As a profiteering industry that has lasted for thousands of years, salt has developed to the Ming Dynasty and has a complete production, supply and marketing system.

At the beginning of the country, the implementation of the law of opening up the middle of the country, salt and border defense were closely linked, merchants transported grain to the nine sides, in exchange for salt, and took the salt to the salt field in exchange for salt, and then transported to the designated area for sale.

After Chenghua and Hongzhi, the Kaizhong Law was destroyed, and the merchants turned to pay taxes and silver to the household department in exchange for salt. Before the opening of the city, the annual income of the imperial court was more than 4 million taels, and nearly 2 million taels came from table salt, which can be seen from the huge profits.

"Half of the opening of the law was originally destroyed, Yan Maoqing, this guy wrote a book to redraw the salt area, and he wanted to abolish the other half, what a big stroke, so bold!"

Xu Wei said in admiration.

The sales area of salt is strictly demarcated, for example, Wuzhou salt can only be sold to Tianzhou, Longzhou, Liuzhou, Nanning, Xunzhou, Qingyuan, Sien, Taiping.

Guangxi salt is sold to Changsha, Baoqing, Hengshui, Yongzhou, Quanzhou, Daozhou, and Guilin.

Lianghuai salt is in Nanzhili, and the areas that can be sold are Yingtian, Ningguo, Taiping, Yangzhou, Fengyang, Anqing, Chizhou, Huai'an, and Luzhou.

The same is true of other salt works, which have detailed regulations, and if they want to adjust, they must be approved by the imperial court.

Moreover, anyone who crosses the border and carries more than 3,000 catties of salt will be sentenced to the punishment of confiscation.

In Yan Maoqing's recital, he suggested abandoning the state-based distinction and using provinces instead.

Thirteen political envoys, each of which set up a salt patrol to be responsible for the sale of salt and the collection of taxes. Yan Maoqing boasted that as long as he followed his method, the salt tax could be restored to five million taels, which exceeded the city's silver. It became the premier source of wealth for the imperial court.

Tang Yi did not scoff at Yan Maoqing's idea like others, but studied it himself, and Tang Yi felt that his idea was very meritorious.

Daming's salt tax is not up, to a large extent, the implementation is not enough, if the salt sales area. It coincides with the area managed by the political envoy Yamen.

For the sake of political performance, the local yamen will also contribute to help collect taxes. To say that it reaches five million taels per year, Tang Yi does not doubt it.

When Taizu and Chengzu were born, they could exceed 10 million taels, and now the population of the Ming Dynasty has increased at least three times, according to the beginning of the country, it should be 30 million taels, but only 5 million taels were collected. Is it much?

Not much at all!

But can it be done?

Tang Yi is not optimistic at all, and similarly, Xu Wei and they are also quite unoptimistic.

"Yan Maoqing's approach is actually to reduce the number of salt sales areas, and the salt merchants who have the strength to encompass a province are not in the majority. In other words, Yan Maoqing only cares about the interests of the top salt merchants and sacrifices other small and medium-sized salt merchants. Cao Zichao incisively analyzed: "Okay, do you think Yan Maoqing will succeed?" ”

"Well, I wish him success!" Tang Yi let out a long sigh. "Salt, to put it bluntly, it's in the sea. Everywhere, dig a pit, introduce seawater, and after drying it, there is a lot of salt. However, since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty nationalized salt and iron, successive dynasties have been thinking about salt politics. The result is indeed getting more and more chaotic, and the price of salt is skyrocketing. How many poor families, all year round, the little money left is spent on salt. ”

Tang Yi sighed: "It is said that the rampant expropriation is terrible, but how much Tian Fu does my Ming Dynasty have?" One acre of land and one bucket. How much silver is it worth? A pound of salt costs seven or eight cents of silver. A strong man should eat ten catties of salt a year, and a woman should also eat seven or eight catties of salt. After calculation, the salt merchants' exploitation of the common people was ten times that of the imperial court. The Tao Te Ching has clouds, which are not expensive and rare goods, so that the people will not be thieves. But right now, salt is not rare, but it has been made sky-high, which is simply harmful! ”

It was rare to see Tang Yi so angry, the brothers lowered their heads, pondered carefully, and had to admit that what Tang Yi said was too reasonable!

What they usually notice is that the officials are expropriating and oppressing the people, and they notice that the landlords are demanding rents and driving people to a dead end. But he never thought that the inconspicuous salt was the culprit of the people.

Originally, everyone was in a partisan opinion, and they all hoped that Yan Maoqing would be unlucky.

But now that he thinks about it, he has a higher insight, Wang Shimao said: "Okay, so Yan Maoqing got the matter, it happened to be a big salt merchant and a small salt merchant fighting, wouldn't it be better for them to eat a dog's hair?" ”

"I don't think so!" Xu Wei shook his head, "Jingmei, you think things are simple, I guess Yan Maoqing is self-inflicted." ”

"How?" Wang Shimao asked.

"It's very simple, Yan Maoqing wants to use this trick to divide the salt merchants, but the salt merchants may not follow his way, if it is so easy to deal with, the salt merchants will not prosper for a long time. Right, okay? ”

Everyone looked at Tang Yi, and Tang Yi suddenly smiled: "You all look at what I'm doing, I'm not a roundworm in their stomachs, how do you know their abacus." ”

"Okay, then tell me, will Yan Maoqing succeed?" The three of them asked in unison.

