In October of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, a strategist wearing an iron mask appeared in the shogunate of Li Meng, the general of Shandong, and the general Zhendong called this iron-masked man Mr. Gongsun.

In Li Meng's civil and military team, they were quite curious about the identity of this strategist, some people went to Zhou Yang and Ning Qiangui to inquire, and some people went to trick Wang Hai and Tang Er's words, but they didn't get any results, looking at their appearance, it seems that they don't know who this strategist is.

Shandong Li Zhendong, people outside may not know what kind of person he is, but in the heart of Shandong Wenwu, Li Meng is the top figure in the world.

By General Li's side, all the people can be his subordinates, and no one is qualified to be equal to him, and this "Mr. Gongsun" is in the general soldier's yamen, his mannerisms, and Li Meng's treatment are faintly a little equal.

Of course, this taste of equality is only relative to other people in the Jiaozhou battalion system, but this is already groundbreaking.

With Li Meng's authority, naturally no one dared to question his decision, but what everyone questioned was who could have such a talent and be on an equal footing with Li Dashuai.

This Mr. Gongsun acts almost synchronously with the marshal on weekdays, whether Li Meng appears in the military meeting or on the occasion of civil affairs, this Mr. Gongsun with an iron mask will go together.

At this moment, everyone below is confused about the civil and military identity of this Mr. Gongsun, there are really few people in the world who can be civil and martial, and a few of them seem to be working in the imperial court, and there are no lower than the second grade, and these people can't appear here in the Jiaozhou camp.

Everyone is curious, but the Jiaozhou battalion knows the difference between public and private, and curiosity does not affect everyone's work, and this Mr. Gongsun is in the yamen of the military and civilian places. Never saying a word, just listening, had no effect on the structure of the Jiaozhou battalion and the distribution of power.

Gradually. Everyone's attitude towards this Mr. Gongsun is just curiosity.

However, there are a few speculations that are quite interesting, for example, Mr. Gongsun is tall, his eyes are bright under the mask, and he is half a step behind Li Meng when he walks.

In late October, there was a small change in Shandong's salt administration, which was divided according to the salt administration of the imperial court. Generally, one province or several provinces are a district, and the official salt price of this region is the same. Of course, on the ground in Shandong, this rule is useless, and no one follows it at all.

At present, the salt policy situation in Shandong is that private salt is official salt, and the price of salt in various places in Shandong is announced in Jinan and Jiaozhou every year, and then escorted to various places by armed salt ding, and sold by businessmen who undertake private salt in various places, and the salt price is allowed to fluctuate, but because the amount of salt has been very large. Therefore, the price is not high, and the people do not feel that it is a burden.

Shandong originally had more than 100 inspection divisions, large and small, specializing in investigating smuggled salt everywhere, since the rise of Li Meng. Now there is only one inspection department - the salt administration guards the Jiaozhou inspection.

This inspection department is the subordinate body of the armed salt team, so when introducing Li Meng's official position. If it is really a purely official document, it will become quite ridiculous, "General Zhendong, Governor of Zuodu, Li Meng, Chief Military Officer of Shandong, and Inspector of the Jiaozhou Inspection Division" are all first- and second-grade officials in the front, and a lowly official in the back is really hilarious.

But this position is Li Meng's official recognition of Shandong's salt political subordination, and it cannot be easily given up, and Li Meng is also because of this position. Reasonable and legal jurisdiction over Shandong's public and private salt affairs.

In fact, the most ridiculous thing about this Shandong salt affairs is not the name hanging behind the official rank of the chief soldier. It is the regular income of the salt transportation envoy of the Jining Prefecture Salt Administration.

The salt envoy is an official of the third grade or from the third grade, which is a first-class fat shortage. But the salt transportation in Shandong is extremely breathless, and the profits of the salt industry in Shandong have nothing to do with him, so naturally there is no oil and water, and there is still some foreign water in the account every year, how to start this foreign wealth.

