It is said that the most standard built-in institutions in the local yamen are divided into officials, households, rites, soldiers, criminals, workers and contract houses, and there are no certain rules for others. Some places also have grain, horses and other houses according to key affairs, and Jiangdu County is neither a large grain-producing county nor an important place for horse administration, so there are no two places.

The head of the clerk in each room is the clerk, and the ordinary clerk is the warden, generally no more than three. In addition, there are a large number of scribes and assistants, that is, the so-called supernumerary miscellaneous officials, who are not on the name of the ministry.

Chao Lin, the secretary of the office who assisted in the name, beside Li Xianzun, can be called the most top-notch in the county bureaucratic class, and it is said that he should not be a reckless character, and there is no reason to prevent the new lord from burning the fire and establishing his authority.

As long as you walk in the yamen, who doesn't know that after welcoming a new official to take office, he must burn three fires along him, and there is no special reason during this period, and he must not be disobedient. The priest Chao is over forty years old and has worked in the yamen for at least one or two decades, so he will not fail to understand this truth.

But Chao Lin seemed to be reckless, but he made Li Xianzun realize many things. He can conclude that he can make an old official not hesitate to commit taboos, and presumably this unnamed Meng surnamed Dianshi is a "capable person".

Master Li knows that there are some so-called "capable people" in many yamen, and the "ability" of "capable people" may be in all aspects.

For example, if a capable person has a special specialty in a certain matter, officials need to rely on him to do it for the sake of political performance, and some capable people have special backgrounds, and officials must also have some scruples. In a sense, Li You was also a half-capable person in the county back then, and he could rectify Zhou Xiancheng and Ma Xun to the point of misery.

Since he realized that Meng Dianshi was a "capable person", Li Xianzun, who was familiar with the inside story of the Yamen, should also be cautious. No matter how hard the middle and back of the court is, it may not be useful here, because the gameplay of the court and the bottom is different.

In the DPRK and China, everyone is an official, there are no ordinary people in it, all of them are floating at the top, and the fight is more direct, that is, to compete for the background and forces. Li You dared to fight against the elder of the pavilion with the official body of six or seven grades, a small part of the reason was that he was good at fighting, and the other half of the reason was that he relied on the backstage hard tie, without backstage support, ten Li You also finished playing.

But at the bottom level, it was grounded, they all stood on the ground, and they stepped into the soft mud if they were not careful. The background is definitely useful, but it is like having nuclear weapons, which is more of a deterrent than necessarily a panacea. There is an example in the previous article, when Ma Yushi, the old son-in-law of the pavilion, patrolled the prestige of Jiangnan, Chen Zhixian was a little frightened, but the stick Li You was able to repair the horse patrol to the point of embarrassment and had to escape from Xujiang County.

Master Li flashed a few thoughts, and said to the Chao priest with a smile: "You dare to admonish each other, and Meng Dian Shi is really a colleague Gao Yiye, this official admires it very much!" ”

Chao Lin heard it in his ears and muttered in his heart, this new county is young, but when he speaks, he is yin and yang, which makes people extremely uncomfortable. But he had to argue, "Retaining the history of Meng Dian is for the sake of the eldest master, not for other reasons." ”

Afraid that Li Xianzun would not believe it, he continued: "Meng Dianshi is a native of Huizhou, and he is a fellow villager with most salt merchants, and he has traveled extensively, and the salt class in this county depends on him. ”

In those years, the salt industry was a planned economy from beginning to end, with production and sales predetermined. Each county will be assigned a certain sales task according to the number of people, which is called the rated line citation, and the salt tax is the tax collected by each county official after the sale of salt. There is a pre-fixed amount for sales, and there is naturally a specified amount for the salt section.

As an important source of cash income from the treasury, the salt department occupies a large proportion in the assessment of the county, and it is naturally an important responsibility of the county to ensure the sale of official salt. The reason is very simple, if the official salt cannot be sold, there will naturally be no salt tax, and if the salt tax is not enough, the magistrate will be punished.

For other places, the salt class is not a big problem, after all, salt is a necessity of life, even if there is an impact of private salt, but as long as you exert your strength, it can still be done to ensure that the official salt completes a certain sales. Even if the sales volume is not completed, it is okay to add some salt classes, as long as it is not too outrageous from the prescribed number, there is still room for accommodation in the general assessment.

However, these counties in Yangzhou are either salt-producing areas or are close to salt-producing areas, and they are the most bitter places in the world on the issue of salt classes.

Take Jiangdu County as an example, the imperial court stipulates that 10,000 official salt must be sold every year, that is, 10,000 official salt must be sold and 11,000 taels of salt must be handed over.

However, Jiangdu County's neighboring Taizhou and Tongzhou have large salt-producing counties, and Jiangdu County is also the hub of Huainan salt export. The question arises, not only is it close to the salt-producing area, and there are hundreds of millions of catties of salt crossing the border every year, so it is more convenient to buy and sell private salt, so can the 10,000 official salt allocated to Jiangdu County be sold?

For example, anyone who runs to the neighborhood and secretly comes back with a basket of private salt, it is enough for the whole family to eat for a year, and there is still surplus to sell. In this way, who would be willing to buy the official salt with a higher price?

Not to mention a large number of salt ships and boats across the border, there are many smuggled salt to sell along the way, and Jiangdu County, a water transport hub, is one of the hardest-hit areas.

