Around May 17, Chen Duzhu received quite clear information that the salt reserves on the side of the Eastern Domain exceeded 30,000 stones, piling up like a mountain.

According to the price of 40 wen a pound of official salt in the Great Wei Dynasty, the salt of the Eastern Domain is also fully matched.

It's the same fine and white, even better than official salt.

After all, the rule of officials in the Great Wei Dynasty began to collapse, from the transshipment envoy to the salt warehouse ambassador were all in their hands, and the price of official salt was not only getting higher and higher, but the quality also began to decline step by step.

The underwriting price of salt in the Eastern Domain was 16 wen per catty, and the retail price was 18 to 20 wen per catty, which was more than double that of official salt and slightly lower than the price of some private salt.

This is a dumping strategy, the emergence of new salt, quickly open up the market, squeeze out the original illegal salt market, in the shortest possible time to grab a large number of illegal salt market.

Of course, official salt will also be affected, Nan'an Hou Mansion has set a strategy, as much as possible in the towns and villages, large quantities of distribution to small merchants, many places are not the audience of official salt, even if you buy salt, you are buying private salt or black coarse salt, so the impact on official salt will be weakened and reduced.

It is impossible for the salt tax to be unaffected, but at the imperial court level, it is about a reduction of hundreds of thousands to millions of guan, which is still within the tolerable range.

The income of more than 100 million guan, reducing the income of hundreds of thousands or millions of guan, appeased a prince like Xu Zixian, and the two governments still counted this account.

Find a few miscellaneous taxes on a few roads at random, and add a few pennies a pound to the wine vinegar money, and this deficit will be made up.

It's been doing this for so many years, and there have never been exceptions.

And with the progress of the Northern Expedition, the Son of Heaven's sealing pile warehouse is also melting like ice and snow, and Emperor Chongde has been living frugally, and has been collecting the money and tribute paid into the Great Expedition for so many years, ready to be used in the major events of the Northern Expedition.

From this point of view, the private virtue of the Son of Heaven threw off Emperor Chengzong a hundred streets.

However, the Northern Expedition must not be able to afford to seal the piles, and further large-scale tax increases are imperative, causing turmoil, dissatisfaction, and even the rise of bandits.

Under this kind of capital, the small fluctuations in the salt tax will not be taken too seriously by the center at all.

Chen Duzhu has a clear understanding of this, he is the Shuzong of the Changwen Marquis Mansion, which means that the financial and food support he receives in the public is quite limited.

Of course, the Changwen Hou Mansion has public land, ancestral halls, and ethnology, and the most estranged clansmen can also get free education, and the Hou Mansion will help bury those poor clansmen, so that the clansmen will not be buried in Yizhuang with nowhere to bury. Moreover, there is public land, and those old and weak and orphans will be supported, and poor families will be helped by public land.

But if you want to get ahead, it is nothing more than reading in ethnology, and only reading is the best way out.

If you can't read books, but you're smart, then you're going to help the clan get busy.

In the past 30 years, Chen Duzhu has traveled north and south of the Great River, walking hundreds of military states, and what he has seen so far, he deeply feels that the Great Wei has accumulated a lot of difficulties and is difficult to return.

A few days ago, when he met and had a secret conversation with Changwen Hou Chen Dujing, the other party also confirmed his views and views.

Great Wei has been in turmoil for decades, but no matter how difficult the pass is, it seems that nothing great has happened, but under the clues, you can find that the rotten wood is about to be unable to support it, this is the meaning of the existence of people like Chen Duzhu.

Moreover, he was not only in charge of the foreign business and trade of the Changwen Marquis Mansion, but in fact, Chen Duzhu was also in charge of the communication with the gentry of Benlu, the liaison between the gentry of the two Zhejiang provinces and the Jiangnan and the wealthy merchants.

Prior to this, the interests of the Changwen Hou Mansion and the Nan'an Hou Mansion on Fujian Road were the same, and the two were in-laws and business partners.

However, after the Northern Expedition, how to deal with the relationship between the two families after the evolution of the capital, and how to affect the power of those officials and gentry and businessmen from all walks of life, this is what Chen Dujing, Chen Duzhu and others have to consider.

"Brother Zhu came early." Lin Yang first got down from a small sedan chair carried by two people, he had a bad waist and legs, and he couldn't ride a horse, even after coming down from the sedan chair, he kept beating his waist and eyes.

"I can only take the big sentinel boat." Chen Duzhu smiled and pointed to the small sailboat in front of him, and said, "Fortunately, this ship is very fast, and it will soon be able to reach Penghu." ”

The two of them looked at each other and smiled, both feeling that this arrangement was wonderful, in fact, they were both in a hurry.

