Volume 2: Soaring! The Overlord of the Region Chapter 247 Preparing to Rectify the Salt Administration
The next task for the Ministry of Justice is relatively simple: revising the Ming Dynasty Code is not something that can be done overnight, and only a small number of citizens have opened their eyes to it. In addition, the officials of the Ministry of Justice are generally old-school officials who have passed the imperial examinations, and Zhu Youdong does not expect them to understand his true intentions. Therefore, there is no rush, just do it slowly.
Most of the affairs of the Ministry of War were routine: there were still sporadic ethnic minority rebellions in the southwest and northwest, and Zhu Youdong always adopted the attitude of "suppress first, then ask for reasons". After the suppression, if the local officials of the Ming Dynasty were indeed unreasonable, then punish the local officials and maintain the status quo. If the chieftain was a bastard, then kill the chieftain's family, and then either replace the chieftain (in poorer places with less output) or implement the policy of changing the chieftains to officials.
The more troublesome issue was the Mongolian invasion from the north and northeast: the demise of Jianzhou made the Mongolian issue more prominent. Lin Danhan had been the Great Khan of Mongolia for ten years at this time, and his own ability and prestige had improved to a considerable extent. He was able to gather more than 30,000 herdsmen and carry out relatively threatening invasions on Jiliao, Xuanda and other places of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Youdong's strategy for this situation was to send a thousand households from Henghaiwei to Jiliao each time, and then lead the local garrison to fight against Ligdan Khan. Well, this guy was just training with Ligdan Khan, and tried to train every soldier of Henghaiwei as an officer - at the very least, an ordinary soldier of Henghaiwei would be able to be a captain after going out to other guards and military towns.
The Ministry of Rites did not have much to do. 1615 was the year for the provincial examinations in the two capitals and thirteen provinces, so the Ministry of Rites would be really busy the next year.
Well, next year, the Bingchen year, there will be quite a few famous people among the Jinshi candidates. Even among those who failed, there are quite a few great ones.
Finally, in the Ministry of Personnel, Zhu Youdong smiled and said, "Grand Chancellor, I want to ask you for someone."
"Your Highness is too polite. You are the regent, so why would you ask for it? Please make it clear, Your Highness."
"Well, in your hometown of Shandong, there is a salt inspector named Bi Maokang. Do you know him?"
"Meng Houchen knows this man. He is from Huizhou and was a Jinshi in the 26th year of Wanli. He was famous for his calligraphy and painting when he was young, and he was also known for his ability to handle practical matters after he entered the government. In the past, when Shaanxi suffered a drought, he presided over the relief work, spending little money and saving many lives. After serving as the salt inspector in Shandong, he quickly sorted out the arrears of past dynasties. He can truly be called a capable official!"
"Well, I want to transfer him to Beijing to be the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue. What do you think?"
"I have no objection!"
"Okay, I will issue an order later. If the Ministry of Personnel has no objection, please handle it as soon as possible."
"I obey your command."
Zhu Youdong is just a history enthusiast, not an expert in Ming history, so he only remembers some of the historical celebrities of the Ming Dynasty.
As for military experts, Zhao Shizhen knew them and had a deep memory of them. But he only had a vague impression of Bi Maokang. In the first few years after he traveled through time, he had no chance to promote talents himself, so he forgot about them over time.
The reason why I remembered it at this time was not because of the military research, but because His Royal Highness the Crown Prince was going to rectify the salt administration of the Ming Dynasty starting from the 43rd year of the Wanli reign.
When Zhu Yuanzhang founded the country, his overall economic policy was very conservative, but he was quite advanced in salt policy.
Salt tax plays an important role in the finances of an agricultural country. For thousands of years, the Chinese Empire has levied salt tax in three ways.
One is the total monopoly system: the state controls all salt fields, and is responsible for production, transportation, and sales. The advantage of this system is that the state can set the price of salt extremely high through full control, and squeeze as much money from the people as possible. The disadvantages are inefficiency, corruption, and the birth of private salt.
The second is the on-site taxation system: the state sends officials to various salt fields. The production of salt fields is the responsibility of private individuals. After the salt is produced, state officials collect salt taxes at the salt fields. The state does not care about the rest of the transportation and sales. The advantage of this is that the production is efficient and private salt is basically extinct. The disadvantage is that the state gets relatively less.
The third is the on-site monopoly system. The production of salt fields is privately owned. After the salt is produced, it is sold to . Then the salt merchants go to the salt fields to buy from the state. After the purchase, the salt merchants are responsible for transportation and sales. The advantage of this is that the state can earn a steady profit from the price difference and its interests are guaranteed. And the manufacturers and distributors are also more motivated.
As for Zhu Yuanzhang, he was the first to create the Kaizhong method.
