Yang Cong has depicted this beautiful vision, but how can this vision be realized?

This Tartar will not be frightened out of the plug because of a few words or a few books, and if there is no actual action, the Tartar will still come to Koubian every year.

Jiajing thought for a while, then stared at Yang Cong and asked solemnly: "Qingfeng, how much silver do you think it will take to equip all the elites of the 60,000 border army?" ”

The fact that he was able to ask this question proved that he was already thinking about making equipment such as muskets, artillery, and thunderbolts.

When Yang Cong heard this, he was happy again.

Naturally, he had thought about it, and he had a lot of other ideas.

He pretended to think for a while, and then said solemnly: "If you transfer officials from the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of War to organize craftsmen to manufacture equipment, you will have to invest at least more than 200,000 taels every year, and in three or five years, it will take millions of taels to equip all the elites of the 60,000 border armies." ”

More than 200,000 taels a year, which is already considered a small amount, this is still the result of reducing material costs and labor costs as much as possible, and it is necessary to calculate according to the actual price, just tens of thousands of muskets, hundreds of artillery pieces are more than this bit of silver.

When Jiajing heard this, his brows couldn't help frowning, don't look at the big business of the Ming family, the tax revenue in a year is actually only about 4 million taels, and these 4 million taels have to bear the salaries of tens of thousands of officials and more than 100,000 border army soldiers, and it is really difficult to cut out more than 200,000 taels a year.

Yang Cong secretly looked at Jiajing's expression, and then said carefully: "Your Majesty, Weichen still has a way to offset the expenses of the imperial court." ”

This means, can you equip all the elite of the 60,000 border army without spending money?

When Jiajing heard this, he couldn't help but ask with interest: "Oh, what way?" ”

Yang Cong still said cautiously: "This method is actually very simple, that is, to increase the number of salt introductions or the weight of each introduction, and all the manufacturing costs of weapons and equipment are borne by salt merchants." Wechen has already checked, at the beginning of the implementation of the opening of the law, the border army's weapons and equipment manufacturing costs were also provided by salt merchants, but some corrupt officials and corrupt officials removed these for their own selfishness, and the result was that the border army's weapons and equipment were almost cut off, and the cost of manufacturing weapons and equipment was all corrupt by those corrupt officials. ”

This is indeed the truth, last year, because of this incident, Jiajing cut down Chen Da, the governor of Shanxi.

In fact, the salt quotation issued by the imperial court was not 300 catties at the beginning, but 500 catties per citation, but some corrupt officials and corrupt officials created various reasons and excuses for their own corruption, and slowly snatched the supply of weapons, equipment and baggage from the salt merchants, and the weight of each citation was also reduced.

Jiajing probably knows a little about these situations, and increasing the number of salt introductions or increasing the weight of each introduction is just a matter of words for him, but he is not the kind of impulsive person, whether to do what Yang Cong said, he still needs to think carefully.

It is naturally a good thing that the imperial court can equip all the elite of the border army without spending a tael of silver, but now Yang Cong is just talking about it, and it is unknown what the actual situation will be.

He has experienced I don't know how many things, many courtiers said that they were crazy at the beginning, but in the end, when they looked at the results, it was not like that at all.

It is also for this reason that the Tartars have been wreaking havoc in the north, with the national strength of the Ming Dynasty, is there really no way to take the Tartars?

Of course, this is impossible, even if you are not equipped with muskets, artillery and thunderstorms, there is no chariot, you can directly fight with the existing equipment and Tartars, and the Ming border army may not be able to do the Tartars.

Jiajing thought for a while, and suddenly asked, "I heard that you want to monopolize the salt business, is there such a thing?" ”

Nima, who is so lacking in virtue that he is in Jiajing and advancing with such slander.

When Yang Cong heard this, he couldn't help but be stunned, but he soon figured out that it was either Xia Yan or Yan Song who chewed his tongue in front of Jiajing.

How do you answer this question?

Jiajing is not an idiot, and it is basically impossible to fool him with this kind of thing.

Yang Cong was stunned for a moment, and then plucked up the courage to ask: "Your Majesty, I don't know who this is from, it sounds like it really makes Weichen panic." Weichen dared to ask, does the emperor know the current price of salt? ”

How could this Jiajing know that he only cares about eating, tea, rice, oil, salt, etc., how much money is a catty, he never cares.

He was slightly embarrassed and said, "What is the price of salt now?" ”

Yang Cong said bluntly: "Wechen in other places is not very clear, Wechen only knows that the price of salt in Nanzhili is about one and a half cents a catty, and in Huguang and Shanxi, it is about three or four cents a catty. ”

When Jiajing heard this, he couldn't help but show a blank expression, this one cent, three or four cents a catty, it seems to be a little too high, and the total tax of the people of Daming in a year seems to be less than one cent!

Yang Cong secretly glanced at the expression on his face, and then explained: "Your Majesty, the high price of salt is really a bit outrageous, because the Salt Transportation Division exchanges salt from the stove household, and only gives one stone of rice for every four hundred catties, which means that the cost of one hundred catties of salt is about one cent, and if you add the salt tax of three taels per citation, the cost of one hundred catties of salt is about two cents." The reason why the price of salt is so high is not because the salt merchants are black-minded to make huge profits, but because of the layers of exploitation by officials at all levels. And the border towns still have to collect example money, which is about ten taels per quote, and Chen Da, the governor of Shanxi, was embarrassed by his father because he did not receive enough example money. In addition, when the original Nanjing households were allocated with salt, they also charged almost ten taels of money for each introduction, that is to say, before the salt began to be sold, each catty had already been stripped of a penny of silver by corrupt officials at all levels, plus the cost of opening and transportation, the price of salt became one and a half or even three or four cents. ”

Now Jiajing finally understood a little, it turned out that the money extorted by these corrupt officials and corrupt officials had reached more than ten times the salt tax!

He couldn't help but say in a deep voice: "What do you mean, as long as there are not so many corrupt officials in the middle, the price of this salt can at least drop by half?" ”

Yang Cong hurriedly patted the situation and said: "The emperor is wise, the reason why we strive for the salt business is to bring down the price of salt, for example, after Zhang Shiche and Lord Zhang became the head of the household department, he began to restrain his officials, and the example of distributing salt can at least clear more than half of the money, and Wang Dong also began to purge his officials after serving as the two Huai salt envoys, and when this is exchanged for salt, the example money can be cleared by more than half." Weichen in other places dare not guarantee that by next year, the salt price in Nanzhili, which we are in charge of, will be reduced by at least half, to about seven centimeters, and the salt price in Huguang will also be reduced by more than half, to about one and a half points. ”

It turned out that this was the case, Jiajing heard this, and looked at Yang Cong's gaze with admiration.

He is actually inspecting Yang Cong, face-to-face!

Yang Cong's biggest problem is that he is involved in the salt business, so he naturally wants to ask clearly.

Now it seems that Yang Cong's purpose is to reduce the burden of the people.

He believes that at this point, Yang Cong will never dare to lie to him, because the salt prices of Nanzhili and Huguang before and the salt prices of this year and next year, he can find out as long as he casually sends someone to investigate, if Yang Cong dares to lie to him, it is purely looking for death.

This kid, yes, the competition for the salt business is actually to reduce the price of salt and benefit the people!