On March 5, the third year of Shenwu, Yangzhou Governor He Zhenlin embezzled and accepted bribes and was impeached and dismissed from office by the Metropolitan Procuratorate. On 21 March, Zhang Linpu, the new governor of Yangzhou, arrived in Yangzhou to investigate the corruption case of He Zhenlin.

A month later, the Metropolitan Procuratorate and the procuratorate received an anonymous letter accusing Zhang Linpu of embezzlement and bribery. Wu Chengyu, the imperial historian of Jiangnan Province of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, was ordered to investigate the case of Zhang Linpu accepting bribes, and Wu Chengyu intervened in the investigation and found out that Zhang Linpu was deliberately framed.

On May 21, the Yangzhou court acquitted Zhang Linpu and concluded the investigation. However, as soon as Zhang Linpu resumed his duties, he was assassinated and killed that night, causing a major case.

At this time, the whole dynasty had just celebrated the fiftieth birthday of the queen mother, and the imperial court learned that the official had been killed, and quickly sent officials to Yangzhou to investigate.

In the imperial study, Deng Haonan was very annoyed, the dignified court official was killed, this matter was very strict, and it was undoubtedly equivalent to declaring war on the empire.

"Check it out"

The cabinet sent Si Guangming, a servant of the Criminal Department, to investigate, and Deng Haonan instructed Beizhen Fusi Jinyi Weidu to command Wang Chen to personally go to Yangzhou.

Wang Chen and Si Guangming arrived in Yangzhou at about the same time, and by the time they arrived, the local police had already caught Wang San, the suspect in Zhang Linpu's assassination.

After interrogation, the suspect Wang San confessed to the assassination of Zhang Linpu, and insisted that it was caused by personal grudges with Zhang Linpu.

"Wang San, nicknamed Ghost Foot Three, a local martial arts person, takes killers as his profession"

Wang Chentong guò investigated and had already grasped Wang San's situation.

Si Guangming touched his beard and said sharply: "Hire a murderer"

"That's right" Wang Chen said: "Being able to hire Wang San to kill people, and it is to kill court officials, it is definitely not something that ordinary people can do."

Si Guangming nodded and said, "There must be a reason for killing people, why did Lord Wang think that the other party killed Zhang Linpu?" ”

Wang Chen replied: "Zhang Linpu is the prefect of Yangzhou, and the other party thinks that Zhang Linpu is in the way of him, so he does not hesitate to kill people."

"Before Zhang Linpu left, Lord Shoufu ordered him to take charge of Yangzhou's salt industry and focus on inspecting the salt tax, because his predecessor He Zhenlin was defeated in the salt tax."

Emperor Deng Haonan listened to Qian Qianyi's advice and continued to exempt peasants from taxes for three years, but resumed paying taxes to merchants. In the past, one of the important taxes of the Ming Dynasty was the grain tax, and the second important tax source was the salt tax. Yangzhou has always been the salt tax center of the Ming Dynasty, and Zhang Linpu's first priority in Yangzhou is obviously to inspect the salt tax issue.

"Yangzhou's salt tax accounted for two-thirds of the salt tax of the former Ming Dynasty, and it has been hovering around two million taels of silver. Last year, the empire collected 20 million silver dollars in salt tax from Yangzhou, which was five times that of the previous dynasty, but the empire's salt tax was lower than that of the previous dynasty, but the tax amount was so much higher than that of the previous dynasty, which shows how big the black hole in Yangzhou's salt tax is."

"Such a big cake must have fattened countless rats"

Wang Chen nodded and said, "It seems that Master Si already has a goal."

Si Guangming smiled: "Then why don't we go out for a walk?" ”

"Good"

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Yangzhou, outstanding people.

In ancient times, there was heaven and Suzhou and Hangzhou, and Yangzhou was the link between Suzhou and Hangzhou.

Wang Chen and Si Guangming went out in civilian clothes to make an unannounced visit, hoping to find the answers they needed.

There is a saying that firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, this salt was the key to people's livelihood in ancient times, and it was the source of profiteering for businessmen.

As early as the end of the Warring States Period, Qi Guanzhong implemented the policy of "Guanshan Hai", that is, salt was made by the government and the people, and all products were distributed by the government. However, from the Han Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, except for the 139 years from the third year of Emperor Wen of Sui (583) to the tenth year of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty (722), when the beaches, salt wells, and salt lakes of the whole country were opened, and the people were allowed to produce and sell them freely, in order to increase financial revenue, most of the other dynasties implemented a monopoly system, which controlled the production and marketing of salt with strict punishment and strict laws, and forced salt households to produce salt through the formation of forced labor.

