Fang Wanghai said: "The biggest difficulty in the salt method of this dynasty is the 'keeping branch'."
Su Ze immediately understood what Fang Wanghai meant, and he asked, "Father-in-law, Shouzhi, do you mean that the salt merchant in Kaizhong can't get the salt?"
Fang Wanghai nodded and said: "The congestion of the salt law in this dynasty refers to getting salt but not being able to pick it up at the salt field. Especially in the salt fields in Jianghuai, some salt merchants got salt from their grandfathers and from their grandchildren." Not even mentioning the salt.”
Su Ze sighed in his heart, as expected, the market rules cannot be reversed, and it is not unusual at all for things like salt congestion to happen.
In the early days of the Ming Dynasty, the price of grain in border areas was not high. Generally speaking, one pound of salt cost two dou and five liters of grain. However, the price of grain in border areas was not high. Two dou and five liters of grain only cost five cents of silver. , which is 0.05 taels of silver.
And Yiyin's salt can be sold for five taels of silver in the Jianghuai area.
Such huge profits naturally led to the congestion of salt pipelines in the Jianghuai region. A large number of businessmen were unable to carry salt with their salt pipelines.
After all, the salt production in an area is also limited.
Su Ze asked: "Is there something wrong with both salt production and support support?"
Fang Wanghai knew that Su Ze was very good at financial matters, but he didn't expect him to be so keen.
After taking charge of the Nanjing Household Department, Fang Wanghai also checked the files related to the salt industry. This is why he found out after reading a large number of files. Su Ze suddenly grasped the key to the problem.
Fang Wanghai said: "Yes, the output of the coastal salt fields in Jianghuai has been declining since the beginning of the Republic of China. Today, the output of some salt fields is less than half of what it was at the beginning of the Republic of China."
Su Ze knew the salt fields very well. His subordinate Zhu Qi was a salt worker and had a deep understanding of the imperial salt field.
Su Ze immediately said: "This is inevitable. The salt collectors in the imperial court still use their labor money to fold banknotes. Today they are still issuing treasure banknotes to salt households. If they don't sell private salt, they can't survive."
Due to the "great" design of Emperor Hongwu, the treatment of Yanding in the early days of the country was pretty good, and their wages were paid by converting treasure banknotes.
During the Hongwu period, the treasure banknotes were relatively stable, and there was no problem with this policy.
By the year of Yongle, it could no longer hold its weight, and today the treasure banknotes are just like waste paper.
However, the wages of salt workers are still paid with treasure banknotes. As a result, in almost all salt fields, salt workers steal salt and sell it privately.
This problem is also normal. Everyone needs to eat. If the top doesn't care about food, then you can't blame the bottom for finding their own way out.
The only thing salt households can rely on is salt. Therefore, several salt-producing provinces are also provinces where private salt is rampant.
Obviously from the beginning of the People's Republic of China to the present, the scale of all salt fields has expanded, the number of salt workers has increased, and technology has improved. However, the output of the salt fields has decreased, and some salt fields have even been in arrears with their production tasks for a long time, and merchants cannot keep up. .
Su Ze sneered and said, "I'm afraid there's another important reason for not being able to defend the center, right?"
Fang Wanghai smiled and said nothing. Ever since Emperor Xiaozong, he had liked to reward eunuchs and relatives with large sums of salt. The emperor had a tradition of awarding salt to his ministers.
The emperor frequently rewarded his relatives and ministers with thousands of salt citations. If these powerful people came to carry salt with them, which salt farm would dare not give it to them.
Zhu Qi's group of saltmen rebelled because Emperor Jiajing rewarded the eunuch Yan Yin. The eunuch could not get salt when he arrived in Fujian, and then forced the salt households to produce salt.
This kind of thing has been common since the Xiaozong Dynasty, and such rebellions often occurred in the salt fields of the Huaihe River and the Yangtze River.
These contents were clearly discussed in later generations, and Su Ze also knew these contents when he was studying.
But what follows is more in-depth content.
Fang Wanghai said: "Actually, the Salt Law could still be maintained as it was, but the reform of the Salt Law by Ye Qi, the Secretary of the Ministry of Revenue in the fifth year of Hongzhi, completely destroyed the Salt Law."
Ye Qi's reform? Su Ze used his [History] to recall and asked:
"Is it true that even if you win, you lose the color?"
Fang Wanghai looked at Su Ze in confusion, how could Su Ze know about this?
The Ming Dynasty wanted the Jinshi who ranked first in the imperial examination to enter the Hanlin Academy and gave preferential treatment to Hanlin officials. One of the important reasons was that there were a large number of national classics in the Hanlin Academy.
These classics include ministers' memorials, cabinet meetings and six ministries' minutes, and even a large number of emperor's edicts and memorials and instructions.
