Crazy at the end of the Ming Dynasty

That Lu Yunhuan suffered a heavy loss in the rebellion of the Holy Spirit Society.Because Lu Yunhuan is in the salt business, he must be mainly engaged in private salt.Although Lu Yunhuan has also opened up all the joints in the officialdom, after all, he can't sell private salt under the eyes of the government.

Therefore, Lu Yunhuan placed the place where the salt goods were stored in one of his villages outside the county seat.Moreover, he arranged most of his Zhuang Ding to guard in Zhuangzi.

However, after the rioters from the Holy Spirit Society came, Lu Yunhuan had no way to evacuate the heavy salt goods to the county town, so he could only take his family and Xiaoruan into the county town to seek refuge.

But in this way, his village where the salt goods were placed was broken by the rioters of the Holy Spirit Society.Not to mention the loss of the salt cargo, even Zhuang Ding, who was guarding the transportation of the salt cargo under his command, lost most of it.

To make matters worse, the counties to the north of Runing Mansion, the birthplace of the rebellion of the Holy Spirit Society, were exactly where Lu Yunhuan's salt was sold.Lu Yunhuan's lower-level sellers in those counties died and fled, breaking Lu Yunhuan's sales network for salt products all at once.

In comparison, Yangzhou salt merchant Lu Jianchen faced even greater problems.We already know that the sales area of ​​Lu Yunhuan's salt products accounts for more than half of the total annual sales of salt products in the Lu family where Lu Jianchen lives.Therefore, this sales area is very important to the Lu family.

As for why the Lu family occupies this sales area, apart from the close relationship between the Lu family and Lu Yunhuan's Lu family for several generations, the main reason is that this sales area is relatively remote for Yangzhou salt merchants.

Speaking of this, we may be a little strange. Judging from the straight-line distance, Guide Mansion should be one of the places closest to Yangzhou among all the mansions in Henan Province. How can it be relatively remote?

This is mainly because the transportation of salt cargo needs to be transported by boat.From Yangzhou to the small town of Wu Shigong, you need to go through the Grand Canal, enter the Yellow River, and then bend to the river in front of the town, which is a big circle.It can be said that in Kaifeng City, where the distance in a straight line is much farther than the small town, it is much more convenient to transport salt goods than the small town of Wu Shigong.

But anyway, no matter how small the mosquito legs are, they still have meat.If the Lu family gave up this sales area, other Yangzhou salt merchants would definitely not mind entering this area.

Due to the rebellion of the Holy Spirit Society's rioters, the sales of the Lu family's salt products were greatly affected.What's more troublesome is that the sales of Yangzhou salt merchants are determined according to the amount of salt they have in their hands.Except for a part of Yanyin that can be inherited by the family, most of the salt merchants come to the Yamen of Yangzhou Salt Transport Envoy to receive it once a year.

Every salt merchant completes the sale of salt goods according to the quantity of salt cited, neither too much nor too little.Of course, if a certain salt merchant can sell more salt goods in newly developed areas without affecting the sales of other salt merchants, that is also your skill, and other salt merchants will not come whatever.

But if the sales volume of a certain salt merchant decreases, then he will reduce a certain share when he receives the salt quotation next year, and that part of the share will be divided among other salt merchants.

Among the salt merchants in Yangzhou, once a certain salt merchant reduces the share of salt imports, there will basically be a vicious circle in the future.The salt merchant's share of salt imports will also decrease year by year, so that he will eventually be excluded from the circle of salt merchants.

And Lu Jianchen's Lu family is now facing this problem.This time he came to Guide Mansion again, and he came to Lu Yunhuan to discuss and solve this problem.At the end of the discussion, the two of them decided that the solution to the problem was to reopen the salt markets in those counties of Runing Prefecture as soon as possible.

Lu Yunhuan had already sent someone to contact the sellers in those counties. Now that those counties had no salt supply for several months, they really needed salt.However, because the road from the small town to those counties passes through a mountainous area, and there are bandits in the mountainous area, there is no way to transport the salt goods to those counties.

And because of the loss of his subordinate Zhuang Ding, Lu Yunhuan couldn't arrange enough force to transport these salt cargoes.In this way, Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen thought of Wu Shigong.

Wu Shigong has powerful force in his hands, and also escorted a caravan to Jining Prefecture a while ago, so he is a very suitable candidate.Therefore, this time Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen invited Wu Shigong, wanting to find out Wu Shigong's tone at the banquet.If Wu Shigong's request was not excessive, they wanted Wu Shigong to send troops to escort them to deliver the salt cargo.

Needless to say, Wu Shigong still has a pretty good reputation in the eyes of the local gentry.Although some gentry could not understand the behavior of Wu Shigong and those warriors, until now, Wu Shigong was still very reputable in his work.He never broke his promise.In addition, in the negotiations between Wu Shigong and the local gentry, it is generally very reasonable.He didn't use the force in his hands to run amok.

