New Shun 1730

The emperor was only expressing his attitude in the court when he got angry. The grassroots corruption of the officialdom has been going on for a long time. If anyone says that it can be cured, it is pure nonsense.

This attitude is just to boost the momentum of the reformists. He will slowly clean up in the future. After all, the story of the previous emperor Taizu told Li Gan that killing people is not a good way to kill.

Now the salt administration reformists, anti-reformists, and the rebels like Liu Yu who are mixed in the middle, have conflicts and differences with each other, and sometimes they agree on some issues.

Now the three parties understand one thing:

That is, the salt drying method with steam engine water extraction has solved the problem of insufficient production that has plagued the salt administration of all dynasties.

The anti-reformists have no chance of winning against the reformists on the issue of production.

The only place where the two sides can decide the winner is in the "remote areas" of the salt area.

The two major problems of salt administration are production and transportation.

The production problem has been solved, and the victory or defeat of the remote areas will determine the depth of the Huainan salt reform.

For general contractors and salt hoarders, although sufficient production will harm their interests, the biggest loss is to abolish the general contractor system and the salt zoning system.

The direction of the struggle must be grasped within this range.

That is, it proves that in remote areas, this set of antitrust law split reforms will be counterproductive.

So why did we mention Jiangxi at the court today? Because this is a template-like "marginal province of the salt area".

But even if it is also a marginal province of the salt area, there are differences within it.

Jiangxi is actually not too far from the Huainan salt production area. The edge of Jiangxi comes from the flood of private salt in Jiangxi, or from the export of Fujian and Guangdong since the mid-Ming Dynasty, which led to the problem of carrying private salt from Fujian and Guangdong on the trade route that could not be solved.

But now, the Jiangxi problem, along with the northward migration of the trade center, has actually been completely solved.

Therefore, the anti-reform ministers immediately opposed using Jiangxi as an experiment.

Because they keenly realized that after the production problem was solved by the salt-drying method and steam engine water extraction, the most likely problem with salt administration was the "logistics problem".

The farther away, the harder it is for the reformers to achieve their reforms, and the more likely they are to have major problems.

Jiangxi is not considered "far away" because of overseas trade.

So if Jiangxi cannot be used as a competition venue, where should we choose?

After the emperor got angry, he called Lin Min's name, and started to criticize him, and then asked: "Since you are in charge of the Lianghuai salt administration, the Duke of Xingguo talked about land reclamation, which is related to the salt administration but not his main business. In your opinion, what is the problem with the salt administration?"

Lin Min was familiar with his job, but the emperor criticized him before asking, so he could only open the rotten scar of Dashun and make things clear.

Since the Jiangxi salt administration issue has already led to conflicts between the local and central governments, the truth he said is not a big deal.

"Your Majesty, the collapse of Jiangxi's salt administration is not a one-time thing."

"In previous years, Jiangxi's salt administration estimated that the salt quota was about 250,000 jin. If each jin weighs 350 jin, then 80 million jin of salt is needed every year."

"However, the actual sales of official salt in Jiangxi has only fluctuated around 50% over the years. In the highest year, only 55% was sold."

"But in fact, the people of Jiangxi do not lack salt."

"In Jiangxi Province, private salt is rampant everywhere."

"And the place where private salt is most rampant is Ji'an Prefecture."

"I dare to use Ji'an Prefecture as an example to explain what went wrong with Jiangxi's salt administration."

The emperor indicated his permission. Indeed, the actual sales of Jiangxi's salt quotas were about half every year, which had long been a difficult problem.

Lin Min used the example of Ji'an Prefecture to explain the matter thoroughly.

It turned out that the salt in Ji'an Prefecture belonged to Guangdong, and they ate Guangdong salt.

The chaos at the end of the Ming Dynasty also involved the issue of recovering Taiwan Prefecture.

Guangdong and Fujian were always the frontline in those years, with tug-of-war, naval battles, landings and counter-landings, looting and counter-looting. The Dashun fought under the banner of protecting the world, and could not hook up with the Dutch or the Portuguese.

The war led to a sharp drop in salt production.

The sharp drop in salt production in Guangdong and Fujian has brought up new problems.

For example, Ji'an Prefecture was originally a salt area in Guangdong. The court had to evaluate officials to collect taxes, and the evaluation of officials must involve taxes.

