The Forbidden Imperial City, inside the newly renovated Imperial Study.

Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youzhen, looked at the pieces related to the salt tax spread out on the wide rosewood tabletop, and his face became more and more ugly.

- If it weren't for Emperor Chongzhen's anxious attempt to check the salt tax this time, the parents and officials in the relevant beneficiary areas and those in the know would definitely continue to make a fortune in silence, but when the official hat was threatened, they would soon be unable to stand it. Those who have Qionghai salt circulating in their jurisdictions can still hold on to those who can directly benefit from it, and they can take out a part of the tax payment silver from the income of private salt. The key is the surrounding area, knowing that there is such a thing, but can not directly benefit from the cadres and so on, in the past when they reaped the benefits of it, they could barely shut up, but now it is about their own black yarn hat, that is, the mother and Lao Tzu can't take care of it - no matter how good the silver of the white flowers is, after all, it is not as attractive as the black and heavy official hat.

As soon as the first person is in the book, there will be followers. Soon, the overwhelming number of playbooks flew into the Forbidden City and piled up on Emperor Chongzhen's desk. In these twists and turns, the officials reported to Emperor Chongzhen with all kinds of irrefutable facts and accurate and detailed figures: the salt tax is not our problem, but because the private salt is sold too hard, and the official salt of the imperial court cannot be sold at all!

As for why it can't be sold...... A few bold officials also attached samples of official and private salt: the former is a small particle salt produced by the traditional boiled salt method, which is cloudy in color, and the crystals are mixed with various impurities of different sizes - this is already considered good, at least not because of the sand mixed into it. And the latter is of course Qionghai brand, if it is sold as salt, it must have undergone at least one round of filtration and recrystallization, and the two are worlds apart just by looking at the appearance, and you can clearly feel the bitter taste of the former after a little taste. What's worse is that the price of the latter in the market is more than half lower than the former!

With such a huge difference in quality and price, it is only natural that official salt is completely at a disadvantage in the competition. It can be said that wherever Qionghai salt goes, they have completely replaced the status of official salt. The local salt merchants, who monopolized the sale of salt, now have become worthless under the impact of Qionghai salt, and the Qionghai Navy is very clever enough to force these salt merchants to death, but to pull them into their own sales system. Qionghai salt everywhere I went. The first is to find local salt merchants as sales partners as much as possible, and wholesale large quantities of the finest white salt directly to them, so that the local salt merchants can become the ultimate point of sale instead of going to retail in person. If you don't want to cooperate, you will support another one - but this kind of stupidity is rare. Except for the first time when I was in Guangdong, I never encountered it again.

In short, this is a very asymmetrical competition, if there is no political force to intervene, there is no need to see the victory or defeat, but the short-haired backstage of those who sell illegal salt is extremely hard, and the center of the court does not dare to provoke. Of course, the local officials did not dare to oppose them - of course, these officials would not admit that they also benefited greatly from these illegal salt transactions, and they all unanimously blamed all the evils and deficits of the imperial salt administration on Qionghai Yan and the short hair behind it.

So Emperor Chongzhen, who was already short-tempered, naturally became very angry, and almost issued an edict on the spot to crusade against the unscrupulous short-haired bandits again, but after angrily picking up the imperial pen, he stopped again......

-- This Zhu Youzhen is just young and vigorous. Temperamental, but not stupid. In fact, the talk of the court about dealing with the Joan navy never subsided. If you think about it, you can understand how the things that those short-haired people did could be in tune with the ideological melody of the Ming Dynasty scholars and doctors - they lured the people in Shandong, they frantically "suppressed bandits" in Weihai, they started wars and peace with foreign vassals at will in the south, and they were even more bold to declare that the Qiong Navy did not belong to the Ming Dynasty! In the eyes of those Ming Dynasty scholars, which of these words and deeds is not a mortal crime? Which one is not much heavier than a mere charge of smuggling salt? If it were according to the ideas of those scholars and bureaucrats, or the past practice of the Ming Dynasty, these short hairs would have been broken by Ling Chi I don't know how many times.

But what a person wants to do and what he can do are two different things, and the same is true for a last-time dynasty - no matter how good the reasons may be for those "main war factions". Aggressively demanded several times that the Joan Navy be sanctioned. The "Lord and Harmony Faction" in the court only need one sentence to make them speechless: "If you force the people against you again, who can be the enemy?" ”

The civilian-bureaucratic clique at the end of the Ming Dynasty as a whole did a lot of stupid things, but there was no fool among the individuals who were able to climb to this position. That's going to be a lot of fun. They raised their hands in favor of cleaning up the Joan Navy, but how to clean it up. How can we ensure that they are not cleaned up by the Joan Navy in turn, but these people have no way at all.

