In the Beichen Palace, Lord Chen, the head of the household department, had a bitter face and was reporting to Emperor Qiande. Last year, even though he tried his best to break each copper plate in half and spend it, the expenses reported to him by various departments, even if it was such an important matter as disaster relief, although he did not cut half of it like other expenses, he still did not give the full amount, but only agreed to seventy percent.

In this way, Lord Chen demolished the east wall and repaired the west wall, coupled with Emperor Qiande's repeated frugality in the harem, in the end, the two had no choice, so they simply wiped their faces and united with King Fujun to take some things out of the palace and sell them, which barely supported the expenses of the imperial court.

But this is not a long-term solution to take out the things in the palace and sell them. After all, they don't sell particularly precious items, but only some royal items such as cloth, porcelain, rouge、...... These everyday things are taken out and sold. It's not that they don't want to sell precious objects, but a lot of precious objects, such as antiques and famous calligraphy and paintings, although precious, but the number of pieces is small, and most of them only have one, so looking at the high unit price, in fact, it is not as good as selling cloth so that most people with a little money can buy it, the price is relatively low, and the total value of the road goods that win by walking is high.

However, this kind of trading will not last long, because there are occasionally large quantities of imperial supplies on the market, and everyone does not think so, but this situation often occurs, and everyone will feel strange. The family has a way, as long as you use a little dim sum, although you can't be 100% sure, but according to some clues, these people can judge that it is the royal handiwork, at that time, the royal family will be embarrassed.

After all, in this era, the status of merchants is extremely low, and it is not that there are no shops under the name of the family, or they are not engaged in business activities, but they are either like the three families of Jia Wangshi among the four major families, and find a merchant as their "money bag"; Either the servants of the family will do business, and they themselves will not go into battle in person.

For scholars, it is ashamed to talk about money. It was as if the business of their servants would separate them from money and commerce, and still maintain the prestige of their family. As the highest representative of the scholar family, the royal family is at the highest level of the Golden Tower, so it is natural to maintain the image of "pure and high", so once Emperor Qiande betrays the royal goods for money is revealed, it will inevitably be a great blow to his reputation. After all, although he is now the emperor, he does not sit in this position, so those brothers see that there is a possibility of pulling him down, so after he ascends the throne, they do not behave very well.

Moreover, the royal product can be sold at a high price, because it has a "royal" name, so the world will feel rare, feel precious, but once these things become more, then it will inevitably affect people's impression of the imperial supplies, thus affecting the price, after all, there are many things, not worth much, this truth is still understood by the world.

Emperor Qiande looked at the salt tax of the previous year and the decreasing salt tax of this year, and asked with a cold face: "Chen Aiqing, have you found the reason for the sharp drop in the salt tax?" ”

Chen Shangshu nodded and said, "Back to Your Majesty, I have found it." It is the problem of private salt that the minister told His Majesty last time, and now under the impact of private salt, even if the price has been reduced, it still cannot be sold. ”

Although Lin Jin asked Wu Jiugong before, the Chamber of Commerce was not allowed to buy and sell private salt, just for fear of attracting the attention of the imperial court. But the profit of private salt is too high, especially after Lin Jin came up with the salt drying method, using this method to make salt, it can be said that in this world where manpower cannot be counted as a cost, there is almost no cost.

Driven by capital, the Chamber of Commerce now every time it does maritime trade business, when it returns to the ship, whether it is by the way or not, it will dock at the wharf in Luzon, turn all the ballast stones into bags of salt, and then go on the road and return to Daqin.

Therefore, except for the month when the territory of salt production was changed from Daqin to Luzon, the salt tax rose slightly, and the salt tax collected by the imperial court was lower and lower at other times. The official salt cannot be sold, although the salt merchants in the chamber of commerce, as well as the salt merchants in other territories who have not joined the chamber of commerce, will still take out some money to buy salt, but the amount has also dropped significantly. And in the past, the imperial court asked for salt to discuss donations, although the salt chamber cried poor, but in the end, the amount of money not only did not decrease, but even increased. But now the salt merchants are really poor, and they are really crying poor, because they do not sell much official salt on the surface, so the amount of donations has begun to gradually decline.