New Shun 1730

The abolition of the canal was the basis for the emperor to clean up the canal gangs.

But the emperor directly mobilized the garrisons in the Western Regions and used the secret service organization, the Children's Army, to arrest them, based on two other considerations.

One is now.

The other is in the future.

Considering the present, the canal was abolished and a large number of people lost their jobs.

The court could settle some people, but the rest could not be satisfied - for example, the gangs smuggled salt, this kind of secret profit, can the court's settlement satisfy these people?

I'm not afraid of rebellion.

What I'm afraid of is an organized rebellion.

Even if the court doesn't care about these canal workers, if they really revolt, if no one organizes, it will be a fate of swift rise and fall.

But with an organization like Wuweijiao, it's different.

So, instead of waiting for these people to organize and revolt, it's better to strike first.

Catch a group of backbones, and then force the rest to rebel. Anyway, the court is not afraid of the canal decaying now. It doesn't matter if it rots or not, and the canal rice will not go through the canal anymore, so what is there to be afraid of.

If they still use the canal, it will be a shock to the whole world.

If they don't use the canal, it will be a civil uprising at most. There are too many civil uprisings of this scale every year.

Considering the future, a large number of canal workers were divided into two parts.

One part was recruited into the "Xiangjun" to serve as a special engineering corps to build water conservancy projects.

The other part, with the abolition of river transportation and the rise of sea transportation, will definitely spontaneously flow into Tianjin and Shanghai, which are the two most important ports in the north and south after the rise of sea transportation.

For those who enter the Xiangjun, we must find out the high-level believers in them to prevent them from preaching in the army.

For those who go to Tianjin and Shanghai, we must dismantle the organization of Wuweijiao, because Tianjin and Shanghai have become the money bags and rice warehouses of the court.

Tianjin is related to the transportation of materials in Jiangnan.

Songjiang is related to the finance and taxation of Jiangnan.

The court cannot allow the gang culture generated by the canal transportation to take root in Tianjin and Songjiang Prefecture after the abolition of the canal.

The reason why the Dashun side used such violent means and sentenced a large number of people to death was that it was really difficult to deal with: exile them to Nanyang and let them take root in Nanyang? Besides, there was no money for exile, so they just killed them and got it over with.

Now, several months have passed since the incident that caused many places on both sides of the canal to cry and many families to wear mourning.

Many people in Changlu Salt Field were not followers of Wuwei Sect at all, but they were full of complaints about the court. Those who complained a lot were considered good people, and more hated the court to the bone, and even made up a lot of jokes to satirize the emperor.

Nothing else.

It was due to interests.

The canal was abandoned, and the most important smuggling channel of Changlu salt was cut off. It was visible to the naked eye that life became difficult.

The salt merchants were very skilled in price reduction and lending. They could not survive by selling regular salt.

The people who dried salt could only rely on selling a large amount of private salt to obtain what they needed for life.

The salt merchants could only collect a limited amount of salt, and even many salt merchants were actually closely related to private salt dealers.

The canal was abandoned, which cut off the smuggling route of private salt, which was equivalent to directly cutting off the road to the market.

As a result, not only the original "private salt" share was accumulated.

Even the previous "official salt" share was also reduced, because the share of salt merchants who used the public name to make private salt was also cut off.

Changlu Salt Field has its own particularity.

And this particularity can be traced back to the military reform that took place in Dashun a few years ago, as well as the development of the glass manufacturing industry.

After the military reform of Dashun, the full use of firearms and the pure use of flintlock bayonets, the annual demand for saltpeter surged.

However, Dashun neither conquered India nor had sodium nitrate from South America, so how to solve the problem of a large amount of saltpeter?

Changlu Salt Field has continuous saline-alkali land, which can be traced back to the time when the Yellow River had not changed its course. Whenever the weather was good, saltpeter would precipitate from these saline-alkali lands.

In order to solve the problem of saltpeter, Dashun encouraged boiling saltpeter in order to purchase these local saltpeters, concentrate them, and then refine and purify them.

There is no way to boil saltpeter in places where salt can really be dried.

The saltpeter-making areas are not the barren lands of the orthodox salt-producing areas.

However... the byproduct of saltpeter-making contains salt.

With the Dashun's thirst for saltpeter and the demand for war materials, the saltpeter-making method quickly became popular in the capital, Henan, and Hebei regions.

A large number of saltpeter dealers collected saltpeter everywhere and sold it to the government.

Problems also arose.

Those who manage saltpeter are in charge of military supplies.

These people do not care about saltpeter.

And those who manage saltpeter do not care about military supplies.

These people do not care about saltpeter.

As a result, a large amount of saltpeter-making byproducts flowed into the people.

Let's say that thing is salt... It's hard to say how much sodium chloride it contains. It's bitter and astringent, but it can't be said that it's not salt. It's a little bitter, but at least it's better than having no taste in the mouth.

To say that thing is not salt... There are too many poor people. After the saltpeter-making method was promoted, many people even made full use of the saltpeter alkali in the toilet, boiled saltpeter to sell for money, and ate the remaining salt base themselves. From the perspective of taxation, this is definitely private salt.

The salt permit policy made the middlemen earn too much difference, and the official salt was too expensive.

The living standards of many people at the bottom of Dashun were actually not as good as those of slaves in North America. Although this saltpeter-based salt was bitter, it was cheap.

And the government could not catch it, because saltpeter could not be boiled in regular salt-producing areas, and the places where saltpeter was boiled must be out of the control of those in the salt-producing areas.

A large number of vendors carried this bitter salt boiled with saltpeter and sold it everywhere.

