"Why, am I not right?" Zhu Youzhen asked coldly.

"Your Majesty." Hong Chengchou and Yuan Keli echoed with sweat.

"Daming has set up six salt transportation divisions, and also set up six lifting divisions to manage the world's salt administration. However, the number of officials in each yamen is too small to manage the complicated salt administration.

Take the Lianghuai Salt Transportation Division as an example, Yuan Aiqing, you have just tried the case of the Salt Transportation Division, should you know the number of officials in the Salt Transportation Division? Zhu Youzhen looked at Yuan Keli.

"There are sixty officials registered in the Lianghuai Salt Transportation Division, and there are more than 100 officials." Yuan Keli replied.

"How many subordinate departments are there in the two Huai Salt Transportation Divisions?" Zhu Youzhen asked.

"The Lianghuai Salt Transportation Division has three subdivisions, 30 salt farms and two inspection institutes." Yuan Keli said.

"Three sub-divisions, thirty salt farms, a total of only sixty officials, throw away the Yangzhou City Salt Transportation Division and the officials in the three sub-divisions, the number of officials in each salt field is only one person, one person, can you manage the large-scale salt works?" Zhu Youzhen asked.

Hong Chengchou and Yuan Keli were silent. The number of officials in the Yamen of the Salt Transportation Division is quite large, and like other yamen, the number of officials is even less!

For example, in the county government, there are only a few officials with establishment, such as county orders, county officials, master books, and canonical histories, plus a few lowly officials.

This is true not only of the county government, but also of other yamen. For example, the governor's yamen, the only nominally registered official is the governor! The dignified governor, the feudal officials in charge of several prefectures or even one province, the imperial court did not equip subordinates. How can one person manage such a complicated matter, and there is no choice but to recruit staff members to help him deal with various things.

The bigger the official, the more staff members he will raise, so that some places are rich in staff members, and if they can't study, they will serve as staff members, and they will not lose a good way out.

Of course, the main reason why Zhu Yuanzhang initially set up so few officials was that he was worried that too many officials would burden the people, but how could he deal with complicated affairs with few officials?

And although the imperial court saved the money issued to officials, it forced officials to embezzle, otherwise where would they be able to feed a large number of staff. After all, not everyone is Hai Rui, and all government affairs can be done by themselves.

The salt farms along the coast of Huai'an and Yangzhou are all under the management of the Salt Transportation Division, and the total population of stove households is as much as hundreds of thousands. Managing stove households, organizing production, keeping the waterway open, building water conservancy, and providing relief to disaster-stricken stove households are all the responsibilities of the Salt Transportation Division, but where can the Salt Transportation Division manage this point.

For many things, the Salt Transportation Division doesn't care about it at all, and it can't be asked. The affairs of the salt area are in charge of the Hao Zao, who are the strongest among the stove households, occupying a large number of means of production, and other stove households are equivalent to the employees of the Hao Zao. The matter of salt transshipment and sale was handed over to the salt merchants. And the salt transportation department only collects money.

It was precisely because of the inaction of the Yamen of the Salt Transportation Division that the complete corruption of the salt system was born. And a big reason for the inaction of the Salt Transportation Division is also the lack of manpower, which can't be managed at all, and is too lazy to take care of it.

"Therefore, in order to improve the salt policy, it is necessary to completely change the current salt system! A large number of officials were dispatched, and everything from the management of stove households, to the purchase of salt, the collection of salt taxes, and the investigation and suppression of private salt must be firmly controlled by the imperial court. Zhu Youzhen said.

"In the salt areas where salt is produced, it is necessary to crack down on the extravagant stoves and nationalize all the means of production. There are a total of 30 salt farms in the Lianghuai Salt District, and each salt farm has a yamen, and the yamen has set up the position of field director, and each bureau has been set up under it to manage all aspects of the salt farm, responsible for managing all the stove households in the salt farm, and managing all the processes such as salt production in the salt farm. From now on, all the stove households will be salt workers, and they will be paid a fixed salary every month, plus bonuses, and the more they work, the more money they will earn.

