It took Tang Yi almost ten days to rush to Huai'an, but he did not rush into the city to meet the officials, or find the bad luck of his old enemy Yan Maoqing, but waited for the arrival of a few partners.

A few fast horses galloped, and in a blink of an eye, a tall middle-aged man jumped off his horse and walked in front of Tang Yi excitedly.

"Little ones meet the adults."

"Brother Zhu, are you cold with me?" Tang Yi feigned anger, the person who came scratched his head, smiled, didn't say much, and consciously stood on Tang Yi's right.

The other two hurried over and bowed, "Student Jiang Zhou (Chen Keyuan), meet Master." ”

"Hurry up." Tang Yi was equally pleased and pulled them up.

These three were Tang Yi's staff when he was in the south, because he guessed that he was going to Beijing as an errand, he was not so ostentatious, and it happened that there were still a bunch of things in the south, so he left Zhu Xian and them in the south to help deal with things.

This time to deal with salt affairs in the south, to face the Yan Party, but also to face the intricate two Huai salt merchants, Tang Yi knew that it was not easy, as the saying goes, the three stinkers beat Zhuge Liang, before he left, he sent someone to Zhu Xian and them to send a letter, and immediately went north to meet.

Finally, before entering Huai'an, the three of them arrived, and after everyone greeted each other, Tang Yi suddenly noticed that there was another one behind, who was looking at it with a smile, and Tang Yi also knew him.

"Mr. Lumen, you are polite in your late life."

This person is Mao Kun, he and Hu Zongxian are Jinshi of the same department, and later were dismissed from office and idle, when Tang Shen practiced village bravery, Mao Kun served as a staff member for his father, and later Mao Kun also helped Tang Yi with advice.

Tang Shen treats Mao Kun as a gift to the juniors, and Tang Yi is even more so, he firmly believes that the inside is more important than face.

is like a wise man like Mao Kun, after his career is cut off. The heart is actually fragile and sensitive, and if you are not careful, you may poke their sore spots, and the original intimate relationship will collapse. In the same way, give them enough respect and let them use their talents. When a soldier dies for his confidant, they can really serve hard.

Obviously, Tang Yi's sincere attitude moved Mao Kun very much, he was just Bai Ding who lost his official position and was dismissed, but Tang Yi was a hot four-grade member with a bright future.

It's really rare to be so polite.

In fact, with the overall situation of the anti-Japanese war settled, there is nothing to be done to stay in the southeast, and Maokun needs a bigger stage.

He can't make it to the table, though. went to sing the leading role on stage, but it didn't prevent him from playing a famous role behind the scenes!

For literati, being an emperor is not the highest honor, and becoming an emperor is really capable. Looking at the Manchu Dynasty officials, there are not many people who are worthy of assistance and can have a relationship, and Tang Yi is the best one among them.

That's it, since you want to be someone else's subordinate. It's about showing some real skills.

Mao Kun smiled slightly, "Lord Tang." Are you worried about the two things? ”

Tang Yi hurriedly nodded, "It's not a secret, it's a mess, there is no quasi-score, I don't dare to enter Huai'an, I can't learn from Yan Maoqing!" ”

"Hahaha. Then let the old man give the adults a reassurance! ”

Mao Kun was full of confidence, Tang Yi knew that he was not a braggart, so he hurriedly invited all four of them to the study where he stayed, poured tea himself, and Mao Kun began to talk endlessly......

The source of everything lies in Zhu Yuanzhang's method of opening the middle. Before the Ming Dynasty, the monopoly system of salt was like this, the government organized the people to boil salt, and then purchased salt, paid wages, and sold it to merchants at a high price, and the merchants transferred to various salt areas for sale, and the government got the income of salt, and then distributed it.

Simple and straightforward.

However, in the eyes of Zhu Yuanzhang, who was born as a bitter child, this set is still very troublesome, and he came up with a better way.

That is, let the merchants transport grain to the nine sides in exchange for salt, and then go to the salt transportation divisions to extract the salt and sell it.

The advantage of opening the law is obvious, that is, it makes up for the shortage of food and salary for the border defense, and the imperial court also has less trouble selling salt for distribution.

It's just that if you think about it carefully, the so-called opening of China and France, like most of Zhu Yuanzhang's economic policies, is to save a little money, spend a lot of money, pick up sesame seeds, and lose watermelons. It is a typical small-scale peasant mentality, just thinking about saving trouble, but it has laid a curse for future generations.

Because according to the design of the Kaizhong Law, the government has changed from a direct participant in the salt trade to a producer responsible for supply. As a result, he lost the ability to control the huge salt sales revenue and handed over the gold flow to others.

Zhu Yuanzhang's attitude is similar to that of the finances, he thinks that concentrating the finances in the household department and distributing them to various places is to take off their pants and fart, and all localities keep enough money they need and hand over the rest to the imperial court.

At the beginning of the country, when the industry was in a depression, the natural problem was not big, and later the expenditure became increasingly huge. Fiscal constraints are the drawbacks of ignoring macroeconomic mediation.

On the issue of salt administration, the Ming court made the same mistake of abandoning macro mediation and forcibly linking the border and salt administration, which produced a series of serious consequences.

First of all, salt production is a stable and continuous process, and the number of stove households, the number of daily starts, and the amount of salt produced are basically determined.

However, the grain of the nine sides is a serious fluctuation thing, and when there is a big war, the need for food and salary suddenly increases, and the nine sides will open a large amount of salt in exchange for grain. But the merchant's transportation capacity is limited, in order to stimulate the enthusiasm of the merchant, it is necessary to lower the price of salt, the first salt to be cooled a stone, the distance is close, even five or six stones, to the Yongle years, whenever there is an urgent need, it becomes only a few buckets can be exchanged for a lead.

