In the next two days, Lu Shanji, the imperial salt inspector who was in charge of rectifying the salt affairs, sent back the first secret fold through the Jinyi Guard. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

Although Lu Shanji and his entourage eventually went to the direction of Lianghuai and Liangzhejiang, if the salt affairs are under his management today, and the Changlu Salt Transport Envoy Si Yamen passing through Cangzhou, Hebei Province, naturally there is no reason not to enter.

The Changlu Salt Transportation Division is responsible for all coastal salt farms in Hebei, Tianjin, and even on the border with the Shandong Peninsula, and is known for its abundance of high-quality sea salt, as are all salt farms along the southern coast.

One of the largest salt farms, is located in Tianjin Tanggu salt farm, the annual output of sea salt million tons, even in the Ming Dynasty production is low, but also reached the annual output of five million catties of sea salt, now supply the salt in the north of the Ming Dynasty, is mainly Changlu salt field.

The Changlu Salt Transport Envoy Division was first established in the Hongwu period, when the governance office was located in Tianjin, and later in the Yongle period, the governance office was moved to Changlu Town in Cangzhou, Hebei Province.

When Lu Shanji and his entourage left Beijing, they bypassed Tianjin and went straight to the salt farms in Hangu, Tanggu, Changlu, Daqing River and other places under the jurisdiction of the Changlu Salt Transportation Division and distributed along the coast of the Bohai Sea.

Lu Shanji knows the emperor's mind very well, so the purpose of inspecting the salt affairs is mainly to get rid of the old and establish the new, in order to re-implement the open system, and remove all personnel and institutional obstacles.

When the imperial court strictly opened the middle system, the officials of the salt farms and the people of the yamen of the salt transportation department could guard and steal themselves, either by exploiting the salt farm stove households, such as deducting the wages of the salt farm stove households, intercepting the salt handed over by the salt farm, or by collecting bribes from salt merchants, kickbacks from salt merchants, etc., to make a fortune privately by harming the public and private people.

After the abolition of the Kaizhong system, these people squeezed the salt farms in various places to obtain income by overcharging the salt tax of the salt works.

As for the salt tax paid every year, it used to be paid to the household department, and later it was handed over to the inner treasury, and the seven salt transportation envoys along the coast from north to south were the yamen, but the annual salt tax was less than 200,000 taels of silver.

At the same time, the price of salt in the world remained high, and the result was that the emperor was carrying a black pot of greed for money, while these salt officials were reaping a lot of benefits. This is the current state of salt.

Lu Shanji's idea is actually very simple, it is not to revert to the government those salt farms that have been transferred to the private sector, after all, to return all the salt farms to the government, it also requires a lot of silver to redeem, which Zhu Daming cannot do at present.

Of course, if an irresponsible method is adopted and a holy decree is directly issued to forcibly collect all the salt farms in the world as official offices, it is estimated that it can be implemented, but if this is done, the backlash will be great, and the emperor's reputation will be completely destroyed.

As long as the salt monopoly system is established and implemented, as for whether the salt farm is government-run or private-run, it can be left for later.

In order to master salt and establish a monopoly system for salt sales, it is necessary to purchase all the salt produced by the salt factories at official prices, and the salt transportation department set up by the imperial court will be uniformly wholesaled to salt merchants in various places, and salt factories are not allowed to sell directly to salt merchants.

For salt merchants, a permit system is adopted, and salt taxes are levied through the issuance of licenses, and quotas are regulated by the granting of salt attraction.

In this way, if the salt merchants wanted to get a larger quota of salt, they could only obey the invitation of the imperial court, or buy it directly at a relatively high price, or transport grain to Jiubian in exchange for salt that could be exempted from salt tax, so that the Kaizhong system could continue to be implemented.

Moreover, the salt purchased by the imperial court can also be wholesaled to small and medium-sized salt merchants in the corresponding area to regulate the price of salt in the market, so that the common people will not be unable to eat salt.

Of course, there are omissions in such a policy, and it may not be fair to the salt farms and salt merchants, but what Zhu Daming is now considering is not the issue of fairness or unfairness, but the issue of making the salt farms and salt merchants better used by the imperial court through the salt monopoly system.

In fact, the system is not only in the Ming Dynasty, as early as the Song Dynasty has been widely implemented, when Zhao Guangyi of Song Taizong, in order to encourage merchants to transport grain to the northwest border, began to implement the salt introduction system, merchants will transport a number of grain and grass to the border pass, you can get a salt lead, with this salt lead to the designated salt field, you can receive a guide to salt, and then sell it to make a profit. Without salt citation, it is illicit salt, and selling smuggled salt has been a felony throughout the ages.

