Gao pragmatic has been paying attention to the salt industry for more than a year or two. As early as the end of the third year of Longqing, when he followed Gao Gong to Beijing, he was already paying attention to the salt affairs of the Ming Dynasty. However, because he was born with a crooked buttocks, his mother's family is
He is one of the top salt merchants, so it has been difficult for him to get involved.
Over the years, he has been studying how to deal with the salt issue, or in other words, how to solve some of the shortcomings in the salt issue.
Anyone who has a slight understanding of the economic part of ancient Chinese history knows that the salt industry in ancient China has always been a big piece of fat, but whether it is fat or not is not the main reason for Gao's pragmatic concern. After all, as a time traveler, he has many
There are ways to make money, and it doesn't necessarily have to be in the salt industry.
The main reason why Gao pragmatically pays attention to the salt industry is that the salt industry is a people's livelihood issue and is related to the stability of the country. However, the problem of the salt industry in the Ming Dynasty was particularly big and serious.
Specific to the use of salt in the north of the Ming Dynasty, the two main channels for a long time were "Lu Salt" from Changlu Salt Field and "Chi Salt" from Jiezhou, Shanxi. In particular, Jiezhou is adjacent to Puzhou to the west, which is Zhang Siwei's
hometown.
Luyan is sea salt, and Jiezhou is pond salt—that is, the salt of the salt lake.
The Zhang family originally engaged in pond salt production, but later due to changes in climate, hydrology, etc., the production of pond salt gradually declined. In the early Jiajing period, the Changlu Salt Farm was undergoing reform, and the Zhang family gradually turned to Changlu for development.
And eventually basically monopolized Changashino Salt.
The salt industry system of the Ming Dynasty was not static. In fact, there were always fine-tuning and reforms.
The specific reform process is limited by the length of this book and it is inconvenient to describe it in detail (I estimated that there are less than 5,000 words to explain), so I can only make a long story short. The process roughly includes "salt class folding cloth" and "salt field high and low work together."
Policy changes such as "opening the country", "buying surplus salt to supplement it", "salt lessons can be converted into silver" and other policy changes.
The conversion of salt classes into silver was roughly a reform carried out in the early years of Jiajing - there is a saying in later generations called "Jialong Wanda Reform", which is an affirmation of some of the reforms in Jiajing's early years. This reform in the salt industry was also part of the early reforms in Jiajing.
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It was after this reform that the Zhang family entered the Changlu Saltworks.
In the ninth year of Jiajing, Fu Jiong, the censor of salt inspection in Changlu, confirmed that the four salt classes of Jimin, Stone Stele, Huimin, and Guihua under the Qingzhou branch, after changing the folding of cloth, further changed the folding of silver, "ordering every stove Ding every
For every salt earned, one coin of silver was paid, and the remaining salt for the merchants was bought to make up the amount." By the 29th year of Jiajing, almost all the salt courses of the twelve salt farms affiliated to the Cangzhou branch were converted into silver.
Do you feel that this routine is familiar? Yes, this reform is very similar to the one-whip method. So I have already said that the one-whip method is not Zhang Juzheng’s invention at all, and he is not even the first assistant to promote the one-whip method.
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What are the specific methods for this restructuring?
"It was agreed that (Cangzhou Branch), Shenzhou Haiyingchang kitchen households, except for the 13 households in Yanshan County, who live in Hengshui County, Zhending Prefecture, and other households, will receive one coin of silver each time. This will benefit the country.
Waiting for the 11th day of the year, the rice will be transferred to Tianjin and other warehouses, and each stone will be levied at 5 cents of silver; the 13th day of Haiying and other 13th day will be discounted for rice and the salt price is silver. The old method is 7 cents and 5 cents. Now it is reduced by one cent. After each levy is completed, go to the department.
Similar solution."
It should be said that the reform of the salt class not only conforms to the self-interests of the salt farm households, but also conforms to the overall trend of Changlu's salt policy reform.
The salt class is converted into silver, and "the discount is paid to the transportation department to give to the merchants." It can be said that it kills two birds with one stone. It not only effectively solves the problem of the stove owner suffering from compensation due to the melting of the salt, but also complies with the merchants' willingness to open the transportation
Willingness to facilitate regional salt farms, thus having the effect of supporting stoves and subsidizing business.
However, this system has also given rise to some new problems: First, compared with the previous salt farm operation model, there is an extra link for kitchen households to sell salt and obtain silver. In this link, kitchen households are often vulnerable to salt merchants deliberately lowering the price of salt.
risks of.
During the Jiajing period, someone once pointed out: "The owner of Fu Zao's house, Yan'er, is now levied with discounts, and loans are given at twice the interest. Ten houses are empty, and often people are forced to flee and have no way to make a living."
