Please ask me to be the emperor

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the commodity economy was extremely developed, and the three most influential merchant groups were roughly formed: Shanxi, Southeast and Haishang.

The object of maritime trade is foreign trade, let alone mentioning it. The most influential merchants from Shanxi, Shaanxi and Southeast China were the famous Shanxi merchants and Hui merchants.

The reason why these two were able to become as important as the maritime merchant group was mainly due to the salt policy of the Ming Dynasty.

In the third year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, due to the lack of military rations in Shanxi and other border areas, the Ming court recruited merchants to transport grain in exchange for salt, and then exchanged the salt for salt to be sold in designated areas, which was called the "Kaizhong method."

Historical records: According to the method of Zhongyan, the army guards the border and the people provide wages. The salt is in it and serves as the hub, so it is called Kaizhong.

In fact, in addition to the salt-in-grain method, systems such as the salt-in-note method, the iron-in-salt method, and the horse-salt method were also implemented one after another.

The basic idea is that the court spends no money and uses the huge profits from salt to exchange for military supplies for border areas.

Since Shaanxi and Shanxi are close to each other, the freight is much lower than other regions. Therefore, many people from Shaanxi and Shanxi settled fields on the spot, which was called Shangtun.

After the grain was harvested, it was included in the border areas, and then went to the salt fields in Lianghuai and other places to exchange salt for salt. Countless people became wealthy merchants in a short time.

Since the kitchen households who cooked the salt at that time were in the hands of the imperial court, merchants could only use the salt to exchange, and had no say in the origin of the salt. This resulted in merchants from Shanxi and Shaanxi firmly occupying the dominant position in the Lianghuai salt industry under the "open-China law" system.

However, the good times did not last long. As the border troubles in the north intensified, the demand for food, wages and other materials increased significantly, resulting in financial constraints.

On the one hand, the Ming court began to lower the price of salt purchased from Zaohu households. On the other hand, merchants continued to pay for grain, iron and other military supplies, which made it impossible for the court to pay for the salt in full.

This resulted in the Ming court having to partially loosen its control over salt, allowing salt merchants to use salt to lure kitchen households to purchase the salt that would make them rich after turning it over. On the other hand, the Ming court implemented the "Compendium Law" and included giant merchants in the compendium. Obtain salt merchants and gain hereditary rights to purchase, transport and sell salt.

Since then, the voice of salt-producing areas has greatly increased, and many salt-producing areas have produced a large number of "hoarders."

The so-called hoarders mean that after the border merchants pay the grain, they cannot pay it to the transshipment department or the salt production area, so they have to transfer the salt to the hoarders at a low price.

As a result, "this piece of paper attracts people's attention. Buyers often pay more than one tael, while sellers suffer only two taels, and the profit goes to the hoarders."

That is to say, domestic merchants in the salt producing areas colluded with the government and kitchen households and failed to pay the salt on time, which resulted in Shanxi-Shaanxi border merchants having to sell the salt at a low price. On the contrary, the "hoarders" made huge profits.

As a result, a large number of wealthy merchants, represented by Huizhou Prefecture, emerged in the Lianghuai area.

At this point, the dominance of the salt industry changed hands, and the southeastern salt merchants overcame the dominant position of the Shanxi and Shaanxi salt merchants in the Lianghuai salt industry.

It was under this background that the Cheng family of Huaitang emerged and gradually occupied a place among the salt merchants of Huaihe and Huaihe in the late Ming Dynasty.

As a member of the Cheng family, Cheng Jia's ancestors had practitioners of medicine and poems, but they had never been merchants.

In Cheng Jia's generation, with the help of salt merchants from the same clan, he became rich and became a salt merchant.

This person kept saying that he wanted to make friends with "Brother Li", but he came to Zhang Shun's door. His intention can be imagined.

