Speaking of the salt law, Xu He asked Chen Hua: "Lord Chen is also from the stove, and he must have thought about the salt law, why don't you talk about it first?" ”

Chen Hua glanced at this kid angrily, and said in his heart that if he didn't show his hand today, he would really be looked down upon by this kid.

He pondered for a moment and then said slowly: "Although the Nine Sides have been disturbed from time to time in these years, there are no major wars, which means that the opening of the grain has lost its own meaning!" ”

"You also said before that it is too cumbersome for merchants to travel thousands of miles from the land of Shanxi to Lianghuai to extract salt, and the cost is very high!"

"In this case, it is better to replace Kaizhong with Kaizhong silver!"

"The salt merchant directly pays the silver and the salt division, and then the transportation department dissolves the silver and the household department, hands it over to the Taicang silver for storage, and then the household department distributes it to all sides on time."

Xu He looked at Chen Hua with incredulous eyes.

"This old farmer has something!" Xu He thought to himself.

The original salt method increased the transportation and time costs of merchants because of the long-distance transportation of grain, or the transportation of grain in the local tuntian, and the enthusiasm of merchants to purchase official salt was not high.

But directly to the salt division, to obtain salt, and then to branch salt. It shortens the operation cycle and increases the operating income of salt merchants, thus effectively mobilizing the enthusiasm of salt merchants.

Official salt makes little money, but after all, it is also making money, such a hard currency like salt, if the production end is done, then with today's market, sales are not a problem at all.

"I didn't expect Lord Chen to also think of the [Open in the Color Folding Method]!" Xu He smiled slightly.

The so-called folding color, is to fold everything into silver meaning, the opening of the law was originally to accept grain, now changed to silver, is not [folding]?

Chen Hua was shocked when he heard this: "You also thought of it?" Folded color method? This name is good, this name is good! ”

Xu He smiled slightly, in fact, this name was not given by him, the Ming Dynasty in another time and space also encountered the same problem as the Great Wei, and during the Hongzhi period, Ye Qi, the head of the household, also recognized this problem, so the famous salt law reform in history was carried out in the fifth year of Hongzhi.

The content of the reform is to change from opening up grain to opening up and folding color.

Because of Ye Qi's reform, the north of Huai'an became the Huaibei Gang Yantun gathering place, and the salt merchants were all high-capital giants in Huizhou and Yangzhou. ”

The prosperity of salt transportation made Huai'an's urban development reach unprecedented prosperity in the Ming and Qing dynasties, making Huai'an quickly become one of the four major cities along the canal, laying a good foundation for Huai'an to become a national historical and cultural city in the future.

Of course, this reform also made the Huizhou merchants, and from this time on, the Huizhou merchants replaced the Jin merchants who transported grain from the nine sides and became the largest profit group in the opening of China and France.

But Xu He's idea is not just a superficial tinkering with the salt industry.

He smiled slightly and said to Chen Hua: "My lord, this method, the court and businessmen can all benefit, but what about the stoves?" By the way, there are also the "" that the imperial court owed to the salt merchants in previous years"

When Chen Hua heard this, it was like a basin of cold water poured on his head.

That's right, what about the cooks?

The purpose of their trip was to solve the problem of the rebellion.

His recitals will also be handed over to them for purpose at that time.

Although the open-fold color method has increased the output and attractiveness of officials, the situation of cooks has not changed, but will be burdened with greater production pressure due to the increase in official salt production.

As soon as this method is taken out, it is estimated that the smart person in the middle of the stove will be able to tear him Chen Hua apart on the spot!

Thinking of this, Chen Hua broke out in a cold sweat again.

Xu He had long known that these scholars didn't care what their backgrounds were, and in the end it was their butts who decided their heads, so he said early in front of Lao Zheng Tou and others that the time would show them the recital, and the prevention was that Chen Hua's ass would sit on the side of the court again, and when the time came, the color folding method would be implemented, and he Chen Hua gained fame and became the founder of the new law, and since then he has been on the rise.

