"It does not matter."
"I believe that you all agree with me. What we should discuss now is how to achieve this goal."
Zhu Yijun spoke at this time and did not let the ministers and ministers argue about this, because he was too lazy to find out the root cause.
After Zhu Yijun said this, Li Chengliang raised his hands and said:
"Your Majesty, as Wangge Lao said, the imperial court is not a bandit, and it cannot punish the salt merchants for their innocence."
"And the salt merchants have deep roots and complicated powers. Even if they offend the imperial envoys, there are people who are dedicated to taking the blame. I have also heard that in Yangzhou and other places, there are wealthy businessmen who specialize in cultivating those who take the blame. Among the adopted children, those who are sincere and grateful are chosen, commonly known as fools. They usually provide them with delicious food and drink, and even use their own connections and power to bring them glory and wealth. However, in times of crisis, they want such fools to take their place. He let such a person do the culpable, even sinful things, without any connection with him, so even if the court killed the culprit and ransacked the culprit's home, it would not harm them at all."
"Generally speaking, if they are more generous and let the court take out millions or even millions of money from the guilty person's home, the court will be very satisfied and will turn a blind eye and treat them as a cash cow. , when you are short of money, just collect them, and they can continue to be arrogant."
"Who makes them rich?"
"However, Your Majesty is a wise master, how can you control it for them?"
"What's more, the imperial court no longer needs to control salt to support the army. Naturally, it does not need to use salt merchants to undermine the benefits of salt for the common people, and there is no need to tolerate the salt merchants anymore."
"So, these salt merchants are simply underestimating His Majesty by going against His Majesty. They are trying to kill an egg with a stone!"
"Since Your Majesty is determined to take all the salt in the world as national property, this is a plan to remove the firepower from under the cauldron and completely cut off the roots of the salt merchants. No matter how wealthy they are, and there are many culprits, as long as the roots are cut off, they will only die."
"It's just that right now, most of the salt is in their hands. We have to be careful that they stop selling salt, causing the people to be short of salt and the army to be short of salt, which will lead to chaos."
“Although I don’t eat much salt every day, it’s really not enough if I don’t eat it.”
"Therefore, in my humble opinion, it would be better for the imperial court to first control a batch of salt at this time."
After Li Chengliang said that, Zhu Yijun nodded.
Then, Pan Jixun, the Secretary of the Ministry of Revenue, said: "In recent years, the Ministry of Revenue has received very little salt. In fact, most of the salt from Hedong and Lianghuai has become private salt and been sold out. The salt merchants are not so much paying for it." Silver-collar official salt, in fact, are all private salt dealers, and they have already directly colluded with the kitchen households to smuggle out the salt that should only be handed over to the court in exchange for silver, so there is not much salt that the court can control."
"Such an important material is no longer in the hands of the imperial court. This shows that the previous salt law has been completely broken and cannot be used!"
Zhu Yijun said with emotion at this time.
He knew that this was related to the fact that the salt mines were still in the hands of the kitchen households, who were still in charge of the production. For the sake of profit, the kitchen households would basically sell the salt privately to salt merchants instead of selling it to the imperial government.
Therefore, Zhu Yijun said that the salt law of private ownership is completely unworkable.
After Zhu Yijun said this, he added: "Although salt is not controlled much by the court, it is not entirely controlled by salt merchants. In other words, salt merchants are not so much salt merchants as they are powerful bureaucrats. They are the He is the one who really controls the salt, but Pan Qing did not mention it, nor even directly said that except for the salt of the Lianghuai River, the Sichuan Well Salt and the Hedong Salt are controlled by the King of Shu and the King of Jin."
After Zhu Yijun said that, he looked at Wang Lin: "Does Pan Qing not know or dare not tell, to save my face?"
"I dare not alienate the clan members."
Pan Jixun replied.
Zhu Yijun said: "According to the facts, how can we talk about estrangement?"
Pan Jixun raised his hand and said yes.
"I have ordered the Jinyi Guards to investigate the smuggling of salt in the world. The salt in Hedong and the salt in Sichuan are both controlled by the King of Jin and the King of Shu. Now, I am interested in collecting their salt."
"But it would be easy for others to detect the salt directly. I decided to send troops to Taiyuan and Chengdu on the pretext of summoning the vassals from all over the world to come to Beijing to discuss the reform of the vassal state. I also took my secret order, copied their mansions, obtained the salt, and escorted them to prison. Come to Nandu."
"Go to Chengdu from the Marquis of Nanchang. Most of your old troops are there. You must ensure that you can get enough salt."
"Taiyuan will go to Tielinghou. I have given him a secret order."
"Before the salt was shipped, we first discussed the matter of reforming the sect. Didn't Wangge Lao bring this up before? He said that the vassal king should move to the south. It happened to be that when the vassals came to the capital, we made this decision. thing."
When Zhu Yijun said this, he looked at Li Chengliang, Wang Xijue and others: "Do you have anything else to say?"
Shen Li said: "Your Majesty, in my humble opinion, if the vassal king wants to take over a foreign vassal, he should not only move to the south, but preferably overseas, so that he can continue the royal bloodline overseas and only allow the feudal vassal. The people support the vassal relatives and benefit the people of their own clan. It also allows the vassal king to use his status as a noble to promote Chinese culture, so that more barbarians are willing to accept the king's culture. In addition, there is a sea separated by the sea, and they are not close to the giants in the country. , even if there is a vassal king who refuses to submit, it will be more difficult to become a leader."
