Borrow the day to change the day

() "Oh, okay, I will ask the imperial doctor to look at his injuries, and then go back to recuperate early, and I will be your bodyguard when he recovers." After the Emperor Chongzhen finished speaking, he gave orders to prevent Gu Baichuan from staying at the Meridian Gate all the time. Waiting, delayed recovery.

After solving the matter of Gu Baichuan, Emperor Chongzhen said to Zhong Jinwei: "Master Zhong, you are also tired, take a good rest, and see the situation tomorrow, it is fine not to move to the new house, just continue to live in the side hall."

Archie is gone, and he feels uncomfortable living alone in the side hall, Zhong Jinwei hurriedly said: "Move, move, move tomorrow as planned."

As soon as the voice fell, he remembered something, and said to Emperor Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, I remembered a few things on the way, and I need to report them to Your Majesty."

Oh, Master Zhong has another idea.Emperor Chongzhen was very curious, and when he was about to ask, Wang Chengen came in with a memorial.

"Your Majesty, today's excerpt of the capital donation has arrived."

Emperor Chongzhen was very concerned about the resettlement of refugees, and the resettlement of refugees depended on the degree of donations from wealthy households in the capital, so Emperor Chongzhen asked Wang Chengen to report every day.

When Emperor Chongzhen heard it, he realized that the sky had already darkened, and it was the time for the daily report.So he asked Wang Chengen to show him the memorial.

After reading it, Emperor Chongzhen asked Zhong Jinwei to also take a look at the charity donation.

Zhong Jinwei took it from Wang Chengen's hand and took a look. The memorial was clearly written, how much cash was donated today, how much material was discounted, how much labor was registered, and the cumulative amount of the above items.Then there is the number of refugees, how long the charity donations and labor can support the refugees, all of these are clear at a glance, especially the number of food, clothing, and charcoal, which are the current necessities of the refugees.

After reading it, Zhong Jinwei smiled and said to Emperor Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, it took more than a month to support more than [-] refugees. Now the charitable donation has only been carried out for about seven days. With so many, it is considered acceptable."

"Master Zhong, you don't know, the total number of donations every day is on a downward trend, and the follow-up situation is not optimistic." Emperor Chongzhen didn't smile at all because of Zhong Jinwei's relief. <Han, maybe the duration of the cold will be longer. "Wang Chengen also helped Emperor Chongzhen explain the seriousness of the situation.

"Oh, that's it, it doesn't matter, there is no unparalleled road. With such a long time buffer, I will definitely find a way." Zhong Jinwei comforted him, and suddenly remembered what he thought of on the way, and said to Emperor Chongzhen: " Your Majesty, the court can use work as relief to ease the pressure on the refugees."

"Master Zhong, you have to have money to provide relief with work." Emperor Chongzhen sighed.

"Your Majesty, I may have a solution. There are some things that I want to report to Your Majesty."

Emperor Chongzhen remembered that Zhong Jinwei had said something was up before, but was interrupted by Wang Chengen, so he hurriedly said, "Master Zhong, please come quickly if you have something to do."

"Your Majesty, it's like this. I stayed at Yan Yingyuan's house for two days and got to know some folk situations. I want to talk to Your Majesty."

After hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen was a little disappointed, thinking that he had some good idea, and it would not be some trivial matter.

Zhong Jinwei saw the change in Emperor Chongzhen's face, and knew that he might not take it seriously, so he emphasized to Emperor Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, this matter is related to the improvement of people's lives that I want to talk about later, so it is necessary to talk about it first." .”

When Emperor Chongzhen heard that the affairs of Yan Yingyuan's family could improve the lives of the people all over the world, which was a major event, he sat up straight and pricked up his ears, wanting to hear what Zhong Jinwei had to say.

Wang Chengen was also very curious. However, he knew Zhong Jinwei quite well, and knew that he would not be aimless, so he listened with his ears up.

"Your Majesty, I learned about a group of common people's life data at Yan Yingyuan's house: a commoner spends about one or two five renminbi a year, and a person needs about fifty catties of salt a year to keep his body from becoming weak. The usual salt The price of fifty catties of salt is not fixed. When it is expensive, it costs more than five cents of silver, and when it is cheap, it costs less than four cents. Salt money accounts for 20.00%30.00 to [-]%[-] of the living cost of ordinary people, and most of the rest is used for purchases. Food. After a year, there is basically no money to buy other things. Therefore, the common people are happy all year round if they have a new set of clothes during the Chinese New Year.”

Zhong Jinwei conveyed all the information learned by Yan Yingyuan's family to Emperor Chongzhen in one breath, but neither Emperor Chongzhen nor Wang Chengen had a special reaction, and they didn't hear something very important.

