My Ming Dynasty, I have the final say

Chapter 81 Salt Law
Not long after Yang Sichang left, Li Ruhua, the Minister of Household Affairs, and Bi Ziyan from Duzhisi came hand in hand.

"Your Majesty, this is an overview of the tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty summarized by me."

He handed a memorial to the eunuch, and then it was handed to the emperor's desk.

Opening the memorial in front of him, Zhu Youxiao frowned deeply after reading a few pages.

Messy, too messy.

And it’s too little.

Tax system chaos is one aspect.

In an industry where money can be made, the fees charged are too little.

The main national financial warehouse of the Ming Dynasty was Taicang, and the royal family relied on internal funds.

Taicang's main revenue is agricultural tax, which is divided into summer tax and autumn grain tax. The two taxes are divided into transportation and retention. In layman's terms, they are local tax and national tax.

A portion of the money was transported to Taicang and internal funds respectively to cover the daily consumption of the royal court, official salaries in the capital, military pay for the nine towns, and other state expenditures, such as disaster relief and government expenses.

What is retained is the expenses for the royal family’s salary, local officials’ salary, disaster relief and education.

There are other commercial taxes, which are mainly divided into more than a dozen types such as over-tax (money tariff, entrance tax), residence tax (official warehouse money), store gate money (business tax), and deed tax.

However, the emperors of the Ming Dynasty did very bad things by discounting the royal family's salary, so they would reward the vassal king with cash from time to time.

Hongzhi, Zhengde, and even Jiajing all did this.

For example, in the first month of the sixth year of Hongzhi, King Qi was given banknotes to the Liu Family Tax Division of Hanyang Prefecture.

In addition, the feudal king can also set up separate factories to intercept department stores.

It hurts the tax base.

This kind of chaotic management has meant that the court has never had a clear understanding of the taxation situation in various places.

Moreover, since there is no unified tax management, it is impossible to understand the development situation of each region from the overall situation.

Ming Dynasty salt tax. . .Uh, don't mention it, it collapsed.

The merchants paid money to the court to buy salt, and then took the salt to the salt field to extract salt.

However, after the Kaizhong Salt Law was changed, the imperial court's printing of salt was just like printing money. There was no rules and regulations, and the salt market was greatly changed.

Looking at the messy tax records, Zhu Youxiao rubbed his head with a headache.

"I want to separate tax matters from the household department."

Rubbing his head, Zhu Youxiao put the memorial on the table, looked at the two people and asked.

"My dear friends, do you have anyone who is good at economics to recommend?"

"This..."

Hearing this, Li Ruhua and Bi Ziyan looked at each other, both of them a little clueless.

It’s still being demolished. What powers and responsibilities does the Household Department have if it is demolished?

The Ministry of Revenue has lost the power to manage the treasury's money and grain. If the tax collection power is also removed, the Ministry of Revenue will be almost empty.

"The Ministry of Households is in charge of the Yellow Book and the Fish Scale Book, which are responsible for the affairs of mountains, rivers and rivers. They exercise the power of central coordination and cannot easily take charge of taxation matters."

Seeing the expressions of the two of them, Zhu Youxiao also knew that he was doing something wrong and coughed.

"From now on, river affairs will be directly under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Household Affairs, and there will no longer be a river governor."

"Furthermore, tax matters are related to the country's annual income."

"Nowadays, the imperial court is spending a lot of money in Liaodong, and the imperial court is seriously short of silver. Don't you two dear ministers think that the tax affairs of the Ming Dynasty need to be sorted out and coordinated?"

With that said, Zhu Youxiao flicked his sleeves and said.

"I have decided on this matter, do you two have any talents to recommend?"

"Economic talent."

After hearing the emperor's "I have made up my mind", the two of them threw their objections out of their minds at the same time and began to think about who could shoulder this important task.

There were not many others in the Ming Dynasty, but there must be enough officials and ministers.

But when it comes to economic talent. . . "I recommend Yuan Shizhen, the envoy of Lianghuai Salt Law Road Supervisor."

After thinking about it, Li Ruhua finally thought of his old friend, Yuan Shizhen.

"In the 45th year of Wanli, Yuan Shizhen supervised the salt administration of the Huaihe River as an inspector and served as the Salt Law Dao. The officialdom of the Huaihe River was insufficient to collect salt, and merchants waited for a long time without salt. In order to sell the salt accumulated in previous years, he established a new "Gang Salt Law" , and in the past four years, his planned border subsidies and payment of silver to Taicang have reached more than four million taels."

"Oh?"

Zhu Youxiao's eyes instantly lit up when he heard that he was a talented person who could make money from salt.

Moreover, one million talents were obtained from Lianghuai in one year.

"Tell me about this salt method."

"The minister obeys the order."

After hearing this, Li Ruhua handed over his hands and began to introduce the Gangsalt Method to the emperor.

"The so-called Gang Salt Method is to compile the merchants who have salt in their hands into a gang book, divided into ten gangs. Every year, one gang will be used for old quotations, and nine gangs will be introduced for new ones. All merchants who are famous in the gang book can obtain a salt industry professional He has the right to sell, and others have no right to sell. The imperial court no longer collects salt, no longer distributes salt, and only collects salt tax."

"Ah."

Listening to Li Ruhua's introduction, Zhu Youxiao blinked.

This sounds so much like the Qing Dynasty's Gangyan Law, which is the sales rights contracting system.

Reaching out and touching his smooth chin, Zhu Youxiao felt that Yuan Shizhen should be a talent.

The content that Qingqing copied from the Ming Dynasty must be able to make money.

If he remembered correctly, the Huizhou merchants in history relied on the Gangyan method to take advantage of the situation and gradually became on an equal footing with the Shanxi merchants who invested in Qingqing.

After blinking a few times, Zhu Youxiao's heart suddenly became even darker.

There is another advantage of using the salt method, that is, the number of pigs in the pig pen is numbered, and there will be no situation where you don’t know how many pigs are raised in your pig pen.

The hereditary and irreplaceable right to sell salt will turn this person into a thorn in the flesh and a thorn in the eyes of other merchants.

After all, it's easy to make a fortune in salt.

For example, Shanxi merchants, special interests alliances, eight of them to name a few, relied on the fact that after the reform of the Kaizhong Salt Law, everyone worked together to engage in salt production.

If this method were used, if he smuggled supplies to the slaves, others would report him.

If he was short of money, or if he was reported for doing something bad, he would just copy it and then find another businessman.

"According to Li Aiqing's introduction, he is also a talented person, so let's invite him to the capital."

After listening to Li Ruhua's description of Yuan Shizhen's ability to make money, Zhu Youxiao immediately typed it up and let this person sort out the tax affairs for Ming Dynasty.

"The minister leads the order."

After hearing the emperor's words, Li Ruhua quickly cupped his hands.

Li Ruhua was very satisfied with the attention he received from the little emperor.

Although the little emperor Qian Gang is a bit arbitrary, he can still listen to what people say.

After the two left, Zhu Youxiao's fingers clicked on the memorial in front of him.

Open source and reduce expenditure.

Bi Zi strictly limits expenditures. If Yuan Shizhen is really capable, then Kaiyuan can do it.

In this way, Daming's money bag was in his hands.

He stood up from the chair, walked to the sand table with the memorial in his hand, and looked at the location of Shanxi marked in red on the map.

A sneer appeared on the corner of Zhu Youxiao's mouth.

Come to think of it, Yuan Shizhen must have known a group of big salt merchants from Lianghuai.

ps: It made me laugh. In the encyclopedia edited by that talented person, I posted related works.

　Why I laugh is related to the work.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)