The Guards are field troops, so they do not have the responsibility of defending the city and maintaining law and order, and even if they rest, they only rest on the spot in Yangzhou Prefecture, which can be regarded as saving time for dispatch.

Among the hundreds of thousands of Guards, only the First Corps of the Guards went to Jinan to aid Zhu Zhaoming under the leadership of Liu Zhaoji, deputy chief officer of the Guards.

Since the Guards were resting in Yangzhou Mansion, Zhu Youzhen also planned to stay in Yangzhou for a few days, and the Second Guards Army, which was responsible for defending Gyeonggi, would not be transferred back to Nanjing for the time being.

In this early summer, Yangzhou has become more lively than in the past after adding hundreds of thousands of people, and Yangzhou is more prosperous than before.

Before Liu Zongzhou, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, arrived, Zhu Youzhen happened to be able to take time to walk around Yangzhou City.

As for rewarding the meritorious personnel of the war, compensating the casualties of the Guards, and restoring the people's livelihood with money and food and Huguang military affairs, specific arrangements can only be made after returning to Beijing, and the war has just ended, and all the news and intelligence are still on the way, so it is rare for him to be idle these days.

Since the 17th year of Chongzhen, Zhu Youzhen has been implementing many reforms, especially in the areas of military administration and money law and taxation, which have changed a lot.

However, Zhu Youzhen only restored the system before the opening of the salt industry, so from the beginning of the year, most salt merchants began to buy fields in the Jiangbei area and grow grain for salt, which is also one of the reasons for the growth of grain output in the eighteenth year of Chongzhen.

The annihilation of the Qing army's Duoduo division by the Guards also avoided the loss of food for these salt merchants in the Jiangbei area, making them also very happy about the defeat of the Qing army by the Guards.

Zhu Youzhen walked on the street of Yangzhou Fucheng, and he could see that the wooden buildings of the archways everywhere were hung with vertical banners such as warmly celebrating the victory of the Guards' flag, and the teahouses and restaurants were spreading the heroism of the Guards.

In the Huaiyang Governor's Office, there are countless wealthy businessmen and tycoons queuing up to see Li Mingrui now.

Thanks to Ma Shiying and Shi Kefa and others in the River Governor's Office, and the current River Governor's Office and the emperor Zhu Youzhen are stationed here, so the rich businessmen and tycoons dare not find the River Governor's Office.

Zhu Youzhen naturally also knew that these Yangzhou salt merchants paid so much attention to the Guards and were so close to the Guards not only because they obeyed the will of the people and were grateful to the Guards for resisting Jiannu, but because the quantity of salt was now controlled by the military, and the power of salt was now in the hands of the Governor of Huaiyang and the Secretary of the Ministry of War.

And now after the end of the war, the supply of grain will inevitably increase and the army's demand for food will inevitably decrease, which means that the amount of salt will also be reduced, and the price of salt will increase, that is to say, whoever has a better relationship with the military from now on will naturally have a greater chance of getting salt and will naturally make more money next year.

Fortunately, the guards were disciplined and had to enter the city at will, so that the Yangzhou salt merchants could not directly corrupt the army, of course, plus Zhu Youzhen, the emperor, was still in Yangzhou City, and the officials of the Generalissimo's Mansion naturally did not dare to make a mistake, and they only obediently stayed in the River Governor's Office and the Huaiyang Governor's Office.

Zhu Youzhen did not want his guards to be tied to the interests of Yangzhou salt merchants, but he was also concerned about one thing, that is, from the first day of July in Chongzhen, the tax holiday would officially come to an end.

Starting from July 1st, the first wave of commercial taxes and tariffs in the Ming Dynasty will begin to be levied, that is, from all walks of life, it will be officially paid according to the scale of business and annual income.

And these rich Yangzhou salt merchants not only have to pay for grain, get salt from the military, but also have to pay commercial taxes according to the scale of salt sales, and the price of salt is bound to reach a point that the people can't afford.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen wanted not to directly control the basic salt price by the imperial court, and at the same time abolished the salt introduction system, so as not to restrict the output of the salt industry, and at the same time only allowed the central court and local officials to set up salt companies, so as to achieve the benefits of market competition, so that under the same salt price, the salt company did not dare to adulterate and reduce the quality of salt, and the retailers did not dare to adulterate and increase the selling price at will in order to increase sales.

The abolition of the salt introduction system is different from Zhu Youzhen's improvement of the salt introduction system last year, and this is bound to touch the interests of the military, and the most directly related is the military department, which determines the amount of salt introduction and thus determines how much wealth flows into the military department, that is, the military group.

Now, if Zhu Youzhen wants to abolish the salt introduction system, he must ensure that before the Guards are eroded by the salt merchants, he can smoothly ban the exploitation of the interests of the people at the bottom through the salt industry, so as to alleviate class contradictions.

However, Zhu Youzhen also had to consider the interests and needs of the military, and the maintenance of an army's strong combat effectiveness not only requires great enrichment in the spiritual world, but also requires great superiority in material conditions and an extremely high political status to ensure it.

As for the material benefits, the army's salaries and combat rewards, weapons research and development, and other sources of funds, since Zhu Youzhen now wants to abolish the salt introduction system and provide benefits to the army, he needs to take care of the military in other aspects.

But this could not hurt the interests of the common people and the gentry, and the only way was for the army to gain advantage through trade and foreign plunder.

Zhu Youzhen can imagine that he will definitely have to compete with Zheng Zhilong's smuggling pirate group in the future.

In China, Zhu Youzhen will definitely not let the army participate in the period, which will only disrupt the market and increase the **** rate.

At present, since Zhu Youzhen is in Yangzhou City, he must first determine who is better to give the pricing power to the salt industry, and find candidates for the first batch of salt companies.

Zhu Youzhen himself knows that whoever controls the pricing power of the Ming salt industry will be profitable and greedy.

The first batch of salt companies will definitely become the largest group of salt industry merchants in the future, once they become legal salt producers and wholesalers, it is equivalent to obtaining the right to produce salt, but the number of salt companies in the future will definitely be smaller than the current salt merchants, which means that the person in charge of the salt company will be able to obtain greater profits in the future.

Who is better to give such a big cake, Zhu Youzhen didn't dare to make a decision at will for a while.

In fact, if Zhu Youzhen did this, he would inevitably deprive most of the current salt merchants of their interests, and then distribute them to the central court, local government and ordinary people, benefiting a small number of salt merchants that the imperial court could control.

In doing so, it will certainly meet with great opposition from the majority of salt merchants, but with the quota of salt companies to win over a few reliable and reliable salt merchants to stand on the side of the imperial court, it will naturally be much less difficult to reform.

Who is my most trusted and relied upon salt merchant? Zhu Youzhen picked up the chopsticks in his hand and looked at the rich businessmen and tycoons who were smiling outside the building, and he was puzzled for a while.

Thank you book friends for walking in the clouds 1888 book coins for rewarding

(End of chapter)