The salt diversion has shrunk dramatically, and the result is that the salt diversion is indiscriminate, and some merchants get the salt quotation and go to the salt factory to extract the salt, but there is no salt at all. It can even be a few years of waiting.

After arriving in Hongzhi, the imperial court had to limit the amount of salt in the middle of the annual opening to a certain amount.

Because the border operations were accidental and discontinuous, the demand for grain increased greatly during the war, resulting in the indiscriminate use of salt, and in normal times, the need for grain and grass decreased, and the salt introduction declined, which had a huge impact on salt merchants and stove households.

In order to maintain the salt market, the imperial court had to adopt the strategy of changing grain to silver, which was obviously much more efficient and convenient than heavy grain. Problems also arose, because of the payment of silver instead of grain, the supply of grain in the nine sides was insufficient, and the original military household system could not be maintained. The annual military expenditure of the imperial court skyrocketed.

However, due to the power of the ancestral system, no one dared to overthrow the Kaizhong Law openly, so he could only be a pastemaker, sewing and mending, and maintaining the operation of the surface.

Unfortunately, the opening of the law not only affected the stability of the nine sides. It has also had a bad impact on stove households, whose incomes are not stable due to fluctuations in salt demand.

In the past, the imperial court sold salt to pay the people.

The opening of the middle of the dynasty, caused the salt transportation division to have no money to send, at the beginning of the country was fine, by specialized personnel, to the stove households to issue treasure money, at that time the treasure money was still valuable. Stove households can sustain their lives.

However, as the treasure money turned into a piece of waste paper, the imperial court was reluctant to give the stove households silver, and more and more stove households went bankrupt and fled. The situation is similar to the flight of military households on the nine sides......

But unlike the border, the production of salt is still profitable, and at this time, another group of people rises.

It is the so-called wealthy stove households, who are producing more and more salt. The amount is getting bigger and bigger.

Become the true king of salt production!

There are fewer and fewer government-run stove households under the control of the Salt Transportation Division, and they are unable to meet the needs of the people. However, salt could not be withheld, so the imperial court had to allow salt merchants to purchase excess salt from wealthy stove households.

This is the so-called "buying surplus salt", to put it bluntly, it is a disguised compromise by the imperial court. Acknowledging the existence of illicit salt.

As soon as the bad example was opened, it was even more difficult to maintain the already broken salt policy, and it was not surprising that the annual salt tax revenue was getting smaller and smaller......

I drank three pots of tea. Mao Kuncai finished talking about his years of research, and Tang Yi suddenly felt that he benefited a lot.

In the past, when it came to salt politics, he simply thought that the salt merchants were insatiable and greedily gave the taxes that should have belonged to the imperial court.

It was only at this moment that he came to his senses, and the root of his inability to collect taxes was still in the ancestral system and in the imperial court.

Businessmen are profit-seeking, and there is nothing wrong with it, so you can't expect them to lose money to do business!

Mao Kun smiled slightly: "My lord, you now understand who Yan Maoqing has offended, right?" ”

Tang Yi nodded vigorously, "Mr. Lumen's high-minded arguments, let me see the sun!" The salt merchants were divided into two parts, one part was the tycoons who had a monopoly on salt sales. There is also a part that most people ignore, or are unwilling to face, are those merchants who originally boiled salt for a living, but after several generations of development, they became wealthy stove households. ”

"Your Excellency hits the nail on the head!" Mao Kun sighed: "Yan Maoqing wants to adjust the salt sales area, and the one with the highest price will get it, in fact, the entire boiled salt, transportation, and sales will all be handed over to Jujia." And those wealthy stove households will inevitably be impacted, and it is not surprising that they encourage their stove households to make trouble. ”

Tang Yi deeply believes that the power of wealthy stove households is not bad, just from the increase in the population of the Ming Dynasty, the rapid decline in official salt production, and the lack of salt on the market, it can be seen.

According to simple mathematical estimates, these wealthy stove households, as well as the salt merchants associated with them, control almost eighty or ninety percent of the actual salt production.

It's just that their identity is very embarrassing, they belong to gray people, and strictly speaking, they are all selling illicit salt.

"By the way, Mr. Lumen, just because they make trouble, there won't be a shortage of salt so soon, and prices will skyrocket, right?"

"My lord is wise, in addition to them, there are many small and medium-sized salt merchants, who are unwilling to be robbed of their interests and fight back, in addition, there is a group of people ......" Mao Kun groaned.

Tang Yi hurriedly asked, "Please make it clear, sir." ”

"And then there's the traffic line!"

Mao Kun smiled meaningfully: "My lord, there is no shortage of masters of fishing in troubled waters!" ”

"Ahh

Tang Yi's face changed suddenly, when Yin Shidan mentioned it to himself, Tang Yi only thought it was him.

Unexpectedly, it was really beyond Tang Yi's expectation that someone from the traffic line was involved, but if you think about it carefully, there is nothing strange about it.

The family is big and the business is big, just like the people of the Yan Party do things, Yan Song may not know everything, he is a person of officialdom after all, how can he tell himself all about the plans of the businessmen below!

But if you hide it from me, don't think about me carrying the black cauldron!

Tang Yi thought angrily, at this time, Tang Hezheng hurriedly ran in, "Senior brother, Wu Tiancheng asks to see you." (To be continued.) )

PS: I haven't asked for a ticket for a long time, I've changed the computer, and I'm still adapting, let's get a little exciting, and the little ones are ready to break out!