The Ming Dynasty implemented military settlements, but it was difficult for the northern military settlements to achieve self-sufficiency in food. At this time, grain needed to be transported from the inland areas for support. However, many military settlements were remote and dangerous places. Therefore, if the state organized the transportation of grain, the cost would be too high to bear. Then Zhu accepted the advice of Shanxi merchants and officials and established the Kaizhong Method.
The specific method is: merchants buy grain and transport it to the designated location of the state. Then, after the local officials inspect and accept it, they will give the merchants a certain number of salt permits according to the amount of grain. The merchants take the salt permits to the corresponding salt fields of the state to obtain salt, and then sell it to make a profit.
In this process, the soldiers in the military settlements received food, the country saved on transportation costs and losses, and although the merchants worked harder, they obtained the commodity of salt and made further profits. Moreover, the merchants' purchase, transportation, and salt extraction along the way greatly promoted the development of various service industries along the trade routes. Therefore, once this method was introduced, it quickly gained the support of various bigwigs.
In this process, the only ones who suffer are the common people: the merchants have spent so much time and effort to get the salt permits, if the salt price is not set higher, how can the profit be reflected?
Having said that, during the Ming Dynasty, being able to find such a way to solve the food problem for soldiers on the frontier was already a remarkable innovation.
However, such an approach naturally brings more problems.
First, the collection of salt tax was affected: as long as the merchants had proof of grain delivery, they could get salt permits, and with salt permits they could get salt free of charge - the state could not collect salt tax in this process, which meant that the state's cash income was reduced.
Secondly, it is easy to breed corruption: since you can get salt with a salt permit, it means that the salt permit is money! And who makes the salt permit? Officials. And the ethics of Ming Dynasty officials, hehe...
It was fine when Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Laosi were in power, and everyone was afraid to let go, so the overall operation of the Sino-French Treaty was quite good. After the death of these two ruthless people, the royal family, officials, and gentry of the Ming Dynasty all reached out for the salt permits - these guys certainly would not transport the grain to the garrison with great effort to get the salt permits, but relied on their official power to get the salt permits directly!
They were happy to get it for free, but the output of the salt field was so small that you took the salt permit and took the salt subsidy. Those honest civilian merchants worked hard to transport food to the garrison, but they could not get salt from the salt field with the salt permit, so they naturally could not make any profit and lost everything. Starting from the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, there were records in the notes of Ming people that grandfathers got salt permits, but their grandchildren could not get salt from the salt field.
The Kai-Zhong Treaty, which was destroyed by corruption, naturally led to the garrison's lack of food, but no merchants were willing to transport it, and the common people had to eat high-priced salt.
What followed naturally was the rampant production of private salt and the collapse of the national salt policy.
Since the Western Han Dynasty, salt tax has been an important part of the Chinese Empire's fiscal revenue. In the late Southern Song Dynasty, the national finances almost entirely relied on salt tax to support the army to fight against Mongolia. And the salt tax in the Ming Dynasty...
Let's make a comparison. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the state taxed 30 wen per catty of salt. In the Ming Dynasty, it was about 20 wen. And what about the price of salt? The market price in the Northern Song Dynasty was 50 wen per catty, and the market price in the Ming Dynasty was 300 wen per catty, which was six times higher than that in the Northern Song Dynasty. The price of salt in the Northern Song Dynasty has always had a very bad reputation in history because of the high taxation that led to the high selling price...
In the Northern Song Dynasty, the method of sea salting had not been invented, and the salt production was limited, so the tax collection was naturally limited. Even so, the salt tax in the Northern Song Dynasty could reach more than 12 million strings of cash a year. And how much was the salt tax in the Ming Dynasty at that time? Before the currency reform, it was close to 1 million taels. After the reform, it was only more than 1.3 million yuan.
According to Cao Sanxi's calculations, if the Ming Dynasty had a complete salt administration and tax collection system like the Northern Song Dynasty, its annual revenue from salt tax alone would not be less than 15 million yuan!
This made Zhu Youdong, who now had to subsidize the Ministry of Households with at least 3 million yuan every year, very uneasy.
Besides, as a time traveler, Zhu Youdong still has some ideals: it is really difficult for all the people in the Ming Dynasty to be prosperous, but as a time traveler, it would be really outrageous if he could not ensure that most of the people in the country have enough food and clothing.
The national census was the first step in rectifying the various problems of the Ming Dynasty. The next step was to rebuild the Yellow Book and the Fish Scale Map, so that the people of the country could pay taxes relatively fairly - only in this way could they have enough food and clothing.
And now, it seems that the salt policy has to be changed! As a time traveler, if the people of the country can't afford salt, then I really live up to this title.
So Zhu Youdong asked Wen Tiren: I want to rectify the salt administration, can you recommend a talent? Then Wen recommended Bi Maokang. After hearing the name Bi Maokang, Zhu Youdong slapped his head: Oh, this person is not only a capable official, but also a genius in military technology!
