New Shun 1730

Of course, the reform was indeed quite successful when looking at the salt tax alone.

However, in terms of implementation and policy, there is a big gap between Lin Min's initial vision of salt reform.

But just now Liu Yu asked him what he thought about the injustice, and he chose not to ask or talk about it but to go see the steam engine, which showed his attitude.

Liu Yu still saved a lot of face for these reformists who patted their heads, and found a good step.

At this time, Zhou Shuren's article naturally did not exist, and Liu Yu could not directly say that there was a compromise between opening the windows and demolishing the house, so he used existing allusions.

Taizong of the Tang Dynasty said: If you take the Dharma from above, you can only get it in the middle; if you take the Dharma from the middle, it will be the bottom.

Sun Tzu said: If you seek the upper part, you will get the middle part; if you seek the upper part, you will get the lower part; if you seek the lower part, you will be defeated.

Therefore, the steps are readily apparent: it is precisely because of the nonsense ideas put forward by these reformists who are slapping their heads that the salt policy reform adopted compromise methods and succeeded.

The head-cracking reformers want to comprehensively abolish supervision, so Liu Yu came up with the reform of continuing supervision. Therefore, the first contribution was to pat the heads of the reformists.

If you take the method from above, you can only get it from among them. That’s what you think, right? Otherwise, would this reform be successful?

As for the process of releasing tickets, in Lin Min's opinion, it was simply a slap in the face to his ideals and beliefs.

The release of tickets a few months ago was naturally based on the method Liu Yu said of "open tickets and secret quotes, half votes and half quotes".

As long as your thinking slips, there are plenty of solutions.

As long as you want to cheat and engage in insider operations, it is not easy.

Some of the former private salt dealers on Liu Yu's list who were investigated by the Boy's Army and deemed to have "transportation capabilities, capital turnover, and market share" "just happened to" get enough salt tickets in a fair draw.

And he quickly transformed from a smuggler punishable by death to a seller serving the court and the people.

At this time, it is not the time to directly carry out the reform of the Xiangchu Salt District. It is still in the preparation stage, so it is only a matter for the Huaibei Salt District.

Things couldn't be simpler.

A few months ago, in order to push back Liu Yu, who spoke too bluntly, he said that the imperial court wanted to restore Liu Yan's salt policy in the Tang Dynasty, but in fact it was still a compromise.

The original salt introduction method was for sellers and manufacturers to communicate directly.

Now, the Salt Administration takes off its pants and farts. It first gives purchase quotas to manufacturers according to orders, and then sells salt to sellers.

It seems like this is just a way to take off your pants and fart.

This is not the case.

Of course, he may not understand it clearly, but in Liu Yu's view, the essence of this salt reform is that industrial capital dominates commercial capital to replace the previous commercial capital dominating industrial capital.

In the past, Yanyin was dominated by commercial capital, so it would inevitably create scarcity and shortages, thereby increasing the price and increasing the value of the Yanyin in their hands.

For example, the Yanyin hoarders before and after Yuan Shizhen's reform. Why were they able to buy Yanyin at a low price? Because there is no salt, they can only make this price difference if production is suppressed and production is insufficient.

If the production is sufficient, people are stupid. They can buy salt tomorrow by importing salt, but today the tickets worth 100 taels of silver are sold to the hoarding dealer for 60 taels?

Liu Yu has seen a lot in Nanyang. Isn't this the same idea that the Dutch curbed production, cut down cloves, and burned cardamom.

The Dutch East India Company was a standard commercial capital, and their logic was of course consistent.

But now, after the simple factory transformation of salt production, the industrial capital of salt production has only one purpose: to sell more salt. The more they sell, the more they will earn.

At the same time, unlimited splitting of merchants who sell and transport goods can also be regarded as an anti-monopoly measure.

The few large salt merchants who originally controlled Yanyin used extremely violent methods, and even directly refused to recognize the customary law contracts and the legal rights of Yanyin from the previous dynasty, and directly split them into hundreds of small salt merchants, large and small.

Now, industrial capital has united and established a large salt-producing company; while commercial capital has been broken down by Liu Yu from a few companies into hundreds, and it is helpless.

How to prevent the salt industry from reducing production on its own? Here, the role of Yanguan is reflected. In essence, this is an order industry.

The imperial court signed the order contract in advance, and the state's violent machine told these salt producers what "fines" and "liquidated damages" were.

Of course, it's not without its benefits. The conditions given by the court were that if there was a lack of capital in the operation, there would be internal funds to provide loan support, and the loan interest rate was very low, only 1 cent, or 12%, which was an absolute low-interest loan in Dashun.

After this set of logic, the Dashun court's idea of ​​​​supporting the chaebols was vividly reflected.

Because there is a very simple judgment here.

That is: if there is a conflict between the saltworks employees and the saltworks owner, who will the court side with? If there is a conflict between the big salt field and the small salt households, who will the court side with?

What is a supported chaebol? This is called a supported chaebol.

Theoretically, the imperial court stood on no one's side. It stood in the middle, being both the emperor of capital and the emperor of hired workers.

However, the orders placed by the imperial court must be fulfilled. The imperial court must reduce costs and crack down on illegal salt. The imperial court must create a hole to facilitate anti-smuggling. The imperial court must prevent the rebellion of the people who cannot sell salt due to lack of salt.

So taking this as a starting point, isn’t it obvious who to side with?

Just because it's unclear doesn't mean these investors are stupid and can't understand the hidden rules.

Of course Lin Min understood it, so Liu Yu asked him what he thought about the injustice, but he didn't even look at it.