In the former Ming Dynasty, the salt industry was controlled by the Ministry of Households. At that time, there were six salt envoys in the country, including Lianghuai, Liangzhejiang, Changlu, Shandong, Fujian, and Hedong, and there were subdivisions under the salt envoys, and a number of salt farms were set up under the divisions. In the early Ming Dynasty, the coastal salt industry was all operated by the government. Stove households must complete the output amount stipulated by the state, and the official will give the capital and rice money, and the surplus salt after completing the salt class must also be handed over to the state, and cannot be used privately. Once the stove household is registered, it is not allowed to be freed, and the official control is quite strict in this regard.

Initially, the government gave preferential treatment to stove households. "History of the Ming Dynasty" volume 80 "Food and Goods Zhi IV" recorded: "At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the old system of the Song and Yuan Dynasty was still present, so the people who gave preferential care to the stove households were very generous, and the pasture was given for wood picking, and the cultivators were allowed to reclaim, but they were still exempted from miscellaneous labor, and they were given the work of rice, and a stone was introduced. ”

However, with the development of the salt economy, the drawbacks of the salt industry system, in which the government controls the salt industry and the stove households are not free, have been fully revealed. As a result, the government gradually reduced the amount of salt collected in kind, and adopted the method of converting the salt tax into color or silver to collect the salt tax from the stove households.

By the time of the Chinese Empire, the imperial court promulgated the Commercial Code, and the situation improved under the premise of attaching importance to commerce.

Although the official government of the Chinese Empire strictly controlled the production of salt, it was more relaxed in the management of stove households and beach households than in the previous Ming dynasty. In particular, beach households can independently choose their own beach land and salt production methods, and can expand the scale of production within the designated area and occupy certain means of production. With the relaxation of the imperial government's management of stove households and the impact of the planned economy, from the second year of Shenwu, salt stove households began to develop private industries.

Due to the policy of recuperation and recuperation implemented by Emperor Shenwu, it was not the coastal people who took advantage of the tax holiday to operate the salt industry, and gradually became wealthy, and gradually became petty bourgeois families in the coastal areas.

Of course, some of the merchants who used to be engaged in the sale of illicit salt were even more profitable, becoming middle-class or big bourgeoisie.

Yangzhou, as the main salt industry base of the previous dynasty, was also a pillar area in the era of the Chinese Empire.

Wang Chen and Si Guangming started with the salt tax, so they naturally had to start with the salt industry, so their first stop was to visit the salt farm.

When you come to the major salt farms in Yangzhou Prefecture, the first thing that catches people's eyes is the endless silver sea.

Here, the channels are vertical and horizontal in order, the wells and salt fields are shining with silver, the high-voltage wires are flying in the air, the water pump room is dotted with pools, the salt-making machinery is rotating and roaring, and there is a busy scene of production everywhere, because of the influence of air pressure and circulation, the scorching sun here is in the sky all year round, and there is sufficient light and heat for salt production.

At high tide, the seawater flows into the storage lake from the sluice gate of the tide mouth, passes through the guò water station, and then flows through the primary, intermediate and advanced evaporation ponds, and the seawater concentration rises step by step, becoming the brine that people usually talk about, and the brine enters the crystallization area, where it is saturated and crystallize.

Every afternoon, the salt farmers are busy collecting salt with bamboo baskets, shoveling up snow-white salt flowers with shovels, and then quickly mashing them with shovels, and then sending them to carts and transporting them to the poolside, piling up into endless mountains of small silver.

On the nearby beach, the beach stretches gently for ten miles, and the sand is white and soft. The coral reefs in the west and the mountains in the east are like natural barriers, blocking the winds and waves, making the crescent-shaped bay here like a mirror.

Si Guangming couldn't help but start to be intoxicated, and a few lines of poetry came out at every turn, and Wang Chen next to him suddenly rolled his eyes and hurriedly asked him to stop.

"Tsukasara-sama, the occasion of the idea"

Si Guangming coughed dryly, hurriedly apologized, and followed Wang Chen to inquire about the news of the salt farm. Because of their bright clothes, the nearby salt farmers thought they were here to buy salt, and they were very polite to them, and they did not suspect him.

The reason why Yangzhou Prefecture became the main contribution area of edible salt to the empire was mainly due to the widespread use of sea salt.