The bottom market is basically occupied by this saltpeter-based bitter salt, and because the people who make and buy this salt are all in the weak areas of the court's rule: one is the barren saline-alkali land that is not even a formal salt field, and the other is the vast rural areas.

Did the court organize a patrol team to go from village to village to catch people who carry a shoulder pole and hang two dung baskets to sell bitter salt in the streets? If there is such grassroots control, it will not be so bad that it has to go to the Netherlands to borrow money to repair the Huaihe River.

Therefore, after the Dashun military reform, the annual sales of official salt in Changlu Salt Field have been declining.

What supports the prosperity of Changlu Salt Field?

Canal transportation and smuggling.

Once the abandoned river was abandoned, it almost instantly revealed its true form.

Many official salts that were theoretically sold in the Changlu Salt District were actually smuggled to other places along the canal.

Because the price of official salt here is lower than that of Huainan salt.

Most of the salt is made by drying salt in Changlu, while the salt is boiled in Huainan. One relies on the sun and the other relies on fire. Burning firewood also costs money, and the cost is extremely high. Firewood is not free.

The court has always been slow to respond.

Ask a court official what the military reform has to do with Changlu salt, and they definitely don’t know.

Moreover, the large amount of smuggling of official salt in Changlu has prevented the nominal salt tax from falling too much.

The court knows that the canal transport must be carrying private salt.

However, it has no idea how much it carries.

Under this particularity, it is conceivable how much hatred these people who dry salt will have for the abandoned canal.

Although the court seems to be innocent in saying that it is the unscrupulous salt merchants who lower the price and lend money that caused the poverty of the people who boil salt.

But the question is, who caused these salt merchants?

A while ago, the court arrested people who taught inaction everywhere. The people who dry salt may not know the impact of the canal policy, but what is their intuitive feeling?

It was the people who came here to collect salt and give them a way to live, who were arrested by the court.

As for whether they were believers? Private salt dealers? Gang members?

For those people, it had nothing to do with them.

What mattered to them was that these people were their breadwinners, and then they were arrested and executed by the brutal court.

Although Liu Yu's direction for salt administration reform was to turn smugglers into private owners.

But these gangs carrying private salt were not the "smugglers" in the circle he defined, because they were also second-hand dealers and were not responsible for sales.

And the "smugglers" who could be formalized by Liu Yu's salt reform were not second-hand dealers, but those who had markets and sales.

This is like the Dutch East India Company. If it was just a second-hand dealer, I'm afraid the grass on its grave would be three feet high now. However, it has its own market and sales, as well as smuggling channels, so it was instantly revived and became the most perfect partner.

These private salt dealers smuggling in the canal were not qualified to be transformed from smugglers and were worthless smugglers.

To the government, it is worthless.

But to the people in Changlu Salt District, it is like a parent who provides food and clothing.

It seems that public opinion is surging.

However, soon, the court's policy made the people who had previously scolded the court for its cruelty and the emperor for its incompetence praise the court in unison...

The court set up salt warehouses in various places in Changlu Salt District and began to purchase salt stored in the homes of the people who boiled salt.

The reason is: Your Majesty is benevolent, thinking of the suffering of the people, and understanding the difficulties of the common people. Therefore, the private salt that was dried in the salt fields in the past will be forgiven. Next year, we will conduct a strict investigation. This year, for the livelihood of the common people, we will purchase unlimited salt from each family for one month, and everyone will know it.

Moreover, it is directly given in silver, not copper coins made by salt merchants. Copper coins are converted into silver, and silver is converted into copper coins again. This is another layer of exploitation by salt merchants.

The people were very practical. Seeing that the court had introduced a policy to collect salt, which eased their urgent needs, they immediately changed from denouncing the court's corrupt officials, appointing the treacherous Duke Xingguo, abandoning the canal and cutting off the people's livelihood; to sighing at the emperor's great grace, the emperor's wisdom, the legacy of Yao and Shun, and the virtue of civil and military.

They were also afraid that there would be too much private salt and the court could not eat it. As soon as the news came out, men, women, old and young immediately went to the battle, wishing to transport all the salt piled up in their homes to the designated market to exchange for silver in an instant, fearing that the court would not accept it if they went too late.

After exchanging silver, they hurried to buy the court's "affordable rice".

The court mobilized some rice from Songjiang Prefecture and sold it at a fair price: to prevent a temporary excess of silver, fearing that unscrupulous merchants would take the opportunity to quickly raise grain prices.

Compared with unscrupulous merchants, it is definitely a fair price. In fact, these Siamese rice still have a profit of 40% to 50%. After a circle, a large amount of silver was recovered.

In less than half a month, the stored salt had shocked the court.

This is a simple inference:

If the salt could not be sold in normal times, these people would not have been idle to make so much salt. Obviously, this is the output in normal years. It is just because the smuggling of grain transport was abolished this year, which led to a backlog.

And it can be seen that the salt was eaten.

So it can be proved that the collection of so much stockpiled salt now means that the court loses so much salt tax every year.

The salt reform that originally only affected Huainan and Huaibei may also affect other places.

However, the salt merchants and salt officials in the capital area reacted very quickly when it came to their interests.

They immediately seized on a point and attacked fiercely, saying that the reason why the official salt in Changlu was not selling well had nothing to do with the salt permit system, but was entirely caused by the byproduct of saltpeter boiling after the military reform. To solve the problem of the poor sales of the official salt in Changlu, the best way is to let those who manage salt also manage saltpeter, make saltpeter and salt, give permits, provide iron pots and initial capital, strictly register saltpeter traders, designate saltpeter merchants, and purchase them in a unified manner.