The salt pond in Yuncheng, Shanxi Province, may be the only giant natural salt pond in the Central Plains of Chinese mainland. In order to enjoy the benefits of the salt pond exclusively, the Ming court raised and thickened the city wall on the basis of the previous generation, turning the entire salt pond into a lake in the city.

In addition to the salt ponds, there is also a vast sea as a source of salt. Shandong, Lianghuai, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and other coastal salt-producing areas have set up a transshipment department or a salt department lifting division. In addition, the imperial court also set up the imperial history of salt tea in various places, commonly known as the salt road yamen, and in fact became the highest management department of the salt industry in various places.

However, these bureaucrats did not work as intended, and they were controlled by corrupt bureaucrats like Fu Chongqi who were hungry for profit, and became a tool for them to grab huge private fortunes. The imperial court made a lot of efforts, but the income of the salt industry in the Ming Dynasty was only a fraction of that of the former Song Dynasty, and the salt grains put into the bowls of the common people were not cheaper. Yuan Shizhen instituted a salt law in the last years of Wanli, which became the last effort of the Ming Dynasty before the complete failure of the salt monopoly system (Note 1).

Sichuan does not have natural salt ponds, but there are natural salt springs, which have been the main salt producing areas since ancient times.

The Cubans discovered natural salt springs in the Three Gorges region very early. Although the brine concentration is not high, it is still an extremely valuable asset. The Cubans used this wealth to exchange grain with the salt-producing land of Chu, and for a time established a powerful state until the Qin army, which ruled the world, entered Sichuan. In order to break the monopoly of the Ba people on salt, Li Bing, the Taishou of Shu County of Qin, not only commanded the people to build the great Dujiangyan project, but also dug several brine wells near Chengdu by the way, which became the pioneering work of Sichuan well salt.

In the Song Dynasty, there was a technological revolution in Yanjing, and the production of well salt became larger and larger. Zhuo Tube Well uses the percussion filing method, which reduces the diameter of the wellhead and increases the depth of the well. At present, the deepest salt well in the Phu Rong area has reached the level of 100 zhang.

Although the salt monopoly is a well-known profiteering, the source of the profiteering is not just demand, not cost, nor insufficient production, but only a strong monopoly on it by the violent organization of the state. Because everyone eats salt, and the huge profits also come from everyone, the essence of the salt monopoly is a kind of poll tax that is difficult for everyone to avoid.

Since the huge profits come from the monopoly, any smuggling is a destruction of the salt monopoly system.

The destruction of the salt monopoly has benefited some people, but it has been everyone in the industrial chain who has been harmed, including smugglers. Because the profit obtained by the smugglers comes from the difference between the sale price of the salt and the cost price of the illegal salt (including the cost of illegality). The price of regular salt is washed away by the price of private salt, so the price difference narrows or even disappears, and the existence of illegal salt will also lose the soil. If someone goes to the imperial court to abolish the monopoly on smuggling salt, then the most vocal opposition will inevitably be the smuggling salt dealers. Positive salt and private salt are like a pair of associated twin stars, one in the light and the other in the dark forever. Just as wild and special cars are legal, they will inevitably take to the streets to demonstrate.

The salt monopoly system of the Ming Dynasty had completely failed by the autumn of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen.

In Sichuan, for example, hundreds of thousands of pieces of salt were sold to salt merchants, but the salt merchants did not pick up the goods at all. If the salt merchants did not pick up the goods, the imperial court would not be able to issue new salt introductions, and they would lose the dividends of the salt industry franchise, a phenomenon known as "salt introduction (YONG) plug". So why don't salt merchants pick up the goods, is there no market, or is the market impacted by foreign salt? Apparently not. Although the cost of Sichuan well salt is higher, it has few impurities, white color and taste, pure grains, no bitter taste, and the quality is several times higher than that of sea salt (whether it is seawater salt or seawater fried salt). In addition, salt is a bulk commodity, and the transportation and storage costs account for a high proportion of the total cost. Therefore, since ancient times, in the competition between Sichuan salt and Huaiyan, there have been many defeats in Nanzhili, and there have been victories and defeats in Huguang and Jiangxi markets, but in the local market of Sichuan, there has never been a defeat.

One of the main reasons why salt merchants do not pick up goods is because of the impact of the prevalence of illegal salt. In addition to the salt introduction costs that have been paid, salt merchants also have to pay various expenses set up by the government in order to loot salt profits. These fees are collectively called "floating fees", and I am afraid that no one can tell how much the floating fees are, in short, it is "a bad rule for one thing, and a science school that has a place through one place". As a result, the total cost of formal salt has risen rapidly, making it impossible for them to compete with the relatively cheap private salt.

After alleviating Miss Luo's worries, Hong Qihui immediately talked about an important commodity at the court meeting - salt.

His suggestion is still to cover the seven million people in Sichuan, and if each person is ten catties per year, it will take 70 million catties. If the tax is increased by 20 wen per catty, the annual income is 1.4 million taels of silver. The total amount of salt tax in Sichuan is more than 79,000 taels of silver (Note 1), but the various floating fees are much higher, and the specific amount has to be negotiated to be obtained. If the salt industry is taken over, minus the regular tax and floating fees, the palace will still have huge benefits.

