At the quiet table, everyone looked at Jia Lian with burning eyes.
Jia Lian picked up a piece of deer breast and was about to put it into his mouth. When he saw this, he glanced at everyone, then put down his chopsticks and wiped his hands.
"Everyone, do you really want to listen?"
"Please make it clear, sir!"
Jia Lian returned the handkerchief to Zhao'er next to him. Wu Zhirong and others can wave the waiter away, but they have no right to ask his people to leave the table.
Turning his head to look at Zhou Boru and the two men beside him, Jia Lian said: "President Zhou, Vice President Wang, the court is very dissatisfied with you!"
When everyone heard this, their expressions changed a little.
Zhou Boru, who was facing Jia Lian, was very calm. He hurriedly adopted a more respectful attitude, cupped his hands with Jia Lian and said: "Please teach me, sir. I am very grateful to you."
Jia Lian looked at Zhou Boru and blinked slightly. No wonder the information he got was the least about this person, and he couldn't even confirm who he was relying on.
But to be able to secure the position of president all year round, and to have the largest share of the entire Lianghuai Salt Administration, there must be many things that ordinary people don't know about.
“Of the four major salt administrations in the world, Yangzhou is the most serious, accounting for almost half of the world’s salt tax.
Not to mention the distance, in the past ten years, the tax money collected from Yangzhou into the national treasury ranged from seven to eight million to eight or nine million. However, since the year before last, Yangzhou's salt tax has dropped sharply to less than 7 million taels, and last year it was even less than 6 million...
If this continues, within a few years, the entire Yangzhou Salt Administration will not even be able to pay the national tax? "
There was an inevitable irony in Jia Lian's words, and the officials and salt merchants present could hear it.
Most of the officials here today have been fed by salt merchants every year. Hearing what Jia Lian said at this time, he was also complaining in his heart. These salt merchants were greedy and touched the bottom line of the court, which made them also worried.
The salt merchants also had ideas. The small salt merchants complained in their hearts to the big salt merchants, and the big salt merchants blamed each other, blaming others for having a larger share and engaging in large-scale smuggling, making it impossible for everyone to step down.
Vice President Wang Shanxiang couldn't help but explain to Jia Lian: "I don't know, sir, but there is a reason for this..."
"Oh? Tell me."
“The reason why the salt tax was reduced in the past two years is all because of the court’s new salt policy!
We all serve the imperial court. No matter what decree the imperial court issues, we will fully support and assist you.
The imperial court asked us to donate money, and we all obeyed. It's just that originally what I was waiting for was hard work, and almost all the profits I made every year were handed over to the court, leaving only some meager profits to barely make ends meet for the brothers below. The imperial court suddenly asked us to spend extra money and effort to escort grain and grass to the border, which made our situation even worse.
As the saying goes, you are responsible for your profits and losses. It is really difficult for us to maintain the previous total national tax after having to bear such huge expenses. How could the imperial court know that although the tax revenue from the state treasury has been lowered, the lives of salt merchants like me are even more miserable? To be able to pay so much national tax, I have to wait for a few companies to subsidize the profits of many years before, and then I can get so much..."
Jia Lian suppressed his laughter and asked pretending to be puzzled: "Is this so? But as far as I know, after the imperial court launched the New Deal, Charter and others raised the price of salt by 10%. Counting the extra official salt income, It’s enough to offset the donation.”
"This is the inconsiderate part of the imperial court. The adults in the imperial court only think that raising the price of salt will increase our profits. As everyone knows, there are only so many people who eat salt in the world, and the price of salt has increased. Many people choose not to eat salt. We, the merchants, can buy and sell freely, so we cannot force the common people to buy salt instead of forcing them to buy it, right?
Of course, this is not to be blamed on the imperial court. The adults in the imperial court are all elegant people who have read poetry and books. It is common for them not to understand the business world.
