely on Wenchen, so he lacked assertiveness in many things, and was led by Wenchen.

In addition, he was soft-hearted and destroyed the good system left by his ancestors, and the most serious one was the salt introduction system.

The salt citation he rewarded was many times more than that of his father Ming Xianzong, not to mention anything else, just the salt citation given to the Zhang brothers, every time it was a reward of hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of citations.

And the Zhang brothers also rely on the favor of Empress Zhang, relying on the identity of the national uncle, like a wolf who can't be fed, from time to time they have to go to Queen Zhang to cry poor, and Queen Zhang is a woman, she has no opinions, and she can't see long-term problems.

Of course, the most important thing is that Emperor Hongzhi lacks assertiveness and long-term vision, not only the Zhang brothers, but also the princes and nobles, the six departments and nine qings and the like have also received a lot of salt from the Hongzhi Emperor.

Emperor Hongzhi himself is very picky, plus the treasury is empty, and the internal money is running rats, naturally there is no silver reward, only salt introduction, tax rights and so on.

For example, the three elders of the cabinet, the six Shangshu have all been rewarded by the Hongzhi Emperor, and as for the princes surnamed Zhu or something, many of them have been rewarded with the right to obtain fiefdoms, or allow these princes to expand their land and so on.

It seems that he did things without spending money, won the hearts of the people, and gained a good reputation, but the real situation is that the salt introduction system, which has already been in trouble, cannot be implemented completely.

The merchants worked hard to transport grain to the border in exchange for the salt, but they never came up with salt, because there were princes and nobles, six departments and nine kings, and so on, and the salt of these people occupied the nest, and their salt was not raised, so naturally there was no matter of the following merchants.

If the reward is not much, the merchants will have to wait.

However, Emperor Hongzhi rewarded too much salt, so that even if there were many merchants who had salt in their hands, they could not bring out the salt, and they had to wait for decades before they could take their turn, and after waiting for decades, the daylilies were cold.

Because this greatly hit the enthusiasm of merchants to transport grain to the border towns, and then also made the salt introduction system unable to continue, so there was a reform of the salt introduction system proposed by Ye Qi in the fifth year of Hongzhi, and replaced the grain opening with silver Kaizhong.

The so-called silver is opened, which means that the merchants do not need to work hard to transport grain to the border towns in exchange for salt, but only need to pay silver to the imperial court in exchange for salt, and the imperial court has the silver in their hands to buy grain and transport it to the border towns.

It seems that it is also said in the past, and there is not much difference.

But the reality is that merchants pay less and less money every year, because tax evasion is the nature of merchants; And the money collected should be earmarked for the purchase of grain for the border army.

But the Ming Dynasty was a literati in power, for military spending, they were eager to cut it cleanly, this grain turned into silver into the hands of the household, naturally that is, the household has the final say, where to fill other holes, used to give everyone additional subsidies, etc., in short, these silver can eventually fall to the head of the border army is not much.

Therefore, the border army became so difficult that even the most basic food became a big problem.

In the past, merchants brought grain in a steady stream, at least this food is definitely not a problem, and the extra food can be exchanged for other military supplies or something, and the military needs are guaranteed, and there is no need to look at the faces of those civil servants, let alone beg grandpa to ask grandma to ask them to allocate funds to buy food.

Now it's different, there are no merchants to transport grain, and the silver allocated from the top is deducted layer by layer, which comes to the body of ordinary soldiers, maybe rice and flour will become bran, and eating is a problem, not to mention other armament matters, where will there be any combat effectiveness?

If Zhu Yuanzhang knew that the good national policy he had racked his brains to come up with was corrupted like this, he would probably jump out of the coffin immediately in anger.

A good salt introduction system, a salt introduction system that is enough to ensure the military needs of the border army, will let future generations play with it, which is also an important reason for the final demise of the Ming Dynasty.

In the late Ming Dynasty, all kinds of taxes could not be collected at all, and the expenditure of the border army's military salaries increased year by year, which dragged down the Ming Dynasty, a large enterprise in financial difficulties.

Speaking of which, I have to mention that Emperor Hongzhi paid attention to the rule of inaction and paid attention to light taxation under the advice of the court's scholars, so during the period of Emperor Hongzhi, Emperor Hongzhi faced a total of one-third of the tax revenue, and was the emperor who exempted the most taxes in the Ming Dynasty.

