Lu Ming

Chapter 523 The Daily Life of Shopkeeper Wu ([-])

The goods brought by the caravan were all urgently needed things in Hejiazhai, among which the most numerous were crude goods such as salt and agricultural tools.

Let me talk about salt first.

In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, with the increasing corruption of the ruling group, the royal family, eunuchs, nobles, and bureaucrats saw that it was profitable to hold salt coins, so they went to the emperor to ask for salt coins and resell them for profit. Occupy the nest".This kind of behavior, in a simple summary, is a kind of rent-seeking of rights, and it is an act of blatantly encroaching on the country's salt tax.

In this way, the "opening of China" method of salt, which had been effective in the early Ming Dynasty, could not be played at all.

Later, the salt law was corrupted, and the smuggling group composed of wealthy businessmen, famous families, military guards and local tyrants began to openly armed and sold salt, resulting in a large loss of national tax revenue.

Now, on this plane, things have changed.

Since a certain force established its presence outside Guangzhou, salt, a product that has been made worse and worse by the government, has suddenly become more active.

Before this, the monopoly model of the government + salt merchants resulted in higher and higher salt prices, worse salt quality, and less and less salt tax revenue. Salt to eat, especially people in remote areas.

When the crossover started to wholesale salt in Guangzhou New District, the previous pattern was broken.

Guangdong is not like Fujian. Guangdong also produced salt in the past. It has a complete system of salt merchants + official salt.Now that the old system has been manipulated by the cross-travelers, it can't stand it immediately, and the salt merchants and the salt transport envoy immediately exploded.

However, times have changed, and now the time-traversing crowd has full wings and exposed fangs, and they are no longer the group of dicks who cautiously went to Fujian to talk about recruiting.Now even if the cross-travelers openly sell private salt on the pier in the new area, the salt merchants and salt transportation department can't do anything about it.Even if the salt merchants are backed by big figures with backgrounds, even if the notes of the Salt Transport Department can be heard by Datian.

There is no way, there is really no way, no matter whether everyone comes to the text or to the military, Cao Zongbing is not afraid of them all.

Those who came to Wuwu, now, as soon as they leave the gate of Guangzhou, they can see warships full of cannons and the Cao family's elite army that wiped out all the pirates in the outer sea.

The source of the text is still the same sentence, as long as someone surnamed Cao does not raise a flag to rebel in Guangdong, and as long as the Tartars in the north do not die for a day, Chongzhen will never support the political forces behind the Guangdong-Guangzhou Salt Transport Department and the dry salt merchants.

Having said that, since the salt government is becoming increasingly corrupt in the hands of salt merchants and corrupt salt transporters, and the imperial court also cannot collect taxes, what is the difference between Cao Chuan's smuggling of salt for profit and a dry salt merchant's sale of salt to Chongzhen?It's just a turtle when it's gone.

The most disgusting thing for the gentlemen is that the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, who was supposed to be everyone's backer in this matter, was actually Xiong Wencan, an old thief who came to take office on the Cao's big ship
Light and dark tried both hands, and after finding out that what they were facing was really a super tiger that had penetrated into the system, Guangdong's salt administration system felt hopeless.

Then there was a period of chaos: anyone with money could go to the wharf in the new area to wholesale salt, regardless of good or bad.

During this period, some salt merchants also tried to give it a go, swallowing all the salt goods in Cao Zongbing’s hands and hoarding them for a surprise, and then the hard-headed people were bankrupted by the endless fine salt shipped from Yizhou-Taiwan Seven The stock salt farm has already achieved medium-scale production, and the wharf in the new area has more than 500 tons of salt in stock for sale at any time.

Through this method, Travelers was able to use "salt dumping" in the shortest possible time to destroy the original official and private sales channels for salt, and the old pattern was completely disrupted.

At this time, Shi Shiran, the time-traveling crowd, came out to clean up the mess.The method is very simple: sell by slicing, and set up agents in various places, just like other goods.

And the salt merchants who had experienced the secret arm wrestling with Cao Zongbing finally knew how powerful they were, no one dared to pierce them anymore, and each of them honestly pulled the silver cart and went to the new district wharf to bid for the salt agency rights in various places.

After declaring to take refuge in the new owner and bid for the agency rights of the salt industry in various places, a Guangdong-Guangzhou salt industry wholesale agent group composed of some salt merchants and emerging businessmen was formed.

The salt merchants soon discovered that they had participated in an efficient and clean new commercial wholesale network.After feeling the charm of the new model, many far-sighted people were ecstatic—as long as Cao Zongbing does not fall, then everyone will only earn more money in the future.

What was really damaged in this matter was actually the Yanzheng Yamen in Guangdong.Cao Zongbing used a large amount of refined salt as a weapon, overturned the table, and mastered the de facto salt administration in Guangdong, eroding the inherent government rights.

In the end, the time-travelers won a complete victory and were able to replicate Fujian's salt industry structure in Guangdong, forming a new salt industry group tied to the interests of the time-traveling regime.

After that, a kind of contract requirement that is familiar to future generations, but which is a shocking thunder in this plane, really subverted the cognition of Guangdong and Guangxi merchants: Guangdong and Guangxi Salt Industry Corporation set a minimum sales volume for all agents, and agents If the business sells less in the coming year, there will be penalties, but if it sells more, the head office will get rebates.

The merchants were really shocked: from ancient times to the present, they only heard that the goods were not enough, but they had never heard of such regulations that forced everyone to sell more goods.

In fact, the time-travelers are also quite helpless in this matter.For more than three years, they have opened industrial zones in Taiwan and engaged in industrial construction frantically. However, today, it is the raw material salt that can really subvert the traditional seller’s market in terms of quantity, achieve dumping, and embody the advantages of industrialization. Table salt is also produced in an industrialized mode, but it is not as fulfilling as something that comes out of the assembly line.

The result of wanton dumping of salt was the immediate elimination of private salt lords.Now in Fujian and Guangdong, the big salt lords have become the distributors of the time travel, and the little salt lords are really extinct.Because dealers from all over the country are selling goods desperately in accordance with the contract in the territory, the valleys and valleys that have not been visited before have been developed by dealers, and cheap private salt is everywhere, and the profit margin of private salt lords is gone. just disappeared.

After clarifying the cause and effect, the real background of shopkeeper Wu coming to Hejiabazi this time is ready to be revealed: Baiji Chain Grocery Company, as the salt agent in Zengcheng County, now needs to develop the local market that was previously neglected, so Shopkeeper Wu brought the caravan to the remote Hejiazhai shortly after the year. His fundamental purpose was to contact old customers to maintain channels and find sales for more products in the future.

In fact, Mingren is not stupid at all.After realizing that the supply of salt is so abundant that it is necessary to sign a contract to complete the specified sales volume, Baiji Grocery, reacting to it, quickly adjusted its business model, changing from waiting for customers to come to the door to take the initiative. The old brother, who had not seen him for many years, took the initiative to come to the door this time I went to see my brother.

(End of this chapter)