Yangzhou.

"Third brother, third brother?"

Yang Qing, who was about to flow out, suddenly sobered up in Huang Fei's shout.

"Mah, I haven't finished pulling the calf yet!"

He wordlessly pulled the sleeve of the little maid beside him and wiped his mouth, then moved his body, and looked at the few civil officials by the lotus pond in front of him who were still continuing to talk loudly, they were studying where the spring water was the best place to make tea, Yang Qing was already studying it before he fell asleep. On the other table, Song Quan and several civil officials were studying the masterpiece of the Gray Gong, and a famous prostitute not far away was stroking the qin, and the melodious sound of the piano and the aroma of the furnace made Yang Qing's eyelids sink again, I have to say that this exquisite life is not suitable for him, just like the same exquisite dishes on the table are not very in line with his appetite.

"Little beauty, go get me a roast lamb!"

He said to the little maid.

The latter's eyes immediately showed a hint of faint contempt, but he was still blessed and left.

"What's her attitude?"

Yang Qing was stunned.

"The third brother doesn't know, this kind of thing can't be on the salt merchant's banquet, Yangzhou salt merchants only eat lamb lips when they eat sheep, and only eat a small piece of lamb lips, and other meats are regarded as fishy and inedible filth, so a table usually costs hundreds of sheep, at this time you eat roast sheep in Zhengjia Shadow Garden, it's strange that people don't laugh at it!"

Huang Fei said with a smile.

He recounted his friendship with Yang Qing and Cao Youyi, Cao Youyi's eldest brother, his second brother, and Yang Qing's third brother.

"Then roast me ten more big kidneys, medium-rare!"

Yang Qing shouted towards the back of the little maid.

The little maid stumbled under her feet, and her slender little waist twisted!

"Director Zheng, your little girl is very good, can you give it to your brother?"

Yang Qing smiled and turned his head to shout at the group of civil officials.

One of them looked back in amazement.

"Uncle Zhongyong likes it, that's her blessing, and after the banquet, I'll send someone to send it to Miss Yuanyuan with the deed of sale."

He didn't seem to wake up for a while, but quickly changed his smile and said.

"Thank you."

Yang Qing said with satisfaction.

"I'll eat her tonight!"

Then he whispered and said to Huang Fei.

Huang Fei also laughed obscenely.

This is the shadow garden of Zheng Yuanxun's family, the new director of the Ministry of Officials, he is a Jinshi in the middle of last year, and he is in the same department as his nephew Zheng Weihong, of course, the special thing about the uncle and nephew of the Zheng family is not because of this, but that his father Zheng Ziyan is a salt merchant sacrificial wine, which is equivalent to the general manager of our Qing Dynasty later. The Zheng brothers are currently the head of the salt merchants in Yangzhou, and after being admitted to the Jinshi, they became the gentry leaders of the government and business, and this is the civil and military officials who he invited to the banquet in the Yingyuan on behalf of the Yangzhou gentry. Yang Qing, as one of the hot triumvirates beside Chongzhen, was naturally also among the banquets, but Wang Chengen did not come to the banquet, in fact, Wang Chengen basically did not accept any banquets from foreign ministers, he was almost inseparable from Chongzhen.

Han Zanzhou is here.

In addition, there is also Yang Xianming, the chief eunuch of the Prime Minister Salt Affairs.

This is the role of the emperor of Yangzhou salt merchants, who are stationed in Yangzhou to supervise all the salt merchants in this core city of salt industry for the emperor.

"A hundred sheep, only eat lamb lips, these guys are really extravagant! Our emperor's life is a bargain compared to them! It's a pity that our emperor is reluctant to even eat meat, and his clothes have to be sewn and mended, and they spend a hundred sheep on a meal just for a dish? This should really let our emperor come up and take a look, see how extravagant our Ming salt merchants are, how did they make so much money? ”

Yang Qing said with emotion.

"As far as the salt law of our court is concerned, a donkey can be a salt merchant who can be rich and rival the country!"

Huang Fei sneered.

"If you want to say that our Ming salt law, in terms of the country, it is the best of Taizu Hong Wuye, salt merchants transport grain from the interior to the border towns, receive salt from the border towns, and then sell the salt in the salt field by themselves, not only the border towns are not short of grain, but also force the merchants to go to the border towns to open up the wasteland, this soldier has grain and there are people, and they are not afraid of any tartars, and it will not take many years to reproduce and be no different from the Guannai."

He went on to say.

"Then why not?"

Yang Qing asked humbly.

"The princes of the DPRK and the Central Committee can't make money!

The salt is sent from the border town, even if there is oil and water to fish, it is also a border town, and there is nothing to do with the princes of the court and the central government in the middle!

Then they managed to get the food to be paid to the household.

This is easy to do, those royal relatives, officials of various ministries, and fathers-in-law in the palace, all of them preemptively started to occupy the salt first by their relationship, and then they resold it to the merchants to make profits, they don't have to do anything, but the left hand took the salt and led the right hand to those salt merchants, and they can take away more than half of the salt profits, and even later, because the wolf has more meat and less meat, and a large number of false openings have caused the salt merchants to be unable to support the salt in the salt field, and more and more salt merchants can't do it.

If they can't do it, there will be less food on the side of the loss, and the border towns will start to go hungry.

