On the second day after the Zhennanguan garrison's imperial edict congratulating the war was delivered to the capital, a handwritten letter from Zhennanguan inspector Wu Zhun also arrived at the government office of Liu Ji, the chief minister of the capital's cabinet.

In fact, when Wu Zhun knew that his men had injured He Zhan's "godson" Xiao Li, Wu Zhun knew that these followers of his had caused a huge disaster. Although he seemed to be making waves at Zhennanguan, he was unable to do anything.

It's impossible. But anyone with a discerning eye knows that he is lucky enough to be the inspector of Nanguan in this town because he is the chief minister of the current cabinet.

On weekdays, these retinues relied on their own power to do evil in Zhennanguan, and he could still protect them. After all, when one person attained enlightenment, chickens and dogs ascended to heaven. But this time, they were not fighting ordinary people, but the "godson" whom He Zhan had adopted.

", this bastard Xiao Li is He Zhan's bottom line! You can bully him no matter what you do, but if his bottom line is touched, this matter will be difficult to handle. Wu Zhun knows He Zhan's temper, and even honest people can get angry.

That day, and this anger might be the anger of thunder.

Therefore, when Wu Zhun found out that his two bastard men were fighting He Zhan's "godson", he was immediately shocked and cursed: "You two slaves killed me!"

Wu Zhun personally tied up these two bastard men and brought them to He Zhan's house to plead guilty, but Wu Zhun didn't know that He Zhan, who had always been honest, was playing tricks on him this time. On the surface, he accepted Wu Zhun's apology, but

That night, he ordered his private servants to quietly leave the city and head for the capital with the written royal decree. By the time Wu Zhun got the news, it was already too late to intercept and kill him. He Zhan's private servants had already left the official route.

Wu Zhun naturally knew the consequences of this discount. He himself was a soft-spoken man, and even if he was dismissed from office, it would be fine. But behind him was the power hub of the Ming Empire's bureaucracy. If anything went wrong, he was afraid that he would be killed.

The whole clan was annihilated. Wu Zhun quickly wrote a handwritten letter and ordered him to be sent privately to Liu Ji's house in the capital on a fast horse, so that the chief minister could prepare himself and wipe his own ass.

When Liu Ji, the chief assistant of the cabinet, received this handwritten letter from Wu Zhun, he crumpled it into a ball and threw it in Wu Zhun's face. He cursed privately: "Idiot, waste! Even the dogs under his command

I can’t even control it!”

Seeing Liu Ji's rage, the private servant was so frightened that he fell to the ground and trembled. He was afraid that the master would kill him in anger.

Sitting next to him, Li Guang, the newly promoted Minister of Rites not long ago, took a sip of tea and said: "Your Majesty must have known about this matter. Today is a troubled time. We must not offend Longxu because of this idiot Wu Zhun."

Liu Ji had a gloomy face and said nothing. At this time, the hall was extremely quiet. The private servant who came to deliver the letter was trembling, listening to his own "thumping" heartbeat. Suddenly Liu Ji slammed the table, and the private servant was even more frightened.

Shout out "ah".

Liu Ji lowered his voice and said, "Go back and tell Wu Zhun to submit his resignation to His Majesty. He knows what to do."

The messenger who delivered the letter secretly heard that Liu Ji had no intention of killing him, so he quickly nodded in agreement and ran out crawling.

——————

In the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Youtang summoned Xu Pu, the deputy minister of the cabinet, to enter the palace to discuss matters. Zhu Youtang showed Xu Pu the imperial certificate of congratulations to Zhan, hoping to hear Xu Pu's thoughts.

Although Xu Pu was very dissatisfied with Liu Ji, the paper elder, he did not dare to say it too clearly. He just made a roundabout way and said: The previous order is invalid. Now there is no new order. There are not a few people in the court who form cliques for personal gain.

There are many requests for help.”

Zhu Youtang naturally knew what Xu Pu said. It has been a taboo for emperors since ancient times for courtiers to form cliques for personal gain. Especially in the years after the Chenghua Dynasty, this kind of thing was common. I am afraid that the courtiers have long forgotten all the laws and regulations enacted by the imperial court.

.Thinking of this, Zhu Youtang said with a serious face: "Li Guang, go and ask Huaien to convey my will.