Otherwise, even if Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen wanted to open up the sales channel of salt goods, they would not dare to deal with Wu Shigong, a powerful warrior like Wu Shigong.Otherwise, these businessmen would be afraid, and Wu Shigong would swallow their belts and bones into their stomachs.

At the beginning of the banquet, after drinking for three rounds, Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen told Wu Shigong their idea of ​​asking Wu Shigong to escort the salt cargo.

Wu Shigong didn't agree to them immediately, he first asked: "Then what benefits can I get from this escort?" Wu Shigong wanted to know how much benefit he could get, and then weighed how he should do it.

In fact, Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen had already discussed it properly.Lu Yunhuan replied: "My lord, this time we are going to transport more than 700 shi of salt goods. For the first transaction, we will give you 500 taels of hard work. Every time we deliver in the future, we will give you five kuai per shi for your hard work." Fei. What do you think, my lord?"

Now due to the lack of salt in those counties, the price of local salt has risen to about two taels of silver per stone.Even if Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen transported the salt goods there, causing the price of salt to drop, the escort fee they allocated to Wu Shigong was just the wool for the sheep.Therefore, Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen didn't feel sorry for giving Wu Shigong so much money.

Wu Shigong was overjoyed when he heard Lu Yunhuan's words.However, he still pretended to frown on the surface, and then said: "But the place you want to be escorted by this officer has already left the Guide Mansion, and when you arrive at the Runing Mansion, you have already left the officer's defense zone. In this way It's inconvenient to do it." Wu Shigong also thought about taking the opportunity to gain some more benefits.

Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen looked at each other, and Lu Jianchen said with a smile: "Sir, although we are responsible for the sales of salt products in those counties, we are not responsible for the sales of salt products in the northern mountainous areas of those counties. I didn’t get in. If the adults have a way to get in in the future, the villain will make the decision here, and give the adults a price of one tael per stone, and the more profits will belong to the adults.”

Then Lu Jianchen and Lu Yunhuan told Wu Shigong about the situation in the northern mountainous areas of those counties: In those mountainous areas, there are old habitual bandits with intricate forces, so basically no businessman dares to enter that area. do business.

Of course, if someone is brave enough to use their own lives to gamble, as long as they bring salt goods into those mountainous areas to sell, they can even sell at a high price of four or five taels of silver per stone.Therefore, habitual bandits in these mountainous areas can still get salt.

Wu Shigong understood in his heart, and thought to himself: "It turns out that he wrote me a bad check."

However, seeing that what he got was about the same, besides, Wu Shigong still wanted to make friends with Lu Jianchen, a Yangzhou salt merchant, so in the end, Wu Shigong still agreed to the request of Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen.

The atmosphere of the banquet also relaxed.Then, Wu Shigong curiously asked Lu Jianchen and Lu Yunhuan: Why was the demand and profit of salt so great in the Ming Dynasty?

Lu Jianchen briefly introduced it to Wu Shigong: In the Ming Dynasty, salt had another important function besides being used as a condiment.That is the role of food preservation.

In the Ming Dynasty, there were no refrigerators, so when the food was too much to eat, the excess food was often pickled to prevent the food from spoiling.

In addition, salt also has the effect of cleaning teeth, which is to play the role of modern toothpaste.Also, livestock also need a lot of salt.

If people don't eat salt, they will be weak all over, but the poor people can still endure it with simple food.But if the livestock do not have salt to eat, they will not have the strength to do farm work.Therefore, people who raise livestock will do everything possible to ensure that their livestock have enough salt to eat.Therefore, the demand for salt is relatively large.

As for the high price of salt, apart from the imperial monopoly, the main reason is transportation costs.The transportation conditions in the Ming Dynasty were quite primitive compared to modern times.Even in the Jiangnan region and the capital city at both ends of the Grand Canal, the prices of some commodities have a difference of more than double, and the prices of some scarce commodities even have a difference of three or four times.

As for heavy commodities such as salt, even in the same area, the price is different because of the convenience of transportation.Especially in mountainous areas where transportation is inconvenient, the price is even more expensive.

Wu Shigong was popularized by Lu Jianchen about ancient salt sales.He thought in his heart: "No wonder the modern time-travelers are crowded to the coastal areas of Shandong, Fujian and Hainan! It turns out that they are all attracted by salt!"

After it was agreed at the banquet, Wu Shigong went back to Qianhusuo Fortress to arrange guards.Finally, it was decided to send a squadron of 150 infantry and three squadrons of [-] cavalry to guard.

Originally, Xue Yongli would be the leader of this escort.However, due to Wu Shigong's reputation, Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen asked Wu Shigong to lead the team by name.The customer is God!Wu Shigong finally decided to lead the team himself.This made Wu Shigong a little excited, he finally stepped out of Xue Yongli's shadow, and it was his first solo flight!