Ning Qiangui has been in the salt industry system for many years, and knows the way of this big family's wealth, after all, the salt transport envoy is a third-grade master, and it is not easy to be too anxious, so every year he gives the salt transport envoy a share of a certain amount of stone salt, and allows the salt transport envoy to take these stones to Yanzhou Mansion to sell, and the money earned belongs to himself. How much salt does the salt transport envoy want to sell, it is actually to ask the inspection department below to approve the share, which can be regarded as a only spectacle seen in the Ming Dynasty.

If people do not eat salt for a few days, they will be sore and weak, and they will suffer from all kinds of diseases, and the world is a great disaster, and the sale of salt has not been hit hard.

Now Li Meng controls all the salt farms in Shandong, as well as almost 20% of the salt farms in Nanzhili, which are important sources of funds for him.

The sales of Lu salt, in addition to the local Shandong, Henan Kaifeng, Guide, Zhangde, Huaiqing four prefectures, as well as Beizhili Shunde Mansion, Guangping Mansion, Daming Mansion, Cangzhou Mansion, have been completely infiltrated, but it is almost the limit of Lu salt production and marketing, after all, the private salt sold to the Zheng family must also be guaranteed.

In fact, the periphery of the above-mentioned territories, even Shanxi and Mongolia outside the Saiwai, have a need for salt, and those places can only be handed over to Huaiyan, or more precisely, the Fang family to do it, and Jiaozhou Camp makes money for transit.

However, before the Jiaozhou camp began to sell salt, the common people in these areas ate the official salt with high quality and high price, and the illegal salt was rarely trafficked to them because of the small profits.

In a sense, the Jiaozhou camp has also done something good......

However, after mid-October, the price of salt began to rise throughout Yanzhou Province and in some prefectures and counties south of Dongchang Province.

The cavalry and horse teams stationed in various parts of the Jiaozhou battalion are also concentrated, ready to support the actions of the armed salt soldiers at any time, and the price of salt in Lunan and Luxi will rise, and there will definitely be people who want to sell Huai salt.

Therefore, Yanding and the soldiers were prepared and took strict precautions.

This Luxi and Lunan salt prices are high. The officials and people in Yanzhou Mansion and Dongchang Mansion were full of complaints, thinking that Shandong had only been peaceful for a few years, after Li Dashuai's war this year. There are so many things when I come back, it is to investigate the spies, and it is the price increase of the salt industry, as if it is a sudden change of sex.

The civil and military officials of Li Meng's system felt that this policy was really out of place at the beginning, but now Li Meng, the general of Zhendong, should be kind to the military and people in Shandong and win the hearts of the people, how can he do such a complaining thing!

But after thinking about this question a little, it is to ponder the taste, which is the means to earn the maximum benefit for the Jiaozhou camp. Whether it's from the economic side or from the people's side of the people.

The fine-tuning of the salt price and the slight change of the policy have such a good effect, but it is obviously not the handiwork of the handsome man, it seems that it is the idea of Mr. Gongsun, the man in the iron mask.

"The price of salt in Shandong is almost the same everywhere, and the people of Qilu must think that eating this cheap salt is a matter of course, although Lord Li has the heart to show kindness to the people, but in this situation of flat land everywhere, everyone can't feel it at all."

After participating in a report with Li Meng on Yanzheng and Lingshan Commercial Bank. Returning to Li Meng's residence, Sun Chuanting put forward his own opinion, and now his residence has been moved to the location next to Li Meng's inner house, so that it is convenient to move together every day. It is also convenient to discuss things.

"As far as the old man knows, Dashuai's Tuntian Grange is scattered in the south of Dongchang Mansion and the whole territory of Yanzhou. It's the other ones who account for the majority, and the old man is not wrong about this, right? ”

Li Meng nodded, although Sun Chuanting was attached, there was no change in this title, but this made Li Meng quite happy, and some details of etiquette were ignored. Sun Chuanting said that he didn't think about it at all, the people bought salt, and what the Jiaozhou camp earned was just a little bit, a lot of little bit of it. Nature becomes a huge income and profit. Small profits but quick turnover, this is what Jiaozhou Camp does.

