"Wang Junmen is doing big things, of course the little woman doesn't dare to be angry, but what Wang Junmen promised at the beginning can't be counted!" Tsujime is no longer angry.

What is Wang Kefan's identity now? It is already very sincere to be able to bow to her again and again to apologize. Zhu Ji is not a rude and willful little girl, because she likes a person to suffer from gains and losses, anger and gaffes, and was coaxed by Wang Kefan's two good words, and that little unhappiness has long been thrown out of the clouds.

"What's the matter?" Wang Kefan asked with a smile.

"We want to be officials and businessmen!" Zhu Ji and Li Si belong to the forces of the rivers and lakes, and after offending the entire Guangdong officialdom, all the business can no longer be done, and they are eager to cooperate with Wang Kefan.

"Okay, that's what I mean, but if you want to do it, make a big one, it's not fun to make a small fuss." Wang Kefan intervened in Guangdong, firstly for the state affairs of the Ming Dynasty, and secondly, to build a safe rear base for the Gongyi battalion, and in this process, the four brothers and sisters of Li were needed to help.

"Big? What does Wang Junmen mean ......? Li Si's eyes flashed, as if he saw a golden mountain in front of him.

"The imperial court will soon rectify the salt administration, are the two of you interested in cooperating?"

The salt policy of the Ming Dynasty has basically collapsed, because the middle layer is exploited, the retail price of salt far exceeds the reasonable range, and the private salt occupies the entire market, so the imperial court has lost a lot of taxes, and the people are miserable, just feeding the powerful officials in the middle.

This is a good starting point, the corruption of the salt administration is well known to the government and the opposition, whether it is a military official or a gentry and a common people, everyone has a personal experience, in contrast, the elite officials who benefit from it are only a small handful, and the rectification of the salt administration will be supported by the majority of people.

Start with the rectification of the salt administration. And then to clean up the officials, the scope of the blow is fixed, and the backlash caused is limited...... The power of the Longwu Imperial Court is limited, and it is not yet capable of cleaning up the entire officialdom, and it is a huge project to clean up those officials who sell illicit salt first.

By rectifying the salt administration, the imperial court can quickly get taxes, the people can also reduce their burdens, and Wang Kefan's faction can also get real benefits, compared with the official positions of those squires and langzhong. Wang Kefan attaches more importance to the income of real money.

"You want to choose us to be salt merchants? Is it the same as the Hui merchants of the Tartars? Li Si and Zhu Ji were surprised and delighted.

Their gang used to sell smuggled salt, and although this business was very profitable, most of it was taken by the powerful. Transporting private salt from the coast of Guangdong to Huguang, burning incense and worshiping Buddha everywhere along the way, the cost of each catty of salt will increase several times. After the local officials bought it, they sold it to the people for three or four times the price. The four Li siblings don't make much money.

In addition to offering everywhere. The four Li brothers and sisters also have to face fierce competition, selling smuggled salt is easy to make money, everyone is rushing to do it, the four Li brothers and sisters have Guangdong officialdom as the backstage, which is regarded as a first-class big salt lord, but Guangxi, Fujian and Sichuan and other places also have big salt lords. In addition, a large number of illegal salt dealers, although the scale is small, the number of people is large, and everyone is competing for this big cake.

If only the imperial court could prohibit the sale of illicit salt. The salt merchant who was chosen to work with became an exclusive business, and the money he made would only be even more, unimaginably more. The Manchu Qing side is a ready-made example, after the first batch of Hui merchants were selected to serve as salt merchants, in just over a year, any family made tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

"Yes, I want to choose you to be a salt merchant, but you have to eat one bite at a time, and this matter cannot be ...... urgently."

Rectifying the salt administration is the means, cleaning up the government is the goal, and the ultimate is to compete for power, this is a big project, the first phase is in Guangdong, Emperor Longwu and Wang Kefan joined forces, to rectify the salt administration to open the gap in Guangdong officialdom, and insert their own forces into it.

However, both Emperor Longwu and Wang Kefan lacked enough manpower, and they had to wait until the end of the first Enke and select a group of young Shaozhuang officials before they could start to rectify the salt administration, otherwise, it would be a wedding dress for others.

This is a plan linked by a ring, at the beginning of the preparation work, the back will be much smoother, Emperor Longwu is ambitious, to create a group of direct loyalty to him of the Shaozhuang faction officials, Wang Kefan faction is responsible for the specific implementation, will also greatly expand its own power.

The bigwigs in the court are still old-fashioned, fighting for the positions of squire and lang, but Wang Kefan and Emperor Longwu have found another way and designed the future development...... Salt administration is the first step, Guangdong is the first step, there are still a lot of articles that can be done later, as long as the road is opened, other provinces can follow suit.

"Don't worry, wait a few months at most, Jiangxi and Huguang will start to rectify the salt administration, and you will be busy at that time, don't miss the major affairs of the imperial court......" Wang Kefan will soon return to Huguang, Jiangxi's Wan Yuan Ji is also more loyal to Emperor Longwu, and the progress of these two provinces will be faster.

