Zhou Shuying looked for Luo Jingyun, it was the love between boys and girls.

Looking at Zhou Shuying, who was anxious and uneasy at all, the two adults who were disturbed and had no intention of speaking had to take advantage of the early daylight to arrange a reliable partner to lead the way, and let the carriage stuck in the middle of the alley send her to the dock, and then cross the wide river and go to Wuchang Mansion to find her lover.

Zhou Wenzheng met Wu Qianyi, and there was something serious. The cause of the incident is related to Zhou Wenzheng's mission.

The Salt Merchant Guild in Hankow categorically rejected Zhou Wenzheng's proposal to replace Huai salt with Sichuan salt.

This refusal is extremely serious.

Sichuan salt cannot replace Huai salt, and Sichuan salt is a small profit in Huguang, so it is impossible to obtain sufficient funds to buy Sichuan's increasingly scarce grain. In this way, Zhou Wenzheng, the "special business counselor", went out to Sichuan on a business trip for the first time, and it ended in complete failure.

Zhou Wenzheng went to this poor alley to discuss countermeasures with Wu Qianyi, just to take advantage of Wu Qianyi's familiarity with all aspects of the situation in Huguang to open up the situation as soon as possible.

“…… Unexpectedly, the merchants in this place in Hankou are very rich, and their pomp and circumstance are bigger than those of the world! ”

Zhou Wenzheng, the big salt merchant and big landlord of Xinzheng Dam, the head snake and the overlord of the land, was also surprised when he talked about the luxury of the giant merchants in Hankou.

Wu Qianyi, who has been here for half a year, is more familiar with the spending of merchants in Hankou:

“…… I heard that they do not call it eating, but they call it eating; Walking is not called walking, it is called driving! This gang of people is so blatant that they trespass!

It is no wonder that the eight major guilds in Hankou monopolized all the good things with rich oil and water in the nearby prefectures, and their tentacles extended to Huguang, Jiangxi, Nanzhi, Henan, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Guangdong provinces! The officials in the yamen are like the merchants in the house, and the merchants are the parents of the officials.

Brother Tai think about it, who dares to trouble the merchants? Naturally, they are crazy and don't know how thick the sky is! ”

Zhou Wenzheng thought of the inhuman treatment he had suffered, and he hated it so much.

A dignified "special counselor" appointed by the Shu Palace, representing a royal mansion and Sichuan, a major salt-producing province, stood in front of the black eight-character gate of the Hankou Salt Merchant Guild for a quarter of an hour under the scorching sun, and was finally sent away coldly by a third-class master!

The reason for this is that the lake is widely the salt area of the two Huai salt plants. The merchants of the guild are all serious salt merchants with imperial court licenses, and they will never violate the rules of the imperial court and deal with those foreign salt merchants of unknown origin!

"I almost said that my brother was a smuggler of salt! didn't tie up my brother and send him to the official, it's already very polite! ”

Zhou Wenzheng said, then hatefully picked up the tea bowl, took one sip, and poured out the tea soup inside. A few slices of wet tea leaves stuck to the corners of Zhou Wenzheng's mouth, which were particularly conspicuous. Wu Qianyi was not easy to remind, so he had to ask the guy to make tea for Zhou Wenzheng again.

Zhou Wenzheng was unaware of it, and scolded himself:

"Sooner or later, the prince will make them suffer!

Recently, Kawauchi is fighting back in the big town, cleaning up those uninteresting local tyrants and bad gentry! Brother Wei took Shuying to pass by Chongqing, and heard that six or seven out of ten big merchants in Chongqing were raided. Now it's a place where everyone is in danger. Fortunately, fortunately, the Li family brothers and Wei brothers saw the general trend in Shuzhong early on......"

Zhou Wenzheng wanted to use his experience to reveal some information about the rebellion in Sichuan to his friend Wu Qianyi, and by the way, he gave Wu Qianyi some reminders. Unexpectedly, as soon as his words began, he was interrupted by Wu Qianyi's questioning:

"Brother Tai, Sichuan salt is well salt, with fine particles, white color and positive taste; Huai salt is sea salt, with coarse particles, green color and astringent taste. Compared with the two, the people naturally do not like Huai salt. I don't know if Brother Tai is here, there is Sichuan salt on the ship? What is the price of CIF price? What is the price of Huai salt shipments? ”

This Wu Qianyi, does Miss Luo know that he is the person of the prince?