But look at Sun Chuanting's attitude. Obviously, he raised objections to this, this should be the first time that Sun Chuanting put forward his own opinions on a certain policy in the Jiaozhou camp, Li Meng was very interested, Sun Chuanting saw that Li Meng listened attentively, and the more serious he said.

"The land of Dongchang Mansion and Yanzhou Mansion is in the hands of less than ten wealthy families, and the Confucian Mansion and King Lu's Wangzhuang account for the majority, these two, one is the inheritance of the saints, and the imperial court has been sealed for hundreds of years.

Hearing Sun Chuanting's question, Li Meng shook his head slowly, at present, Kong Sande, the principal of Wenru Commercial Bank, seems to outsiders to be very good at doing business, and has earned a lot of gold and silver in the Jiaozhou camp either openly or secretly.

But Li Meng knew that Kong Sande had always been quite friendly to the Jiaozhou battalion, and helped many people who should not be helped, such as Liu Zeqing, who attacked Caozhou that day, and secretly settled the soldiers and horses of the Jiaozhou battalion in the Grange in Ningyang and Surabaya, which is a great favor. Moreover, the private request for a meeting that day, the words discussed between the two sides, basically no outsiders knew. If there is really something in the Confucian Mansion, Kong Sande should be on his side.

However, Li Meng also got some news recently, saying that Kong Sande's position of entering the gold fight this day was coveted by many people in the Yansheng Mansion, and he felt that this business could be done so easily, if it was replaced by me, wouldn't it be the same as making money, although Kong Sande was capable, but after all, he was a foreign clansman.

The long room of the Kong family has a few peers who have no way to attack the lord, and every day they are pampering the elders of the family, to seize the position of the principal of this Wenru firm, Kong Sande is good up and down, but he can't stand the greed of others, if Kong Sande loses power, many inconvenient things in the Jiaozhou camp can not find a good replacement, it is very troublesome.

If Kong Sande is brought down, then his side may not have a chance to get together with the Confucian Mansion, maybe he should find some way to support him, over there Sun Chuanting didn't know that Li Meng was listening to it, he moved so much thought, looked at Li Meng's face solemnly, and continued there:

"These two families are destined to be unanimous with adults, but they occupy the most fertile land in Ludi, and there are a large number of people, adults, soldiers and civilians are separated, and local taxes have nothing to do with the marshal. The salt affairs of Jiaozhou are actually collected from the officials and people of Shandong in disguise, but the name of the tax place has become money to buy salt. ”

Li Meng heard this. It is also a sudden reaction, but isn't that the case, their own salt industry is all over Shandong, the salt that everyone in Shandong eats is the salt produced in the salt farm, the profit of Jiaozhou selling salt deducts the cost, the extra piece, some of which are normal profits, and the other part is similar to the taxes collected, and I really didn't understand this joint before. Sun Chuanting's analysis was to the point.

"Shandong's elite soldiers are strong, and the military expenditure is a huge amount, and the imperial court does not allocate military salaries, and the adults themselves create the wealth of private salt and self-sufficiency, which is really eloquent."

Speaking of which, he directly praised Li Meng, although Sun Chuanting is a hero, but he has been in the Ming officialdom for a long time, and he still knows how to speak as he wishes. Sure enough, the next words began to change the direction of the wind.

"My lord, since this salt business is a tax policy. Then this role is not just as simple as money, and taxation is a major policy. This dynasty said that the Son of Heaven and the scholars ruled the world together, and the scholars and literati naturally did not have to pay taxes, and they were burdened with forced labor, and the three people of agriculture, industry and commerce were all subject to heavy taxes. Although the business of the adults has not yet reached that point, they also divide their relatives and distance through this tax, so that the people of Ludi will know whether to follow the adults and not to follow the adults. What the hell is the difference. Shengdou Xiaomin, you talk to him about righteousness and morality. It's useless, only by working on the stakes can they understand ......"

