The speed of the boat was extremely fast, and when it was almost noon, Min Yuanjin pointed to the north shore and said to Min Yuanqi: "Brother Yuanqi, when you arrive at Guannan County, there should be a tax customs set by Yanding in front of you, and it is only a few miles away." ”

Min Yuanjin's age is about the same as Min Yuanqi's, but when it comes to the familiarity of waterways and cross-strait geography, Min Yuanqi is far inferior to Min Yuanjin.

Everyone was nervous, Liang Shifa's face turned blue, and he stood up with Yang Zhijin and Gao Cuncheng, the three of them were originally squatting on the side of the boat and whispering, but after standing up, they all looked at Min Yuanqi.

Min Yuanzhong and Min Yuanjin were also quite nervous, and after Min Yuanjin spoke, he stood behind Min Yuanqi.

The banner army also looked weak, even if it was two family members.

Min Yuanqi looked at Li Junsun and Wang Wumai, he knew that these two guys were different from ordinary flag soldiers, they practiced bows, sabers and guns hard under the supervision of their elders when they were young, and their martial arts skills were quite outstanding. The two of them each receive a stone of grain under Min Yuanqimen every month, this treatment must be very poor in the northern border army, the family of the general of the Liaodong border army, the most ordinary family also receives three taels of silver and two stone grain every month, if it is a good border army family, the fat field horse Liang bow and knife have everything, the head of the family may not eat meat at a time, but the family has to drink and meat constantly.

The reason is also simple, the north has been fighting non-stop wars all these years, the family's martial arts are not strong, the salary is not high, and the life of the master of the family cannot be saved at the critical moment.

The generals can not care about anything else, but their own lives are extremely important. Those miscellaneous fish battalion soldiers are cannon fodder, and they don't care how much they die, only the general's own life, as well as the life of the family, that is the most important key, so the family is highly paid, and they work hard every day to practice riding and archery, and the number of the family also represents the strength of the general.

In addition to Li Chengliang's outstanding martial arts, the Li family's 8,000 family members are the most critical bargaining chips.

After the decline of the Li family, the ancestral family of Zu Dashou rose, and the reason was that the ancestral family had been in Ningyuan for generations, annexed a large number of acres of land, and supported a large number of families.

The elite family of the ancestral family is more than 1,000, so no matter how the ancestral family is lawless, flee before the Guangning array, and lead the troops to go first under the city of Beijing, the emperor dares to kill Yuan Chonghuan, but he does not dare to touch the finger of the ancestor Dashou, the reason is that the family only recognizes the head of the family who supports himself, and what national law is often not in his eyes, the emperor dares to move the ancestral family, and the family of the ancestral family dares to rebel.

Here in Dahewei, there has been no sword soldier since Jiajing, and the banner soldiers of the guard have not seen blood for decades, even the same is true of the family. Min Yuanqi's family had more than 100 people at most, and that was also during the Jiajing period, and now, Min Yuanqi only has these two goods in front of him.

Martial arts, but in the past, the experience of battlefield fighting is equal to zero, and the current situation seems to be, not to mention going to the battlefield, it is to ask these two people to fight in groups, I am afraid that these two families are also playing small drums in their hearts, seven up and down, and their faces are also pale and uncertain, not much stronger than those ordinary flag soldiers.

People were afraid to speak freely, only the sound of the water lapping against the hull of the boat, and then the barren shore gradually became inhabited, and a little further on, the crowd on both sides of the bank became more and more dense.

The hour is close to noon, and the sun seems to be a lot warmer, after all, it is already February, and in about half a month, the willow trees on the shore will bud, and the spring light will be warm, and the scenery will be much more beautiful than the current gray and black.

In front of you is the ferry port from Guannan to Dahewei, the opposite bank is Guannan, there are township villages, the south bank is Dahewei hundreds of households, from here to Yancheng and Dongyang large areas of places are not set up townships and counties. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, in the entire coastal area, Sancheng land is tidal flats, and there are large areas of saline-alkali land, the population is not much, and a Yancheng County can be managed by Huai'an Prefecture. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the population had grown considerably, but the villages were managed by the counties under the Huai'an and Yangzhou prefectures, and it would take a few hundred years for a number of counties to be added here.

At this time, of course, it is impossible to build a bridge on the Huai River, and the personnel between the two sides of the river are naturally by boat.

The ferries run from the wooden piers on both sides, from morning to evening, and the ferry ends before dusk, when the morning and noon should be at their busiest times.

In addition to Min Yuanqi's old boat, many small canopy boats walked along the river bank, and they were also stopped here.

These ships are small civilian boats, most of which are merchant ships carrying goods, and in addition to the ferries, it is also obvious that people are checking on passing pedestrians on the road.

If you don't have an ordinary person with the goods, you will be released directly, if you bring the goods, you will not let go of one, and you will have to pay money to pass the card more or less.

Min Yuanqi frowned and looked at the situation in front of him, this kind of situation of setting up cards to levy taxes is too common in Daming, this is a card jointly set up by Guannan County and the Salt Section, and there are also cards from Shanyang County and Huai'an Mansion in front of it. In Henan and Shandong, there are many relatives, and the royal palaces also send people to set up cards at the official roads and river crossings to collect taxes.

Even many large gentry and grain households, through various names such as group training and local security, private tax cards, such things cannot be banned.

