eldest son of Ming dynasty

Chapter 375
With the Salt Law at this level, anti-smuggling is far from enough.

Because corruption has become a common phenomenon, various problems are intertwined.

Just one shouzhi is enough to cause headaches.Over the past few decades, the future production of salt farms has been revealed, and it is almost impossible to straighten out the accounts one by one.

However, Kaizhong Salt Method has gradually become what it is today. It can be said that the illness has deepened, and it is even more impossible to return to the relatively balanced and gentle state in the early Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Houzhao's idea is to get rid of all these things,
Except for the ownership of the saltworks, everything else will be let go.

At the management level, he only focuses on the household department in charge of auctioning the operating rights of the salt farm.

Of course, in this process, some taxes can still be levied.

As for the strategic significance of salt, on the one hand, the court itself could store some salt, and on the other hand, the ownership of the salt field was still in the hands of the court.

In the event of a war, it is a last resort to require the salt produced by the saltworks to be supplied to the military first.

However, it is not as simple as talking about throwing away a formal organization that has existed since the Hongwu period.

Even the emperor must have a justifiable reason.

And corruption in such a corrupt way is a good 'excuse',
Zhu Houzhao is so angry...it's true that he is angry, but it also has some acting elements.

Of course,
Acting has to be a full set, and after he got angry like this, he would naturally lose the mood to discuss other things, and sent them all away with a sentence of 'I'm tired'.

Li Dongyang, Xie Qian, Yang Ting and the three left Qianqing Palace in a daze.

"Both Huaihe Transportation Departments are so corrupt, presumably the actual situation of the salt farms and inspection offices is not much better. Your Majesty is recovering from a serious illness, and hearing such bad things, it is really because we can't share your worries enough. Jiefu, Your Majesty thinks highly of you, and chose you as an imperial envoy. This is a great trust. Everything there depends on you, Jie Fu."

"Li Ge's old saying is serious. No matter what, the subordinate officials are the subjects of Ming Dynasty, and it is their duty to be loyal to the emperor and serve the master."

They exchanged simple greetings and said goodbye to each other.
Xie Qian and Li Dongyang returned to the cabinet together,
"Old Li Ge, let me draft the decree for Zhao Shen's verification and approval, and submit it to His Majesty after drafting."

Li Dongyang's back is a bit bent, but he has become more and more experienced in dealing with the emperor.

"...It seems that His Majesty does have the intention to abolish the Division of Salt Transportation Envoys and the Division of Salt Promotion. The Salt Law has to be changed."

Li Dongyang had talked to Gu Zuo several times before, so he understood.

But Xie Qian was at a loss when he heard this, "Abolish the transportation department and the salt department promotion department? Then who will be in charge of the Ming Dynasty's salt administration in the future? The Shaofu?"

"Nobody cares."

"what for?"

"Xie Ge, do you think private salt can be completely eliminated?"

Xie Qian shook his head naturally, "All dynasties and dynasties have had the disadvantage of private salt."

"Why?"

"Because the price of private salt is low."

"No, it's because the price of private salt is low, but you can still make a profit." Li Dongyang understands, "Because there is corruption in official salt, the cost of official salt is always greater than that of private salt, so private salt cannot be eliminated. Unless it is all private salt .”

Knowing he was shocked,
Li Dongyang explained a few more words, "Half a year ago, His Majesty was thinking about how to solve the disadvantages of the salt class. He discussed with Gu Liqing and considered that the operation right of the salt farm could be auctioned. It is equivalent to a lease, that is, the salt merchant pays a sum of money , to obtain the right to use the salt field for five years, and then return it after five years. In this way, the imperial court does not have to control how the salt is produced and sold. It is all handed over to the salt merchants.”

Xie Qian turned pale with shock, "But in this case, isn't the salt industry controlled by private individuals?!"

"What can a few merchants control? It's just that this method does have its own shortcomings. Of course, the advantage is that it reduces the cost of the court, and all the salt officials starting from Yunsi can be removed. The salary will also save 10,000+ taels. At the same time, the imperial court can still obtain salt lessons through auctions.”

Speaking of which,
Zhao Shen's memorial should have given the emperor a good excuse.

"If Your Majesty really has such an idea, why bother to go to war in Yangzhou?"

"If the court makes such a move, it will be easy to push the reform of the salt law. Otherwise, how can you be so obedient?"

The emperor has always been considerate in everything he does.

And among other things,

The silver copied from Yangzhou alone will not be less than 500 million taels.

For the silver, it's worth making a move.

Zhu Houzhao also knew this.

But what he has to worry about now is that as the emperor, he has too much wealth in his hands.