Zhong Jinwei was a little confused when he saw Emperor Chongzhen blinking his eyes. He didn't know what he meant by what he said, so he began to explain in detail: "Your Majesty, first of all, does salt money account for too much expenditure in people's lives? Point, these are necessary daily necessities, occupying such a large expenditure, do the common people still have money to buy other items, can their lives be better?"

"Master Zhong is right, but salt tax has been a major source of income for the imperial court since ancient times. If the price is too low, the imperial court will not receive much tax." Emperor Chongzhen explained.

"Your Majesty, what is the purpose of the court's tax collection? Is it taken from the people and used for the people?" Zhong Jinwei asked.

In principle, this is true, but in practice it is often not.Emperor Chongzhen didn't know how to explain to Zhong Jinwei.

Zhong Jinwei didn't wait for Emperor Chongzhen's explanation, and said directly: "Your Majesty, the price of salt is set high, but the tax collected may not necessarily be high."

"What is the explanation for this?" Emperor Chongzhen didn't understand, how could it be wrong for such a simple truth.

"Your Majesty, have you heard of private salt?"

This, of course I have heard that as long as you are an emperor, there is no one who does not know about private salt.

"If the government's salt price is set high, there will be room for private salt trading. To be honest, Your Majesty, the official salt must be set too high. After the common people cannot afford the price of necessities beyond the range of purchasing power, no matter what the court prohibits, Some people will buy private salt, because private salt is cheap, and it is said that the quality of private salt is better than official salt.”

When Emperor Chongzhen was considering whether this kind of people could be regarded as troublemakers, Zhong Jinwei continued to explain his reasons: "Your Majesty, in this way, the imperial court will not collect taxes on the content of private salt, and this part of the tax will be in vain. gone."

Emperor Chongzhen heard what Zhong Jinwei said, and felt that if the official salt was set too high, private salt would be more rampant, and the more private salt was rampant, the court would collect less tax. This is the reason.

When Zhong Jinwei said this, he turned around and asked Wang Chengen who was on the side: "My lord, does your East Factory have any investigation report on the salt price in major areas of the country?"

Wang Chengen looked at Emperor Chongzhen, this kind of information was also one of the top secrets, and he dared not say it privately in front of the emperor.

Emperor Chongzhen obviously had nothing to hide from Zhong Jinwei, and he didn't know it himself.So he also asked Wang Cheng'en, "Dear companion, do you have this report?"

"Your Majesty, there is such a report, which is an investigation made during the reign of Tianqi to regulate the salt price in Lianghuai." Wang Chengen replied truthfully.

When Emperor Chongzhen asked about the result, he looked at Zhong Jinwei, wondering what he meant.

Zhong Jinwei saw that Wang Chengen said yes, and he didn't want Wang Chengen to take it to read. The memorial must have no punctuation marks, so he didn't bother to read it.

Zhong Jinwei asked Wang Cheng'en directly: "Eunuch Wang, you should have read the report. I would like to ask, generally speaking, what is the price ratio of private salt and official salt?"

"The price ratio between private salt and official salt is about [-]:[-] to [-]:[-]. If the quality difference is large, the ratio is less, and if the quality is not much different, the price difference is larger." Wang Chengen replied truthfully.

"Okay, let me ask you again, how many catties of salt are needed by the population of the country for a year, and how many catties of official salt are sold?" Zhong Jinwei continued to ask.

This question is not easy to answer. Wang Chengen was silent for a while, quickly calculated in his mind, and then replied: "The annual salt demand of Ming Dynasty is about 18 billion catties, and the sales volume of official salt is basically fixed at about [-] million catties."

That is to say, the annual sales volume of private salt is about 13 billion catties, accounting for about three times the sales volume of official salt.

After Zhong Jinwei understood the situation, he turned to Emperor Chongzhen and said, "Your Majesty, you should be able to see how much the court will lose in salt tax in one year. And this is because the price of official salt is too high, which gives room for private salt sales. the result of."

Zhong Jinwei made another calculation for Emperor Chongzhen: "Assuming that the price of official salt is reduced by half and the sales volume is doubled, the tax collection will be similar to what it is now, but the cost of living paid by the people will be doubled, and the imperial court will still have [-] million catties of salt. Salt can be taxed again. Both the people and the court can benefit. This is the benefit of reducing the price of official salt."

The more Emperor Chongzhen heard it, the more surprised he was. According to Zhong Jinwei's algorithm, the price of official salt would be reduced and private salt would be squeezed out. There would be so many benefits.

In fact, this is not the only benefit, Emperor Chongzhen didn't know it.There are also chain reactions caused by this, such as using the money originally bought for salt to buy other items, or buying more salt to salt fish, etc., to promote the prosperity of other industries and so on.

When Emperor Chongzhen thought of this, he was a little puzzled, so he asked Zhong Jinwei, "Is it possible to reduce the official salary?"