The big sentry ship is ten meters long, three meters wide, if it is on the river or along the coast, it is not a problem to bring thirty or fifty people, it was originally a small boat used by the van army to patrol the sentinel, the ship has a single mast or two masts, the foremast is slightly slanted forward, the lifting sail rope is very fast, the wind is very fast, the hull is light, there are four oars and a oar to cooperate, rowing on the shore, with the help of the wind, the ship is like flying.

From Fuzhou instead of Zhangzhou, the sea distance is a little farther, but by taking a small sentinel boat, you can reach Penghu in half a day, and one day is enough to reach the Eastern Domain.

After the two of them got on the boat, they found that there were more than a dozen craftsmen under the boat, and many craftsmen knew that these two were masters, and they all stood up and saluted.

"What are you waiting to do in the Eastern Domain?" Chen Duzhu waved his hand and motioned for everyone to sit down, and at this time, the hull of the ship shook and he had already lifted anchor and set off.

"I'll wait until I go to the Eastern Domain to build a factory." A craftsman crossed his hands and said, "There are not enough craftsmen to build a factory by the river." ”

"Potters, smelters, bricklayers, stonemasons, blacksmiths, carpenters, carpenters, carpenters, high carpenters, low carpenters, big work, small work, all of them, we have bricklayers, high carpenters, big work, low carpenters, there are four yuan a month's wages, which is not much more than at home, but there is no tax on craftsmen on the Eastern Domain, so the little people are willing to come."

It is quite normal for a master craftsman, especially a tall carpenter, a water carpenter, and a blacksmith, to earn five or six yuan a month, after all, they have to do work every day, which is quite hard, and they have superb craftsmanship.

The Great Wei Dynasty did not make the craftsmen hereditary craftsmen like the Ming Dynasty, and it was not wrong to treat the craftsmen as workers in state-owned enterprises, but there was a lack of material incentives, so the craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty, especially the military craftsmen, lived quite miserably.

The craftsmen of the Great Wei Dynasty are all hired systems, even if it is the government, as long as they are not subject to forced labor, the government's projects also cost money to hire craftsmen, and cannot be forcibly requisitioned.

The situation in the Qing Dynasty was much more excessive than that of the Ming Dynasty, and after the British mission arrived on the coast of Zhejiang during the Qianlong period, because they were not familiar with the Chinese routes, the British asked the local general army to help them find a navigator. The commander-in-chief replied happily, but the British saw an unexpected scene. The general army forced the people to lead the way.

The method of the general army was to send soldiers to find all the people who had gone to Tianjin by sea.

Barrow, a member of the mission, said: "The soldiers they sent quickly brought back a group of people. They were the most miserable-looking creatures I've ever seen in my life, and they got down on their knees and were questioned. They lamented in vain that going far away from home would ruin their business and cause misery to their wives and children, and to their families, but the general army was unmoved, and ordered them to be ready in an hour. ”

In front of them, the craftsmen on the small sentry boats, although they talked about the heavy taxes, were also dissatisfied, and even lost confidence in the imperial court, and even lost so respect for the officials.

But they are self-satisfied, self-respecting and self-confident.

They believe that their craft will support themselves and their families, and they are sure that they are needed, and they are not doing some kind of business.

It is even more unlikely that a military general will point at will, and a group of officers and soldiers like wolves and tigers will come and arrest them, and they will not even be given food money and travel expenses, so they will be slender men or guides for hundreds of miles or thousands of miles.

This is not possible in Great Wei.

In the Han, Tang, and Song dynasties, in the normal period of the Chinese Dynasty, not the last days of death, it does not need to be a prosperous era, but just an ordinary time, such as the period of Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty, Zhongzong, Ruizong, or the Yingzong and Xianzong periods of the Ming Dynasty.

Craftsmen must have a time limit for service, and they must not be endlessly conscripted and conscripted, and they must be sympathetic to the people's strength.

Everything must be in order, and officials cannot do whatever they want.

Of course, the best dynasties will also have a dark side, and they will also be disgusting, and when someone can't stand it anymore, they will raise the banner of rebellion and have another dynasty change.

These craftsmen in front of them are full of expectations, lighter taxes, better treatment, higher income, can make their wives and children live better.

It's a normal country, even though it's sick, it's rotting in its muscles, it's becoming less friendly, it's not so rich, and many people live hard, even miserable.