After analyzing the essence of this salt business and making improvements, Sun Chuanting talked eloquently, and then took out the written note and handed it to Li Meng.

When he first took refuge, Li Mengben didn't expect the other party to play so quickly, after all, there is still a difference between reading various newspapers in the back and dealing with these matters in person, who would have thought that Sun Chuanting would get started so quickly and put forward very valuable suggestions, which is really surprising.

This article was implemented by Chen Xun, and the self-contained tycoons of Yanzhou Mansion and Dongchang Mansion, although they had their own land and inheritance, they also had to eat salt land.

In recent years, the price of salt has been flat, the supply is sufficient, everyone takes this to buy salt and eat salt as a matter of course, no one thinks to store some for emergencies, and when the order of the Jiaozhou camp comes out, everyone appears, and there is no other place to buy salt if you want to buy salt.

The armed salt Ding and the Yanzhou army patrolled extremely strictly, and it was impossible to go to Huaibei to buy it, not to mention that most of the land in Shandong was in the hands of less than 30 people, and these people had a great business, and with the strict precautions of the Jiaozhou battalion, the salt brought by those fish that slipped through the net was just a drop in the bucket, and it could not solve the problem at all.

No salt is not good, it is already so, and the only way to buy this increased price of salt is to pinch your nose, and at the same time, the armed salt lads have implemented the most severe punishment.

In the area firmly controlled by Li Meng, the price of salt is stable, and there will naturally be people who are greedy for small profits who want to go to cross-border trafficking, and for such people, there are strict punishments waiting for him.

Choked these possible loopholes, the news of salt prices gradually spread, the people of Dongchang Mansion and Yanzhou Mansion knew what kind of price they would pay if they did not follow the footsteps of Li Meng, the general soldier of Shandong, and those who ate cheap salt also knew that they were grateful and understood that this cheap salt was not something that could be eaten for granted, but a price of loyalty.

The adjustment of the price of salt, speaking of which is high-sounding, seems to be an official move, and if you investigate it yourself, it will be revealed, and this is still the nature of illicit salt trafficking.

But no one in Shandong raised any questions about this, among which the Yamen of the Jining Prefecture Salt Transportation Division was the most happy, because the salt that they were asked to sell every year was sold in Yanzhou Prefecture, and the price of salt increased, so they could take a lot of money, which was indeed happy.

But from an outsider's point of view, it's really ridiculous and pathetic.

The adjustment of salt prices in some state capitals, coupled with the inventory that began in late September, is tantamount to giving the people in Shandong an attitude, following Li Dashuai, there will always be all kinds of benefits for you, and if you don't follow Li Dashuai, so many things in front of you are a vivid example.

Even the smallest things in your life can get into trouble, like the salt you eat, which is a few points more expensive than other homes......

After the adjustment of regional salt prices, the income of Jiaozhou camp has increased slightly, but what has been harvested is not only this increased income

In the late November of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, the head of the Liu family, a large landlord in Liaocheng, Dongchang Prefecture, came to the door with his three sons, saying that the army was defending the land for Shandong. The Liu family should also do something.

The head of the Liu family said impassionedly that his three sons also learned stick martial arts at home, if the handsome man didn't dislike it. Let them serve in the army. And seeing that there are many troops on the marshal's side, the expenses are so large, and he is willing to bear the expenses of several battalions.

The three sons came to serve in the army, which was equivalent to giving hostages to the Jiaozhou battalion and bearing the expenses and salaries of several battalions, which was tantamount to paying taxes in disguise.

The head of the Liu family knew his duty very well, and after putting forward the request to fund the head of the battalion, he repeatedly stated that it was best to go to the military camp in Dengzhou Mansion or Laizhou Prefecture, and the money and property would be handed over to the old battalion of the marshal. How to arrange the deployment is arranged by you, and the Liu family is just doing their best.

