On the first floor of the Difu Building, those scholars and low-grade officials were rarely divided into three factions! Most of the silence is the centrists. The two relatively small numbers of people are opposite opposite sides, and looking at the fact that both sides are blushing and thick-necked, and even foaming at the corners of their mouths, it shows that they have been debating for a long time.

And there was one person who looked out of breath, apparently just sat down. Sure enough, as soon as this person picked up the teacup, a person stood up on the other side, and this person was the famous Lu Tianhua! This opinion leader in the Cleansing Building has been resting for a while today, and this time he will get up and debate again to win or lose!

I only heard him say, "That brother just mentioned the issue of salt tax, so let's say a few words on this issue! The imperial court sold the official salt to the current price, which naturally has a reason for the imperial court! It is important to know that the salt tax is one of the pillars of the imperial court's taxation, and the low price of salt is likely to destroy the imperial court's salt tax! Besides, Wu Ninghou is not a salt merchant licensed by the imperial court, so it is hard to say whether he produces such a large amount of salt as private salt! If this salt is private salt, the imperial court will lose a lot of salt taxes, and who will fill this hole? Therefore, Wu Ninghou must be held accountable!"

As soon as he finished speaking, one of the scholars on the other side had already stood up. This group of people is different from Lu Tianhua's group, and their clothes are relatively plain! Lu Tianhua and these people are from a family at first glance, and the other group of scholars should be from a poor family.

It's just that we need to correct everyone's idea here, everyone often says that a poor family is a noble son, will this situation occur? Yes, but very few! It's a minority of the few, and it's basically an exception! Because those who can produce readers are not really poor!

The real poor family should refer to the ordinary people at the bottom, and at that time, ordinary people were struggling to make ends meet, and even most of them were always on the verge of bankruptcy, and some people were simply struggling on the verge of starvation, how could they have the ability to train scholars!

In terms of productivity at that time, consumables such as pen, ink, paper, and inkstone were extremely valuable, and ordinary people simply couldn't afford to consume them! Not to mention anything else, you don't have pen, ink, paper, inkstone, and it's even difficult to practice calligraphy!

Some people may say that you can practice calligraphy with a sand table! But anyone with a modicum of knowledge knows that this is pure nonsense! Using a sand table can only let you know how to write this character, but to write a good word, you must use real pen and paper, and practice for many years!

And ordinary families can't maintain the material consumption for practicing calligraphy at all, and the more they don't practice calligraphy, the worse the characters will be! And at the exam level, the first thing the examiner does is to see how the handwriting is? If the handwriting is distorted or even unsightly, the examiner will throw it aside without even looking at it, and don't even think about it!

Therefore, the so-called poor scholars are not from the bottom of the people at all, and the lowest level must be a rich peasant or above to cultivate scholars! Even the middle peasants may not be able to support a person who has been studying for more than ten years!

Therefore, the so-called sons of the poor family are just middle-class people, which leads to the fact that although there are many scholars, there are no people who are really from the bottom. In other words, the people at the bottom have no way to have their own representatives in the court, no one speaks for them, they are just represented!

Therefore, there will be a phenomenon in all dynasties, that is, all officials shout for the people's lives, but they do things to loot the people's wealth, let the powerful and the people prey, and even do it themselves, because they and the ordinary people are fundamentally two classes of people, and even the people at the bottom are not human beings to them at all!

However, although there is no clear division within the scholars, the difference brought about by different family backgrounds is quite huge, so it is naturally divided into "famous families" and "poor scholars". Those "behind the famous families" naturally refer to those scholars who were born into families! And those ordinary scholars naturally call themselves "poor scholars", and huddle together to keep warm!

The most interesting thing is that these people who are not from the bottom claim to represent the people at the bottom, so this is the reason why there are often confrontations between "famous families" and "poor scholars" everywhere. And today's scene in the Difu Building is just a microcosm of it.

As soon as Lu Tianhua sat down, a scholar opposite him stood up and said loudly: "In the past, there was no way for the imperial court officials to sell salt expensively, but I heard that the reason why Wu Ninghou set the price of salt so cheap this time

It is said that he came up with a new salt making method in Tianjin, and the salt produced was more and cheaper, which brought the price down! As for the salt tax issue mentioned by Brother Tai, I think that Wu Ninghou's reputation should not evade the salt tax, right? And this kind of thing can be found out clearly by the imperial court as soon as it is checked, but Wu Ninghou cannot be wronged at this time! And according to the next thought, the price of salt is low, and it will naturally sell more, and if Wu Ninghou pays taxes normally, this salt tax will not only not be less, but will be more! If you are all people who have read poetry and books, you can't figure out these truths, right?"

As soon as the words fell, a scholar at the table next to Lu Tianhua got up and said, "Many of you here are from Jingshi, and even those who are not from Jingshi have come to Jingshi many times, and you have all seen how the Xungui family does business in various places! It is impossible to let them pay taxes according to the rules, but they are very good at bullying and dominating the market! Wu Ninghou was born in Xungui, and the relationship between himself and Xungui is extremely close! As the saying goes, people are divided into groups, and things are gathered by likes, what good things can this kind of vulgar warriors do together! It is better to believe that they would go up the tree than to believe that the sow will go up the tree!" Look at the book

This man's words immediately caused a burst of laughter from everyone present! Indeed, in their opinion, those martial artists who fight and kill all day long do not do a serious thing, that is, they do bad things and go straight, how can we scholars do things exquisitely, at least people can't find out!

One of the scholars on the other side of the group said loudly, "This brother's words are a little biased, even among the martial artists, there are many loyal and righteous people! Although they can't read, they also know the righteousness! Like Lord Qi who has fought for the country all his life, who can say that he is not?"

This is obviously a bit tricky, because everyone in the Ming Dynasty who knows a little bit about current affairs knows that Qi Jiguang is covered by Zhang Juzheng! If you attack Qi Jiguang at this time, wouldn't it be tantamount to attacking Zhang Juzheng? So as soon as he said this, the momentum of the person opposite was suddenly a setback!

Seeing this, this scholar immediately took advantage of the victory and said, "Moreover, whether Wu Ninghou paid the salt tax is naturally verified by the imperial court, what we care about is that his low salt price has indeed allowed the people to really eat salt!" You are all from a big family, and it is difficult for you to come into contact with ordinary people, but we are from a poor family, and we are used to seeing the suffering of ordinary people! Among those ordinary people, being able to eat salt once in ten days and a half months is already a good life! At this time, when the price of salt drops, it will benefit thousands of people, so how can we not do it?"