Not to mention the emperor's actual records, which are also included in the Hanlin Academy and can be studied by Hanlin officials.
For example, Zhang Juzheng was in the Hanlin Academy. His job was the editor of the Hanlin Academy, and his main job was to check and proofread these classics.
This job is relatively easy, but you can view the information freely.
The essence of national governance is found in these important archives, which is why officials from the Hanlin Academy have very good governance abilities.
Just like Zhang Juzheng, who has a photographic memory, he was even more at home in the Hanlin Academy. He constantly absorbed the essence of various reforms of the previous dynasty, reviewed the discussions on various resolutions that year, and accumulated a lot of experience in this way.
Fang Wanghai's imperial examination score was not high enough to enter the Hanlin Academy, so he could only start from the grassroots level.
Only when he reached the level of the Minister of Household Affairs in Nanjing could he have access to these contents, and they were limited to the meetings and discussions of the Household Department in Nanjing. If the Nanjing Department of Household Affairs had not been responsible for managing salt affairs, he would not have been able to see these contents at all.
Ye Qi's reform mentioned by Su Ze was implemented for a short time and was quickly abolished. Fang Wanghai had not known about it before.
He also read a lot of documents before he knew how Ye Qi's reform had corrupted the salt policy.
But Su Ze actually knew about this matter, and could he point out the harm of this matter to the point?
Fang Wanghai became more interested in Su Ze's father. Could it be that Su Ze's father was not only a great scholar, but also a high-ranking official?
Otherwise, how could one explain Su Ze's financial talent?
Su Ze noticed something strange about Fang Wanghai, and he quickly said, "I heard my father mention it accidentally."
Sure enough!
However, Fang Wanghai was not prepared to go into details. Anyway, his daughter was married to this boy.
And since Su Ze knew about this matter, there was no need for Fang Wanghai to waste any more words.
He simply said: "Ye Qi's reform is to allow internal merchants to go directly to the Salt Transportation Department to buy salt with silver instead of transporting grain in exchange for warehouse cash. After that, the salt supply became even more congested until this day. In the early years of the dynasty, the imperial court reinstated the kaizhong method and canceled kaizhong. However, the congestion problem of salt currency caused by this became more serious, and there are still a large number of salt coins that have not been exchanged. "
Su Ze said bluntly:
"To put it bluntly, Ye Qi's reform was because the court felt that the price of salt was too low, so it wanted to make more money."
Fang Wanghai sighed and nodded in agreement.
Salt is a monopoly good, which is essentially a poll tax.
People can avoid paying taxes, but they cannot avoid eating salt.
And eating salt is a kind of tax.
As a profit-making product of artificial monopoly, the reason why businessmen support the Kaizhong method is to make money.
The imperial court felt that the merchants had made money from it and was jealous of the profits, so they simply overturned the Kaizhong Law and directly sold the salt to make money.
Su Ze said: "The problem caused by Ye Qi's Reform is not just the salt blockage. The current problems of the northern border defense also stem from Ye Qi's Reform!"
Su Ze's words surprised Fang Wanghai.
He was the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs in Nanjing and could only see the archives of the Ministry of Household Affairs. This was Fang Wanghai's shortcoming due to his lack of training in the Imperial Academy.
His current ability is that of the Minister of Household Affairs, and he cannot comprehensively consider the country's overall problems.
And this ability to think about all aspects of ability is often what requires the most vision.
If classified by the system, Hai Rui, an official who can make decisions for the people, handle cases in prefectures and counties well, and manage the local area well, is almost at level 10.
Fang Wanghai's ability to promote a certain new policy, or to coordinate the personnel and finance of several provinces with Hu Zongxian, is considered the ability of a feudal official, which is about level 15.
Those who go higher up must be able to consider the overall policies of the country and coordinate the personnel of the country. This is the talent of the Prime Minister and Assistant above Level 15.
Fang Wanghai hasn't even reached Level 15 yet, and he relies on Su Ze to help him with advice and patches.
The current Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng are only players below Level 15, with rich theoretical experience but no practical experience.
Nowadays, in the entire Ming Dynasty, the only two people who can surpass Level 15 are Yan Song and Xu Jie.
This is also the reason why Emperor Jiajing always uses these two people, because not only are they qualified, but their abilities are indeed the best in the Ming Dynasty.
Su Ze started to review the opening method according to his memory.
"Father-in-law, in fact, the amount of money needed to open the Chinese Law Firm is not much compared to the national finance."
Fang Wanghai thought about it and found that it was indeed the case.
In fact, this is also the reason why Ye Qi was able to carry out reforms back then.
Su Ze said: "The fifth Qi of the Tang Dynasty established the Salt Academy in Jianghuai. Relying on the salt administration of Jianghuai, he supported Emperor Suzong of the Tang Dynasty in pacifying the Anshi Rebellion. The Tang army fought repeatedly to recapture Guanzhong. This was all due to the salt law."
