Li Jie shouted to the sergeant outside: "Hand in your papers!"
The sergeant outside the door rolled his eyes. In his duty career, this was the first time he saw a soldier handing in papers so early for every game. However, due to his duties, he couldn't say anything, so he called the officer who received the papers, who happened to be the one from yesterday. That one, the officer under investigation also murmured in his heart, wondering whether this Lin Jieyuan was confident or arrogant.
Back at Lin Han's house, Lin Han didn't say anything this time. Lin Lan and Lin Tingang also handed in their papers on the second day. Official document writing was not a problem for them either. On February 15th, the third formal exam was held. start.
Outside Shuntian Gongyuan, a group of candidates were waiting for the exam to begin. When the fourth watch came, everyone took turns to enter the venue after inspection.
In the third session of the examination, there are five questions on classics, history and current affairs. The policy questions are allowed to be reduced by two, but they require more than 300 words. Although the rule is more than 300 words, in fact, the number of words for each policy question is about 1,000. words, because three hundred words are not enough to write the topic clearly.
Policy questions, policy refers to policy questions, and theory is an argumentative essay. It is somewhat similar to modern essays. It is argument-centered writing. The general topics are mostly state governance, ethics, economics, culture and education, and military strategy. If you want to To answer well, you must first understand the core of the question, and then gradually provide your own solution based on the problem. Rhetoric will not work.
The first question in this policy question is about "opening the Central Salt Law to use silver to pay for food from the border." Salt was an important material in ancient times, and it was also a huge profit. The salt produced in the Ming Dynasty was mainly sea salt, pond salt, and well salt, among which sea salt produced the most.
The Ming Dynasty implemented a government monopoly on salt, which was an indirect monopoly. Salt was first produced by kitchen households, and then purchased by the government. Salt merchants purchased salt from the government, exchanged the salt for salt at the salt farm, and then sold it in areas designated by the government. Zao households are servant households that specialize in producing salt. In addition to those left over from the previous dynasty, there are also those who were sentenced to serve for crimes, and some people near the salt field were forcibly classified as Zao households. Once registered as a Zao household, they cannot be held arbitrarily for generations. Deregister.
As for the Kaizhong method, wars raged in the early Ming Dynasty, and heavy troops were stationed in the northern border areas. Since most of the border areas did not produce food, and the losses in food transportation were too large, the military pay in the border areas became an urgent problem that needed to be solved. The Hongwu Three Shanxi officials petitioned in 2004 to use the salt policy to solve the supply problem of military pay in border areas, allowing merchants to change from paying silver in exchange for salt to paying grain to border areas, and then go to the salt field in exchange for salt based on the grain payment voucher.
Judging from the salt price during the Hongzhi period, 100 kilograms of salt was about 1 tael, and one stone of corn (about 0.6-0.7 taels) from the border could be exchanged for 200 kilograms of salt. Even excluding the loss during grain transportation, the price was Nearly twice the profit, how can we not make those businessmen flock to it?
The implementation of the Kaizhong Salt Law greatly reduced the burden on the government. With the addition of its own military garrison on the border, the military pay in the border areas was basically solved. This policy was also implemented in Shanxi and was subsequently extended to other regions. Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang once said, "I can raise millions of soldiers without costing the people a grain of rice." It was also due to the implementation of the military settlements and the opening of the Central Law that the rise of Shanxi merchants (salt merchants went to the border to open up commercial settlements and reduce transportation distances) also benefited from the implementation of the law. Thanks to the implementation of the Kaizhong method.
The grain payment system has been implemented since the opening of the Central Plains, but the production of salt is limited. Whenever there is a war on the border, there will be an overproduction of salt. Over time, the salt merchants will be stuck (after the salt merchants have completed the grain payment, the salt field cannot provide salt, so they have to Waiting for payment), coupled with the chaos in the court during the Chenghua period, eunuchs, middle officials, and noble relatives endlessly begged for salt.
As a result, during the Hongzhi period, merchants stayed on the sidelines for decades, which greatly damaged the enthusiasm of merchants to open up the country to collect grain. Now it has reached the point where it has to change. Last year, the imperial court issued a decree allowing merchants to buy surplus salt to supplement official quotas.