The two exchanged a few polite words, and Cheng Jia showed off: "Cheng lives in She County. He is a descendant of Tangjiang Village in Huai, Xin'an. Fortunately, he was promoted by the same clan and has a small amount of money. The current Zheng Shilang has been replaced by Wenhua. The position of assistant minister of the book processing department in the palace!"

Zhang Shun was a little confused when he heard this. Why did you, an official of the Ming Dynasty, come to the territory of a "rebellious minister and traitor" like me? Are you going to "suppress the bandits", or are you going to be "suppressed by the bandits"?

Fortunately, Li Baihu also knew that there were too many twists and turns, and Zhang Shun might not be able to understand it.

He quickly said: "Huizhou Prefecture was called Xin'an in ancient times. The Cheng family is the head of the Xin'an clan. They all take Huaitang as their sect and are divided into 'nine sects and thirteen sects'. They are a large salt merchant clan."

"His family members have traveled all over Huizhou, Hangzhou, Yangzhou and Huai'an. They have served in politics and business for two years. They are one of the most famous families in Xin'an."

"Brother Cheng started from scratch again and has a wealthy family. He has been promoted from the seventh rank to a casual official and has the title of Minister of the Processing Department."

Oh, that’s what happened!

Only then did Zhang Shun realize that "Huaitang" was the clan name of the Cheng family, which was divided into "nine sects and thirteen sects".

This Cheng Jia Zheng belongs to the Jiangcun sect among the "Nine Sects and Thirteen Sects".

He first relied on the power of his clan to become a wealthy businessman and owned property. Then he spent money to buy a false title as an official to enhance his status.

The so-called "Zhengshilang" refers to the rank of casual official promoted from the seventh rank.

In the Ming Dynasty, casual officials were divided into initial conferment and promotion conferment. The first conferment was called the initial conferment. From the first rank of the seventh rank, the title of casual official is Cong Shilang. When it is ennobled again, it is called promotion. This Seishirou is the upgraded version of Shirou.

Cheng Jia's official position was all fictitious and had no actual duties. He just wanted to avoid being bullied based on his status when dealing with the government.

Zhang Shun understood the connection, and responded with his hands raised: "I'm sorry, I didn't expect Shi Lang Cheng to be so capable!"

"Where, where!" Cheng Jia also knew what happened to his official status, and of course he would not be arrogant about it.

Seeing that the fire was almost done, Cheng Jia smiled and said: "To be honest with His Highness King Shun, Cheng came here this time to talk about the salt industry under the rule of the rebel army. I wonder what King Shun wants?"

Originally, the salt in Luoyang was in the hands of King Fu, and its salt also came from Lianghuai, which was a long way away.

After Zhang Shun took over Luoyang and even Henan Prefecture, he used Li Baihu's connections to import and sell salt from Hedong, Shanxi, which greatly reduced the market for Huai salt in Henan.

As Zhang Shun fought successively and defeated Fu Zonglong, the governor of Henan, Tang Hui, the governor of Huguang, and Zhu Dadian, the governor of Caoyun and Fengyang governor, Cheng Jia became keenly aware that this was a rapidly expanding "emerging market."

If you can get on the line with "Shun Thief", then how big the "Shun Thief"'s territory is, how big your Huaiyan sales market will be.

So this time, after he established a relationship with Li Baihu, he came to see Zhang Shun in person for the sake of the salt market under his rule.

Zhang Shun couldn't help but laugh when he heard this: "This is just a petty thing. Just go back and discuss it with Li Baihu and Sihu Zhang Shenyan. Why should I, the king, do this?"

"If Mr. Cheng is a big business person, I have many deals to discuss with you!"

When Cheng Jia heard what Zhang Shun said, he was disappointed at first and told Zhang Shun to look at him. Until I heard the words behind it, I was both happy and surprised. I couldn't help but ask: "I wonder what kind of business King Shun still has to do? As long as the Cheng family can eat it, he will definitely not do anything to others!"

"Food, regardless of rice, wheat, beans, or millet, I will eat as much as you can bring!" Zhang Shuntu saw this and waved his hand.

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