Tang Yi raised his head and said with a long sigh: "If Yan Maoqing can uphold a public heart and have less distractions, maybe there will be a drama, otherwise, he will only stab a hornet's nest, and he must be stung to death!" There is a road in heaven that he doesn't take, and there is no door to hell to cast, I can't figure it out, I can't figure it out! ”

Tang Yi shook his head, walked to the back house, and threw his worries to the sky first.

More than a month ago, Qi Jiguang went to Tianjin with Zhao Zhenji to take up his post, and when he left, he gave his son Qi Anguo a dead pisphon to Tang Yi.

Tang Yi is helpless, the results of the hard work of the two of them are like pearls in the palm of their hands, what is the matter with them!

Tang Yi wanted to refuse, but Ping'an, the little bastard, took Qi Anguo's hand and kept calling his brother, not to mention how pitiful he was. Wang Yueying is also tempting, Qi Anguo is more than a year older than Ping An, very stable and intelligent, the two children get together, they are also a companion, and they can also inspire Ping An to make progress, there is nothing bad.

The two of them rebelled, and Tang Yi suddenly became a loner.

Qi Jiguang and the Wang family didn't have a word to ask for it, so they asked Qi Anguo to follow Tang Yi. As the saying goes, two fists can't beat four hands, so you can only keep the child by your side.

However, Tang Yi didn't dare to take it lightly, a newly weaned doll was very fragile, Tang Yi hired a special doctor to keep an eye on the bodies of the two babies, and also sent special people to take care of them openly and secretly.

What's more, Tang Yi asked Wang Yueying to take good care of the two children, especially to treat them equally. If there is anything abnormal in Qi Anguo, he must quickly inform the Wang family and Qi Jiguang, in short, in a word, you can't let your children make a mistake.

Qi Jiguang didn't know that a little child actually made Tang Yi like a great enemy.

In fact, as a father, Qi Jiguang loves his baby son deeply, but the more he loves it, the more he has to think about the long term. If you follow him, you will become a martial artist at most, and if you get it right, it will be good if you can inherit the family business.

Over the years, Qi Jiguang has understood that if a military general wants to mix, it is not because of how strong your ability is, but because of who covers you.

He can enter Tang Shen's hands, and then be valued by Tang Yi, so that he can have a smooth journey, if he wants his son to take fewer detours, he must bet in advance. Tang Yi is young and in a high position, as long as there are no accidents, he will say everything for decades. If you put your son in the Tang family, you can get the best education, and you can climb the big tree of Tang Yi, no matter how you count it, you can earn it.

Son, don't be cruel to your father.

Daddy is all for your good!

……

Qi Jiguang became the shopkeeper, Tang Yi had no choice but to pick up the burden of being a father, one baby in one hand, and tell them stories, every time at this time, the personalities of the two children can be seen.

Qi Anguo was honest and listened very carefully. But Ping An danced with his hands, and his words were amazing.

For example, Tang Yi told him that the sun was a big ball of fire, and he asked if he could barbecue meat? Tang Yi told others that he thought with his brain, not his heart, so he shouted to pick his head open and see what was inside......

If it was someone else, he would have beaten the little bastard a long time ago, but Tang Yi didn't care, every few days, the Tang family would receive a strange thing, such as a lazy koala, such as a stinky durian, and various Western toys.

Every time they see something new, the two little dolls will salivate for a long time, and they will be extra serious when they listen to Tang Yi's lectures.

On this day, two big birds with bloated bodies were sent to Tang's house.

Since Tang Yi and Zhao Xu reached an agreement, Zhao Xu began to sail west after some careful planning.

These two strange birds were caught while passing through an island. This bird has degraded wings, cannot fly, has a docile and clumsy personality, inhabits woodland, and makes a call similar to the sound of "doo".

When he first saw it, Zhao Xu was startled, he saw that the wings of the big birds were pitiful, but they were like chickens and ducklings, and the wings had not yet grown, they were chicks! Think about it, a small bird has forty or fifty pounds, how big an adult bird should be!

Maybe it's the legendary Phoenix and the Roc, right?

Zhao Xu mistakenly thought that he had offended the sacred bird, so frightened that he crawled and withdrew from the island, and after a full day, he saw that there was no reaction, so he went back again, when he found the bird's nest and saw the eggs inside, Zhao Xu finally determined that there were really flightless birds in the world.

He asked the ships that came and went to contact him and gave Tang Yi the two strange birds he caught.

"What do you two think this bird is called?"

Ping'an's little eyes were shining, and he preemptively said: "Dudu!" ”

"What about Anguo?"

"Listen to my brother." Xiao Qi replied vividly.

That's it, the "Dudu" bird is freshly baked.

Tang Yi happily acted as a daddy until Huang Jin hurriedly ran to his house. As soon as they met, Huang Jin said: "Hey, Lord Tang, the emperor announced that you have entered the palace!" Come with us. ”

Tang Yi hurriedly handed over the child to his daughter-in-law, and while changing into his official uniform, he asked, "Father-in-law Huang, what's wrong?" ”

"Alas, it's hard to put into words! There is an accident in the salt field of Lianghuai, and the stove households are no longer working, and tens of millions of people will run out of salt to eat! Huang Jin was so anxious that he sweated, "It's all to blame Yan Maoqing, this brute, he's really damned!" (To be continued.) )