But it is still a normal country, it does not have the idea and theoretical support of treating the people as slaves, the scholars and doctors have their own ideas and ethics, and the Son of Heaven wants to support his cronies to fight against the two governments, and there are not many civil officials who cooperate.

Everyone likes fame and wealth very much, but they also have to talk about rules and reputation, and completely treat themselves as slaves and serve the emperor as their own father, which is really impossible.

The little sentinel boat left the harbor and flew forward, like a flying fish ship flying over the sea, cutting the waves and moving forward.

"Go to Penghu before noon, stop the boat for a moment, and take a few people on the boat." Before the boat sailed to noon, the captain of the sentinel ship said to everyone: "The two masters and the craftsmen are all going to the Eastern Domain, and there are a few old people in Penghu who are also going to the Eastern Domain. ”

"It doesn't matter." Lin Yang leaned on the boat gang first, and the waves came into the hull of the boat from time to time, wetting his robes and clothes, but as a person who often goes out, he has long been accustomed to these things, and he just smiled at the moment: "Little things, we also know that this small boat is the ship of Nan'an Hou Mansion, you are all sailors and soldiers, you have worked hard, go back to the Eastern Domain, and give you some wine money to drink." ”

"Thank you." The captain smiled and hugged his fists, and said: "According to the rules of our Nan'an Hou Mansion, you can't take money from the two masters, and when you get to the Eastern Domain, you can ask people on the shore to help lead the way, or hire carts, horses, mules and donkeys, the area developed on the island is not small, and there are also businessmen who have set up a foot shop, rest assured, our Nan'an rules are big, and those coachmen and porters dare not mess around." ”

The captain is indeed a soldier, Lin Yangxian and Chen Duzhu both noticed that the other party was wearing a blue military robe, and the robe was cut very well, revealing the waist, unlike ordinary people of Dawei, who cut a piece of cloth out of a few holes, and put it on the head to be considered a robe.

Even the robes of the scholars and gentlemen have no real tailoring, nothing more than paying attention to the fabric.

Although the officers and soldiers of the Navy Division in front of them are not wide robes and big sleeves, and the clothing is also the most ordinary coarse cloth, which is nothing more than thicker, but the cut is quite good, Lin and Chen do not understand, this is the credit of the design.

The well-fitting robe, the sleeves were fastened with brass buckles, the waist was fastened with a leather belt, the robe reached to the knee, the lower body trousers, the cavalry and officers were breeches, the officers were boots, the soldiers were boots, and at sea they wore hemp shoes, because they were not easy to slip.

The officers and men of the naval division in front of them were neatly dressed, beautiful, and spoke appropriately, and their faces and bodies revealed a rather optimistic, calm, and healthy feeling.

Lin Yang was over fifty years old, he thought about it, it seemed that the Great Wei Forbidden Army when he was a teenager was almost the same as the feeling of these soldiers in front of him.

The Great Wei Forbidden Army is also very good, the salary is very high, the red military uniform is also very beautiful, and when hundreds of forbidden troops gather together, it is like a red cloud gathered.

The salary is high, the treatment is not bad, the family can be supported well, plus the peace everywhere, the status of the forbidden army is not low, the Great Wei has never been heavy on literature and light on military force, and has never turned soldiers into prisoners, the practice of stabbing soldiers in the face of soldiers has been done in the late Tang Dynasty, and Taizu of Great Wei directly abolished this law, only good families are eligible to join the forbidden army, height, physical appearance, and have to add no criminal record.

The pride and glory of the past no longer existed, Lin Yangxian's expression was a little complicated, a person's experience determined his way of thinking and emotional direction, no matter how elite and vigorous the government army of Nan'an Hou Mansion was, Lin Yangxian still preferred that the Great Wei Forbidden Army was in front of him.

The Great Wei Forbidden Army in my childhood memory, a powerful army, a wise and loving official, a well-functioning court, an official who controls the people and loves the people, a thriving industrial and commercial trade and a rich and satisfied people.

At night, when it was dark, there were lights everywhere in the towns and villages, and women with children, men with flesh on their faces and happy lights in their eyes, gathered in groups of three or five to go to the taverns of the market towns and villages to ask for a few dishes, and the three or five people drank wine and bragged to relieve their exhaustion.

At that time, there were well-functioning almshouses in the city, such as the Leaky Garden, the Keats House, and the Salesian Capital, where the widows and lonely were all supported, and there were no homeless and hungry people, and there were no elderly and children who had no one to support them.

Lin Yangxian closed his eyes and leaned his body lightly on the hull of the boat, and the small sentinel boat swayed, continuing to ride the wind and waves.