"The instructions are given to all the bureaus in Beijing. From now on, the five government offices, the six ministries, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the General Administration Department, Dali Temple and other yamen must abide by the ancestral constitution and must not entrust each other to the detriment of the public and self-interest. If internal and external officials dare to write posts to entrust anyone, the internal

The official will be sent to Dongchang, and the foreign official will be sent to Jinyiwei for disposal. If you dare to conceal it during the period, you will be punished with a felony after the incident!"

After hearing this, Li Guang said solemnly: "I obey the order."

Zhu Youtang added with a sneer: "Make another copy of this decree and send it to our Liu Shoufu's house."

Xu Pu knew that Zhu Youtang was trying to shake the mountain and shake the tiger, so he reminded Liu Ji that if you don't restrain yourself, don't blame the emperor for freeing up his hands to settle accounts with you.

When Li Guang just left the house, Zhu Youtang shouted again: "Yan Hai, please pass on my second decree, order the Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of War to separate the two capitals, the fifth government, the sixth ministry, the governor's office and other yamen halls, and the second division of the governor who is guarding the outside.

The magistrates and garrison guards all wrote their official titles in large letters. Their dates of official service, household registration, and which officials they held were all posted in the Wenhua Hall for my viewing. From then on, the two departments posted them every season.

For those who are promoted, promoted, or resign due to accidents, their old names will be removed and the new names will be replaced.”

After receiving this imperial edict, Xu Pu was very pleased. The emperor would start to manage the government diligently. Xu Pu took advantage of the situation and said: "Your Majesty, since the last years of Chenghua, the eunuchs have been powerful and have conquered Huaihe. There are countless salts from Zhejiang and Huaihe.

However, the land has accumulated a salt shortage of more than 5 million yuan, which has led to stagnation of commercial traffic and the deterioration of the salt industry. If people are not sent to clean up the salt industry as soon as possible, there will be endless harm!"

From the perspective of future generations, Zhu Youtang naturally knows the importance of salt in ancient times. Salt is an electrolyte in the human body. If a person does not eat salt for a long time, the brain will not be able to think normally and body functions will be destroyed. Moreover,

Salt is a major source of national finance and a necessary product for people's daily lives. It is related to the national economy and people's livelihood. In the traditional era when the country was based on agriculture and the industry was not very developed, it has always been a government exclusive.

During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, there were successive fiscal deficits. Rich private businessmen "smelted and boiled salt, which may have accumulated tens of thousands of dollars, but they did not help the public's urgent needs, and the people were in dire straits." Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty knew the importance of the salt industry to taxation, so he

Sima Sang Hongyang was sent to preside over the implementation of the "cage salt and iron" system and re-state the salt industry management rights. In the salt-producing areas, a "Salt Commander" was set up as a representative of the government to supervise the salt production of the salt people.

Salt is purchased, transported and sold by the government.

With the development and changes of the social economy, the expansion of the market, and the increasingly dense population, it has become increasingly impossible for the state to monopolize the salt trade in its own hands. Therefore, since the Song Dynasty, the state monopoly has been liberalized and designated government and businessmen have been allowed to

Discussions about business operations. During the founding period of the Ming Dynasty, salt monopoly rights were transferred to ordinary merchants to promote commercial development.

During the reign of Mr. Hongwu, the Ming government implemented three systems of military garrisoning, grain transportation, and opening up to China and France to solve the problem of food and salary supply for the more than 800,000 troops stationed in the "Nine Borders". This meant that the sergeants were self-sufficient in farming, and the people were exporting to the border towns.

The way merchants paid grains with salt content was customarily called tun grain, people's grain, and salt grain. However, the northern line of the Great Wall is located in the alpine cold, and the output of the taming fields is limited. Therefore, the government needs to levy crops from northern Zhili, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Henan every year.

, farmers in Lushu Province transported the paid grain to designated border towns. However, in the era of inconvenient transportation and donkeys and carts, it was not easy to transport hundreds of thousands of stones of grain to the border fortress, which not only hindered farming but also caused high costs.

Very high. Shanxi Province reported this common problem to the Ming court and suggested that the government use the state-controlled salt monopoly to allow merchants to pay 1 stone of rice in Datong warehouse, 1 stone of 3 buckets of rice in Taiyuan warehouse, and 1 stone of rice in Taiyuan warehouse.