Yu salt is the salt produced by kitchen households outside of the quota. Yu salt has been purchased by the government in previous dynasties. In the second year of Hongzhi, because there were too many people who had accumulated it, Yu salt had to be opened up, allowing merchants to rely on the previous salt. The surplus salt will be purchased and implemented in batches according to the number of years of keeping the support.
The problem of salt merchants' defense caused by the exchange of grain for salt made it difficult for the operation of the Kaizhong Salt Law. It was time to change. There were cases of accepting silver and salt during the Chenghua period, but no law had yet been formed.
Nowadays, the reform of accepting silver and medium salt is also highly controversial in the court. On the one hand, it has to be changed. On the other hand, once it is changed to accept silver and medium salt, the merchant villages that were originally cultivated by salt merchants on the border will gradually become useless due to the useless accumulation of millet. If it is abandoned, the price of food on the border will inevitably skyrocket, and then the military pay in the border areas will become a burden to the court.
With the rapid development of the commodity economy, the scope of silver circulation has expanded, and most of today's taxes are levied in silver. This has led officials in the court to think of replacing the salt in grain with silver.
From the perspective of Li Jie's later generations, collecting silver and salt was undoubtedly advanced. In the original method of collecting grain and salt, salt merchants first collected the grain in the side warehouse, received the salt, and then went to the Lianghuai and Liangzhe salt fields to exchange for salt. Not only did they Transferring freight was time-consuming and laborious, and there would also be problems with keeping funds. The capital turnover cycle would be greatly increased, and profits would be reduced. The rise of Huizhou merchants was also closely related to the implementation of silver and salt.
Adding silver and salt reduces the intermediate transshipment losses. Even if there is still a problem of keeping funds, the capital turnover will be shortened, which is equivalent to increasing income in disguise, and it is also conducive to improving the circulation efficiency of commodities.
First of all, Li Jie stated in his policy statement that the introduction of silver and salt was correct, because this far-reaching salt law would be officially implemented in the fifth year of Hongzhi. Therefore, the number of people in the court must have the upper hand, which is definitely political correctness. .
However, the prerequisite for the implementation of the introduction of silver and salt is to ensure that the grain supply in the border areas is not damaged. The salt in grain cannot be abolished at once. The opening of silver and salt should be limited. At the same time, salt production needs to be increased at the source and salt should be reasonably controlled. In order to trigger the release of quantity, as long as the problem of keeping the support is solved, then merchants can accept it whether it is payment of grain or payment of silver.
How to increase salt production? With today's productivity, it is technically impossible to significantly increase production. We can only start by mobilizing the enthusiasm of kitchen households. Li Jie first wrote in the article that giving hope to kitchen households based on their origins, every year Outstanding Zao households were selected in the salt field, and their descendants could take part in the imperial examination. Once they passed the examination, their children were allowed to leave the Zao registration.
This is not Li Jie’s whim. In fact, the candidates for the rural examination in the Ming Dynasty came from a wide range of sources. Officials, military students, doctors, military veterans, laymen, craftsmen, etc. all had to take the examination. Nowadays, only some of them are added. Outstanding Zao family members, the ancients' desire for imperial examinations was beyond imagination. They could use their origins to mobilize the enthusiasm of Zao households, thereby increasing salt production.
Secondly, the purchase price of surplus salt should be increased appropriately. The fixed output is the responsibility of the kitchen households, so there is no need to increase the purchase price. However, the surplus salt can be mobilized. In this case, the diligent kitchen households will be able to deregister. Hopefully, as income increases, motivation will be higher.
As for the manpower shortage caused by the deregistration of Zao households, Li Jie also wrote in the article that he first controlled the number of candidates for the Zao household registration examination and concentrated personnel to develop new technologies to increase production. Li Jie screened some of the experiences of later generations on seawater salt drying. , write down the methods applicable to today in the policy questions, and gradually expand the number of candidates for the examination after the salt production increases.