Hong Qihui's advocacy for the salt industry aroused the interest of a group of royal officials. They began to talk to each other, and even someone suggested using the ancient tea horse road from Yazhou to Tianquan to smuggle salt. The reason is very simple and sufficient, since tea can be smuggled, why can't salt be smuggled?

……

Facing the chatter in the main hall, Zhu Pingjin didn't speak, and he entered a state of thought.

Salt is the object of Zhu Pingjin's attention for a long time. As early as when he decided to earn his first pot of gold through the smuggling of tea in Yazhou, he took salt into his sights. In order not to touch the core interests of the interest groups too much and provoke their too quick counterattack, Zhu Pingjin did not touch the salt industry too early at that time. In the past six months, the information related to salt has been gradually enriched, drawing a true picture of Sichuan's salt industry for him:

In addition to the natural salt springs in Yunyang and Daning areas in eastern Sichuan, the main salt species in Sichuan is well salt. Well salt exists in Sichuan and Yunnan, which is the main producing area, and the output is ten times that of Yunnan. The distribution range of Sichuan salt wells is very wide, and the Gongjing and artesian well areas of Rong County and Fushun County, Qianwei County (now Wutongqiao) and Nanfang County are called the three major well salt areas. In addition, there are many small salt wells, such as Pengxi, Shehong, Leshan and other places have salt wells distributed, and even on the ground of the left guard in the east of Chengdu, near the side of Longquan Mountain, there is a small salt well with a monthly output of hundreds of catties of salt. Most of the taste in Zhu Pingjian's daily meals comes from this.

Zhu Pingjin can be a private tea seller. Because Mengding Tea Mountain belongs to his family, and the buyer is a merchant from Tibet, the buyer and seller are close at hand, almost a point-to-point large-scale barter transaction, and the only obstacle is a tax card in Feixian Pass. The private tea trade has not affected the domestic market, nor has it affected the livelihood of thousands of households. Zhu Pingjin obtained silver and horses from the foreign domains of Tibet, not only profited handsomely, but also vigorously supported the official army's war against thieves, so even Liu Zhibo, an upright and loyal scholar, rarely maintained a tacit acquiescence to this.

But Zhu Pingjin, as the son of the Shu domain, cannot be a smuggler of salt.

The first is political.

At both the Ming government and the civilian level, the reputation of the smugglers is extremely stinky. Huang Chao and Wang Xianzhi, the two big thieves, were both born as salt owls; Emperor Taizu Gao, Zhu Yuanzhang, defeated the smuggler Zhang Jiusi (Zhang Shicheng) before establishing the country. Therefore, in the official culture, the existence of smuggler salt dealers is second only to thieves, and the crime is equivalent to "armed drug trafficking" in Zhu Pingjin's previous life. In folk culture, smugglers also get close to thieves and are commonly known as "salt barons". It is no wonder that because they want to escape the encirclement and interception of the government and the strict punishment of the Ming Dynasty, the smugglers must hold sharp blades; Because small-scale salt sales are extremely uneconomical and unsafe, smugglers often come in droves. A large group of people with sharp blades, of course, can't help but do something out of the ordinary. If Zhu Pingjin uses the banner of the palace to sell salt and becomes the largest smuggler in Sichuan, he may gain some economic benefits in the short term, but when the news spreads widely, it will be tantamount to political suicide. The officials and people of Sichuan will stay away from Zhu Pingjin, and it is difficult to predict what drastic actions the officials of the imperial court will have.

The second is the economic reason.

Zhu Pingjin's economic purpose was to obtain a long-term and stable source of tax revenue through the monopoly of salt to support his military spending in various places. If Zhu Pingjin sells illicit salt himself, destroys the policy of salt monopoly, and gives the people the impression that salt is cheap, then in the future, Zhu Pingjin wants to re-establish the salt monopoly system, and he will certainly meet with strong opposition from the people, so it is a stupid practice that outweighs the losses.

Hong Qihui is right, if you want to make a profit from salt, you must take over the salt tax and strictly curb smuggling. There are two ways to crack down on smuggling: one is to reduce the sales price of regular salt, so that illicit salt is unprofitable; The second is to strictly enforce the ban and increase the illegal cost of illegal salt.

Reducing the sales price of regular salt, in addition to reducing costs, reducing taxes, and increasing output, it is also necessary to reduce intermediate links and reduce logistics costs. This will inevitably harm many parasitic eaters in the chain of interests of the salt industry.

Enforcement is even more difficult. The ban is nothing more than starting with the three paths of production, purchase and sales. "Production" is to start at the most direct source of the wellhead. The tax collector sat at the mouth of the well, and as soon as the brine came out, he immediately weighed and collected the tax. However, the mouth of the salt well is small and hidden, just like the small coal kiln dug in front of the house and behind the house, and it is difficult to know that the grassroots organization is not sound; "Buying" means that private production is allowed, but the products can only be sold to monopoly institutions, and the monopoly institutions will be sold to private traders after raising taxes. This will inevitably cause some secretly fried private salt to flow to the market; There will be more "sales" matters, and all salt merchants in Sichuan will become official businessmen, and private capital will completely withdraw from the field of private salt sales.