The weight of a small amount of salt is about 200 kilograms, and then the salt can be exchanged for salt to be transported and sold to make a profit. This saves freight and makes the border reserves sufficient. Zhu Yuanzhang felt that this method was beneficial to the country, convenient for the people, and beneficial to business, so he ordered it to be implemented nationwide.

In the fourth year of Hongwu, Mr. Zhu formulated the rules for salt production. The method of opening a country can be roughly divided into three steps: reporting, keeping, and market changes. Reporting means that salt merchants transport grain to the designated border in accordance with the requirements of the government's investment list.

The local granary is exchanged for salt lead from the government; the salt dealer exchanges the salt lead for the salt lead, and then uses the salt lead to go to the designated salt field to wait for the salt supply; the market trade is for the salt dealer to transport the salt to the designated area for sale.

The regulations for merchants to sell salt in nanometers were issued by the Ministry of Household Affairs, and were determined based on military conditions, food prices, routes, and profits. Therefore, many border towns called merchants to sell salt in nanometers, and the transportation and sales of salt were organically integrated with the supply of military supplies. In order to save costs, merchants simply hired

Farmers cultivated crops in the border areas and delivered grain to the military and military warehouses nearby, which was called Shangtun in history.

In addition to its function of solving military needs, the Kaizhong method was also an effective way for the Ming government to cooperate with businessmen to build public utilities and solve social problems such as famine, water transportation, and disaster victims. During the Yongle period, Zhu Laosi issued two edicts to move the capital and build the capital of Peking.

All regions were ordered to suspend the opening of the Central Plains and concentrate grain shipments to Beijing, so that the grain reserves in Peiping would be enough for hundreds of thousands of craftsmen to wait for several years.

Zhu Youtang also naturally knew that in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, corruption was serious due to collusion between officials and businessmen. In the late Ming Empire, not only political corruption, but also the royal family, nobles and officials using their power to seek rent became more and more serious. Especially in the Zhengde, Jiajing, Longqing, and Wanli years, Huangzhuang and Huangdian were run

, it became common to seize people's fields and do business to make profits. If he wanted to prosper in the prosperous times, he had to pay attention to the Salt Law. Thinking of this, Zhu Youtang said: "Let's see, Mr. Yi Ge, who should be sent to clean up the land of the Huaihe River and the Zhejiang Salt Law

Woolen cloth?"

Xu Pu already had a candidate in mind. When the emperor asked him, he said without hesitation: "I recommend Li Si, the left minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs. Li Si is not only a Jinshi, but also good at governing. At that time, there was an uproar in Jiangxi over the loss of Fu, and Li Si did not go there.

It will take a few days to complete this errand."

Zhu Youtang listened to what Xu Pu said while looking through the booklet sent to him today. Zhu Youtang, the person recommended by Xu Pu, was naturally relieved. So he nodded in agreement: "I'm sure."

Sure enough, Zhu Youtang found the memorial handed over by Li Si, which said: "The Huaihe Transportation Bureau and the Huaihe River Department have claimed more than one million yuan for salt diversion in successive years, but the amount of salt diversion paid by the merchants is only one or three. If it is not strictly prohibited, then

Unprofitable businessmen are constantly speculating, and the salt law is even worse." Li Si's words indicate that the macro-management of the Ministry of Revenue is out of control. In other words, only 20% of the salt diversion from the Lianghuai Salt Field is actually used by Kaizhong merchants to produce nano-mineralized salt, and most of the rest has been

Alluding to officials and businessmen.

Zhu Youtang immediately issued the third decree: He ordered Li Si, the left minister of the household department, and Peng Shao, the right minister of the criminal department, to concurrently serve as the censors of Zuo Qiandu to go to Lianghuai and Zhejiang to clean up the salt law, supervise the officials of various ministries, and prohibit corruption and corruption. The army and the people

If there are any officials who dare to commit the following crimes, be greedy and cheat, except those who are above the third rank who need to report to me, the rest will follow the law. If there are officials in the transportation field who are honest, clean, abide by the law and act fairly, I will also give you more rewards. You guys.

As a minister of the imperial court, I have been entrusted by me to do my best to promote the salt law, eradicate evil and corruption, smooth the flow of merchants, and provide sufficient supplies for the border."

Today Zhu Youtang issued three decrees in a row, all of which were not simple, and shocked the government and the public. In order to avoid the censor Pan Gu's death with a stick from happening to them, all the officials no longer dared to comment blatantly on Zhu Youtang's policies.
Chapter completed!