Of course, this is also in order not to let Li Meng misunderstand, what other intentions are there in this donation.

In addition, the head of the Liu family also promised that the tenants and vassals to whom he belonged were also the people of the Ming Dynasty, and if they were recruited and recruited, they would also be treated equally.

The Liu family is not ranked last among the less than 30 large landowners in Shandong. It should be in the bottom six or seven positions, known as "Dongchang 100 acres, Liu family 30", and it is also a well-known family. It is said that he also has some right to speak in front of Li Meng.

However, the conditions for the opening of the Liu family are equivalent to kowtowing to Li Meng. Complete surrender, firstly, the Liu family was also investigated and the price of salt increased, which made them anxious, secondly, they knew the current affairs, and thirdly, Li Meng's father-in-law used to be the prefect of Dongchang, and the two sides still had some friendship, and the Liu family knew more about Li Meng, the general soldier of Shandong, than others.

Since the Liu family has made such a gesture, Li Meng will naturally not let him do it in vain. The three sons of the Liu family did not go to the army. Instead, he became a member of the armed salt ding. The price of salt sold to the Liu family was immediately on par with other places in Shandong. When the Liu family returned to Dongchang Mansion, the head of the Tuntian Grange and craftsmen came to the Liu family's field to measure and survey, and wanted to connect the Liu family's field with the ditch of the Tuntian Grange.

Although the Liu family has paid all kinds of costs, what the Jiaozhou camp has given back, both openly and secretly, is far more than the price of the Liu family.

Thousands of years of inheritance, the landlord class is regarded as their own lifeblood, especially in Shandong, in addition to the Confucian Mansion and the Lu Wangfu two large landlords, through the disaster year, and the Shandong general Li Meng's actions in Shandong, they are all to obtain and annex their ancestors unimaginable large fields, a large number of tenant farmers, the so-called Fubi princes, vaguely meaningful, and these lands do not pay taxes, almost do not bear any obligations.

In their eyes, these lands are to be passed down from generation to generation, to be passed on to future generations, and if the officials collect taxes and levy the manpower in them at will, it is like cutting their flesh and letting their blood be released, and they are not willing to do so in any way.

And now, Li Meng is the general soldier of Shandong, they are the gentry of Shandong, and they are in the same system with each other, these big landlords feel that they can still reason with Li Meng and bargain, after all, they are also huge enough.

However, this inventory and the adjustment of salt prices made them realize that they are indeed huge, but they are just huge pigs and sheep, and in front of the tiger and wolf, no matter how big the pigs and sheep are, they are just food.

Even if it is a complete surrender and slaughtered by others, the treatment received in the past is very different from the past late, after all, there is a thousand gold horse bones, the horse bones at the beginning can still be worth a thousand gold, and the later ones are not so valuable.

At the beginning of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, the big families were not concerned about how to run this Spring Festival, but pondered what they should do in the future.

At the beginning of the month, some generals and veterans of the Jiaozhou battalion got valuable vacations and began to return to their hometowns for vacation, but like these large families in Shandong who are not in the Li Meng system, the Jiaozhou battalion also had a bad year.

For example, Huang Ping, the big leader of the Shandong Salt Gang, is Li Meng's intelligence leader in the dark. At this time, he was drinking wind on the edge of the official road between Qufu and Yanzhou Capital.

Even in Lunandi, it is quite cold in this month season, Huang Ping and more than a dozen of his subordinates are wrapped in torn leather jackets, around the cart there to gnaw dry cakes, the water in the gourd is also cold to death, this lunch is grinning, extremely sinful.

Shandong Taiping. There are quite a lot of merchants who come and go from various prefectures and counties, and there are really a lot of people doing business in this wealthy part of Yanzhou Prefecture during the New Year's Festival. Passing by Huang Ping and them, they all thought that this was a common thing in a commercial house or car dealership, and no one paid attention to it.