Involving taxes means that official supervision must be involved to sell salt.

Salt monopoly means that the court must use administrative power to guarantee the monopoly, that is, to ensure that the monopoly merchants gain profits, otherwise who will spend money to pay taxes to buy salt permits?

As the frontline of the confrontation between the two sides of the strait, Guangdong and Fujian have reduced salt production. This is almost a replica of the "with permits but no salt" in the Lianghuai Salt Administration in the late Ming Dynasty, but in a different form of expression.

The current Huaibei Salt Administration Reform, even the policies before the reform, are different from before.

Previously, the salt administration in Fujian and Guangdong was that merchants went to prefectures, states, and counties to contract, and then after receiving the contract documents, they reported the general account to the higher authorities, and then issued the salt according to the contract amount.

The problem is that even if the salt production in Guangdong does not decrease, there is still a shortage of salt.

Why?

Because this is related to the issue of head tax and salt tax.

The more people there are, the more taxes you have to pay.

The more taxes you have to pay, the more difficult it is for local officials to complete.

If the evaluation does not even evaluate the tax revenue, what is the point of evaluation?

Before the tax law reform, hiding the population was beneficial to local officials.

The head tax is not so bad. It doesn’t matter whether the hidden people are not collected, or the local governments make false accounts and pay the head tax in the court accounts and divide the rest among themselves.

The key is salt.

The hidden people are only the heads counted in the account books.

But the population not counted in the account books also needs salt. It doesn’t mean that if they are not counted in the account books, they don’t need to eat salt.

The salt production has been reduced because of the war front. Now there are a large number of hidden people who need salt.

Are the salt merchants out of their minds? Instead of selling salt in places closer to the salt production area, they go to Ji’an Prefecture to sell salt?

Besides, the salt consumed by the hidden people will inevitably lead to a decrease in the production of official salt - a lot of salt production must be reported as private salt, and the hidden people can only eat private salt.

No matter how stupid the court is, it will feel something is wrong. How can a few people eat so much salt? Why, in other places, people consume five catties of salt per year, but people in Jiangxi are made of special materials and consume 40 catties of salt per year?

This leads to more salt permits and less salt on the surface.

Merchants in Ji'an Prefecture don't buy permits at all.

If merchants don't buy permits, can the evaluation of the higher authorities control the merchants?

The higher authorities naturally criticized the local officials: What do you do? You can't even recruit salt permits? There is something wrong with your governance ability, and you want to get promoted? Promotion!

At that time, Lianghuai Salt was different from the old methods of Guangdong and Fujian because it was the first area where Yuan Shizhengang's salt law was implemented in the Ming Dynasty.

The responsibility system of Lianghuai Salt is as follows: the general contractor takes the salt permit, and the seller buys the permit. If you think that the city can sell 100 catties of salt, then buy 100 catties of permits. The responsibility of the local officials is to sell these 100 catties of taxed salt. And that city, according to the population, can actually consume 500 catties of salt, but this has little to do with the local officials. The salt tax is only linked to the contractor.

The responsibility of the Guangdong Salt District is: How many people are there in your prefecture-level city? Each person is calculated as five kilograms of salt. If there are 100 people in your city, you need to sell 500 kilograms of salt in your city. These 500 kilograms of salt are numbered, and your local officials are responsible for finding merchants to buy permits. After buying permits, they will calculate and summarize, and go to the salt district to queue up to get salt. Salt tax is directly linked to local officials.

The war front, assessment, hidden population leading to salt shortages, etc., combined together, made the local officials of Ji'an Prefecture choose to "vote with their feet."

The policies of the Guangdong Salt District, coupled with assessments, and the situation where the salt industry is affected by the confrontation across the strait, are a dead end:

How can the population be governed if it doesn't increase every day? What level? The population doesn't increase, and you still want to get promoted? It is clear that the administrative ability is not up to standard. Bad review, don't even think about getting promoted.

The population increased, the population assessment went up, and the salt permit assessment fell again. What's going on? You can sell 500 kilograms of salt, but you can't even sell 100 kilograms of salt. How do you deal with the relationship between the local government and the merchants? Bad review, don't even think about getting promoted.

The policy of Lianghuai salt is exactly what the local officials of Ji'an Prefecture like.