The method of preparing sea salt is simple and economical, in which the use of sea salt is compared with the previous frying salt, the production process is simplified, the cost is reduced, the output is large and the labor time is saved, the economic value is very obvious, and there are also a variety of ways to make brine in the beach: or digging the beach to dry the salt, or the tide to dry the salt, the two take the brine method is different, but the salt drying process is no different. The tide in the salt area is on the verge of rising and falling, and the seawater is retained, evaporated and concentrated, and seeps into the ground. To make brine, it is necessary to prepare the land and open a ditch, attract the tidal water, and the brine can be filled with crystallization before it can be filled.

Although drying farms have emerged, due to the influence of tradition, the labor method of boiling and frying salt is still scattered in some salt farms.

In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the sea salt production in Yangzhou has been widely used in the salt drying method, but its production scale is small, the tools and equipment are simple, there is only simple cooperation between the producers, and it has been staying in the small production state of one household, this is because the method of boiling and decoction salt production has been circulated for a long time, the production tools and production methods are difficult to cancel immediately, and the salt drying on the beach needs a large cost at one time, and not all stove households can be in place in one step, so after the popularization of the salt drying method, the traditional salt frying process is still retained, and in the rainy seasonThere are more than 190 salt boiling sheds in some counties in Yangzhou Prefecture, more than 300 salt stoves, about 600 households cook salt all year round or during the slack time, there is a salt stove slope village in the west of the county, which is named after boiling salt.

Entering the era of the Chinese Empire, the government encouraged large-scale salt production, with the gradual promotion and integration of salt drying, three years after Shenwu, except for those places far away from the beach or the terrain is not suitable for opening the beach to make salt, the salt drying method in Yangzhou completely replaced the traditional boiling and decoction salt method.

Wang Chen and Si Guangming learned about the salt industry in Yangzhou Prefecture, from the large salt pans controlled by the big salt merchants to the small salt pans produced by the farmers themselves, and made a rough estimate.

The annual salt output of Yangzhou is about 200,000 tons, but in reality the government only has about 50,000 tons, that is, three-quarters of the salt is smuggled.

Si Guangming made a preliminary calculation, 150,000 tons of salt, and the tax revenue slipped away at least 60 million silver dollars. In other words, all this money flowed into the hands of the big salt merchants in Yangzhou.

Although the imperial court was pleased that it had collected 20 million silver dollars last year, because it was five times higher than the salt tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty. But this is still only a small head, and the big head is still in the hands of those big salt merchants.

After the two got the information about the salt farm, the problem was not in the salt farm, but in transportation and management, so the two began to intervene in the investigation and shifted the direction to this.

As we all know, the salt industry occupies an important economic position in the national economy and is an important part of the national economy. Salt is also a necessity for human life, and it is also widely used in agriculture, animal husbandry and fishery, and salt tax used to be an important fiscal revenue for many countries, so the management of successive dynasties has been very strict and prudent. As an important salt producing area, Yangzhou's status is very important.

In the Song Dynasty, the imperial court set up a sea patrol port in the southeast coastal area of Yangzhou, and also moved the salt field and set up a salt official organization. At that time, Yangzhou began to develop from a salt field to a developed transshipment center for shipping, with the help of this convenient transportation advantage, Yangzhou's salt products through the sea channel, by sea route north-south transportation, and at the same time with the help of the Yangtze River to the northwest inland, or with the help of the canal to transport Yangzhou's raw salt. At that time, Yangzhou was an important place for salt production, which not only led to the prosperity of the local trade economy, but also occupied an important position in land transportation.

At this time, due to the developed waterways in Yangzhou, you can take the sea route, the Yangtze River, and the canal. As a result, there are loopholes in the management of Yangzhou's maritime patrol ports. At sea, the coast guard is responsible for inspection, and inland rivers are inspected by the river defense fleet, and the two are not under each other's control, giving salt merchants the opportunity to turn around.

Zhang Linpu discovered this loophole, after the salt merchant got the salt guide from the government, he took a trip from the inland river, and then took the salt guide from the sea, so that the salt was quoted twice, and the coast guard on the sea route only checked whether the prohibited items were transported, and never checked the quantity of the sea, because it was not the duty of the sea. In this way, salt merchants can load illegal salt on a large scale by sea without being detected.

After Zhang Linpu discovered this loophole, he was discovered by the eyes of the salt merchants, and in order to keep this line of interests, several big salt merchants first designed to frame him in prison, and finally took the risk to kill him.