It should be known that Zhou Wenzheng thought secretly.

The prince and Miss Luo can't be ordinary kings and concubines!

……

As the largest salt producing area in the Ming Dynasty, and as the main opponent of Sichuan salt in the Huguang market, Huai salt is a topic that the two of them can't get around today and even for a period of time in the future.

Huai salt is a popular term, in a broad sense, often refers to the salt produced by the salt transportation method or the decoction salt method that belongs to the two Huai, two Zhejiang, Shandong, Changlu and other salt transportation divisions that use seawater as raw material. Because the sea salt industry is probably led by the two Huai, and the salt industry capital and salt production are also concentrated in the two Huai, so the people and businessmen invariably call it Huai salt.

Huguang salt merchants collectively boycotted Sichuan's well salt because the salt market was oversupplied, or Huai salt was of high quality and low price, or did they dare not violate the imperial court's salt boundaries, as they claimed?

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Zhou Wenzheng did not have sufficient information and did not dare to confirm this.

However, Zhou Wenzheng confirmed that these salt merchants in Hankou Town were neither law-abiding model citizens, nor literary and artistic youths who deliberately pretended to have a deep hatred for real money.

The Hankou Salt Trading Guild did not dare to accept the offer, it must have gone wrong somewhere!

So what's the problem?

War and turmoil are the enemies of all social productive forces, and the salt industry is no exception.

There are two main salt farms north of the Huai River, Shandong and Changlu.

After the Wuqiao Mutiny, most of the seaside salt factories in Shandong were destroyed, the salt fields were destroyed or abandoned, the salt workers died or fled, and the production capacity plummeted;

The three entry of the Tartars into the Kou also had a great impact on the Changlu Salt Factory located on the shore of the Bohai Sea.

However, the production of Changlu and Shandong accounts for a small proportion of Huaiyan, and the rest of the salt marketing area is in North China, so it has little impact on Huguang Yan.

The place that determines the market price of the salt market in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River is still the salt fields of Lianghuai and Liangzhejiang.

If there is more salt produced and more salt is accumulated in the two Huai and Zhejiang, the salt price will fall; If the weather is not good, the month is cloudy and rainy, the supply exceeds demand, or there are big bandits and thieves on the transportation route, resulting in the supply of the sales place, then even if there is the interference and distortion of the visible hand of the legal system such as Kaizhong, Gangyan, and residual salt, then the supply and demand relationship will still be transmitted through the price chain, and gradually make the salt price of the sales terminal rise.

According to the information that Zhou Wenzheng has, last year's Nanzhi disaster did have an impact on the output of the salt fields in the two Huai and Zhejiang, but the impact was not large. The disaster in Nanzhi is mainly a drought, which is objectively conducive to the drying of sea salt.

The impact on production is not great, but the increasing cost of transportation has made the salt merchants in Huguang complain.

Huguang is far away from the two Huai and Zhejiang, and the heavy commodity of salt is almost entirely dependent on waterways for long-distance transportation, so the cost of waterway transportation is crucial.

However, the vicious government set up customs and construction cards on the water in Yangzhou, Zhenjiang, Nanjing and other places, and levied silver on the incoming and outgoing cargo ships. One level and one money, even if you show the salt lead, it won't work.

If you want to evade the tax card, you can only borrow an official ship or simply use the flag of the palace.

According to the legend of the shopping mall, the banner of Lu Jiude, the former governor of Beijing, was the best. Lu Jiude has supervised the Jianghuai armies for many years, defeated the Qin thieves many times, and Sufu has prestige, and even Huang Degong, the most popular general soldier in the limelight recently, turned out to be just a Chinese army under his account.

IT'S JUST THAT AFTER DUKE LU WAS ORDERED TO PROTECT FENGYANG, IT WAS BEST TO MAKE THE OWNER OF THE BANNER BECOME THE SINCERITY OF THE BO, LIU KONGZHAO, AND THE XIN, THE CITY BO, ZHAO ZHILONG.

