Lian Erye in the Red Mansion

In the quiet atmosphere of the banquet, everyone's eyes were fixed intently on Jia Lian.

Jia Lian picked up a piece of venison and was about to put it in his mouth when he saw this. He glanced at everyone, then put down his chopsticks and wiped his hands.

"Everyone, do you really want to hear this?"

"Please clarify, Your Excellency!"

Jia Lian returned the handkerchief to Zhao'er beside him. Wu Zhirong and the others could dismiss the servants, but they had no right to order his people to leave their seats.

Turning his head to look at Zhou Boru and Wang beside him, Jia Lian said, "Chairman Zhou, Vice Chairman Wang, the imperial court is very dissatisfied with you!"

Upon hearing this, everyone's expressions changed.

Facing Jia Lian, Zhou Boru remained calm and composed. He quickly adopted a more respectful attitude, cupping his hands to Jia Lian and saying, "Please enlighten us, sir. We will be eternally grateful."

Jia Lian glanced at Zhou Boru and blinked slightly. No wonder the information he had about this person was the least, and he couldn't even confirm who was backing him.

However, to be able to hold the position of chairman for so long and to get the largest share of the entire Lianghuai Salt Administration must have many advantages that ordinary people do not know.

"Of the four major salt administrations in the country, Yangzhou is the most important, accounting for almost half of the country's salt tax."

To put it simply, in the previous ten years, the tax revenue collected from Yangzhou and deposited into the national treasury ranged from seven or eight million taels to as much as eight or nine million taels. However, since the year before last, Yangzhou's salt tax revenue has plummeted to less than seven million taels, and last year it didn't even reach six million taels...

If this continues, in a few years, won't the entire Yangzhou salt administration be unable to even pay the national tax?

The sarcasm in Jia Lian's words was unmistakable to the officials and salt merchants present.

The officials present today are basically those who have been fed by the salt merchants year after year. Hearing Jia Lian say this, they also complained in their hearts that these salt merchants were insatiable and had crossed the bottom line of the court, causing them to live in fear.

The salt merchants, however, had their own thoughts. The smaller salt merchants harbored resentment towards the larger ones, while the larger ones blamed each other, all complaining that others took a larger share and engaged in smuggling, leaving everyone in an awkward position.

Vice President Wang Shanxiang couldn't help but explain to Jia Lian, "My lord, you don't know, there's a reason for this..."

"Oh? Tell me about it."

"The reason for the decrease in salt tax in the previous two years can be traced back to the new salt policy of the imperial court!"

We are all serving the imperial court, and we will fully support and assist whatever policies the court issues.

The court demanded donations from us, which we all complied with. However, our work was already arduous; almost all of our annual profits had to be handed over to the court, leaving only a meager amount barely enough for our men to survive. The court suddenly required us to contribute extra money and effort to escort grain to the border, making our situation even worse.

As the saying goes, profits and losses are one's own responsibility. Having borne such enormous expenses, it's far too difficult for us to maintain the previous total national tax revenue. How could the court possibly know that while the national treasury's tax revenue has decreased, we salt merchants are suffering even more? The fact that we were able to pay such a large amount of national tax is only possible because a few of us have used the profits from previous years to make up the difference…”

Jia Lian suppressed a laugh and asked, feigning ignorance, "Is that so? But as far as I know, after the court implemented the new policies, it granted you permission to raise the price of salt by 10%. The extra revenue from official salt sales should be enough to offset the donations."

"This is precisely where the imperial court fails to understand the plight of its people. The officials of the court only think that raising the price of salt will increase our profits. Little do they know that there are only so many people in the world who need salt. If the price of salt is raised, many people will simply choose not to eat salt. We merchants are free to buy and sell. Surely we can't force the people to buy salt if they refuse to buy it?"

Of course, this is not the fault of the imperial court. The officials in the court are all refined scholars who are well-read in poetry and literature, so it is common for them not to understand the ways of business.

Fortunately, Your Excellency has come down to inspect the salt administration. We humbly request Your Excellency to petition the court on our behalf to abolish the donation system. If this is done, we believe that the national salt tax revenue will be fully restored soon, and it's even possible that it will be higher than before!