Fortunately, the adults came down to supervise the salt administration this time. The young people just asked the adults to petition the court on our behalf and abandon the method of donation. In this way, I believe that it will not be long before the salt administration and national taxes can be fully restored, even more than before. It's not impossible! "
Wang Shanxiang said, looking at Jia Lian expectantly, as if Jia Lian was their savior who was interceding with the inconsiderate court.
"Hehehe..."
Jia Lian finally laughed and took a deep breath to suppress the anger in his heart.
This guy named Wang is treating him like a nerd!
Although I had long known that these salt merchants would have their own rhetoric, I never expected that they would be so shameless.
And you want to use him as a gun?
How dare they say that salt merchants are hard workers? If word spreads, wouldn't it make businessmen from all walks of life in the world laugh out loud?
The Wei Dynasty had been resting for a hundred years, and its population was close to 20 million. What a huge amount of salt was consumed every year?
Fortunately, what the Wei Dynasty paid most attention to was the agricultural tax. The salt tax was not too high, only about 30% of the price of salt. In this way, although it is still not cheap for the people to eat salt, it is much better than some dynasties that used salt to exploit the people.
Nowadays, the market price of salt per catty is only between forty and seventy cents. After all, even if a person eats freely, he can barely eat one tael of silver per year. Save a little, one or two coins is enough.
This kind of expenditure is really not high for Da Wei's living standard. At least for the prosperous Jiangnan land, it is not a problem at all.
But even so, on average, the revenue of salt merchants all over the world is at least 70 million taels.
What a huge piece of cake is this? You know, the annual income of the entire Wei Dynasty is almost only this amount.
According to Lin Ruhai and others, the cost of raw materials to produce a pound of coarse salt in Jiangnan Salt Farm is only two to three yuan, which is basically negligible compared to the market price.
In other words, if the imperial court can truly achieve this and collect all the benefits of the salt policy into the national treasury, it can almost double the annual revenue of the national treasury! Of course, this is theoretical and almost impossible to achieve in practice.
The salt administration of the Wei Dynasty also used the salt system, with three hundred catties per jin, and a regular salt tax of three taels and eight taels of silver was levied on each yin!
Zhengke salt tax is the national tax.
Calculated in this way, even if it is based on fifty cents per catty, the actual salt tax only accounts for less than 30% of the selling price.
In other words, the salt merchants still have at least 70% of their income, which can be used to pay miscellaneous taxes for the local government, the Salt Transportation Department, and other costs...
Even if these costs are high, facing a premium of upwards of 50 million taels, there is no problem at least leaving a net profit of 10 to 20 million taels.
This is still completely based on official salt.
Among the salt merchants in the world, which one does not secretly run some private salt business? As long as it is not obvious, the court will not care too much.
Therefore, the huge profits can be imagined.
There are less than a hundred salt merchants in the world who are qualified to operate the salt industry. One hundred families are divided into 10,000 and 20,000 yuan. On average, each family can receive at least 100,000 yuan every year.
This is free money!
In this era when twenty taels of silver is enough for a family of four to live a stable and prosperous life for a whole year, one can imagine what an astronomical figure one hundred thousand taels of silver is.
This is the average number.
The annual profits of the seven major salt merchants in Yangzhou, which occupies the richest area, are even more incalculable.
So, these people complained about poverty in front of him? It really made Jia Lian, such a well-educated person, unable to help but feel cold.
In fact, the imperial court realized that these Yangzhou salt merchants were too wealthy, so they decided to take a stab at them to supplement the military and reduce treasury expenditures.
Jia Lian even still remembered the scene when the salt merchants went to patrol the Salt Censor's Yamen to protest when they went to Yangzhou for the first time.
Maybe there was no successful protest before the policy came down, but after the policy came down, they started to use their own tricks to force the court to submit in this way?
Look, just because you made a mistake, the revenue of the national treasury has been reduced so much. Why don't you cancel the donation quickly so that the national treasury can restore its annual revenue?
To be honest, if there was a fool-proof emperor and the salt merchants used more power (money) in the court, it would really be possible for them to succeed in the game.
Unfortunately, Emperor Ningkang was aware of their intentions and was ready to scare the monkeys.
(End of chapter)
