Zhu Gui was not in a hurry, he quietly observed the reactions of everyone present.

In all dynasties, the salt road was an important source of tax revenue for the imperial court, and in the Ming Dynasty, the salt tax even reached half of the national tax revenue.

And these salt road officials are specifically used to manage this matter.

Therefore, the imperial court has always spared no effort to crack down on salt dealers, if it weren't for Zhu Gui being the prince, I'm afraid that he would have to sit in prison for selling so much refined salt.

And now not only did he not stop, but even wanted to expand the deal, which made these salt road officials present a little unable to sit still.

They don't want to meddle in the family affairs of the Ming royal family, but this salt road business is related to their well-being, and almost all of these people here have spent a lot of money or have a very strong background to become salt road officials.

Now Zhu Gui's hand is stretched out so long, it is tantamount to touching their cake.

Forget about these local petty officials, there is also a senior official of the salt road who is present, Liu Jingming, who is the salt envoy of the capital.

His eyes wandered, and when he saw that no one else spoke, he immediately stood up and said: "Your Royal Highness the Acting King, this matter of selling salt belongs to the dictatorship of the imperial court, and this operation of the acting king may violate the laws of the Ming Dynasty." ”

His few words immediately quieted the voices in the living room, and everyone's eyes wandered around the acting king Zhu Gui and Liu Jingming, and they didn't even dare to breathe loudly.

These people have all heard what this acting king did in Nanjing City, but he killed people in the street, and even the emperor never asked, why is Liu Jingming so bold?

But what they imagined didn't happen.

Zhu Gui just glanced at Liu Jingming lightly and said, "Lord Liu, this king remembers that the salt in Shanxi is all transported from Shandong, right?" ”

"Yes, there are currently two major salt areas in Daming, such as Lianghuai, Liangzhejiang, Changlu, Shandong, Hedong and Fujian, and our salt from Shanxi is transported from Shandong."

Liu Jingming said neither humbly nor arrogantly.

He is not only a salt envoy, but also a staff member of Zhu Di, the king of Yan, and he believes that even the acting king will not dare to touch him easily.

Zhu Gui got up and nodded and said, "Although Shandong and Shanxi are adjacent, the cost of just spending on the road is not small, right?" ”

Liu Jingming didn't speak this time, which can be regarded as acquiescing to this fact.

It is precisely because of this that the price of official salt will remain high, and salt dealers will repeatedly ban it.

Zhu Gui continued: "Now that this king has mastered the new salt making method, he can make refined salt locally, which not only eliminates the consumption of salt transportation on the road, but also makes Datong the seventh largest salt-producing area in the Ming Dynasty in the future, which is a good thing for the benefit of the country and the people, Lord Liu thinks so?" ”

Liu Jingming had already planned to clash head-on with the acting king, but he didn't expect the other party to reason with him.

"But, however, the salt tax is an important revenue of the state treasury, and even the acting king cannot meddle in this matter." Liu Jingming was a little reasonable, and in the end he could only move out the talisman and salt tax.

Zhu Gui smiled, then picked up an account book from the table, flipped through it a few times and said: "According to the records of previous years, Shanxi's salt tax is ten taxes and three, and last year there was a total of almost two million taels of taxes. ”

Liu Jingming's eyes widened: "Impossible, impossible." ”

Everyone else in the living room started talking like a frying pan.

Pay half of the extra salt tax, that's three million taels, that's almost all of Yunzhou's tax last year.

"Lord Liu, this king knows that you are also a heart to serve the country, if you still think there is any problem, this king can personally approve this matter to the emperor, don't forget, this is the king's fief."

Zhu Gui saw that Liu Jingming wanted to say something, so he immediately hit him with words.

Liu Jingming stared at Zhu Gui, and after a few seconds, he left the table angrily.

The principal left, and the others present naturally let Zhu Gui take care of it.

So he immediately took control of the official salt system in the entire territory of Datong in the name of the acting prince's mansion.

The first decision was that in the future, there would be no need to transport salt from Shandong, but to provide refined and coarse salt from the palace to the salt merchants.

Then it was a notice to all parts of the prefecture that all salt dealers should register with the government and be exempted from their previous crimes.

When the meeting was over, Zhu Gui immediately wrote a letter, reporting to Zhu Yuanzhang about the situation in Datong Mansion and recounting some of his thoughts.

He didn't expect Zhu Yuanzhang to agree with his idea, but got the right to sell official salt by crying poor.

In this way, his means of accumulating wealth were legitimized.

Liu Jingming, who left in a bad mood, also wrote an excerpt to Zhu Di, adding fuel and vinegar to the description of what the acting king did in Shanxi, denouncing his incompetence, hoping that the influence of this king of Yan could make the acting king a little more restrained.

These two letters have not yet reached Nanjing, and Zhu Gui's policy has already caused an uproar in Datong Mansion.

First of all, the happiest people are naturally the common people, who could not afford to buy official salt before, so they could only buy some cheap private salt from salt dealers.

And now that the king has taken control of the salt road, the coarse salt sold is not only of better quality than the salt dealer's, but the price is more than half lower.

How does this upset them?

The second is those salt dealers, who were originally cleaned up by Xu Yingxu and have become frightened birds, but now with the acting king's exoneration policy, many people will immediately go to the government to register.

As for the remaining salt dealers, seeing that there was no profit from peddling illicit salt, they also began to change careers.

Only the biggest local salt gang is still holding out.

Hu Shidao, the leader of the Salt Gang, also presided over the Salt Gang meeting on the same day.

Over the years, the Salt Gang has made a lot of money by selling illicit salt, and because Hu Shidao can be a man and has brought all the officials of the salt road to the place, he has not been harassed by the government.

It's just that I didn't expect that after the acting king came, their good days would come to an end.

At this time, the Salt Gang had already quarreled because of Zhu Gui's policy.

The radicals felt that there was something wrong with this acting king, and it was best to find a way to kill him, or at least let him take back his life, otherwise the Salt Gang would have a hard time in the future.

Conservatives, on the other hand, feel that the king's policy will not last long, they don't believe that the king has so much salt in his hands, and this kind of thing is not allowed by the imperial court.

Hu Shidao just quietly listened to everyone's quarrel, deep in thought but did not speak.

It wasn't until one of the gangsters leaned over to him and said something that he nodded, and finally a smile on his face.

"Okay, let's stop arguing, we don't care what medicine Zhu Gui's kid sells in his gourd, but he hasn't been old for long."