Uncle from a poor family

Chapter 640 Imperative
Noon, Kunning Palace.

The Zhang father and son had lunch here with Zhu Youtang and his wife.

Zhu Youtang also invited Jin to come to the palace to meet Zhang Yu in Japan, which was equivalent to asking the mother-in-law to come to the inner courtyard of the imperial palace to meet his wife.

After lunch, someone from Qingning Palace came to invite Zhang Luan over.

Zhang Luan originally did not want to go to see his aunt before the New Year, but even Zhu Youtang persuaded him to go there. In the end, Zhang Luan had no choice but to go, leaving Zhang Yanling as a guest in Kunning Palace.

"Yanling, tell me more about those firearms."

Zhu Youtang originally wanted to ask Zhang Yanling about the design and improvement ideas of firearms.

However, Zhang Yanling still brought the topic to the issue of salt administration reform, because this is the source of the greatest pressure that the Zhang family is currently facing from the court.

Out of absolute trust, the emperor placed the burden of Ming Dynasty's salt policy reform on Zhang Luan, the right vice minister of the Ministry of Revenue. This made the Zhang family the target of public criticism, and this problem had to be solved as a priority.

Confucian officials are conservative and dislike reform the most. Even if they have encountered great difficulties on certain issues, and the salt law is about to collapse completely, the Confucian officials still do not want to change their ways, and they are even unwilling to make some repairs.

Zhu Youtang said: "In fact, I don't understand why there have been such big problems with the salt administration in recent years, resulting in the lack of sufficient military rations in the northwest, the court not receiving any salt tax money, and the salt merchants saying that they have not made any money and cannot continue to operate.

"Looking at the market, the official salt has become more expensive, and the people have not benefited from it. Even Huai Daban said that it is precisely because of the problems in the salt administration that the private salt that is easily consumed by bad people has become increasingly rampant.

"Yanling, do you know the specific reason?"

Zhang Yanling instantly felt that Zhu Youtang, who was in his teenage years with a strong desire for knowledge, really wanted to understand the underlying reasons behind the matter.

But unfortunately, as the emperor's brother-in-law, he lives in a tightly blocked information cocoon.

Only someone told Zhu Youtang the result of the collapse of the salt administration, but no one explained the cause, let alone seriously analyzed it with him, resulting in Zhu Youtang knowing the result but not the reason.

Zhang Yanling was also thinking, this is probably the sadness of being an emperor of a feudal dynasty?
Zhang Yanling said: "Your Majesty, in fact, the method of paying taxes and opening up the middle has had some drawbacks since its design. It is only because the effect was very good when it was first implemented that the various problems were covered up, and no one realized its long-term harm."

Zhu Youtang nodded and said, "Tell me about it."

Zhang Yanling said: "When the grain tax is paid, the salt merchants need to transport the grain to the military towns in the northwest, or set up commercial settlements in the northwest, or transport the grain from the inland, exchange it for salt permits, and then take the salt permits to the major salt fields to exchange for salt, and then transport the produced salt to the market for sale. This is a complete set of procedures."

"Is there anything wrong?"

Zhu Youtang asked.

"Brother-in-law, think about it, this whole process will take at least half a year, right?"

Zhang Yanling smiled and said, "From buying grain from grain-producing areas to transporting it north to delivering it to the border, to finally transporting the salt to various places and selling it wholesale to merchants, this does not even include the sales process, so half a year is too little."

Zhu Youtang thought about it carefully and nodded, "Since we have to transport it to the border, we also have to go to the salt field to get salt. The procedures are a bit complicated."

Zhang Yanling said: "That's why the salt merchants complained, saying 'Going to the border to pay taxes is a long journey with little price and many inconveniences.' Generally speaking, the whole process was artificially divided into three parts, which were done by different people."

"Three parts?"

Zhu Youtang looked puzzled.