The salt factory has set up a special bureau to be responsible for the sale of the salt produced, and a special bureau has been set up to manage the money from the sale of salt. The Ministry of Taxation will send a commissioner to the salt factory, and the salt tax will be collected according to the sales ratio and handed over to the imperial court. Part of the remaining proceeds of the salt works was used to pay the salaries of officials and workers, and the rest was handed over to the branch division and the metropolitan salt transportation department in proportion. The Salt Transportation Department is responsible for the traffic of rivers and roads in the salt area, ensuring the smooth flow of salt transportation, renovating water conservancy, and managing and supervising all salt works.

The selling price of salt in the salt field shall be uniformly formulated by the Yamen of the Salt Transportation Department and the consent of the imperial court shall be sought, and no one shall change the selling price without authorization, and the offender shall be severely punished.

The salt merchants are responsible for the transshipment and sale of salt to the provinces and provinces. The threshold of the nest capital has been abolished, and any salt merchant can engage in the salt business as long as he files with the Salt Transportation Division, pays a certain amount of management fees every year, and then pays the salt tax according to the quantity of salt sold. However, in all provinces and provinces, the price of salt is determined uniformly, and salt merchants do not have the right to sell and set prices. In this way, salt merchants cannot sell at high prices, and the people do not have to eat high-priced salt, which suppresses the living space of illegal salt.

As for the price of salt and the price of salt sold in various places, you can discuss how to set it, in short, so that the salt workers can live a good life by making salt to support their families, and at the same time let the people everywhere eat low-cost salt, and at the same time, let the imperial court obtain a higher salt tax, so that the salt merchants do not make too much profit. Salt merchants can make money by selling salt, but the money they make can never be profiteering!

From now on, salt merchants do not need salt to sell salt, as long as the salt merchants who are registered with the salt transportation department can go to the salt factory to buy salt and then transport it to various places for sale, and the salt tax will be collected by the salt farm tax department, which is equivalent to the price of the salt. In this way, there can be no more private salt from the salt works.

Each salt factory organizes field guards, who are specially responsible for inspecting whether anyone is making salt privately, and the Yamen of the Salt Transportation Department sends special personnel to supervise the operation of the salt works in each salt factory, and then regularly sends officials to inspect the salt works to strictly check whether there is any corruption and illegal phenomena.

The duty of each customs is no longer to collect salt tax, but to check whether the amount of salt brought by the salt merchant is consistent with the number of salt approved by the salt factory, otherwise it is private salt.

Anyone who dares to sell illicit salt will be severely punished, and will be assigned to hard labor until his house is raided and killed! ”

Zhu Youzhen said all his thoughts about the salt system in one breath, and many of these ideas were caused by discussions with Hong Chengchou, so Hong Chengchou was quite calm. But Yuan Keli was dumbfounded when he heard it, and he was simply shocked.

Strictly control the production of salt, organize all stove households as salt workers, give them salary bonuses sufficient to support their families, eliminate the existence of private salt in the production process, and then control the sale of salt by setting the exit price and sales price, so that the salt merchants have no room to work up and down, and can only honestly follow the route drawn by the imperial court to do business. Selling salt can make money, but there will be no windfall profits, so many salt merchants will no longer risk killing their heads to sell illicit salt.

Without private salt, all salt must be taxed, so the salt tax revenue of the imperial court will be greatly increased, and it may not even be increased tenfold.

The annual salt tax of tens of millions of taels of silver is exciting to think about!

And most importantly, the Woben system was abolished, the threshold for selling salt was lowered, and everyone could go directly to the salt factory to buy salt, so that the panic caused by the raid of the big salt merchants no longer existed. The opportunity to engage in salt trading, albeit at a much lower profit, is enough to make many people rush to it. In this way, who cares about the life and death of those greedy nest merchants!

Yuan Keli could imagine that as long as the news of the salt reform came out, Yangzhou City would soon stabilize from the panic.