It's not because he thinks this is the direction of productivity development, his worldview does not recognize productivity at all.

But because he knows that the court's order model means that the court must stand on the side of large producers.

Of course, it is not completely without bottom line. Liu Yu also has a deterrent.

That is, a large number of new students who are not shareholders were sent to settle in and learn technology.

Another premise of this subtext is the way the Dashun handled the Bangka Island tin mine during the Nanyang expedition - imitating the British method, handing it over to the miners' gang for management and presidency, and it was successful. The output did not drop at all, and it was still able to ensure that the tin foil industry in Zhejiang had enough raw materials.

This deterrent method, like the emperor often using good family children to scare the imperial examination officials, cannot be used in reality, but it can be used in theory.

After the industrialization of salt production, in theory, the court can take over the Salt Industry Corporation at an appropriate time to ensure production.

What is the basis of this deterrence?

The fundamental basis of this deterrence is who has the advanced productivity in the Huaibei Salt Field?

Obviously, it was the boiler workers who burned the boilers, the skilled workers who tinkered with the steam engines, the salt workers who spread the salt, the old craftsmen who watched the weather and the water and tasted the tides, and the new students who were thrown in by Liu Yu to learn the technology and basically take charge of management.

Rather than investors who have no technology but only capital.

At the same time, because of the adoption of the mode of the court managing orders and the comprehensive salt ban, the significance of capital has declined.

It is not to say that its significance no longer exists. From the current level, it is still the best means of allocating resources at this time. It is definitely stronger than the bureaucratic management of the court, but it is not irreplaceable, and the cost is also affordable.

So this deterrence system can be realized and is deterrent.

Of course, the role of deterrence lies in the fact that before it is used, if it is really used, under the current conditions, there will be more trouble.

Because the purpose of the Dashun court is to receive salt taxes.

It has never been to vigorously develop productivity to meet the people's demand for salt.

Many people have misunderstandings about the feudal dynasty and think that it is the job and obligation of the feudal dynasty to let the people live a good life. But in fact, the job of the feudal dynasty is to guarantee power, family inheritance, and money to maintain all of this.

Liu Yu clearly distinguished this, so he could only choose to intimidate and scare but could not really do it.

This whole set of logic, of course, he could not use this as an excuse, but had to go through a move similar to a format converter to transform it into a reason that the Dashun officials at that time could understand and accept.

The real reason he thought of was garbled and could not be interpreted under the Dashun player.

But no matter how it is explained, for the court, the reason is not important, what is important is the result.

Because Confucianism is not a religion, it has its own set of political principles and economic ideas, but the result of using it is ruined, so the court still attaches great importance to actual results.

This is also in line with the overall trend of thinking that empty talk about the truth of mind, being pragmatic, and righteousness should be reflected in utilitarianism and seen in things under the background of the Ming Dynasty almost losing the world.

Even if we don’t just look at the salt tax, from other perspectives, this reform can be regarded as basically successful.

The Huaibei Salt District can collect salt tax, which proves that the other "additional options" - such as the people eating salt, which is purely an additional option in the eyes of the court - have also been achieved.

The Huaibei Salt District is different from other places.

There are two major salt fields in Changlu and Shandong; there are private salt fields in coastal areas of Huaibei.

The problem of the Huaibei Salt District is not that the people cannot eat salt, but that the people eat private salt.

Now the second ticket release has been completed, and the merchants who came this time are more enthusiastic than the first time. The salt tax has been collected, which proves one thing.

It proves that the first wave of salt merchants sold the official salt and made money.

Otherwise, they would be stupid to continue to come?

The official salt can be sold, which proves that the people eat official salt again.

The people do not eat private salt, but official salt, so the merchants can be more enthusiastic in the second ticket release.

Why do people not eat official salt but private salt?

Because the price of official salt has dropped.

Therefore, the court's additional option goal of allowing the people to eat cheap salt has also been achieved.

As for why the price of official salt has dropped, there are multiple factors.

There are reasons for increased production efficiency and reduced costs, reasons for the elimination of middlemen hoarding salt and making profits from the difference between middlemen, and indeed factors of the overall "decentralization, reduction of inspection links, reduction of formalities, and change of transportation routes" by the salt administration reformists.

But the root of this factor can be traced back to the abandonment of the canal transport.

Otherwise, the salt transportation route must be fixed to prevent smuggling of private salt from the north; inspections must be set up at key points and salt administration officials of all sizes must be placed, otherwise the logistics cost cannot be reduced.

Now, it is only necessary to set up checkpoints at several important Yellow River crossings to ensure that salt from other places cannot flow in, so that salt dealers can change to more convenient transportation routes and reduce the inspection of salt administration officials of all sizes.

If this trend continues, after everything gets on track next year, even if smuggling to other places is not considered, and the scope of the Huaibei salt sales area is not considered, it is still the original sales area. I am afraid that the salt tax that the Huaibei salt area can pay to the treasury next year will be two to three times that before the reform.

With such great political achievements, Lin Min naturally chose to ignore the people's cries for justice.

Instead, he was considering whether the Huaibei model could be replicated in Huainan. So after he was generally successful, he wanted to investigate the production methods here. He thought that if it was possible, it could be promoted in Huainan.

The problem in Huainan was that Sichuan salt, Guangdong salt, and Fujian salt were pressing forward step by step and constantly compressed. He looked at the direction of Huainan salt reform from this perspective.

So why can Guangdong salt and Fujian salt keep pressing forward? Because the ex-factory price is much cheaper than Huainan salt.

So he felt that the success of Huaibei salt reform gave him the possibility to solve this problem.