"The guests from Xuzhou are hiding in the Zhuangzi in front, which is the manor of the second son of Yan Shenggong, and it is not easy for the army and Yanding to go in and get people."

More than a dozen people gathered in a pile, looking like they were sheltered from the wind, and they didn't worry about others seeing them when they spoke, Huang Ping thought to himself that the whole family had finally reunited in Jinan City this year, and the new home had just been settled. But there was such a thing, and the other people went home to enjoy the joy of that day.

But he wanted to take his subordinates here to pretend to be a poor man to monitor, he was really angry, and when he heard the report of his subordinates, he couldn't help but get angry, threw the cake in his hand to the ground, and shouted angrily in a low voice:

"Are you Jining helmsmen blind, you actually let that group of salt dealers in Xuzhou run rampant under your noses, if it weren't for Yangzhou to report to Jinan Mansion, I don't know how big the trouble would be!"

At the end of November. Fang Yingren, the second elder of the Fang family in Yangzhou Prefecture, rushed to Jinan City overnight in a light car, with more than 20 horses to change horses.

is actually in such a hurry, and the people in Jinan City also know that this is the second master of Yangzhou. But the distinguished guests who could see Li Dashuai did not dare to delay.

Li Meng was also taken aback. I thought there was something big about it, and hurriedly met him, as soon as Fang Yingren entered the door, he knelt down and kowtowed, saying that he would die, Li Meng was completely confused, since the other party came here to ask for guilt, then this matter must have violated his own interests, but it would not be a capital crime.

If he really committed a capital crime, I'm afraid he would have run away. Li Meng and Yan Yuerong helped Fang Yingren up. Ask exactly.

Fang Yingzhong, the eldest son of the Fang family, who was deprived of the right to inherit, thought that Li Meng would inevitably suffer a big loss in Henan. Therefore, the Ming army around Fengyang Zhongdu colluded to usurp the salt field and Tuntian Grange of the Jiaozhou battalion in Lianghuai, and the whole family did not know about this matter, and waited for Li Meng to return to Shandong after a complete victory.

The boss of the Fang family panicked and went home to ask for help, but the old lady Fang was helpless and angry, so he had to deprive this rebel son of his inheritance and go back to his hometown to guard the ancestral grave.

But when Fang Yingren, the second elder of the Fang family, went to Huai'an Mansion to sort out the account books, the boss of the Fang family has been selling salt goods to Yanzhou Mansion privately through some outlaws in Xuzhou.

The crux of the matter is to traffic Huai salt towards Shandong, how many children died in Lianghuai, and the Fang family and Shandong formed an alliance before they stopped, and today I see that you have to make trouble for this little wealth.

Fang Lao Er naturally knew what the overall situation was and what the money should be discarded, so he immediately decided not to do this business anymore, but some things began, and it was not that he could stop if he wanted to.

Those outlaws in Xuzhou, doing this business is already slippery, thinking that this money is too easy to make, if you don't do it, we will continue to do it ourselves.

There are so many salt farms in Lianghuai, and it is not difficult to have some salt that is not in the accounts, isn't this money that comes out of thin air, and it can't be found in Shandong.

After the report of the second child of the Fang family, Li Meng learned that the original Cao transport ship that went north to transport grain was actually used by these people to carry illicit salt.

The Yanding in Jining Prefecture and the Jiaozhou battalions from all walks of life are indeed very righteous, and the identity of this transport ship is relatively special, and it is not easy to check the boxes and cabinets, so it was actually exploited by this loophole.

Li Meng also knew in his heart, the Fang family's old land, how could the whole Fang family not know, it was just acquiescence, this is also the characteristic of the big family, everything is interests first, and any covenant is nonsense. They recognize strength, and their own strength is strong, so they naturally attach to it, otherwise, they abandon it as if they were shoe.

Since the second elder of the Fang family has done so much in a benevolent manner, and has said what he has done, there is still a need for cooperation between the two sides, so there is no need to delve into it.

It's just that those outlaws in Xuzhou must be severely punished......