As Wang Shanxiang spoke, she looked at Jia Lian with anticipation, as if Jia Lian were the savior for them, a group of unfortunate people, to plead with the court that showed no compassion for its people.

"Hehehe..."

Jia Lian finally chuckled and took a deep breath to suppress his anger.

This guy surnamed Wang is treating him like a bookworm!

Although I knew these salt merchants would have their own set of excuses, I never expected them to be so shameless.

And they even want to use him as a weapon?

How dare they say that being a salt merchant is a miserable job? If word gets out, won't merchants from all walks of life laugh their heads off?

After a century of recuperation, the population of the Great Wei Dynasty approached 200 million. What an enormous amount of salt was consumed each year?

Fortunately, the Wei Dynasty prioritized agricultural taxes, and the salt tax was not too high, only about 30% of the price of salt. As a result, although salt was still not cheap for ordinary people, it was much better than in some dynasties that used salt to exploit the people.

At present, the market price of salt is only between forty and seventy coins per catty. So, even if a person eats as much as they want, they can barely afford to spend one or two taels of silver per year. If they are frugal, one or two qian of silver will be enough.

Such expenses are not high for the standard of living in the Great Wei Dynasty. At least for the prosperous Jiangnan region, they are not a problem at all.

Even so, on average, the revenue of salt merchants across the country was at least 70 million taels.

What an enormous piece of cake this is! You have to understand that the entire annual revenue of the Great Wei Dynasty is only about this much.

According to Lin Ruhai and others, the raw material cost for producing one pound of coarse salt in the Jiangnan salt fields is only two to three wen, which is negligible compared to the market price.

In other words, if the imperial court could truly achieve this and collect all the profits from the salt administration into the national treasury, it could almost double the annual revenue of the national treasury! Of course, this is in theory, and in reality it is almost impossible to achieve.

The salt administration of the Great Wei Dynasty also used the salt certificate system, with 300 catties as one certificate, and a regular salt tax of 3 taels and 8 qian of silver was levied on one certificate!

The salt tax was the national tax.

Therefore, even if we calculate based on 50 copper coins per catty, the regular salt tax would only account for less than 30% of the selling price.

In other words, salt merchants could still use at least 70% of their income to pay miscellaneous taxes to local officials and the salt transport bureau, as well as other costs...

Even if these costs are high, with a premium of over 50 million taels, there should be no problem in making at least 10 to 20 million taels of net profit.

This is still based entirely on the official salt administration.

Which salt merchant in the country doesn't secretly run a small business of private salt? As long as they don't do it obviously, the imperial court won't pay too much attention.

Therefore, the exorbitant profits involved are self-evident.

There are fewer than one hundred salt merchants in the entire country, large and small, qualified to operate the salt industry. If one hundred merchants share ten to twenty million, each merchant can receive at least one hundred thousand per year on average.

This is real money!

In an era when twenty taels of silver was enough for a family of four to live comfortably and affluently for a whole year, one can only imagine how astronomical a sum of one hundred thousand taels of silver would be.

This is still the average number.

The profits of the seven major salt merchants in Yangzhou, the wealthiest region, were immeasurable each year.

So, these people complain about their poverty and hardship in front of him? It's enough to make even a well-mannered person like Jia Lian feel a chill in his heart.

In fact, the imperial court realized that these salt merchants in Yangzhou were too wealthy, so it decided to cut another knife from their pockets to subsidize the military and reduce the national treasury's expenditure.

Jia Lian even remembered the scene when the salt merchants protested at the Salt Inspector's Office when he first went to Yangzhou.

Perhaps they failed to successfully protest before the policy was implemented, and after the policy was implemented, they began to have wicked thoughts, trying to force the court to comply in this way?

Look at this! Because of all the trouble you've caused, the national treasury's revenue has decreased so much. Why don't you hurry up and cancel the donations so that the national treasury can restore its annual revenue?

To be honest, if it were a different, more easily fooled emperor, and the salt merchants put in more effort (money) in the court, they might actually have succeeded in their bargaining.

Unfortunately, Emperor Ningkang had already realized their intentions and was preparing to make an example of them.

(End of this chapter)