Second, it has become inevitable for Zaotan households to break free from the shackles of the salt field, leave the salt field, and switch to other industries. Especially after "the Zaotan grasslands were invaded by powerful people or traded with each other", they lost their means of production.
The poor and weak households were unable to ensure production and were forced to flee.
In short, the introduction of policies such as folding cloth in salt classes, matching high and low salt fields with each other, purchasing surplus salt, and discounting silver in salt classes were the Ming Dynasty's solution to the problem of salt accumulation in some salt fields in Changlu and the problem of uncommercial withdrawals.
Countermeasures. However, in the late Jiajing period, some saltworks ended up in the situation of "there is a field but no stove", and the saltworks were just in name.
So in the third year of Longqing (before Gao Gong returned to Beijing to resume his career), with the approval of Fu Mengchun, the imperial censor of Zhili, the Ming court merged Yiminchang into Fucaichang, Haifuchang into Hairunchang and Runguochang.
It was merged into Fumin Market, and Sanhan Sold Market was merged into Fengcai Market. As a result, the number of Changlu Salt Fields was reduced from 24 in the early Ming Dynasty to 20, and 17 of them were actually controlled by the Zhang family, basically completing the monopoly.
From Gao Pragmatic's perspective, this time of salt farm merger actually means that the operation model of Changlu Salt Farm has deviated from the development path set by the state.
That is: Zao households produce salt in the salt field → sell the salt produced and exchange it for silver → the salt farm ambassador urges Zao households to collect salt tax silver, which develops into: Zao household leaves the salt farm and no longer produces salt → returns to the prefecture and county where he was originally from and changes his duties to others
Industry→The salt field ambassador urged the kitchen households to collect salt tax silver.
The problem it brings is that in the actual process of urging the collection of cooking classes, it is easy to cause malpractice. The salt field ambassador is incapable of doing anything, so he will inevitably assign the task of urging the collection of cooking classes to the kitchen leader or the general supervisor, which is easy to breed.
There are some disadvantages such as overcrowding classes, adding extra classes at will, and delaying classes at will.
On the other hand, state and county officials "were attached to the Zao household by official registration, and had their own dedicated personnel, without any restraint, so that they harbored evildoers and acted arbitrarily, which was inevitable due to the situation."
All in all, it was not good for kitchen households, farm officials, and the country. Therefore, the restructuring before Gao Gong returned to Beijing in the third year of Longqing failed to solve this problem.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! As for the period when Gao Gong was in power, first of all, Gao Pragmatic had persuaded him before (for details, please see Chapter 020 of "Xiaoge Lao" in the first volume of this book)
"Talk about Salt and Iron"), secondly because Zhang Siwei was Gao Dang's core ally, and thirdly because there was a lack of effective means to reform salt affairs at that time, and in short, he failed to make any achievements in this matter.
During the subsequent period when Guo Pu was in power, one word can be used to describe Xiao Gui and Cao Sui. Since the iron-fisted reformers like Gao Gong did not touch the salt affairs, Guo Pu, the chief minister who was more striving for stability, obviously would not act rashly.
What's more, the relationship between him and Zhang Siwei is not as close as Gao Gong and Zhang Siwei. In many cases, Gao Pragmatism is even needed to lubricate it, so naturally he is even less likely to disturb the salt affairs, causing Gao's party to split.
It stands to reason that after Zhang Siwei himself became the first assistant and took charge, there should be no chance to change the salt issue, because Zhang Siwei himself is a so-called vested interest.
However, the fact is that Zhang Siwei himself is dissatisfied with the current status quo of the salt industry, and precisely because he is the first assistant of a salt merchant family, he has a clearer view of the problems in the salt industry, and because he hopes to leave a name for future generations, in fact
He is more willing to further reform the salt industry.
When Gao pragmatically visited Zhang Siwei last time, Zhang Siwei tentatively mentioned the salt industry issue to Gao pragmatically for the first time - of course, he did not directly say that he wanted to reform the salt industry, but asked Gao pragmatically in a roundabout way if he had any good ideas.
Investment channels prevent the Zhang family from hanging on the tree of salt industry.
That's when Gao Pragmatic discovered that Zhang Siwei might have the intention to reform the salt industry, but he probably hadn't made up his mind yet.
But having intention is the best news, because the rest is just a matter of means.
I'm just afraid that Zhang Siwei insists that the salt industry is the core interest of the Zhang family and Gao Pragmatic is not allowed to touch it, which would be a big trouble. Because with Gao Pragmatic's identity and personality, he would have to wait until Zhang Siwei passes away.
Now we can free up our hands and feet to reform the salt affairs.
After all, in this era, uncles are like mothers. What’s more, Zhang Siwei gave Sanshen Garden to Gao Pragmatic, which was actually his first pot of gold. If Zhang Siwei’s objections are ignored to reform the salt affairs now, regardless of this reason
No matter how adequate the country is, it will inevitably give him a reputation of being unfilial.
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