Under the pressure of the Governor's Palace, the salt merchants finally moved.

The city of Nanjing, more than 200 miles away, is already full of wind and rain. Chen Yue's actions against the salt merchants have reached here.

Salt is the great plan of the country, and the salt tax is an important income of the imperial court, and the annual tax is more than the field tax, which naturally affects the nerves of the imperial court.

Chen Yue, the Marquis of Pingnan, brazenly used his knife against the salt merchants, although in the name of arresting the rebellious remnants, in the eyes of the court officials, his purpose was obvious.

Under the instigation of the forces behind the salt merchants, the dark tide in Nanjing is surging, and another round of crusade against Chen Yue is brewing.

Unlike beating Shizi two months ago, Chen Yue harmed the interests of too many people against the salt merchants this time.

Several young imperial historians took the lead in attacking and impeached Chen Yue for not framing the crime of confiscating salt merchants for money.

However, Chen Yue still has some friends in the court after all, not to mention Wang Yin and Yuan Kewang, Lu Zhenfei and Qian Qianyi, scholars of the Cabinet University, have a lot of friendship with Chen Yue.

Under Qian Qianyi's suppression, the Donglin Party members who were attached to him did not make much action, and the scale of impeachment of Chen Yue was not very large.

However, the current Donglin Party is not Qian Qianyi's family to become bigger, in fact, since Qian Qianyi catered to King Fu and lost points, the Donglin Party has split, and many young party members have gathered around Shi Kefa, the first assistant, and regard the loyal Shi Kefa as the new leader.

Shi Kefa was very dissatisfied with Chen Yue's move, because Chen Yue's move was too detrimental to the stability of the situation.

"Yangzhou is an important town in Jiangbei, and the salt tax is the most important tax, which must not be ignored. This move by the Marquis of Pingnan will inevitably trap Yangzhou in shock, and please ask Your Majesty to restrain him. ”

Shi Kefa worshiped Zhen in front of him, and said so.

Shi Kefa knew that Chen Yue was an irreplaceable general, and with him and the Pingnan Army, he could ensure that he could hold the two Huai. And Chen Yue's position in Chongzhen's heart is very important, and the holy family is still above his first assistant, and the general impeachment has no effect on Chen Yue, but will make the court fall into a fight. Only by asking Chongzhen to speak can Chen Yue be restrained.

Chongzhen naturally agreed with Shi Kefa's words, and he, the emperor, knew the importance of the salt tax to the imperial court better than anyone else. In the past few years, the annual revenue of the Ming treasury is more than two million taels of silver, of which the salt tax is more than half.

However, he hesitated to ask Shi Kefa to support Chen Yue Chongzhen, because history has proved that many of the things Chen Yue did were beneficial to the Ming Dynasty and his emperor.

When he was in Beijing, Chen Yue's honeycomb coal brought Chongzhen an income of more than 200,000 taels of silver, which filled his inner treasury well. And after Chen Yue raided the Xishan Coal Mine, he handed over a full 500,000 taels of silver to him, the emperor, and half a year's income from the national treasury.

Some time ago, Chen Yue raided all the homes of the nobles in Nanjing, and the wealth confiscated was worth tens of millions of taels, of course, most of them were real estate that was not easy to realize, but the gold and silver alone had made him, the emperor, smile. Now the royal family no longer wants to be so poor in Beijing, and this month Chongzhen made a full set of head and face jewelry for Concubine Zhang.....

Now Chen Yue has opened a knife on the salt merchants in Yangzhou again, which means that most of the salt merchants' family wealth is in hand again, although Chen Yue may not hand over much to himself this time. But Chen Yue has money, so he doesn't need to allocate much silver to the Pingnan Army, which means that he saves money.

And after Chen Yue's toss, maybe the salt tax will be paid more in the future.

It's just a few salt merchants' homes, so what's it?

After thinking about it, Chongzhen still decided to believe Chen Yue, and turned a deaf ear to the impeachment of the imperial historians and Shi Kefa's admonition.

When a letter was sent to the inner court, but it was left by Chongzhen like a stone sinking into the sea, the officials knew the emperor's attitude.

Some officials fell silent, and a group of people persevered and continued to impeach.

The cabinet scholars and other bigwigs in the court were silent on the matter, and even Shi Kefa himself did not directly express his opinion. As a result, the officials knew that Chen Yue's status in the court could not be moved by a few imperial histories.

If this continues, the matter will be over. However, a few days later, the evil results of the raid on the salt merchants continued to be revealed, which greatly lifted the spirits of the imperial historians.

First of all, the main place of salt supply, Jiangxi Huguang has seen a salt panic, the price of salt has soared, from two dollars per catty and three dollars of silver has risen to one or two catties, one or two catties of silver and one catty of salt, which is almost sky-high, I am afraid that the vast majority of the people can not afford to eat salt......

The effect of salt on the human body is well known, not to mention that the taste of food without salt is bland, and not eating salt for a long time will make people lose strength.

Officials from Jiangxi and Huguang played one after another, informing the imperial court of the salt panic and asking the imperial court to quickly find a way.

"Chen Yue framed the salt merchants, raided the mansions and shops of the salt merchants, so that the salt could not be transported to the provinces, which caused the salt panic, and I implore His Majesty to give Chen Yue, the Marquis of Pingnan, a severe punishment, and ordered him to declare the salt merchants innocent as soon as possible, and urge the salt to be transported to various provinces as soon as possible, so as to relieve the difficulties of the people!" Xiong Rulin said in the middle of the matter.

In the face of the salt panic in various places and the surging wave of impeachment again, Chongzhen finally lost his composure and sent the eunuch Lu Yifeng to Yangzhou to question Chen Yue.

......

On the other street of Taipingfang, there is the newly built Princess's Mansion, which seems to be on two streets and the gate of Pingnanhou's Mansion, which is very far away. However, if you look down from above, you will find that the Pingnan Hou Mansion and the Princess Mansion are actually just a wall, and a small door is now open on this wall.

Although Princess Kunxing is still in the palace and has not left the cabinet, she often goes out of the palace to live in the princess's mansion.

In the inner house of the Pingnan Hou Mansion, rows of bookshelves are placed in the spacious rooms, and the bookshelves are full of account books, which are the account books of hundreds of shops in the Four Seas Commercial Bank.

Wu Wan'er and Princess Kunxing were checking the accounts at the desk, and the abacus beads crackled.

In the outer house of the Hou Mansion, in more than a dozen side rooms, there are more than 20 hired bookkeepers to work here, and from time to time there are maids holding account books and shuttling between the inside and outside of the house, responsible for internal and external communication.

A maid hurried out of the inner house, entered the outer account room, and handed over a paperwork.

"Quickly send a fleet to Huguang to purchase grain, regardless of the cost, the better!" Mr. Li, the general ledger officer, looked at the paperwork and frowned.

"There is a bumper harvest in summer, and the fields under the name of the Four Seas Commercial Bank have earned more than 200,000 stone of grain, why do you have to purchase it on a large scale, the profit from hoarding grain is not high, it doesn't seem to be very cost-effective." Mr. Li muttered to himself.

After thinking about it for a while, he still felt that it was inappropriate, so he wrote down his question and sent the little servant to the inner house quickly. The little guy quickly arrived at the door of the moon in the inner house, and handed the paper with the question written on it to the maid guarding the door, who gave it to Wu Wan'er.

Soon the little maid came back and handed the reply from the inner house to Mr. Li. Mr. Li looked at it carefully, and there were two words on the paper: "do it"!