Wang Chen suspected that it was the ghosts in Yangzhou Mansion who exposed Zhang Linpu's affairs, so the Jinyi Wei he brought quickly set his sights on Han Qin, the master of Yangzhou Mansion.

Han Qin is a good gambler and is easy to be bought by salt merchants. In response to this, Wang Chen's subordinates followed Han Qin and found Han Jin, a big salt merchant.

It turned out that Han Jin was Han Qin's uncle, and Han Jin was the president of the Yangzhou Business Association, and Wang Chen immediately suspected Han Jin. After investigation, Han Jin colluded with seven big salt merchants to kill the imperial court officials. They are the biggest beneficiaries of this chain of interests, and they do not rule out taking risks. And the other small salt merchants, no matter how bold they were, did not dare to kill the officials of the imperial court, at best, they just participated in the planting.

But Wang Chen didn't have any evidence to prosecute them, so Wang Chen ordered someone to sue the owner of the gambling house, Yin*'s master Han Qin, for huge betting. As a result, Han Qin lost a lot of money, to the point of bankruptcy, so he approached Han Jin again and again to ask for money and threatened him.

At first, Han Jin kept giving him money, but later, the amount became bigger and bigger, and Han Jin became impatient, so he prepared to kill Han Qin.

Just when Han Qin was looking for someone to chase and kill, the brocade guards sent by Wang Chen rescued him and brought him to Wang Chen.

When Han Qin learned that he had fallen into the hands of Jin Yiwei, his legs were already weak. After Wang Chen took him to see the torture tools, he was even more afraid to death.

"My lord, according to the laws of the imperial court, confessions must not be extorted by torture."

Wang Chen smiled and said, "You are also the prefect's master, look at what this is?" ”

Wang Chen took out his waist card and shook it in front of Han Qin's eyes, Han Qin grabbed it, and immediately gasped when he saw it.

Jinyi Weibei Town Fusi

This is a close confidant of the emperor, and he, the master, naturally understands that the North and South Zhenfu Division is nominally subordinate to the Ministry of National Defense, but in fact is only responsible to the emperor. Even if he is killed, when he goes to the imperial court, he still has extraterritoriality.

Thinking that Han Jin was already going to kill him, Han Qin gritted his teeth and said, "If I recruit him, the adult needs to spare the villain's life."

"Deal"

Wang Chen said, throwing the pen and paper in front of Han Qin, who sighed and confessed.

With Han Qin's accusations, Wang Chen immediately mobilized all the police forces of the Yangzhou Prefecture Police Department to arrest Han Jin and other eight big salt merchants, and at the same time, other salt merchants large and small in Yangzhou Mansion were also taken to the police station for questioning.

Han Jin and the other salt merchants refused to admit it, but as soon as Si Guangming told them about their illegal acts, they immediately wilted. At this time, Wang Chen adopted a strategy of division and disintegration, saying that he would only severely punish Han Jin, who killed the imperial court officials, and that the other seven big salt merchants would give up the prosecution if they were willing to pay the tax evasion.

In fact, all the plans were in and out of Han. Although the other businessmen participated in and approved of the framing of officials, they did not approve of Han Jin's murder in the first place. Therefore, after receiving Wang Chen's promise, they no longer shielded Han Jin, and agreed to appear in court as false witnesses to testify against Han Jin as the mastermind, and were willing to pay all the taxes evaded.

Sent to the Forbidden City, Deng Haonan originally wanted to severely punish those salt merchants together. However, Zhang Pu, the young master of the East Palace, raised a different opinion.

Zhang Pu told Deng Haonan that the salt merchants of Yangzhou Mansion were related to the livelihood of the 70 million people of the empire, and it was the imperial court and the people who suffered the loss with a stick. Without them, the people would not be able to eat salt. Therefore, Zhang Pu hoped that Deng Haonan would be able to be punished lightly, and only the culprit Han Jin would be severely punished, and other salt merchants would be punished lightly.

Deng Haonan thought about it for a long time, and finally agreed with Zhang Pu's opinion.

The "5-21" case in Yangzhou Mansion finally ended with the execution of Han Jin.

Wang Chen completed the task, returned to Beijing to resume his life, and Si Guangming took office as the prefect of Yangzhou and presided over the recovery of all salt tax evasion. As for the issue of Si Guangming's interest in the imperial court's salt tax, it was submitted to the cabinet for agreement to deal with. C