They have almost completely lost their salt producing areas.

All the salt needed had to be smuggled in from the Ming Dynasty.

In the late Ming Dynasty, the imperial court tried every means to make money from salt. Merchants had to buy salt and leftover salt to make up for the tax. When distributing salt, they had to pay five cents of silver for each salt and keep it in the treasurer's name as relief silver to prepare for famines.

There are fire salt money, salt silver for repairing the Caohe River, and even the regular fine silver, cutting fine silver, collecting silver, and eight other items such as foot price and guarantee fee.

In addition, there is still a time lag between collecting the money and getting the salt, and there is still interest income, which is fifty to sixty thousand taels. Of course, the court can also issue salt quotas and ask the salt merchants to donate silver and rice, and the water merchants will pay

The dental tax and so on, theoretically these incomes add up to 2.5 million taels a year.

The Lianghuai Salt Fields alone can produce one billion jins of salt annually. During the Jiajing period, the Lianghuai Salt Fields produced 3.7 million jins, 740 million jins of salt, and hundreds of millions of jins of private salt.

The Ming Dynasty once implemented a salt banknote system based on household registration, and those over the age of fifteen were entitled to twelve kilograms of salt per year.

During the Wanli period, the demand for salt reached about 1.8 billion jins, but official sales were only about 500 million jins, and two-thirds of the market was occupied by private salt.

The Ming Dynasty also reformed the salt policy several times, but none of them had much effect. In the final analysis, the salt merchants colluded with government and businessmen to form a monopoly, forming a salt industry oligarchy, which seriously affected the court's salt policy.

The salt market is limited. If more official salt is sold, private salt will inevitably be hit.

Zhu Yihai's current policy is to lower the price of official salt and seize market share, thereby reducing the dimension and cracking down on private salt dealers. Although his official salt still adds a lot of tax, after the tax is invoiced, the journey will be smooth.

As for private salt without tickets, its transportation costs will be high. In the past, profits were high. Salt households, salt merchants, salt officials, local checkpoints along the way, local officials, etc. all shared the money, and everyone colluded together.

And now the price of official salt has made the profit margin of private salt very low. If he continues to maintain the smuggling network and set up checkpoints, the cost may be the same as paying taxes. He will also have to bear the burden of beheading, ransacking homes and being exiled.

The risk is just not worth it.

Especially now, the cost and risk of colluding with officials by paying money is still high. Supervision is too strict, and officials without enough benefits do not dare to mess around.

Even after the salt class was reduced, the actual income from salt production has increased a lot. There is no need to take such a big risk to sell private salt. Selling directly to the salt warehouse saves trouble and makes money.

And now under the new atmosphere of the new dynasty, there will be far fewer officials, soldiers, and subordinates involved in smuggling. After all, the investigation is strict.

When costs and benefits are not proportional, fewer people will take desperate risks.

The costs for serious salt merchants are taxes and transportation, while the costs for smuggled salt merchants include not only transportation, but also the cost of opening up joints and breaking the law.

Official salt is all refined salt, and it only costs a few cents per pound. How can private salt be sold?

Nowadays, while the imperial court collects salt tax, it also has government-run transportation companies and salt shops, as well as royal-run salt transportation companies, salt warehouses, salt stacks, and salt shops, etc. There are also many benefits from this.

Not to mention that selling smuggled salt to Tatar-occupied areas is now more profitable.
Chapter completed!