After Liu Kongzhao was Liu Ji, Chongzhen led the governor of Nanjing in the eleventh year to inspect the river and patrol the river defense, and he was the only emperor on the Yangtze River.

AFTER ZHAO YI, THE CITY OF XIN, ZHAO ZHILONG, SERVED AS THE LORD OF NANJING TOWN, AND WAS KIND TO LIU KONGZHAO.

The two of them were powerful and greedy, and if they gave enough money, the flag of the military ship could be used, and there were no tax collectors along the way.

Corrupt officials and salt merchants took what they needed, and they were all happy, but they only suffered the people who ate salt in Huguang.

The money that was bribed would eventually fall into the price of salt.

In this way, the positive tax and foreign expenses, seven plus eight plus, the incomparably cheap inferior Huai salt arrived in Huguang Hankou, and the wholesale price of salt export has been as high as 120 wen per catty.

Please note that 120 wen per catty is only the wholesale price of the salt market in Hankow.

When it comes to the retail terminal market, the price of salt is often as high as more than 300 Wen!

……

"The Hankou salt merchants refuse to sell Sichuan salt, is it because our salt price is too high?"

Zhou Wenzheng thought to himself, and waved his round head.

"Absolutely not! Brother Xian doesn't know, today's Shuzhong Salt City is a world of difference from what you saw in the New Deal Dam in the past......"

The unified purchase and sale of salt in Sichuan is only a system guarantee to ensure the monopoly of the salt industry.

The main role in promoting the development of Sichuan's salt industry is the unified purchase price of up to 5/5% per catty of salt and Miss Luo's commitment to unconditional and open purchase for three years.

Driven by huge profits and certain expectations, and under the guarantee of the gradual stabilization of the security situation, the wellhead of the Sichuan memory volume quickly recovered its brine production, and the peripheral industries indispensable for the well salt industry, such as pickers, stoves, workers, horses, and ships, were also recovered simultaneously.

As the owner of the Xinzheng Dam, Zhou Wenzheng is very familiar with the shipment of well salt in the area of the Xinzheng Dam and Beiyuan Temple. In the past, the maximum amount of salt produced in the area was 100,000 catties per month. As soon as the unified purchase and sales were implemented, the amount of salt produced in the area increased month by month, and two months ago, that is, in March of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, the amount of salt produced had reached more than 150,000 catties per month.

With the large supply of fried salt iron plates (Note 1) and the construction of a large number of fire dragon stoves, the number of salt workers continues to increase, and the salt output in the new and Beijing salt areas is expected to continue to rise, achieving an annual output of 2 million or even 2.5 million catties.

The rapid development of the Xinbeijing salt area once made Zhou Wenzheng, who had a stakeholder, overjoyed. However, when Zhou Wenzheng took office as the vice president of the Sichuan Salt Industry Monopoly Company, and re-examined it from the perspective of the overall situation of the Sichuan salt industry, he was disappointed to find that the development speed of the Xinbeijing salt area was the slowest.

In terms of indicators to measure the short-term development speed and medium- and long-term development potential, such as the increase in salt production and the number of new wells, the Xinbeijing Salt Area is not only inferior to the upstart Furong Salt Farm, but also is rapidly surpassed by the old brother that has recovered rapidly, the Three Gorges Salt Farm.

Although the current salt output of Furong Salt Farm is roughly the same as that of Xinbei Salt Farm, the development potential is much greater.

Since the unified purchase and sales, more than 500 new wells have been started in Furong Salt Farm, and the number of new wells has far exceeded the total number of existing salt wells in Xinbei Salt Farm.

The first new well that successfully produced brine was dug in April when Zhou Wenzheng left Sichuan, and the construction contractor of this new well was the Chishan Society, in which Zhou Wenzheng became a shareholder.

Wen Qian, who is in charge of the Furong Salt Farm, has taken unprecedented measures to ensure the drilling speed and brine rate of the new wells in order to quickly increase production, forcing the salt wells that are mining brine to open their drilling records to all drilling companies unconditionally.