In the Ming Dynasty, the commercial taxes and miscellaneous items collected by the imperial court were quite limited, and the southern people were extremely rich after the opening of the sea in Longwan, even in Shandong and Jiangbei and other places, they were much richer than in the past.

The tax card in front of you is a typical private card.

The wharf is bustling with dense crowds, the boats on the river are constantly coming and going, a group of men wearing green cloth short jackets, wearing blue folded scarves on their heads, holding a scratch hook in their hands to hook the boat to the wharf, and then the people on the boat negotiated and paid the money, and these men in green robes pushed the boat away with a push rod, they all looked relaxed, such a thing has been done for a long time.

Above the wharf is a small river house building, although the place is deserted, this river house is well repaired, the roof is blue tile animal ridge, three courtyard doors, three wing rooms on the left and right, plus the main hall, kitchen and horse house thatched houses are all available.

There are also people coming and going in the courtyard constantly, most of the people wear royal blue or cocoon silk straight robes, or straight green cloth and blue cloth straight body, wearing a six-in-one hat, or Dongpo scarf, Sifang Pingding scarf, Tang scarf, there are also wearing corrugated hats, big hats, and so on, every person goes in and out, there is silver money into the account, there are several large baskets at the gate of the courtyard, broken silver and copper coins are thrown directly into the basket, from morning to noon, several baskets have been filled with most of them.

Several people behind Min Yuanqi were all looking at the money basket with their necks stretched, and their eyes were red.

The boat got closer and closer, and finally someone stretched out the hook and dragged the boat to the dock.

"The boat that came from the ladder?" A middle-aged man in his forties walked over, glanced at the cabin, and said, "I should have come here half a month ago, and Lao Tzu also said that these thieves and the army have nothing to do elsewhere, and they will no longer boil red eyes and boil salt." ”

The people around laughed, and someone joked: "What other way of wealth does such a thief have with the army besides boiling salt?" It's also thanks to Brother Yang and Second Brother Guan's benevolence, it is said that they are not stove households, so how can they cook salt at will? In the early decades, the iron pot stove that secretly stored the salt was the crime of flowing for 3,000 miles. ”

The middle-aged man's name is Guan Er, and he is the brother who exchanged posts with Yang Shida, and he takes care of the things on the checkpoint.

"Ten thousand pounds." Guan Er didn't talk much nonsense with these guards, these military households were three points poorer than ordinary stove households, not to mention that compared with those big salt merchants, there was not much oil and water to squeeze, after glancing at it, he immediately said: "It's worth fifty taels, two percent, pay ten taels and leave quickly." ”

The people on the boat looked at each other, but no one answered.

"How?" Guan Er felt a little strange, and said angrily: "The pickled dirt that the donkey and horse shot out, and you still want to bargain with me Guan Er?" ”

There are five small flags on the boat, from the seventh-rank official, Min Yuanqi is wearing the military attache robe from the sixth-grade, and the waist card is also hung on the belt, the identity is quite obvious, but this Guan Er did not take the military attachés in front of him in his eyes at all.

Before Guan Er opened the scolding, Min Yuanqi was a little embarrassed.

Rebirth crosses, the future is a great change in the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, and Min Yuanqi feels powerless in the tide of the times. Personally, he has some status to rely on, but it's not too high...... This official position can only allow him not to be bullied, but to have food and clothing. If you want to protect yourself in troubled times, or not be crushed by the wheels of the times, you have to work hard.

So when he heard that the hard-boiled salt would be handed over to someone for nothing, Min Yuanqi's first reaction was to solve the matter.

Only at this time did Min Yuanqi feel that he was a little Meng Lang.

Min Yuanqi's family has been inherited in Dahewei for a long time, and his prestige and network of contacts and power are quite stable, he became a test hundred households at the age of twenty, from six products, and after some time can be turned into a hundred households, under the command of two general banners, nearly two hundred banner troops and Yu Ding listen to his command, in this hundred households he can Weifu for his own use, even in a thousand households, although Li Kecheng is a little wary and suppressed by the Min family, but always to give the children of the Min family some face.

These things gave Min Yuanqi some hints and illusions in his past memories, as if he was also the number one person.

When I arrived at the tax card in front of me, I looked at the merchants wearing silk shirts, as well as Guan Er and others on the tax card, who were either dressed rich and rich, or burly and strong, with fierce eyes. And the eyes of these people who look at themselves and others without exception have undisguised disdain.

In the Ming Dynasty, the soldiers of the guard, whether they are flag soldiers or military attachés, are all under the chain of contempt!

Of course, if Min Yuanqi is a deputy thousand households or thousands of households with real power, or a commander in the city of Huai'an Mansion, a fellow intellectual, or even a commander, the bull ghosts and snake gods in places like Guan Er, after all, they still have to give these military attaches some face, but these high-ranking military attaches of the fifth to fourth grades, or three grades, have hundreds or thousands of acres of fields, and the banner army under their rule farms for them, how can these military attaches carry such a dilapidated boat and run to Huai'an Mansion with private salt to sell it?

Even if Min Yuanqi really became a hundred households, instead of trying the general flag of a hundred households, he would not personally go into battle for such a thing.

In short, Min Yuanqi is now being elevated, and he is a little out of place!