Qiao Yu didn't expect that Lu Wanqing, who was born in a salt merchant family, would have such a big complaint about the current salt administration, but it seems that this bold girl has no casualness at all, and she looks very solemn

"Miss Lu, you might as well talk about it!"

"Hmm!" Lu Wanqing agreed, sorted out her thoughts a little, and said: "The salt industry was originally a necessity for ordinary people's lives, and it was not lacking at all, and the current salt administration followed the system of the Ming Dynasty, implementing the system of official supervision and commercial sales, the official is the umbrella of the salt merchant, and the salt merchant is the official's treasury, extorting at will, how many people think that the salt merchant is rich, and it looks like the scenery is infinite, but in fact, he knows that he is warm and cold, in order to maintain the privilege of the monopoly, he must send silver to the official, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands, and it is not enough to send silver, but also to send jewelry, cultural play, Even to give women, they often have to rely on marriage to maintain privileges, and no family affection or blood relationship can compete with white silver and salt! ”

Lu Wanqing was indeed extremely disappointed in her family, she saw with her own eyes that her sister-in-law was forced to marry a husband who had tuberculosis, and she was widowed before she could pass the door, and she also saw that in order to please the officials, the family bought dozens of beautiful dolls and gave them to the bureaucrats who were already old and decayed, and pushed them all into the fire kang, and also saw those salt workers who were said to work for fifteen or sixteen hours at the end, and their thin bodies carried more than 300 catties of wooden barrels full of salt brine, Lu Wanqing chattered, Qiao Yu listened quietly.

There are indeed serious problems in the salt administration of the Qing Dynasty, the most critical point is the monopoly of privilege, salt merchants in order to maintain the privilege of desperately tying up the people in power, once they obtain this privilege, they do not have to consider how to reduce costs, improve efficiency, they can rely on the high price of salt to get a good reward, at the same time for the salt workers can also rest assured that the bold oppression, this is the power of privilege.

In this case, the people are the biggest victims, to endure the high price of salt, the salt tax of the imperial court will actually be because of the bureaucracy's layers of peeling and not reaching the expected level, and the salt merchants in order to maintain their privileges to spend a huge amount of thought, but also to endure the exploitation of the bureaucracy, and even as a small treasury to arbitrarily raise money, Qiao Yu's heart can't help but calculate, salt is the most important income in Sichuan at this stage, and it is also the financial pillar of the military and political axe, and it is necessary to break the existing solid chain of interests. Otherwise, his salt tax will be greatly reduced, and the high price of salt is also a heavy burden, which is pressed on the shoulders of the people, and reducing the burden of the people is an important task for Qiao Yu to govern in the future, and only in this way can he truly gain the support of the people.

In the history of the Republic of China, countless warlord groups have emerged, even if they finally unify the whole country, they will inevitably disappear in the end, and the key surname problem is that they have not really won the support of the people, just like duckweed, as long as a gust of wind can blow away, what they have to do is to firmly establish a solid foundation of political power.

Lu Wanqing suddenly found that Qiao Yu's eyes were slightly stiff, and she knew that he was in deep thought, so she no longer complained, but watched quietly, a man is still very attractive when he thinks deeply, and suddenly the little girl's face is a little red, although she has studied abroad for several years, and it is precisely because of the experience of studying abroad that she is even more disgusted with things at home, but the little girl maintains a kind of reserve unique to oriental women.

In the blink of an eye, three days passed, and the men and horses of the two divisions began to officially march towards southern Sichuan, and the two divisions together had more than 20,000 people, plus the people reached 25,000 people, and the momentum was immense, and this march was not simply a war, but a demonstration to the local forces, and the implementation of the new law, so with the advance of the army, the Lijin checkpoints were abolished, and the old bureaucratic landlords who still had illusions in the Qing court were also ruthlessly suppressed, and local order was restored.

Originally, the people's army scattered all disbanded nearby, each went home, walked for five days in a row, and finally approached Luzhou, at this time there were a large number of people's troops gathered in Luzhou, more than 10,000 people, led by Wang Tianjie and Wu Yuzhang, who were strengthening the defense of Luzhou at this time, and wanted to prevent Qiao Yu from continuing to march.