The geological structure, drilling depth, brine quality and other drilling records are the intangible wealth accumulated by each salt merchant with time and silver, and it is the core secret of each salt merchant. Unconditionally open digging records, the old salt merchants, of course, were reluctant to add competitors, but had to succumb to the pressure of the salt monopoly companies. Otherwise, they will not only be unable to keep their careers, but also their family businesses and even their heads.

The rapid recovery of the Three Gorges Salt Works depends on Wei Chen's unremitting efforts.

In the Daning Salt Farm in the hinterland of the Three Gorges (Note 2), there have been inexhaustible natural salt springs since ancient times. The water of the salt spring of Baoyuan Mountain is injected into the Dragon Pond (Note 3), and the salt merchants have always taken brine according to the number of stoves.

In addition to the main force of Ningchang, there are also small and medium-sized salt farms in the Three Gorges area, such as Wentang in Kaixian, Fengjie Moraine (QI) Dam, Changtan in Wanxian, Mingtong in Chengkou, and Tujing in Chungju.

Due to the stability of the salt springs in the Three Gorges Salt Farm, as long as the management is strengthened, the investment is increased, and the amount of salt can be greatly increased.

Based on the results of the field investigation, Wei Chen restored the official management system of the salt springs, introduced tens of thousands of displaced people to supplement the escaped salt workers, promoted energy-saving technologies such as fire dragon stoves, and gradually replaced firewood and grass with new fuels such as coal.

The new initiative has had a great effect. According to the statistics of the Sichuan Salt Industry Monopoly Corporation, in the first month of this year alone, 1.5 million catties of salt were purchased from the branches of the Three Gorges Salt Farm, more than 40 percent of the total salt purchased in Sichuan that month. The Three Gorges Salt Farm deserves to return to the throne of Sichuan's largest salt-producing area!

Most executives of the Sichuan Salt Industry Monopoly Corporation estimate that if the development continues at this rate, the output of Sichuan well salt will exceed 100 million catties in just three years.

According to the traditional calculation of ten catties of salt per person per year, the total salt market in Sichuan will definitely not reach 100 million catties in three years.

This means that in less than three years, Sichuan's rapidly expanding salt production will saturate the Sichuan market.

Taking precautions and opening up the Huguang Jiangxi market in a timely manner is indeed a far-sighted move. But in this case, why did Miss Luo set the price of salt from Huguang so high? Isn't that the opposite?

The unified sales price of Sichuan salt in the province is only five cents and a half cents per catty, while the unified sales price of Huguang has reached a staggering one dollar and six cents, which is nearly three times higher!

A bag of fifty catties of salt is sold for as much as eight taels of silver, which is enough to buy five stones of rice in Huguang! However, even this unified selling price of salt is still twice as low as the current retail price of salt in Huguang.

Zhou Wenzheng, an old salt merchant, couldn't understand Luo Yuhong's pricing policy, which was understandable.

Before Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong caused trouble in Huguang, it was the established policy of Luo Yuhong and his family to plunder Huguang's wealth to the greatest extent by borrowing Sichuan salt. But how to plunder, you can test Zhou Wenzheng's craftsmanship!

Note 1: In the production of salt in ancient wells, an important consumable was the iron pot.

This kind of iron pan for frying salt is also known as iron pan, ranging from eight or nine to more than a dozen in a set from large to small. The iron plate is arranged in front and back along the fire road, the front is large and the back is small, and the meandering shape is like a fire dragon, so as to make full use of the heat, so it is also called the fire dragon stove.

Because the high temperature and high concentration of brine corrode the iron pan very much, the supply of the iron pan is directly related to the production volume and cost of salt. For details, please refer to the relevant information of Zigong Salt Industry Museum.

Note 2: The Daning Salt Farm reached its peak in the Kangqian era, and was once known as "Wanzao Salt Smoke", but gradually declined. However, the highest historical annual output of the ancient method of frying salt in Ningchang was reached during the Anti-Japanese War: 10,000 tons, that is, 20 million catties.

Note 3: This monument still exists.