When this system arrived at the time of Song Renzong, there was a change, and merchants could directly spend money to buy salt from the imperial court, but at this time, the salt introduction was not a certificate for receiving salt, but a certificate for purchasing salt, and only with salt introduction could they buy and sell salt.

During this period, salt was used as a certificate for merchants to operate the salt industry, and they obtained permission to operate the salt industry through the purchase of salt introduction, and they could also be transferred to each other among merchants.

In the Ming Dynasty, in order to eliminate the northern border troubles, merchants were encouraged to transport grain to the northern border, which was the practice of Taizong of the Song Dynasty.

Later, the Northern Yuan Dynasty completely declined, and the imperial court adopted a policy of restraint on foreign races outside the Great Wall, and the Kaizhong Law was abolished, and the imperial court treated salt affairs as a practice of Song Renzong, directly selling salt, and only with salt introduction did it have the qualification to transport and sell salt, and the imperial court levied salt tax on salt farms and salt merchants at the same time as selling salt introductions, that is, salt tax.

Since the silver has been collected for the sale of salt, the salt tax set by the imperial court is not high, thirty taxes one.

Compared with later generations, this tax rate is simply outrageously low, so some salt merchants are still not satisfied, colluding with salt officials and salt farms to evade taxes.

The most hateful thing is that in the late Wanli period, after the salt introduction was changed from the household department to the inner court, the problem of indiscriminate salt introduction became more and more serious.

Especially in the Apocalypse years, the border trouble in eastern Liaoning became more and more serious, and the salt introduction was sold more and more cheaply, and the validity period of the salt introduction was getting longer and longer, and some were even as long as 50 years.

These practices belong to the typical killing of chickens and eggs, and the use of grain is eaten, leaving no room for future generations at all.

By the time Chongzhen ascended to the pole, the salt policy problem had been concentrated and difficult to return, and Chongzhen was a good-faced emperor, and he adopted a default attitude towards the salt introduction that was sold beyond the time limit in the late Wanli period and the Apocalypse, and wanted to increase the amount of salt tax, but was repeatedly opposed by interest groups among the courtiers, and as a result, he watched the loss of a large amount of salt tax in vain but had no choice, and finally went bankrupt financially, and the country died and the world died.

In this life, of course, Zhu Daming will not watch such a thing happen again, for the salt quotations sold during the Apocalypse, all those that have not been fulfilled will be rechecked and replaced with new ones, and all salt quotations with a validity period of more than three years will be calculated according to three years, and it will be forbidden to sell salt quotations that exceed the expiration date of more than three years.

If Lu Shanji wants to do this, he must break the pattern of interests on the salt issue today.

Nowadays, there are three parties involved in salt affairs, one is the salt official, the other is the salt merchant, and the other is the salt factory.

Among these three parties, the salt factory is in a position of being exploited, whether it is government or private, the salt farmers in the salt field are the most bitter class, while the salt officials and salt merchants collude with each other, and some big salt merchants are even richer than the country.

In particular, the big salt merchants in Yangzhou have tens of millions of family assets and are rich in the world.

Before Lu Shanji left, the emperor had a decree, that is, not to break or stand, and to kill and arrest a group of salt officials and traitors in various parts of the salt transportation department, and then have prestige, and then establish new rules. So along the way, Lu Shanji was thinking about how to carry out the emperor's will.

The emperor's holy decree to appoint Lu Shanji as the minister of the Qin mission to rectify the salt affairs was clearly issued to the world. Although the day after the holy decree was issued, Lu Shanji set off with Wang Zegu, Sun Chan and others, but after all, the Changlu Salt Transport Envoy was close to the Jingshi and quickly learned the news.

The new emperor's practice of killing the rich and helping the poor has long been spread all over the world, and now he has sent his henchmen from the Military Aircraft Department to serve as ministers to inspect and rectify the salt affairs, which makes the salt transportation officials who served during the Apocalypse very worried, afraid of being found out of the problem and being killed and robbed of their homes.

Today's Changlu Salt Envoy, named Wang Wenzheng, a native of Wucheng, Zhejiang, was born as a Jinshi during the 10,000 years, and was promoted to the position of Changlu Salt Envoy in the fourth year of the Apocalypse from the position of Tongzhi of Shuntianfu.

Generally speaking, to get such a fat shortage, it is either the emperor's henchman, or the old ministers of the courtiers, in short, there must be someone in the court.

Before Lu Shanji came, of course, he had to do his homework, but he hadn't figured out what Wang Wenzheng relied on to become the Changlu Salt Envoy.

If this person is honest and self-disciplined, he will not frame him for the sake of raiding his house; If this person is as corrupt and perverse as most salt officials in his impression, then he will never be merciful.

Now that the new emperor has ascended the throne, all kinds of waste are waiting to be rebuilt, it is the time to reform the old and make a difference, and he will not miss the opportunity to establish meritorious deeds and go down in history.