Under the impact of various private salts, not only Jiangdu County, but also the counties of Yangzhou Prefecture can complete one-tenth of the official salt sales in a year, and there is a strange situation that the official salt in the world's first salt-producing mansion is completely unsalable and cannot receive salt classes.

The salt merchants in the compendium have to submit an application to the salt transportation department once a year, which is called confession. In a place like Jiangdu County, no salt merchant is willing to apply for transporting official salt to sell, and even with the tax tax, 10,000 yuan of salt can pay 20,000 taels of silver.

After talking about the current situation of the salt class, Chao Si sighed and said: "Meng Dianshi and hundreds of Huizhou salt merchants are all fellow villagers, and they have a close relationship. The salt merchants sold his face, and every year they were willing to lose money and send some salt money to the county government, which should only be donated to the government, which made my Jiangdu salt class not too ugly. Not only the salt class, but also many construction matters in the county have to rely on donations from salt merchants, so the small courage to admonish the county government is inseparable from the history of Mengdian. What's more, it's about to be the season for salt merchants to admit their nests and invite them, so I advise the lord to be careful. ”

Hearing this, Li You was slightly surprised, he didn't expect that Jiangdu County would have the problem of salt class.

And that Meng Dianshi is really a capable person, no matter which county has to rely on him to get back the money as if he was sponsored, he can't do without him; Second, he became the agent of the big salt merchant in the county government. Pulling the line in the middle, eating on both sides, this person is very shrewd about his positioning... How can this be? With Lord Li's surname, he does not give in easily. Listening to the meaning of the priest, Meng Dianshi is a transcendent existence in the county government, and he definitely does not want to have such an uncontrollable role in his own territory.

He looked at the words "report for dismissal" in his pen, and the word "salary extraction" came to his heart, and asked: "Who donates the most money in my county's salt tax every year?" ”

The priest Chao said without hesitation: "There are the most gold clerks, about two or three thousand taels per year. ”

Li You hurriedly asked: "But people call it a million gold?" ”

"Exactly."

It turned out to be him... Li You remembered that he went to Yangzhou City at the beginning of the month to visit, and accidentally entered the secluded garden to repair, and heard that the golden million was disrespectful. Now it seems that it is not that Jin Dayuan is deliberately ashamed, but that he really thinks so in his heart.

In the eyes of the Jinda salt merchants, the county government is probably a place where a few pieces of silver are sprinkled every year for almsgiving. He threw incense into the temple, but I am afraid that it is much more than this.

Thinking of this, Li You suddenly discovered the key point. If Jin Million can donate so much silver to the county every year (in fact, it may be a decimal in the eyes of Jin Million), then he must have something to do with the surname Meng, not just a matter of whether to sell face.

"I heard that Meng Dianshi is the cousin-in-law of Jin Million." The secretary of Chao knows everything, and he has nothing to say.

Li You is overjoyed, if Meng Dianshi has a close relationship with other families, it will not take a lot of trouble, but it is a million gold, this will be easy to do!

It is not difficult to judge the psychology of a person like Jin Million, he only helps his cousin-in-law two or three thousand a year, but he is willing to pay 50,000 taels to find his daughter, which is more important at a glance! The daughter of the golden million is in his hands!

Chao Si stood below, looking at Li Xianzun's face full of joy, feeling inexplicable.

After the joy was over, Li You suddenly said to the priest Chao very playfully: "You really want to be promoted to the canonical history?" ”

Mr. Chao, who thought he was hiding deeply, was poked at once, and he was dumbfounded for a while. Although this county is young, he is not so easy to fool..."If you want to say it directly, this official is not an unkind person. Li Xianzun teased a few words very improperly, but his face was full of expression, and he shouted: "Officials Chaolin! I order you to write a notice as follows: Chade County Zhongdian Shi Meng, the surname is arrogant, there is no supreme official, and there is collusion with wealthy businessmen, unauthorized salt law, and shortfall in salt. Dismissal first, report for removal! ”

Chao Lin suffered from gains and losses, and was dizzy by Li Xianzun's sometimes stern and sometimes ridiculous mind, and he reluctantly held a pen to write these words, and heard the order: "Stamping the sheet to show it." ”

As soon as this notice was posted, it aroused heated discussions inside and outside the county government.

Li Xianzun observes others, and others do not observe him. In a yamen, the middle and lower levels of the servants are always very stable, and only this superior official will be replaced, especially every time the official is changed, he must go through a game process, so as to determine the boundaries of power between officials and the code of conduct during the term of office.

After reading the notice, everyone's first feeling is that this big man is very good, and the second feeling is that this big man is terrible.

The annual salt quota is more than 10,000 taels, and Jiangdu County cannot collect it normally. And through the adaptation of Meng Dianshi and the salt merchants, more than half of the quota can be recovered to make up for the difference.

When I arrived at Xinxian Zun, it became an unauthorized salt law and a deficit salt class? A classic history, saying that there is no more, it is really a mouth, it seems that Xinzhi County is a very unreasonable person. Others remain to be seen.

That Meng Dianshi actually didn't mean to provoke Li You, but he didn't go to greet Dian Mao when he happened to have something, and he was used to it for so many years, and he didn't think that Zhixian could do anything to him.

When he heard someone tell him that Shinchi County lost his temper on the spot and dismissed him, he thought it was a joke...

(To be continued)