To tell the truth, although the Jianzhou Jurchens are a fishing and hunting people, they are still afraid of the sea. Therefore, if he goes to Shang Kexi's army to serve as a supervisor, he will definitely go to sea in the future. Although it can be a blessing and a prestige, it is unpredictable, even if it is a Jianzhou Jurchen, it is false to say that you are not afraid.

Therefore, this prison errand was not a good errand, and then, there was a disgrace on Turg, which finally fell on him.

He got the will, Huang Taiji summoned him again, sent others away, and explained some things to him in private, before he let him escort the grain and grass materials and go to Jinzhou with the army.

They didn't know what they thought the heavens didn't know, but Emperor Chongzhen, who was far away in the Ming Kingdom, knew it clearly.

Emperor Chongzhen combined the information of the Grade A eavesdropping seeds on Turge's body, as well as the news from the Grade A eavesdropping seeds on Zheng Zhilong and Lu Xiangsheng's bodies, it is not difficult to deduce the current situation in Liaodong, what is the approximate situation.

In fact, what he knew was much clearer than whether it was Lu Xiangsheng or Huang Taiji.

For this reason, he quickly issued an order to Hong Chengchou, the newly appointed governor of Jiliao, and asked him to order the Zu Dashou Department on the Tashan side to make a feint and make some disturbances to block the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

Aren't you going to fight the Golden State? No problem, Jinzhou is also here to join in the fun.

Relatively speaking, if Emperor Chongzhen was in Beijing, after he learned the news, he made a decision, and the speed of feedback to Ningjin was much faster than the transmission to Lushun.

Then, he sent someone to send an edict to Chen Hongxu, the governor of Denglai, asking him to send the follow-up supplies to Lushun as soon as possible. After all, if Lushun wants to gain a foothold, it is not possible to have enough supplies.

In addition, the warships hidden by the Denglai Navy Division can also be dispatched. When it comes to Liaodong, it will be almost the time for the decisive battle of the naval division, and when the time comes, it will be good to surprise the Manchu Qing and Korean naval divisions.

After these things were done, Emperor Chongzhen temporarily put aside the war in Liaodong and began to officially implement the policy of salt policy reform.

The salt policy of the Ming Dynasty can actually be said to be a very failure.

The monopoly of salt is basically a fixed model. Since the 14th year of Jiajing, the price set has basically not changed. The officials of the Yandao Yamen never knew how much of their fiscal and tax revenue came from the salt tax and how much from the surplus salt and silver.

Salt administration, speaking of the Ministry of Household Books, is the supervisor of the Ministry of Households, and there are six Salt Dispatch Divisions and eight Salt Division Lifting Divisions, each of which controls a major salt production area, and each Salt Division controls a slightly smaller area. But in fact, every Yandao yamen is actually under the jurisdiction of the local government, some are under the jurisdiction of the local prefect, some are under the jurisdiction of the political envoys, and some are even under the jurisdiction of army generals, such as the Salt Division of Lingzhou in Shanxi. Among them, there are also inspectors of the imperial history of the salt patrol.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, rations would be given to stove households, so that they could concentrate on salt production. Later, however, when the grain could not be distributed, the stove households were allowed to sell the surplus salt to merchants with salt in exchange for rations.

Imperial history, there is corruption here, and there are also people in the rivers and lakes. If there is a means, it will control other stove households and become a luxury stove. In order to make money, in addition to exploiting other stove households, these people naturally inevitably embezzled the salt and silver that originally belonged to the imperial court.

In addition, the stove households and the inspected salt, as well as those officials colluded to sell salt privately, that is, private salt, especially after the end of the Ming Dynasty, this situation was very common. Some powerful salt merchants, such as Le Qingsheng, simply set up their own private salt team, produce their own salt, and sell official salt at little cost; Then, he will collude with the government to crack down on other people's salt as much as possible, so as to ensure his monopoly.

Not only that, the price of salt, in the very beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the price per ton of salt was about 3.345 taels of silver. However, in the late Ming Dynasty, the price of salt reached 56 taels per ton, an increase of nearly 20 times. The reason why this is so is that the price of official salt is determined by the government, not by the market. Such a high price of salt made the people afford, and during those periods when food prices were low, it accounted for a very large proportion of household expenses.