Salt tax has nothing to do with the local government. It is the responsibility of the court-Lianghuai Salt Administration-general contractor-subcontractor.

Whether to contract the salt of Ji'an Prefecture is a lawsuit between the Lianghuai Salt Administration and the general contractor and subcontractor. You can play it.

We local officials are only responsible for one thing: if you bring in 100 kilograms of salt, I guarantee that you can sell this 100 kilograms of salt; if you foolishly bring in 500 kilograms of salt, just wait for bankruptcy. Since there is no business without fraud, naturally no merchant will bring in 500 kilograms of salt.

This responsibility is much smaller than the previous "counting population, calculating salt permits, attracting local merchants, and paying salt taxes".

Therefore, the local officials of Ji'an Prefecture quickly reached a consensus and petitioned the court, using the reason of "Guangdong's insufficient salt production" to request that it be under the jurisdiction of the Lianghuai Salt District.

The household government discussed for a long time and agreed.

The officials of the entire Ji'an Prefecture breathed a sigh of relief.

Is there a problem with this method?

The problem is huge!

It completely violates the laws of nature. Is Ji'an Prefecture close to Guangdong and Fujian? Or is it close to Lianghuai?

In the future, Guangdong salt and Fujian salt will inevitably flood.

But, the bastard has only been a local official for a few decades.

The problem at that time was solved at that time.

What does the future have to do with the local officials at that time?

So in the years when Ji'an Prefecture was incorporated into the Lianghuai Salt District, the performance of local officials skyrocketed.

Officials from various counties decisively struck hard to crack down on private salt, and by the way, they also counted some of the population that had been hidden over the years.

Within a few years, the local officials were all rated as top-notch.

The population increased, and the salt merchants were satisfied with the sales. They were indeed capable, so they were promoted quickly!

After that period of time, the troubles in the future will come.

Lianghuai salt in Ji'an Prefecture is ultimately no match for Fujian and Guangdong salt. Strict crackdowns on smuggling can only be effective for a while, not forever.

However, when the official salt in Ji'an Prefecture is not selling well and the smuggled salt is selling well, the official salt collapses completely.

At that time, the local officials of Ji'an Prefecture were no longer in Ji'an Prefecture. Those who should be promoted have been promoted, and those who should retire have retired.

On the court side, it is difficult to grasp the responsibility.

Whose responsibility?

For local officials who are only concerned about promotion, my responsibility is to sell the salt merchants who have contracted so many salt permits in Lianghuai. It is the salt merchants who do not buy the salt permits of Ji'an Prefecture, so what does it have to do with me?

For officials with conscience, this salt and iron monopoly policy is the legacy of Emperor Wu of Han, and it should have been abolished long ago. Smugglers come to sell private salt, just open a loophole.

For the general contractor, he holds the salt permit in his hand, communicates directly with the salt producers, uses some tricks to sell private salt, and increases the contract price of the salt permit, so he can make money. Whether the official salt of Ji'an Prefecture can be sold is none of his business? With so many people hidden, are you afraid that the salt can't be sold?

For the secondary contractor, the official salt of Ji'an Prefecture is not easy to sell, so why don't I go? Why do I have to go? Salt tax is the connection between the general contractor and the court, what's our business? Do you really think that we, small salt merchants, serve the people? Must we sell salt to remote areas at a loss?

For the common people, official salt is so expensive, I have to be loyal to your old Li family, and give up the cheap private salt of Fujian and Guangdong, and eat the official salt of Lianghuai? I would rather eat official salt at 40 wen per catty than private salt at 14 wen per catty? Besides, can I afford it?

Lin Min took this opportunity to directly expose these rotten scars of Dashun, and his meaning was very clear.

Salt administration reform is not a simple reform.

The game between the local government and the central government is just one of the links, so there is no need to be surprised.

Salt administration reform involves the overall reform of production, contracting, transportation, sales, tax payment, evaluation, and even the redivision of salt areas.

Carrying out salt administration reform in Xiao Huaibei or even Xiao Huaihai is just a low-level repair.

Since it has been changed to this extent, it should be a major change.

Although it is all repair, the arm is almost rotten, and I am still thinking about finding a Yangzhou pedicure master to repair the onychomycosis. Isn't this nonsense?