But this is still a bit of grain, after all, as long as there are salt merchants to operate, they still need to transport grain, they later most of the grain is in the border town of Tuntian, and then with the household number, these grains are still sent to the nearest garrison, although in the border town of Tuntian production of grain, but for the salt merchants this is nothing, after all, their purpose is to change the salt, they will get back the loss of the Tuntian from the profit from selling salt.

But in the end, it would be completely bad to change to the color folding method.

The salt merchants just exchanged the silver for the salt, they no longer needed the grain for the salt, then their tuntian in the border town would be of no use, the yield of these tuntian itself was low, and it was impossible for those salt merchants to be willing to put the industry outside the customs, so those tuntian fields were all abandoned, and the border towns could only rely entirely on transportation within the customs except for the harvest of the tuntian fields as soldiers.

Those who are soldiers will never have enough to eat again!

As for the current Gangyan Law, it has nothing to do with the soldiers, this is designed for the princes of the DPRK and the Central Committee to make money lying down, and the businessmen who are not in the Gangon have no right to lead it, and the businessmen in the Ganggang can monopolize the salt profits for generations as long as the background does not fall, and the salt in the salt field is a few pennies, and the lowest price of the salt farm is tens of Wen, and the minimum is ten times the profit, which is to make money lying down.

Now, in just a few decades, they are all rich.

If you search the wealth of this Yangzhou salt merchant, I am afraid it will not be less than what Li Zicheng tortured and looted in Beijing. ”

Huang Fei said.

Although he is the chief soldier of Yangzhou, after all, he is also a newcomer, and at this time the south has not fallen into a war shortage, although the military generals have increased their power a little, but they have not yet reached the point of overpowering the civilian officials, especially Yangzhou, which is, still maintains the order of the past, so it is difficult for him to reach out to the salt industry, so he is also very indignant when he sees the wealth of these salt merchants.

Compared with the extravagance of these guys, those of them who came back from the north were particularly stimulated.

"I'm going to have to figure it out!"

Yang Qing said with emotion while holding the wine glass.

This really has to be done, and it is completely intolerable not to get the salt merchants.

"How?"

Huang Fei immediately came to his senses.

"Is there any crack in the egg in this salt merchant?"

Yang Qing said.

"The salt merchants are currently divided into two factions, one is the northwest, this is the old salt merchants, in the past when the grain was transported, Shanxi and Shaanxi merchants controlled the salt industry, but after the folding of the color method, the rise of the salt merchants in Huizhou, at this time has been faintly overwhelmed the salt merchants in the northwest. However, the latter has been doing this since the Hongwu period, and its strength in Yangzhou is huge, especially it also controls the trade with the grassland and Jiannu, so it is not so easy to admit defeat, and the two sides fought fiercely, and last year there was a lot of trouble because of the merchant nationality. And the Zheng family is a Huizhou businessman, although he is a native of Yangzhou, but he is actually from Changling, She County, Huizhou, but Ma Minglu is a native of Shaanxi, and he is the leader of Western merchants. ”

Huang Fei pointed to a civil official not far away and said.

"Western merchants are also Jin merchants?"

Yang Qing asked.

"It can be said that in fact, it also includes Shaanxi merchants, but it is mainly from Shanxi, and the southern sea ships we banned on the Bohai Sea are all controlled by Western merchants here, but their main trade route is to go north from the Han River to the credit flag shop to change to Shanxi by land, and then go north from Shanxi out of Yanmen Pass through Xuanhua and then to the north."

Huang Fei said.

"They're far enough away in business!"

Yang Qing said.

"Not only that, but the Northwest Merchants Gang can even sell tea to the Western Regions!"

Huang Fei said.

In fact, the footprints of the Jin merchants are as far as Russia, of course, this is not within the scope of Yang Qing's concern, what he needs is how to create an opportunity to serve these Jin merchants in Yangzhou, the Hui merchants have to keep it for the time being, they are still useful, rashly get rid of these Hui merchants, it will cause problems in the supply of salt in other parts of the Ming Dynasty, but the Jin merchants are different, they are no longer useful.

Li Zicheng has Changlu and Huaibei Salt Farm, he will not be stupid enough to send silver to Chongzhen's territory.

The Huainan Salt Farm was originally only supplied to Huainan and Jiangnan, so it would not cause any trouble to defeat the salt merchants in Shaanxi and Shanxi, and this action would definitely be supported by the Hui merchants. In fact, salt merchants still have the need to exist under the current conditions, theoretically salt state-run is the best, but the current Ming Dynasty does not have this condition at all, the imperial power is not under the county era, the only result of thinking about such a thing as official management is to create a large number of corrupt officials.

Inefficiency can also affect salt availability in remote areas.

Salt merchants can at least solve the supply problem, but they need to expand the supply sources so that all provinces can have a nearby salt supply source, such as well salt in Hubei, expand the number of salt farms along the south coast and reform the salt production technology to increase production, so as to change the situation of salt merchants concentrated in Yangzhou. In the end, there were similar trading centers and their own trade networks in various places, so that the abnormal prosperity of Yangzhou salt merchants could also come to an end, otherwise this extravagance would become more and more intense, and Daming did not need a group of guys who ate a hundred sheep at a meal.

"Sir, the roasted kidneys you want!"

The soft voice of the little maid beside him sounded.

Yang Qing watched with satisfaction as she put ten roasted kidneys in front of her, and then took the opportunity to pat her little ass, and in that familiar scream, he happily picked up a string and handed it to his second brother......