"When the vassals come to Beijing, Ai Qing remembers to mention it."
After Zhu Yijun said this, he asked these ministers to retreat.
And soon, Shi Yusi issued a decree, officially issuing it to the world, allowing all the vassals in the world to enter the capital.
Liu Wei led his troops to Sichuan the next day, preparing to personally invite the King of Shu to come to the southern capital. Of course, he actually went to raid the King of Shu's home.
It is true that many of the vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty were private salt dealers, and some even openly requested salt for sale.
Historically, King Fu Zhu Changxun asked Wanli for 1,300 jins of Huai salt. For every 400 jins of official salt, 1,300 jins equaled more than 500,000 jins of salt.
In order to sell his own salt, King Fu also forced the people of Henan to buy his salt. At that time, the Ming Dynasty still relied on salt profits to support the army, so King Fu's actions indirectly led to the reduction of Jiubian's pay.
Incidents such as the massacre of the Qi family army and the mutiny of the Liaodong frontier army due to lack of pay can be said to be actually related to the greed of the vassal king.
Of course, this was also the fault of Emperor Wanli in history. If he had not nodded, King Fu would not have been able to get so much salt, and he would not have dared to ask the people of Henan to only buy his salt.
You know, according to the system, King Fu has no power to monopolize the salt market.
But in history, King Fu did it. This was naturally due to Wanli's connivance.
Back to the topic.
Therefore, many times, in an imperial country, if the emperor wants to reform, he will eventually blame his own people for the reform.
The real reason why the salt merchants are so rampant is actually because they know that their real backers are the royal relatives.
If the emperor really wants to deal with them, he must dare to attack his relatives first.
This is just like in history, Yongzheng had to kill his brothers if he wanted to reform.
The real big salt merchant is none other than someone close to the emperor, or even the emperor himself.
Wang Xijue and others knew this, so they persuaded the emperor to be tolerant to the salt merchants, and also allowed themselves to be tolerant to the salt merchants. After all, as long as the emperor did not take the initiative to say that he would take action against the real big salt merchants, that is, the emperor's relatives, they would not dare to The one who came up with this idea didn’t even dare to mention it.
After all, no one knows if he will be the next Chao Cuo if he mentions it.
"Your Majesty is your Majesty after all. He is truly selfless and selfless. Frankly speaking, Taizu and all the previous emperors are not as good as him!"
Wang Xijue said a word of appreciation after leaving Zhu Yijun's place.
Shen Li also followed: "Yes, your Majesty really values the people more than his own Zhu family, and is really people-oriented!"
"Do you really think that your Majesty is people-oriented?"
Li Chengliang asked with a smile at this time.
Wang Xijue, Shen Li and others looked over.
Li Chengliang continued: "Your Majesty is obviously self-centered, and because he is self-centered, he has turned a nation into a master, and then made himself comfortable and the people of the same nation comfortable. How can he put the people first?" Ben, why don't you speak clearly?"
After Li Chengliang said that, he smiled and left.
"Can this be explained?"
“Who doesn’t know that this is accomplished through Kuwaiyi?”
"But for those of us who live on the emperor's salary and are loyal to the emperor, we should naturally use the words of the saints to rectify the people's hearts for the emperor and father. There is no reason to disturb the people's hearts."
Wang Xijue also smiled and started talking.
"Yes, then you are not really a traitor?"
Shen Li also replied.
…
"You treacherous ministers and traitors! How dare you trick His Majesty into issuing an order to seize Prince Gu's palace!"
"Since you want to escort me to Nandu, okay, then I will go to Nandu, go to Xiaoling, cry to Taizu, and tell you how you rebellious ministers and traitors alienated the clan and encouraged the emperor to kill the clan!"
Taiyuan.
After receiving the urgent secret order, Tieling Marquis Li Rusong arrived in Taiyuan in mid-November of the 22nd year of Wanli and surrounded the Jin Palace in Taiyuan.
When King Zhu Minchun of the Jin Dynasty learned that the emperor wanted to ransack his house because he sold private salt and monopolized Hedong salt, he was so angry that he cursed Li Rusong on the spot.
Because Zhu Minchun did not dare to scold the emperor directly, he could only vent his anger on Li Rusong, the emperor's trusted ministers.
Li Rusong was not angry either. He knew that King Jin was not angry with him, so he still said: "Your Highness may not believe it, but I have to believe it, and I have to do things according to the order. Since Your Highness is a member of the imperial family, we should also show dignity to His Highness." , please also ask Your Highness to order the entire palace to open the warehouse and come to the front hall for interrogation, so we don’t have to directly send troops in to seize it by force."
Zhu Minchun glanced at the white snow everywhere in front of him and the emperor's personal army standing like a forest on the snow, and said with a smile: "Okay, I'll count on you to be cruel!"
With that said, Zhu Minchun followed the instructions.
Not long after, the soldiers brought by Li Rusong carried out load after load of salt and spread it all over the courtyard. It was as if the snow in the yard had been swept away.
Li Rusong came over, dipped his index finger in it, tasted it, and then said, "There is indeed so much salt in His Highness's house."
Zhu Minchun said nothing. (End of chapter)