And Chongzhen himself did not have much to do about it - the former governor of Liangguang was headed by Wang Zunde. What happened to those officials who insisted on exterminating short-haired hairs in the end could be clearly seen by the court. Time has passed so long, the truth of the so-called "Guangzhou Victory" has long been known to everyone, and it was not easy to see Wang Zunde at that time, and he actually led the military strength of all the Westerners in the South China Sea to fight against the short hair, as far as the temple strategy is concerned, it has been done to the extreme, but the result is still a failure, then there is no way.

After the First Battle of Dengzhou, the true combat strength of the Qiong Navy has also been known to the major forces in the DPRK and China, especially the military leaders of all walks of life -- some people in the DPRK and China have also tentatively asked the military people, if it is to crusade against the Qiong Navy, which people are willing to volunteer to do this vote? Those short-haired people are extremely wealthy, and the crusade against them is very big! After the matter is completed, the court will not be less rewarded.

But the result was a very unanimous refusal - just kidding, if you want to be promoted and rich, you have to have a life to enjoy it. Two or three thousand people swept away more than 100,000 rebels in Dengzhou in a few days, and this is still a labor division rushing from Qiongzhou to Shandong to fight, and now the imperial court wants to attack their nest? Finding death is not such a way to find death. Even the most arrogant and arrogant Guan Ning army in the army was guilty when he heard the news -- the brother of Zu Dashou, the leader of the Guan Ning army, the famous "second madman of Zu Er", Zu Dabi, has always been known for his courage and fearlessness in the face of the enemy, because he had come into contact with the Qiong navy in Shandong, and when his brother asked him whether this idea was feasible, he simply replied directly in front of his brother and the envoy who asked him: It is better to attack Shenyang directly, and the possibility of survival is greater.

He does not even possess the objective conditions, and no matter how strong his subjective aspirations are, he can only put them on hold -- although Zhu Youzhen does not understand these philosophical terms, he must follow these principles in his actions after all. The royal pen hung in his hand for a long time, and the words of wanting to send troops to conquer Qiongzhen were considered over and over again in his heart, but he couldn't fall for a long time.

In a depressed mood, Zhu Youzhen casually opened the desk drawer, took out a few chocolate jelly beans from it and threw them into his mouth, but almost at the same time as the mellow and fragrant cocoa flavor melted in his mouth, Zhu Youzhen immediately remembered that this delicious candy was precisely from Qionghai Town, and his mood suddenly became more depressed.

-- If the Qiong Navy is the kind of thief who blindly dominates and has no benefit to the country, then no matter how strong the other party is, the imperial court as a whole can still make up its mind to confront it after all, and the next thing is nothing more than what kind of strategy to use -- just like against the long-cherished enemy Mongolia and the Guanwai Jian, it is the tradition of the Ming Dynasty to fight to the death with a strong enemy.

But that group of short-haired people returned to the unruly, but they really brought a lot of benefits to the imperial court. Regardless of anything else, there are many good things from Qionghai Town in this Forbidden City alone. In particular, in the newly renovated Imperial Study in front of you, all the furniture is made of materials transported from Hainan, and it is completely assembled and built by southern technicians and palace craftsmen in accordance with the drawings provided by Qiongzhen.

Thinking divergently, Zhu Youzhen's eyes couldn't help but turn from the table to the side - there was a glass table lamp there, although it still needed to light the lamp oil, but because of the configuration of the mirror, its illumination was much brighter than that of ordinary oil lamps, and reading at night was no different from daytime.

Then turn to the window, where there is a large bay window inlaid with large glass sheets, which protrudes out to form a semi-circular sunroom. Whenever at noon, the warm sunlight shines on the teak floor, and a semi-reclining rocking chair with a curved bottom is placed there, and it is definitely a pleasure to lie on the chair and bask in the sun when there is nothing to do - remembering that a few days ago, he sat on it with his young son Cilang in his arms and shook it, and the little guy laughed happily, even though Zhu Youzhen was full of sadness at the moment, he couldn't help but show a smile on his face.

Then his gaze turned from the window to a small door in the side wall—this imperial study was not large, but there was a bed in addition to the desk and shelf for temporary rest. And next to the main house there is also a small clean room - according to the habit of short hair, called the bathroom, where a full set of sanitary equipment with wall tiles are also produced by Qiongzhen. And this hut with tiled walls all around is also the place that is the most different from the traditional customs of the Ming Dynasty - according to tradition, this kind of room has always been far away from the main house, but Zhu Youzhen is now used to washing and sitting in this hut, and even has to make a special trip from the dormitory to take a bath every morning to feel comfortable, otherwise the day will be unbearable. After the favored Concubine Tian came here a few times, she also shouted that she wanted to make the same place in her palace, but she didn't dare to mention it when she saw that the emperor was not in a good mood recently.

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Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year, I wish you all a happy New Year, all the best, and a smooth Year of the Snake.