It can be seen that the salt of the Ming Dynasty is ridiculously high, and the people can hardly bear it; However, the imperial court did not receive most of the benefits, and most of these benefits were coveted by the big salt merchants and the officials he colluded with.

Now, Emperor Chongzhen took advantage of the east wind of the Jiangnan salt merchant Leqing Tiantong case to start rectifying the salt administration.

As for some people who understand the details of Le Qingtian's case, they will think that it was the emperor who deliberately induced such a thing to happen, that is, the so-called fishing law enforcement in later generations, Emperor Chongzhen felt that this was a misunderstanding, not at all.

Because in Huang Taiji's plan, he sent Wu Zhong to Jiangnan to seek a trade partner with him. Even if Emperor Chongzhen didn't send Li Ruolian to go, in the end, on the Jiangnan side, it would be either these big salt merchants or those smugglers who could hook up with Wu Zhong. Only they have the strength, ability, and ambition to do business with Wu Zhong and the Manchu Qing behind Wu Zhong.

In this matter, it is a bit unfortunate that this concubine who was entrusted with a heavy task by Huang Taiji is actually a secret agent of the Ming Jinyi Guard, so this matter will be under the control of the imperial court. This is still different from people who were originally safe and guarded, but were lured to commit crimes and arrested.

Of course, in this era, Emperor Chongzhen will not be merciful to those big salt merchants, just look at them showing off their wealth to know that these people owe clean up! I didn't see that Daming had to provide disaster relief everywhere, and there was a shortage of money!

Under the will of Emperor Chongzhen, in the end, Qiankun was arbitrary, and vetoed all the innovations proposed by those courtiers, because he was really dissatisfied, and finally threw out his own reform strategy: the national salt administration was managed in a unified manner, and a new salt department yamen was set up under the household department, and the chief official level was the household department, which was divided into thirteen provinces, each corresponding to a province. In the local area, there is also a salt road yamen, the title remains the same, or the salt section of the lifting division, the jurisdiction of the salt field.

The salt works are contracted and auctioned, and the highest price wins. Of course, there is a reserve price, which is estimated on the basis of the salt tax collected in this area in previous years. In addition, the sale is no longer rigidly divided into regions, as long as you are not afraid of expensive freight, you can sell it there! However, there is one condition, the price of salt, there is an official guide price, no matter what, the salt sold to the people cannot exceed this guide price.

The salt administration of the government is mainly responsible for supervision, and is no longer specifically involved in the salt trade, and the market determines the market for itself. If salt merchants want to make more money, they must think of ways to produce more salt, think of ways to reduce the cost of salt, improve the quality of salt, and reduce the cost of selling salt. In this way, we can be competitive.

At the same time, the salt merchants themselves also had a demand to crack down on illegal salt and squeeze out illegal salt, which was consistent with the interests of the imperial court.

As long as the salt merchants innovate the mass production technology of salt, the refining level of salt, and reduce the selling price of salt to occupy the market for the sake of profit, then sooner or later, there will be no need for the imperial court to spend time and effort to crack down on illegal salt dealers, because they will be eliminated by the market, and they will not be able to compete with these regular salt merchants. And the people will get greater benefits than before. The price of salt is cheaper, and the quality of salt is better again.

This salt administration management model can be said to be unheard of by people in this era, and it has immediately become a hot topic for a while.

"You have heard that the emperor has decreed the reform of the salt policy, and all of it will be handed over to the merchants!"

"What, isn't the merchant making a lot of money? Went to grab them all, right? ”

"Definitely, salt is something that everyone has to buy, as long as there is salt, it's money!"

"Yes, there is no problem that no salt can be exchanged for salt in the future, as long as you get the salt field and pay the tax, no matter how much salt you produce, the court will not care!"

"Really? In that case, those salt merchants are really going to make a lot of money! ”

“……”

In the Ming Dynasty, one of the biggest drawbacks of salt politics in the past was that after ordinary merchants got the salt lead, if it didn't matter, they couldn't exchange it for salt. If you can change the salt in time, you will definitely be able to make money. The common people are also well aware of this.

Therefore, when they learned that salt was produced by themselves, and that there was no longer salt to change for salt, those merchants who had a little more strength immediately became a sensation. In fact, not only merchants, but also wealthy civil and military generals, imperial relatives and nobles, also sought their agents, rushing to take the salt works to buy salt. Because anyone can see that this is definitely not a loss.