The imperial court increased its taxes because of the new law.

What about the people?

They did not enjoy the slightest change from the new law.

It's that cruel.

Fortunately, Chen Hua didn't find Xu He's little trick, and he wondered: "Then what better way do you have?" ”

Xu He did not answer Chen Hua's question immediately, but re-sorted out the current situation of Dawei.

Since Emperor Zhizheng succeeded to the throne, the economic crisis of the imperial court intensified, in order to extract wealth from the monopoly of the salt industry, the government ignored the balance of production and marketing, and indiscriminately issued salt.

Then, the lower-level officials controlled the stove to dry the private salt for profit.

The low price of private salt forced the official salt to further run out of salt to support, but where the court needed money, these people did not decrease but increased, and gradually made ends meet.

As a result, the official salt had no choice but to further raise the salt tax and issue salt more unscrupulously.

In this way, the hard days of the cooks have come, and they have become more and more intense over the years.

In fact, this time can also be seen as a general outbreak of the salt industry's shortcomings.

So now there are three problems to be solved.

First, the salt arrears accumulated in previous years will be repaid by the imperial court!

Second, the livelihood of the cooks should be guaranteed, and their enthusiasm should also be aroused.

Third, the production controlled by the imperial court, which increased the channels for official corruption, and also damaged the enthusiasm for the production of dried salt.

"During the Zheng period, the two Huai must exchange 900,000 pieces of salt every year, of which 680,000 pieces of Huainan salt and 220,000 pieces of Huaibei salt lead, so 600,000 taels of surplus salt silver were brought to the Hubu Tai warehouse. However, due to the fact that after the imperial court issued salt citations and collected salt taxes, it was not possible to exchange salt for the salt quotations that had been issued in time (called old quotations here), so that there was a backlog of about 2.5 million to 2.6 million taels of salt quotations. ”

"If the imperial court exchanges all the salt of the two Huai for this batch of old quotations, calculated at the rate of about 900,000 pieces per year for the two Huai, it can be exchanged in about three years, but the salt tax collected by the imperial court from the two Huai will also be stopped for three years, and the financial loss to the household department alone will reach 1.8 million taels."

"The losses of the northern frontier army due to the absence of merchants to transport grain and grass for three consecutive years have not been counted. Therefore, the imperial court continued to issue salt quotations - to be precise, it continued to forcibly apportionment salt quotations and pre-levy salt taxes, and domestic businessmen either went bankrupt or fled, and the situation of private salt banks was irreparable! ”

After hearing all this, Chen Hua stood up from his seat in surprise: "You, you actually understand so clearly?" ”

Xu He smiled slightly, after the incident, he talked a lot with Xie Liangcai, and even wrote to the previous Lianghuai Salt Transport Imperial Shi Kong Yiyuan to have an in-depth understanding of the current situation of the Lianghuai salt industry.

By the way, Kong Yiyuan kept his official position because of his teacher, but a few days ago he received a document from the Ministry of Officials, asking him to return to Beijing to be appointed.

That is, to make the past problems clear, and as for what position will be given to you in the future, let's talk about it later.

But the deadline for returning to Beijing is about two months, and the time is still very large, Kong Yiyuan, this guy will not change his life, stay in Huai'an and sing every night, and completely let loose the wreckage.

However, the letter of the son of Siqing is still useful, after all, he still has to mix in the officialdom, so Kong Yiyuan [100 busy] wrote more than 20 pieces of paper in detail about the situation of the salt industry in Lianghuai, and delivered it by post road.

It can be said that now, the world's understanding of the Lianghuai salt industry can surpass Xu He's people, and they can be counted on two hands.

"It can be said that the salt industry of the imperial court in Lianghuai has now reached the end of the mountain, in order not to cause chaos, we are facing not only the stove ding, but also the salt merchant with a large stack of [old introduction] in his hand!"

Chen Hua was completely convinced this time, and he trembled and said, "Then, what should I do?" ”