So he actually said before Emperor Wanli: "My Lord Marquis, what are you causing trouble here?"
At this time, Emperor Wanli waved his hand and said: "I know you are not a random person. You should get up and speak first, and speak clearly slowly."
After thanking Liu Haojia, he stood up and said: "I visited several places in Jiubian this time during my patrol and discovered a problem, that is, there is a shortage of food in Jiubian! Moreover, the price of food remains high, making it difficult for residents in border towns to eat.
It's especially difficult for soldiers! The money allocated by the court has been peeled off by the civil servants. By the time it reaches the border town, there is not much of it, and when it is divided into the hands of the soldiers, it is even less! Not to mention that the family has seen meat and fish.
It’s hard to eat enough!”
Then he described the information he had learned along the way to Emperor Wanli in detail. In his description, the border soldiers were all brave and unyielding heroes, and they had to guard the border for the Ming Dynasty even if they were hungry! And all the civil servants were the same.
Vampires, there is no shortage of money and food in their hands!
Finally, he said: "So I thought of using these heads to make friends with the generals of the border army and let them protect my food shop, so that I can earn some pocket money and provide food for the soldiers and civilians in the border town."
Provide food so that the fighting capacity of the border town can be maintained!"
Emperor Wanli knocked on the table with his hand and kept silent, but he was thinking rapidly in his mind! The current Emperor Wanli is no longer the Wu Xia Amen of the past. He has a profound understanding of how the Kaizhong method was corrupted back then?
One of the first reasons is that it harms the interests of the salt industry monopoly! If you are asked to exchange grain for salt and sell it, you will not earn as much as you can by selling it yourself! Therefore, those officials deliberately do not give salt to the merchants who grow grain, even if they use the salt to lure them.
They didn't sell it either, causing the merchants in the field to lose their food in vain!
The second offender is those wealthy and powerful families! They hoard food and artificially raise food prices. Because the biggest business in an agricultural society is food. Even in modern society, food may not be as profitable as other industries, but it is definitely not obvious.
It is a good and stable way to make money without dew! Therefore, under the attack of two phases, the method of opening the middle will naturally be corrupted slowly!
Thinking of this, Emperor Wanli said: "I see! But if you want to restore the Kaizhong method, where does the salt come from? Where does the food come from?"
Zhang Jia also said: "Yes, the people behind those salt merchants and grain merchants are all wealthy gentry and prominent families. How can it be so easy to get salt and grain from their mouths!"
Liu Haojia said: "Long live Lord, actually this matter is simple! Wouldn't it be enough for the inner court to open a salt farm specifically for Jiubian to use salt? Then exchange the salt for grain and send it to Jiubian. Moreover, if there is more salt production, it will also
The price of salt can be brought down so that those who sell private salt are unprofitable, and the salt tax can also be increased a lot!"
Zhang Jia said: "Then where do you plan to open your salt farm?"
Liu Haojia said: "Isn't there a Changlu Saltworks in Tianjin? Just open one next to it! As for grain, I know many businessmen and can let them go to the northwest to farm. This will affect the grain merchants in the northwest at most in the early days.
The income will not cause too much counterattack. When the stall becomes bigger in the future, maybe I can easily bring down the price of salt. By then, the official salt will be sold cheaper than the private salt. Let’s see how those salt merchants deal with it!
"
Emperor Wanli shook his head regretfully and said: "But how can this salt be produced so easily? Although I have never seen boiling salt, I have read about the process of producing salt in books. It requires manpower and a lot of firewood. Once it cannot be disposed of,
Well, gathering too many people will cause trouble easily!"
Liu Haojia heard this and said with confidence: "Long live my Lord, you can rest assured of this! I can produce a large amount of salt with a relatively small number of people!"
Emperor Wanli's eyes lit up when he heard this and said, "What is the solution?"
Liu Haojia said: "Salt sun method!"
Emperor Wanli was immediately discouraged when he heard this, shook his head and said: "I also know the salt-drying method! But if the salt-drying method is useful, it is impossible for no one to use it all the time! It can be seen that the salt-drying method is flashy and cannot be used for much purpose!"
Liu Haojia immediately said: "Long Live Lord, I'm afraid I'm wrong on this point! The method mentioned in the book is slightly different from my method, because they don't have the same thing that I have in hand, which is cement!"
After speaking, Liu Haojia explained to Emperor Wanli his plan to build a salt field using cement. At the same time, he also told Emperor Wanli that the salt-drying method was actually very promising, and it could be done without cement, but no one did it!
In fact, the method of drying salt had already appeared in the Song Dynasty, but why was boiling salt still used in the Ming Dynasty? The main reason was that there was no money to build salt fields.
First of all, when making salt fields for drying salt in ancient times, the foundations for digging the salt fields were similar. However, after the foundation was built, it was different. It had to be mixed with glutinous rice slurry and compacted repeatedly, which required a lot of man-hours and money.
, it can be said that every salt field is paved with silver!
However, there are still big problems with the salt fields built in this way! That is, although the rammed earth is smashed very solidly, it is soil after all. When the push plate is used to collect the salt from the sun, the soil will fall off and mix into the salt.
, causing the color of the salt to deteriorate!
Moreover, no matter how strong the rammed earth is, under repeated scraping by the push plate, the rammed earth will be thinned layer by layer over time. A salt field will be abandoned and rebuilt within a few years, so the cost of the salt produced in this way is high.
Too high!
What's more, building salt fields requires a vast area, which requires even more money, which is simply not affordable for ordinary people! Those kitchen households are so poor that they naturally cannot afford to build salt fields. And those salt merchants have already
Those who make a lot of money are naturally too lazy to invest in building salt fields. Maintaining high salt prices like this will help them sell private salt and make more huge profits, so naturally they will not use it!
After listening to Liu Haojia's explanation, Emperor Wanli was so angry that his face turned red and he cursed loudly! He said that these salt merchant officials really deserved to be killed! Not only did they eat up each and every one of them, they also made the price of salt extremely high, and then secretly sold the salt to make huge profits.
!
But after he scolded him, he felt guilty! Because these people saluted him again, even Zhang Juzheng did not dare to confront him head-on, and could only play by the law! So he really had no confidence in Liu Haojia's success this time!
However, he still held on to a glimmer of hope and said: "Liu Aiqing, just do it this time to collect the salt field. Tomorrow, let the inner court issue a decree and the salt produced will be supplied directly to the nine sides! I would like to see who dares to take the initiative.