Therefore, led by the Yamen of the Salt Department of the Ministry of Households, the annual salt tax data of the whole country was investigated, and after being approved by Emperor Chongzhen, the auction began on the basis of the previous salt tax.

For this auction, you must register at the Yamen of the Salt Division in advance and pay a deposit. There are various ways to register, and you don't have to go in person, and you can sign up from the salt department set up across the country, and the final auction is still auctioned in Beijing.

Therefore, the auction time is a bit long, because it has to wait for the salt merchants from all over the country who are interested in the auction to gather in Beijing.

Then there was an auction with a clear bid, and there were people from the Metropolitan Procuratorate, Dongchang and Jinyiwei to supervise it to prevent possible fraud.

The first saltworks auction was the biggest event. Many businessmen with average strength are thinking about whether they can pick up the leaks and participate, and the results can be imagined.

Although Emperor Chongzhen was not present, he secretly sent people to bid. But when the price reached his expectations, he stopped bidding, and let the merchants continue to bid upwards themselves.

As for the salt works in Shandong, in previous years, Shandong transferred the salt envoys, and the annual salt income of the household department was about 50,000 taels; However, through the auction, under the fierce competition of bids, the final transaction price was 800,23,500 taels of silver, which was more than ten times more than tenfold.

Each coastal province is an auction salt field for auction, and there are seven provinces: Jingshi, Shandong, Nanjing, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi; Among them, the auction price of Guangxi Salt Farm is much lower than that of Shandong, but the auction price of Nanjing Salt Farm is much higher than that of Shandong;

There are also inland provinces, some of which do not have salt farms, and need to rely on the surrounding salt farms to produce salt, such as Shaanxi, which needs to rely on Shanxi, Sichuan and other neighboring provinces to transport salt. As a result, the auction of the salt works in these provinces became more intense, and the final auction price also reached a staggering price.

For example, the salt tax revenue of the Sichuan Salt Division was only 71,464 taels in the eighth year of Wanli, but after the auction, it received as much as 802,57 million taels of silver. Otherwise, without the upper limit of the retail guide price stipulated by the imperial court, depending on the population of the mainland and the area where it is sold, the auction price will definitely be more than that.

Although all the salt farms have not yet been auctioned, all officials know how amazing the salt tax will be this year.

Taking the seventh year of Wanli as an example, the annual salt tax revenue of the whole country is only 1,292,224 taels of silver, of which 300,000 taels are not used for local defense. Of course, the annual salt tax revenue is not the same, but the maximum is not higher than two million taels;

However, now that the auction has not been completed, the imperial court has already obtained more than five million taels of silver, for this income, whether it is the household department or other officials, they can't help but admire Emperor Chongzhen's innovative strategy, this is simply a fortune boy, turning this kind of thing salt into a real cornucopia!

Of course, Emperor Chongzhen's salt policy reform system, in the end, the salt farms will fall on the richest and most powerful merchants in the Ming Dynasty. But so what, as long as they can pay off the taxes with the silver, when the retail is sold in the future, the price of salt bought by the common people will be lower than before, then it will be enough! At least for now, that's it!

This innovation of the salt administration system has also brought about the development of another thing.

It is the rich people from all over the Ming Dynasty who, for this auction, had to take out the silver buried in the cellar and deposit it in the branches of the Ming Royal Bank in various provinces to get a deposit certificate, and then go to Beijing and then exchange it for silver tickets for auction. Otherwise, just transporting the silver to Jingshi would probably make these merchants stop and auction at such a high price.

And the silver deposited in the branch of the Daming Royal Bank, of course, is not only the winning bidder will do this, but all the merchants who want to auction it have to do it. As a result, a large part of the silver that was not involved in circulation in the Ming Dynasty began to flow into the market and participated in circulation with the reform of the salt administration.

Of course, there is a part of the silver, after the bidding, whether it is won or not, it will still be withdrawn and continued to be hidden in the cellar. However, at least a large part of them, they feel that the silver ticket is good, and they will stay.

This time, it also strengthened the Daming Royal Bank in disguise, making the silver bill further become the real banknote of Daming, and made a lot of contributions.