Zhang Yanling nodded and said, "In the first part, some people are responsible for transporting grain to the northwest, and then selling the grain to those who are waiting to exchange for salt permits;

"The second part is to take the grain sold by merchants and have special people turn it into salt permits, and then take the salt permits to exchange for salt at the salt field, or directly sell them to others and let them go to the salt field to exchange for official salt;
“The third part, after receiving the salt from the salt field, is transported to the sales area designated by the government and sold to local merchants, who are responsible for selling it.

"After going through all these four processes, a salt permit has to pass through four hands before it can actually become table salt for the people."

"Is it so troublesome?"

Zhu Youtang was shocked.

He studied the salt method for a long time, but he never imagined that the salt exchange and sales process was so complicated.

Zhang Yanling said: "After all this, I would like to ask my brother-in-law, what is the price of the newly produced salt, and how much does it cost when it reaches the people? Can the price of salt be seen?
"Official salt is expensive, how can ordinary people still afford it? Wouldn't private salt, which has no quality guarantee, be rampant? Once private salt is rampant, official salt will be even harder to sell, and then upstream salt merchants will be hit, affecting their enthusiasm for buying grain in exchange for salt. This is basically a vicious cycle."

Zhu Youtang nodded helplessly after hearing this: "After what you said, I realized that there are so many disadvantages in paying taxes. In fact, they have always told me that the rules of our ancestors cannot be changed. Otherwise, without the merchant warehouses in the northwest, the stability of the Ming Dynasty's border will be seriously affected."

After hearing this, Zhang Yanling finally understood why Ye Qi's reforms would be controversial in later generations and even considered to be the root cause of the Ming Dynasty's demise.

In fact, Ye Qi was just forced to make changes passively because the method of grain opening had completely collapsed, but he ended up becoming the scapegoat.

Zhang Yanling explained: "Your Majesty, the military rations of the Northwest soldiers actually mainly come from military settlements, and commercial settlements only account for a small number of border settlements, often less than 20%.

"If we simply rely on merchant settlements to support the Ming Dynasty's border reserves, the loss may be greater than the 20% merchant settlements themselves, because the Ming Dynasty sacrificed all the salt tax revenue, which is often the most important part of the court's fiscal revenue in every dynasty."

In Zhang Yanling's view.

All the salt tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty was only used to exchange for 20% of the military rations for the soldiers on the frontiers. In the end, the common people could not get salt and social order fell into chaos. How great was the loss?
If you don't reform, the result will be that the soldiers in the nine frontiers will not have enough food, and they will blame the court. If the salt merchants do not get any benefits from selling official salt, they will still blame the court.

The people could not eat cheap salt, and they thought it was the result of the collapse of the court's laws... In the end, all the blame was put on the court.

Zhang Yanling said: "The essence of salt permits is a kind of financial bill. Because salt permits are issued in border towns, but salt is withdrawn at various salt fields, the issuance of salt permits and the withdrawal of salt from salt fields are not in sync.

"To put it bluntly, the people who issue salt permits don't care how much salt the salt fields can produce. They just issue salt permits indiscriminately, which results in salt merchants having to wait for years even if they can exchange for salt permits. How can this lead to the healthy development of salt administration?"

Zhu Youtang asked, "Does that mean it has to be changed?"

"Yes."

Zhang Yanling said, "Brother-in-law, when I was talking about the disadvantages of the Kaizhong method, I didn't mention that the biggest disadvantage is the occupation of salt. Even if we change to the silver Kaizhong method, that is, the Zhese method, there will still be the phenomenon of occupation, but at least the issuance of salt permits can be fully controlled by the court, and the salt tax revenue can be directly deposited into the national treasury and distributed by the court."

Zhu Youtang asked: "When the salt permits are drawn, if the salt fields cannot produce that much salt, won't we still have to keep the permits?"

"Yes."

Zhang Yanling said, "So, brother-in-law, I think the next step is to increase the salt production of the salt field, so as to ensure the healthy development of the salt administration."