"Wang Junmen, do you mean that the imperial court will not choose other salt merchants?" Zhu Ji reacted quickly, and immediately grasped the hidden meaning of Wang Kefan's words, if the imperial court did not choose other salt merchants, then there would be no competitors at all, and the three provinces of Guangdong, Jiangxi and Huguang would have endless business, and it would be difficult to make a fortune.

"Not anytime soon, in the future...... It's up to the emperor to see what he means. "Wang Kefan's faction made a low-key concession in the court struggle, just to accumulate strength, and the rectification of the salt government is the self-reserved land of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and other political forces are at most a supporting role, don't think about how much oil and water they will take away.

Of course, Emperor Longwu's attitude must also be considered, without his support, the rectification of salt politics cannot be carried out. This is actually also a question of benefit distribution, Emperor Longwu is now staring at the salt administration and taxation, and the cooperative salt merchants will be handed over to Wang Kefan, and without Wang Kefan's nod in the short term, other salt merchants will definitely not be able to enter.

With the deepening of the rectification of the salt policy, the interests of the cooperative salt merchants will become greater and greater, if the entire Nanming Dynasty prohibits the sale of illicit salt, and the Li Si siblings monopolize the market, they will become the target of public criticism, and at that time, Emperor Longwu will definitely intervene.

However, for Wang Kefan, it is enough to have the first few years, the traverser has a vision beyond the times, has the financial support obtained from selling salt, and has strong power to back it up, and after a few years, it will definitely develop the economy, and the profits from selling salt can only account for a small head.

At this time, Li Yushi, the captain of the pro-soldiers, came in to report that two people came to ask to see Wang Kefan, one was the pirate Luo Mingshou, and the other was Chen Zhaoan, the commander of Xin'an County.

"Just in time, you go and greet me and invite the two of them in." Wang Kefan gave an order to Li Yushi, and when he went out, he said to the four brothers and sisters Li: "Let's go, let's pick it up at the door, and introduce you to two people today, and ...... work together in the future."

Wang Kefan said hello, took the four Li brothers and sisters out, and waited under the eaves, and after a short time, Li Yushi led the two people in.

These two people are one scholar and one martial arts, and the military general is the pirate Luo Mingshou, who made great contributions in the Battle of Ganzhou, and was awarded the second-grade military attache and the chief soldier of the naval division, because he followed Fu Guan, he was a member of Wang Kefan's faction.

That civil official is called Chen Zhaoan, a native of Suzhou, and a family of eunuchs. His father is Fu Guan's protégé, he himself is a lifter, and he also voted under Fu Guan's door, quite talented, and is a young and promising representative in Wang Kefan's faction...... It's a pity that Chen Zhaoan was not born in Jinshi, he had only been an eight-rank petty official before, and he had never received a real power official position.

Under Wang Kefan's introduction, the four brothers and sisters Li and the two of them greeted each other, everyone said a few polite words, and they all sat down around Wang Kefan, looked at each other, and secretly wondered in their hearts - their identities are too different, and the only thing they have in common is that they belong to Wang Kefan's faction, Wang Kefan called them together, and they don't know what to say.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I invited you here because I want to open a port and build a port in Lingdingyang." Wang Kefan took a map of Guangdong and pointed to Lingdingyang, which was later known as the Pearl River Estuary, which was famous all over the world because of Wen Tianxiang's poems.

"Is the purpose of building a port here to do business with Macao?" Chen Zhaoan was the commander of Xin'an County, and the east of the Pearl River Estuary was under his rule, and the west bank belonged to Xiangshan County (now Zhongshan, Guangdong).

"No, it's not just Macau, it's the whole of Nanyang, but also the East and the West." Wang Kefan's finger stroked on the map, pointed to a small island on the east side of the Pearl River estuary, and said: "I am going to build a port here, what does Luo Shuai think?" ”

Luo Shuai is Luo Mingshou, as a big pirate, he is of course an expert in maritime trade, and he is very familiar with various places along the coast of Guangdong, so he nodded immediately.

"The military gate is high, this island is indeed a good place, Liu Xiang fell in love with it back then, but ......, this place is too abrupt, if it is really built as a big port, it may not be safe at sea."

Liu Xiang was a great pirate in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, who was in the limelight for a while, and was later defeated by Zheng Zhilong.

"It's okay, we are the imperial court opening the port, who dares to attack?" Wang Kefan is not worried, the Manchus do not attach importance to the sailors, Zheng Chenggong is a friendly army and will not attack, the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch have to do business with the Ming Dynasty, at most they will grab ships at sea, and they don't have the courage to really attack the ports of the Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, as long as there are a few years of development, Wang Kefan is also confident that he will build a strong naval division, and the island will also become a strong fortress, not afraid of the Dutch attack.

"General Wang, there is a town on this island, the name is Shipai Town, and the future port will also be called Shipai Port?" Tsukihime studied the map for a long time, and the map was a bit sketchy, with only one stone town marked and no island name.

"No, the name of Shek Pai Port is too stingy, let's build a big port, so that everyone in the world knows, of course the name should be more atmospheric." Wang Kefan smiled at her, as if he remembered something, and was silent for a moment before speaking again.

"This island is called Hong Kong, and the port is also called Hong Kong."

(The name Hong Kong has existed since the Ming Dynasty, and Stanley, Tsim Sha Tsui, etc. are also centuries-old place names.) (To be continued......)