The raindrops fell down the eaves, Zhu Yijun stood expressionlessly under the eaves, and Queen Wang stood not far from Zhu Yijun, quietly looking at her husband, the emperor of the Ming Empire.

After a while, Zhu Yijun breathed a sigh of relief, turned his head to look at Queen Wang, and said with a smile: "When did you come over?" ”

"Just came here!" Queen Wang smiled and said, "Seeing that Your Majesty can see God, no one will disturb Your Majesty." It's raining so hard outside, Your Majesty should not stay outside for long, lest you suffer the wind and cold. ”

Zhu Yijun smiled, stretched out his hand to take Queen Wang's hand and said, "Okay, I listen to the Queen." ”

Queen Wang smiled, and said with a touch of joy on her face: "Your Majesty seems to be a little depressed, there are ministers in the court, there are queen mothers in the harem, and concubines, Your Majesty can care about it." ”

Laughing and waving his hand, Zhu Yijun said in a deep voice: "I don't have so many ideas, I'm just thinking about where to start." ”

Speaking of reform, but what the Ming Dynasty looks like, Zhu Yijun couldn't be clearer, and it is more appropriate to say that reform is a thousand things, rather than a thousand holes. The whole Daming is like a big colander, and Zhu Yijun has a feeling that a dog bites a hedgehog and has nowhere to put his mouth.

After pondering for a long time, Zhu Yijun felt that he still had to start with money, and he couldn't play anything without money!

Although he was pondering, Zhu Yijun knew that what he had to do now was to stabilize the situation, not to do other things.

After chatting with Queen Wang for a while, and having lunch together, Zhu Yijun went to watch the song. For these twists and turns, a large part of them are, and Zhu Yijun is too lazy to watch them.

However, today's twists and turns are a bit interesting, all of them are impeachment twists and turns, and the impeachment is none other than Pan Sheng, the upcoming successor of the Ministry of Rites.

Speaking of Pan Sheng, Zhu Yijun is not familiar with this person, after Ma Ziqiang died, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites is this Pan Sheng.

However, Pan Sheng did not do the Ministry of Rites for too long, and after about two years, Pan Sheng retired again. After Pan Sheng retired, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites was Xu Xuemo, and this person was about to become a scholar.

After Zhang Juzheng was a scholar of Xu Xuemo, he recommended Pan Sheng, and also hoped that Pan Sheng would enter the cabinet as the secretary of the Ministry of Rites.

Zhu Yijun really doesn't like the Ming officials playing Zhishi at every turn, and when something doesn't go well, or the emperor doesn't listen to him, he will play Zhishi for you and go home by himself.

This kind of atmosphere is unacceptable, and the responsibility system must be implemented!

After flipping through several books in a row, Zhu Yijun found that all of them were impeached against Pan Sheng, and it was obvious that Pan Sheng was targeted!

There is no need to think about this matter carefully, Zhu Yijun knows that someone does not want Pan Sheng to enter the cabinet. Obviously, Zhang Juzheng is dead, and many people can't sit still and want to enter the cabinet position. Sneered and threw the fold aside, Zhu Yijun didn't want to touch Zhang Juzheng's people now.

Even if it is to be moved in the future, it is definitely not such a move.

After looking through a few folds, Zhu Yijun suddenly saw a fold, and the expression on his face immediately became playful. This excerpt is an excerpt of the Imperial Inspectorate's supervision of the imperial historian Cao Yikui, and the content on it also makes Zhu Yijun very interested.

Cao Yikui's excerpt only involves one thing, and that is: salt!

In this era, salt and iron are always the most profitable, Cao Yikui described in detail the shortcomings of the Ming salt law in the excerpt, as well as the corruption of local people, but layer by layer, countless people use salt to enrich themselves.

In particular, some salt merchants were unscrupulous, turning a blind eye to the laws of the imperial court.

At the end of the recital, Cao Yikui put forward nine suggestions for salt making.

One clears the stove, two divides the weight difference, three prohibits private salt, four exempts old debts, five lessons private frying, six re-salt introduction, seven more salt (change the rich country to the salt field, the new town to the silver field, in order to facilitate business), eight cut the silver, pay the eye, and nine officials buy surplus salt.

Among these nine articles, what attracted Zhu Yijun's attention the most was the official purchase of surplus salt.

To put it bluntly, the salt is collected by the official of the field, and the extra surplus salt is bought for rice, so that the prolific salt can also be profitable.

At the beginning of the Hongzhi Dynasty, all merchants had no salt to pay, and they were allowed to buy surplus salt to make up for the correction. The ban on the private purchase of surplus salt was opened, and the profiteers used the official to lure and bring the private salt, which made the palace stagnate and trapped, and the system of official revenue was blocked from then on.

Zhu Yijun knocked on Cao Yikui's recital, and muttered for a moment, it seemed that his first knife needed to be cut at Yanzheng.

Glancing at Zhang Whale, Zhu Yijun opened his mouth and said, "Go, find this Cao Yikui for me!" ”

Salt and iron, these two items are definitely the most important income of the feudal dynasty, and if you want to increase your income, you can start with salt. It's just that I have to listen to what Cao Yikui has to say about what I want to do.

Cao Yikui is a jinshi in the second year of Wanli, not very old, about thirty years old, it is the time of the prime of life.

"The ministers see the emperor!" Cao Yikui walked into the imperial study of the Qianqing Palace and knelt on the ground to salute Zhu Yijun.

"Get up!" Zhu Yijun said lightly: "I am very interested in your performance of the salt administration, tell me how you thought about it." I know that this salt policy is a whole body! ”

Cao Yikui was stunned, for the sake of salt politics? After understanding what was going on, Cao Yikui instantly became excited.

"When the minister once inspected Cangxian County, Hebei Province, he saw that some local officials used their authority to manage salt taxes to buy and sell salt for profit." Cao Yikui said in a deep voice: "Local officials are still reselling illicit salt, how rampant should salt merchants be? ”

"The minister thought that salt was the lifeblood of the imperial court, and since the merchants were allowed to buy surplus salt, the salt money of the imperial court has deteriorated, and the income has decreased very much."

"The minister thought that it was time to change the salt administration, and it was an urgent matter to determine the salt farms, check the officials, and severely punish the salt merchants who sold illegal salt." Cao Yikui said this, and said with some excitement: "What do those salt merchants do to the country?" But he bought a lot of land and his family was very rich? ”

Zhu Yijun suddenly laughed when he heard Cao Yikui say this: "Then tell me, how rich are those salt merchants?" ”

"Back to the emperor, the minister doesn't know." Cao Yikui pondered for a moment and said in a deep voice.

Zhu Yijun nodded, although Cao Yikui said that he didn't know, but the whole court knew that the salt merchants were rich. It's just that this matter can't be mentioned, and if you mention it, there will inevitably be ministers who will come out to state the merits of the salt merchants, and so on.

For the salt method of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yijun has studied in detail, and it can be said that it has been played bad by salt merchants.

The salt law at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty was a system that encouraged merchants to transport grain to the border in exchange for salt and gave patents for salt sales, also known as Kaizhong. The system of Kaizhong followed the system of the Song and Yuan dynasties, but in the Ming Dynasty, there were more openings in the border areas to attract merchants to transport grain to the border and enrich the military grain reserves on the border.

In order to make money and convenience, merchants began to hoard land and farm in the frontier to reduce freight costs, which gave rise to a new term called Shangtun. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Shangtun went east to Liaodong, north to Xuanda, west to Gansu, south to the address, everywhere, and its prosperity played a great role in the border defense grain reserves and the development of the border areas.