Originally, this must be a good thing, the emperor who is lightly endowed always has a good reputation, and it is also a manifestation of loving the people like a son.

However, many of the taxes he exempted were commercial taxes, which could not reach the heads of ordinary people at all, and the taxes that the common people should pay were still a lot, and the rent that should be paid would not be reduced or reduced either.

In the end, it was all cheaper businessmen, trapped the court, and suffered the people.

From these places, it can be seen that Emperor Hongzhi is definitely not as wise and martial as capitalized and close-up in the history books, although he is a good emperor, he can never be said to be a qualified emperor, and there are too many failures in power.

He is also good to the literati, similar to Song Renzong, his reputation is very good in the history books, it is just blown out by the literati, carefully studying and studying history, but he can clearly know that Emperor Hongzhi made a lot of big mistakes.

The salt introduction system has changed, and the combat effectiveness of the border army is low, and it cannot be tough on the outside world; A lot of commercial taxes are exempted, which is easy to dispense, a mouthful of things, but it is difficult to put it away again, the court has no money, financial difficulties, and completely dragged down the Ming Dynasty; Partial belief in literati, too much even if the civil ministers, the system makes the power unbalanced, the noble and the military cheap, and the later court party disputes are endless.

Hearing Zhu Houzhao's words, Emperor Hongzhi's face was ugly, and he also fell into contemplation.

Because of the appearance of Liu Jin, Emperor Hongzhi has changed more than in history, and now he is slowly using both civil and military forces, and he also knows how to use the power of the factory guard, and knows a lot of information that he didn't know before.

Dozens of pounds of salt, ordinary people can only buy a pound of salt for a day, this price is really not ordinary expensive, and it is conceivable that the wealth of the salt merchants in the Ming Dynasty is really rich in the world.

"Is the cost of salt from this salt pan really almost zero?"

Emperor Hongzhi thought for a while and asked Liu Jin.

"If Your Majesty doesn't believe it, you can ask people to check it, the stove households are the poorest, they are forced to cook salt all day long, but they can't even eat enough."

"Moreover, the salt produced by this salt farm is very large compared to the salt reported to the imperial court, and a large part of it is the salt that the officials of the salt field squeeze the stove households to cook day and night."

Liu Jin hurriedly replied that because Xiahetun where he was located was close to the sea, he also relied on boiling salt to make a living, so he was naturally too clear about this aspect.

The common people in Xiahetun are very bitter, but this is not the most bitter, the most bitter are the military households and the boiled households, they are the most bitter, and they have been tied to it for generations by the household service system, and they will never turn over.

"Let you run a salt factory, you have to hand over two million taels of silver to the imperial court, and you still have to make profits, do you have any new salt production method?"

Emperor Hongzhi nodded slightly, he had already asked Xiao Jing to investigate these things, and there would be results soon, after thinking about it, he looked at Liu Jin and asked, this young man in front of him always does not play cards according to the routine, since he can release such a Haikou, he must also have his own tricks.

It's like this honeycomb coal, like this sea fish, and the merchant ships that go to sea, Emperor Hongzhi's current pockets are bulging, and they are all inseparable from Liu Jin.

"Your Majesty's eyes are like torches, I do have a new method of making salt."

Liu Jin nodded with a smile and replied.

"Let's hear it~"

Emperor Hongzhi immediately became interested, and his tone became much calmer, and he still liked Liu Jin very much.

"Your Majesty, the traditional method of making salt is very simple, boiling salt, using a pot to boil seawater, brine, so as to obtain salt, this method not only requires a lot of firewood, but also requires a lot of labor and time."

"However, the salt production method I newly developed does not need to be boiled, only needs to be dried, and the sea water is dried by the sun's rays to obtain salt."

Liu Jin simply talked about the salt drying method.

"Salt?"

Emperor Hongzhi and Zhu Houzhao both said in unison.

"That's right, it's to dry salt, build salt pans along the beach, lead the sea water in, rely on the sun, dry the sea water, and the salt will come out naturally, there is no need to boil salt hard, saving time, effort and low cost, which is why the grass people have the confidence to do what they promised to Your Majesty."

Liu Jin said very confidently, where will there be any boiling salt in the future, all of them will rely on dried salt, and the salt produced is not known how many times more than the current salt.