It turned out that since Qiao Yu announced the reading power in Yucheng and issued a new bill, it attracted the dissatisfaction of the people's army, and the high-level generally believed that this was a blatant theft of the fruits of the victory of the revolutionary party, Wang Tianjie, Wu Yuzhang and others were even more angry when they learned that Qiao Yu was marching to southern Sichuan, since Qiao Yu announced that he would not attack the loyal lackeys of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but marched to southern Sichuan, which is nothing more than coveting the salt tax, and now the salt tax in southern Sichuan is also the lifeblood of the People's Party, where are they willing to let it out, so they took the initiative to send troops to Luzhou, wanted to stop Qiao Yu from going south.

In fact, when making this decision, Yang Shukan was extremely opposed, he knew very well in his heart Qiao Yu's power, and there was no benefit in directly confronting him, Yang Shukan advocated cooperation with Qiao Yu, took the initiative to join the Sichuan military and political axe, first to keep the power, now the revolutionary situation in the country is very good, and after the further development of the power of the Alliance, he can use the forces of other provinces to oppress Qiao Yu, and control the power of Sichuan in his hands without using force, his proposal was approved by Zhang Peijue and Zhu Zhihong, However, it aroused the contempt of Wang Tianjie and others.

They thought that Yang Shukan and the others had been frightened by Qiao Yu, and the two sides quarreled for several days, and finally decided to divide the army into two parts, one team led by Wang Tianjie and Wu Yuzhang to meet Qiao Yu, and the other team led by Yang Shukan to guard Rong County and nearby prefectures and counties.

After arriving at the periphery of Luzhou, Qiao Yu did not rush into the city, but first set up a camp and sent a representative Yao Liquan into Luzhou to negotiate with Wang Tianjie and others.

Wang Tianjie and Wu Yuzhang also knew that Qiao Yu's army was well-equipped, so they went all out to defend it, but they didn't expect Qiao Yu to play the game of salute first and then soldier, and sent a representative, the two were also stunned for a while, what trick did the other party want to play, and invited the representative in.

"On behalf of Governor Qiao, I would like to say hello to all the righteous people who resisted the Qing Dynasty, everyone has worked hard!"

"What credit does Qiao Yu have, he can call himself the governor, just a thief, we have nothing to say!" Wang Tianjie looked very arrogant.

Yao Liquan is very alert, very good at words, hearing Wang Tianjie's disrespectful words, he was not angry at all, but said with a smile: "This is Mr. Wang Tianjie, Governor Qiao has mentioned you several times, admired, why do you have to be so, Governor Qiao is the acting governor, what is the acting, presumably everyone understands, as long as there is a more suitable candidate can be replaced, this march into southern Sichuan, but also to unify Sichuan as soon as possible, everyone here is a Sichuan revolutionist, we are all to overthrow the Manchu Qing, It really shouldn't be a matter of pain for relatives and quick for enemies, and besides, everyone is a person with great military achievements, and there must be a high position in the political axe in the future, even if it is not impossible to be a governor! ”

Everyone present didn't expect that the other party would actually say that Qiao Yu would let the governor out, and they were extremely surprised one by one.

"Hmph, that's a nice thing to say, Qiao Yu will willingly give up the position of governor, isn't it a joke, are you then a three-year-old child?" Wu Yuzhang retorted.

Yao Liquan smiled slightly: "You are all members of the People's Party, don't you know that the Republic of China is a country of the people?" The position of the governor is naturally not to be given back and forth casually, but to obey the will of the people, who the people elect, if the people can support you, you can naturally become the governor, and even the president has to be decided by election, don't you know this truth? ”

Wu Yuzhang and the others immediately didn't know how to refute, this is indeed their proposition, of course, they don't necessarily take it true from the bottom of their hearts, but they naturally can't slap themselves in the face in front of people, Yao Liquan continued: "Governor Qiao said that he came to southern Sichuan definitely not to fight with you, but to concentrate on exterminating the remnants of the Manchu Qing as soon as possible, don't misunderstand the people's army, and I also hope that all leaders can join the military and political axe, and also hope that the elites from all walks of life in southern Sichuan can join the parliament and formulate new political and legal bills. Make due contributions to the people of Sichuan! ”