Fang Wanghai had read this period of history. In addition to Guo Ziyi's contribution to putting down the Anshi Rebellion, Wu Qi also contributed a lot. He relied on the Grand Canal to transfuse blood for the Tang Dynasty, and only relied on taxes from the Jianghuai River to support the army of the Tang Dynasty.
This shows the huge profits of the Salt Law.
However, the salt law of this dynasty did not actually benefit the court much. In other words, compared with the entire financial market, the salt law of the Ming Dynasty was not a profitable project.
Su Ze continued: "This dynasty's Kaizhong Salt Law is actually complementary to the border town system."
"In fact, starting from the Chenghua year, the imperial court began to acquiesce in the transaction of warehouse notes, and from this time on, salt merchants were divided into two types."
"One type is merchants from border towns in the north. They mainly transport grain to border towns and exchange it for warehouse notes. However, they do not go to Shouzhong to pick up salt. They just sell the warehouse notes to salt merchants in the mainland in exchange for money."
Fang Wanghai nodded immediately. He had also read this part.
Su Ze continued: "The internal merchants get the warehouse notes, and then exchange them for salt and sell the salt. It can be said that both parties are profitable. But at that time, the border merchants were powerful and controlled the buying, selling and pricing of warehouse notes, but they Jianghuai also lacks connections and cannot defend the center, so it can only be sold to domestic merchants Cangqi. The two parties have a mutually restrictive relationship."
Fang Wanghai nodded. When he was preparing for the establishment of banknote tariffs, he also had a deep understanding of business. What Su Ze said was what he could imagine. Comparing it with the Nanjing Ministry of Household files he had read, what Su Ze said It is indeed true.
Su Ze continued: "Border merchants are also an important reason for maintaining low food prices in border towns."
This point of view was beyond Fang Wanghai's understanding, and he asked: "Why is this?"
Su Ze said: "Because businessmen pursue profit, but also because of costs."
"To open the country, you only need to transport the grain to the border guard station. The price of food in the border is low, which is beneficial to these border merchants, so they will also organize people to farm in the border. This is the so-called merchant camp."
"Because of Shangtun, border merchants only need to buy grain directly in the border area, and they can exchange it for warehouse cash at a low price. It is true that they make money, but they also maintain low grain prices in the border area."
"This can be seen from the price of food in the early days of the Republic of China. The price of food in the border areas was not much different from that in the interior. But what about now? Food in Liao Town now costs two taels of silver and one stone, right?"
Fang Wanghai nodded. He knew this situation very well. This was also the reason why the cost of borderland was getting higher and higher now.
On the one hand, the combat effectiveness of the garrison has declined, more soldiers are needed to guard the border, and soldiers must be paid.
On the other hand, the price of food in the border areas was too high, and the court needed to spend more money to buy food and transport it there.
"But Ye Qi's reform of opening up China and France completely made the border merchants completely useless. The border merchants have been unable to recover since then, and the merchant villages have also withdrawn. From then on, the price of food in the border areas has naturally been rising."
"And what about the internal merchants? They benefited at first, because they did not need to buy warehouse notes from border merchants. They only needed to buy salt directly from the Salt Transportation Department. However, as the salt was distributed indiscriminately, and the court As prices rise, domestic merchants will gradually no longer make any money.”
"And now the largest salt transportation department in the entire Jianghuai River is in Huai'an, and Ye Qi is from Huai'an!"
"By the time Kaizhong was restored in the early years of this dynasty, most of the border merchants were dead, and internal merchants had few breaths. Kaizhong had become a loss-making business, and defenders could not afford salt, and the court's salt quotations could not be sold. out."
Fang Wanghai snapped the case and said, "Ye Qi, the traitor, is harming the country!"
Fang Wanghai did not expect that Ye Qi's small salt law reform would actually cause the price of food to rise in the border areas, greatly increase the court's border defense expenses, and even completely destroy the entire salt affairs.
Su Ze was also feeling emotional. I'm afraid Ye Qi also didn't expect that what he did could have such a huge impact.
By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the price of food in the border areas had reached ten taels of silver per stone. At that time, all the income of the imperial court was spent on the border areas, and it was unable to quell the border troubles. The Ming Dynasty was really destroyed.
In this way, the emperor was still issuing salt citations indiscriminately, hoping to make money through the issuance of salt citations.
Under the autocratic imperial power, the salt law, like the treasure banknotes, eventually perished due to excessive greed.
Such a surging trend cannot be undone by a whip.
But Fang Wanghai looked at Su Ze, waiting for him to solve this problem.
There is another chapter tonight, before twelve o'clock
(End of chapter)