It is also extremely important to extract salt profits and increase production. According to the account books handed over by Fu Chongqi's housekeeper, the total salt production in Sichuan is still less than 7 million catties (Note 2), and the average salt output in Sichuan is less than 1 catty. If the widespread illegal salt is added, the actual output doubles to only two catties per capita. No wonder Zhu Pingjin ate in Chongyi Village, and the meals prepared for him by Uncle Yang were so salty and tasteless! In order to increase production, the only way to increase the amount of salt wells can be excavated. The excavation of salt wells is an absolute top technology in this era, and it belongs to the three high industries with high policy threshold, high technology threshold and high capital threshold. If private capital is excluded, private technology will be excluded as well.

Hong Qihui's suggestion is just a big pie drawn on a blank sheet of paper, and there is a lack of specific operation methods. Zhu Pingjin smiled and nodded in approval of Hong Qihui's suggestion, he had immediately decided in his heart to get Fu Chongqi's housekeeper out of prison first. In addition, Master Li, who jumped from Liao Daheng, is also a usable person.

At this time, a small eunuch hurriedly came in from behind the palace and presented a red book to Cheng Xiangfeng, the chief copywriter of the palace office who was in charge of recording on the left side of the treasure platform. After Cheng Xiangfeng signed for it, he glanced at it a few times and immediately reported it to Zhu Pingjin.

The red book is a Tang Bao, that is, a military document. According to the rules of the palace, the red skin is played at any time. Zhu Pingjin opened it and saw that it was He Qiukou, Tian Qian, and Liu Sangen who jointly played the game, and they reported that they had received an urgent report from Fang Yaoxiang, who was also known as the prison supervisor, and that Fang Yaoxiang and his entourage were besieged and beaten by salt merchants in Fushun and Rong counties. The three of them decided to take the opportunity to send troops to Furong and control Neijiang, Longchang, Rongxian and other places on the road. The situation was urgent, and the opportunity was rare, and the three of them had to report while acting.

At present, they are marching extremely fast, and have occupied Neijiang, Longchang, Rongxian and other places. At the end of last year, the thieves divided their troops to ravage southern Sichuan, and Sun Guanglie, the magistrate of Rong County, was captured by the thieves and disappeared; Zhu Youyuan, the county governor of Nanxi, jumped out of the city and fled; Longchang Zhi County Hang abandoned the city for Kei. Qin Mintang, a native of Hanyang, had just arrived at Renrong County, and when he heard the arrival of the royal army, he burst into tears outside the city gate, knelt down and danced, and said, "Congratulations to the king!" Chitose Chitose! ”

At this time, another little eunuch appeared. He reported that Governor Liao Daheng and Governor Liu Zhibo handed over the book at the carrier gate to ask for a meeting.

The simultaneous request for a meeting was mostly related to the salt merchants' riots. Zhu Pingjin suspended the court meeting and decided to meet the two first.

"Say Cao Cao, Cao Cao!" Zhu Pingjin sighed, maybe this is a good opportunity to collect the salt tax!

Note 1: According to the record of Li Ruhua, the secretary of the household department in the 44th year of Wanli: 680,000 strange in two Huai years, 180,000 in Changlu, 80,000 in Shandong, 150,000 in Zhejiang, 20,000 in Fujian, 20,000 in Guangdong, and 38,000 in Yunnan. The above totals 1.168 million taels. The amount of salt and silver from Sichuan and Shaanxi to the border towns totaled about 112,000 taels.

Emperor Chongzhen also wanted to rectify the salt industry in the third year of Chongzhen, but he quickly failed.

The connotation of the so-called "gang salt system" is: each gang salt is 200,000 yuan, each lead is 300 catties of salt, or six coins and four cents of silver, called "woben", and the tax is three taels of silver, and the minister (transportation) silver is three taels (the government collects it in vain), a total of six taels of six dollars and four cents, which is equivalent to about 22 wen per catty. Please note that this is only the official price of this special marketable security with salt as collateral. Some online articles directly identified it as the official salt price, which is very wrong.

Note 2: There is no figure for the salt production in Sichuan at the end of the Ming Dynasty, so Xiangmu irresponsibly referred to the figure of the eighth year of Shunzhi. However, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the main salt producing area in Sichuan was still the salt spring in eastern Sichuan. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the Sichuan well salt industry ushered in explosive growth, and by the twenty-fifth year of Kangxi (1686), the purchase volume of Sichuan salt had reached 50 million catties. At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the population of Sichuan decreased greatly, and the province had more than enough food.

However, whether the above-mentioned "explosive growth" is based on the data of the late Ming Dynasty or the early Qing Dynasty, whether it is a rapid recovery of output or a real increase in production, all the historical materials that Xiangmu has seen are ambiguous. Hibiki personally leans towards the latter.

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