Although the situation can be stabilized to a certain extent by strengthening the military and at the same time giving relief to the bottom households, at least there will be no chaos, but such a concentration of wealth means that the country is rich and the people are poor. If things go on like this, there will be endless troubles.

If the money is spent more slowly, and Yangzhou has no silver taels for copying, the internal funds will probably exceed 1000 million taels of deposit silver.

At the same time, Daming is somewhat short of silver at this time.

In this way, there is a high probability that there will be problems in the private economy.

After the officials left,
Zhu Houzhao's mood stabilized,

He is thinking of spending his money.

10,000+ kitchen households are calculated at three taels of silver per person, and at least 60 taels of silver are needed. Considering that there will still be encroachment in this process, he will have an extra 20, so the 80 has to be spent.

As a result, there are still about 440 million taels of silver in the internal funds.

He has to spend at least another 400 million taels, so adding Yangzhou's criminal money and internal money, there will still be more than 500 million taels of silver, which is a lot.

"...Liu Jin, go and announce the two ministers from the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Rites."

Liu Jin felt sorry for the emperor, "Your Majesty, I am already tired today, why don't I wait until tomorrow?"

Zhu Houzhao is not a guy with a broken brain, especially this serious illness made him realize something.

Don't be in a hurry to do work, and the days won't last long.

In particular, his father is also an example of this.

So after thinking about it for a while, "Then tomorrow afternoon, put them first."

"Yes." Liu Jin was overjoyed to see that she had succeeded in persuading her.

He's been in trouble lately, and anything that proves his standing in the Emperor's heart pleases him.

Zhu Houzhao got up and twisted his body.

The sun has slowly set outside, and the midday heat is gone.The kiosk by the lake is a bit cooler.

Since he didn't deal with government affairs today, he took a short rest and continued to recover, so he also had some fun for himself.

Just call Qiuyun to play chess with him.

It is so much more comfortable to have some light food and sleep well at night.

Day two.

Lin Han, Minister of Rites, and Zeng Jian, Minister of Industry, entered the palace according to the will.

Zhu Houzhao's face became more rosy, and most of the youthful vigor seemed to have returned, "...I want to build a larger library in the capital."

The word library is easier for the ancients to understand.

"The library?"

"Well. I know that there is Wenyuan Pavilion in the imperial court to collect books and classics. But that is where I study and study. This time, I want to build a library for ordinary people."

Both Lin Han and Zeng Jian were a little surprised.
But even though it was strange...they couldn't object.After all, there's nothing wrong with that.

"Your Majesty's intention is to use the library to educate the people."

"you can say it this way."

After thinking about it, Lin Hansi didn't think there was any problem, and finally agreed, "This is good governance that benefits the present and benefits future generations! In this way, our Daming Confucian culture will surely prosper!"

Although Zhu Houzhao didn't like these two old ministers very much, they were pedantic and not evil.

"What I mean is that the library should be located in the west city. It should be closer to the academy, and the scale should be as large as possible, so as not to have enough books in the future. Of course, if there is not enough space, it should be further away. In short, it must be large first."

Zeng Jian didn't understand, "Your Majesty, how big is this?"

Zhu Houzhao thought for a while, "It must be able to accommodate 5000 people studying here at the same time."

"5000 people?!"

Confucius also had three thousand disciples.

However, Zhu Houzhao calculated according to the number of people who will take the exam. In the year of the imperial examination, there will basically be about 5000 candidates who will enter Beijing.

But the number of people is one aspect. The most important thing is that when you grow up, you can cover everything and put more books.

And he will not only store Confucian classics, such as military books, history books, agricultural books, and even books on economics in the future, books from Gewu College, etc. will be stored.

However, he would not talk to the two veterans about releasing books other than Confucian classics.

Now just talk about building a library.

Zeng Jian didn't say anything else about it, he only had one answer, "I heard that His Majesty has set up the Planning Department of the Capital. Do you want to cooperate with Song Sizheng for such a huge building like the library?"

Zhu Houzhao nodded, "This is no problem, I will not talk about it."

In addition, the nature of the library will be non-profit.

Because it is aimed at ordinary people, everyone will actually be allowed to enter it to read freely and for free.

As a nation, our emphasis on education is immeasurable.At this time, there is no theory that reading is useless. At this time, everything is inferior, and only reading is high.

But reading in ancient times was not easy. If the family was poor, where did the books come from?
And the imperial court built a treasure house of knowledge and opened it to the outside world. Who said that there would not be military geniuses who have read military books and internal affairs talents who are good at economics?
It can be said that this is the surprise of the future.

(End of this chapter)