Zhu Youtang said with emotion: "I have also asked Huai Daban about this. He said that the salt fields in the Ming Dynasty are now struggling because of the low production of salt and the frequent escape of salt farmers. Even if the court wants to increase salt production, it is not easy."

Zhang Yanling smiled and said, "Then we have to change the way we produce salt. Brother-in-law, the way salt is produced now is basically to boil salt with firewood. If we change to the sun-drying method, wouldn't we be able to increase the output?"

"Salting method?"

Zhu Youtang frowned.

Apparently he had no idea how salt was produced.

Zhang Yanling said: "Yes, the traditional method of boiling salt is effective, but the problem is that due to material limitations, the amount of salt boiled at one time is too small, which is very time-consuming and laborious.

"In the past, people tried to dry salt in the sun, but the environmental factors had a huge impact on the production, and the results were not ideal. In my opinion, only when all salt fields adopt the new method of drying salt can the production be increased."

"Will this... work?"

Zhu Youtang was skeptical.

Zhang Yanling smiled and nodded.

As a person who is familiar with Chinese history, Zhang Yanling knew very well that salt drying has been a practice since ancient times.

However, China's salt fields really began to use sun-dried salt as the main salt production model, which originated from the Changlu Salt Field in 1522. A Fujianese brought the beach drying method of three-stage brine steps to dry salt. After hundreds of years of improvement, it was not until the th century that the golden age of salt drying was achieved after the addition of windmills to draw water and the addition of brine driving in the mid-th century.

Before the Jiajing period, any salt produced in any salt field in the Ming Dynasty was obtained by boiling salt.

Otherwise, salt households would not be called stove households, because they really deal with firewood and stoves all day long.

Only in this way can salt be produced.

Zhang Yanling said: "Brother-in-law, in fact, all the problems of the Ming Dynasty's salt administration can be attributed to the insufficient production of salt fields, which has caused the price of official salt to remain high as soon as it is produced. In addition, the added value of the cumbersome process has made the price high, and it is impossible to curb the private salt produced by the people, which has led to the loss of salt tax...

"Only by increasing the production of official salt from the upstream and making the price of official salt continue to fall can we stop the private salt business. This will not only guarantee the interests of salt merchants, but also ensure the safety of people's salt use. This will also increase the financial revenue of the Ming Dynasty court in one fell swoop, which can be said to be killing two birds with one stone.

"Before changing the efficiency of salt production in the salt fields, any reforms will only have a small impact on the border reserves. However, the court's income has dropped sharply, and it has to rely on salt tax reform to increase fiscal revenue to ensure the various expenses of the Ming Dynasty. Therefore... salt tax reform is imperative."

Zhu Youtang was very excited when he heard this: "Yanling, I didn't expect you to know so much knowledge... Who did you learn from?"

Zhang Yanling shrugged and said, "I was just thinking about it."

"I see you are a very capable person, no wonder even your father-in-law always says he relies on you." Zhu Youtang said with a smile, "I said before that I would give you an official position, have you thought about it?"

"I haven't thought about it yet, brother-in-law... I don't want to go to some government office and be bound by it."

Zhang Yanling explained, "I just want to do the job at hand well... Don't we have to improve the salt drying method in the salt field? We should try to double the salt output of the major salt fields in Daming next year. By then, the salt merchants will have higher incomes, the people will be able to afford salt, and the court will have more income. Then my work will not be in vain."

Zhu Youtang asked, "Who are you studying with now?"

"I have a husband..."

Zhang Yanling got a headache when he heard about reading.

I am a doctor who was reborn as a human being. You want me to go back to school? Even if what I learn is different from my previous life, I don’t want to make any more meaningless efforts.

Zhu Youtang pondered for a moment and said, "How about this, I will arrange for you to enter the Imperial College first, so that you can have the title of a student. As for whether you go or not... it's up to you to choose. This way, you can also gain some recognition."

(End of this chapter)