eldest son of Ming dynasty

The Kaizhong Salt Law is a specific example that best reflects the continuous weakening of the Ming Dynasty's national power, and from it, one can appreciate the complexity of state governance and the inevitability of the dynasty's demise.

The deeper you go, the more you will find that within the framework of the feudal dynasty, all efforts can only alleviate but not cure, and there is no perfect system that will last forever.

Because the Kaizhong Salt Law implemented in the early decades of Ming Dynasty can basically satisfy the interests of all parties involved.From the point of view at that time, opening up and accepting salt was a relatively perfect system, so there is a saying in "History of Ming Dynasty": There is a clear salt law, and there is no one who is good at opening up.

But by the fifth year of Zhengde, everything had changed drastically.

First of all, the salt industry has been a very special industry since the Spring and Autumn Period. All dynasties have regarded the Salt Law as one of the most important policies in state affairs.

Because the salt industry has two characteristics.First, the production of salt is relatively concentrated due to the limitation of the place of production, so it is easy to be controlled; second, salt is a necessity for the human body, so it is highly profitable.

"Hanshu Shihuozhi" records that merchants "serve wealth but are proud and do not help the country's urgent needs." These merchants are engaged in either salt cooking or iron smelting.

In the Ming Dynasty, Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang faced the threat of the remnants of the Northern Yuan Dynasty. Because of his nomadic nature, it was difficult to find in the vast desert, so he could not be completely eliminated. Even if they were beaten away, the Mongols would move inland again in a few years. Resident pastor'.

Therefore, Daming had to station heavy troops on the long border from Gansu and Liang in the west to Liaodong in the east. In this way, a large amount of supplies were needed.

However, grain transportation is not easy, because grain is inconvenient to store, it is easy to deteriorate, and the journey is very long. The Guanzhong and Central Plains areas that mainly produce grain are hundreds to thousands of miles away from the border defense line, and there are no rivers in the north for water transportation. So it would be a heavy burden for the officials to deliver these grains.

Based on this, Zhu Yuanzhang further improved the Kaizhong method on the basis of the Song Dynasty's "money salt method".

The main method is that the government publishes a list to call for merchants, stating the location of the grain and the salt received, which is called "kaizhong";
Then, according to these conditions, the salt merchants self-reported the amount of grain to be paid, and transported the grain to the designated place according to the requirements, in exchange for warehouse money, which is called "reporting";
Salt merchants hold banknotes and go to the Salt Transportation Department to wait for exchange for salt quotations.The Salt Transportation Department will check all the credentials, and after confirming that they are correct, the salt will be handed over to the salt merchant.Salt merchants lead salt to the salt farms that produce salt based on the salt they have obtained, which is called "shouzhi".

After branching out the salt, the salt must be sent to a designated laboratory for verification, and after the verification is correct, it can be sent to the designated area for sale.

The essence of this set of salt laws is to use the high income of the salt industry to attract commercial forces to complete the transportation tasks that should belong to the government.

After the implementation of the opening-China law, the food problem in the border areas was greatly alleviated, so that there was a situation of "a lot of grain accumulated in the nine borders, and the price of the food is cheap".During the orthodox and Chenghua years, the price of grain in Liaodong in the east of the Ming Dynasty, Yansui and Ningxia in the west of the Ming Dynasty was about 4-5 shi/tael.

This is almost the same as food prices in the Mainland.

However, the inland is a land of grain production, and its low price saves most of the transportation costs. Such grain prices in the border areas are not unrelated to the success of opening China.

As a result, the military needs in the north of the Ming Dynasty were resolved, the pressure on the court dropped sharply, and merchants were able to participate in the salt business. All parties were motivated to maintain such a system.

Later, merchants began to differentiate into frontier merchants, internal merchants, and water merchants according to their roles in the development of China and France.

Because long-distance transportation always faces the problem of extremely high costs.So the businessman came up with a way, why can't I directly reclaim land and grow food in the frontier areas?

Therefore, "Shangtun" began to appear in the middle and early Ming Dynasty.They exchanged these grains for salt, and then sold the salt to internal merchants, directly profiting, eliminating the need for the subsequent process of selling and selling salt.

Domestic merchants are also unwilling to undertake the task of transporting thousands of miles. Instead of doing this, they might as well buy salt imports directly from border merchants who have salt imports, and then send salt to the salt field.

After withdrawing the salt, they distribute it to 'water merchants'. The so-called water merchants are groups that sell salt along waterways.

As far as the imperial court is concerned, as long as there is food, it will send salt. It doesn't matter whether it is shipped from other places.

Therefore, the commercial settlements in the frontier areas in the middle and early stages were prosperous. The "History of the Ming Dynasty" records: In the early Ming Dynasty, merchants were opened up on all sides, people were recruited to plant seeds, and fortresses were built to protect each other.

On the whole, it actually drives the food production of the entire country.

Of course, the later part of the story is definitely not so beautiful.

The first problem is "shouzhi". The essence of Yanyin is actually a kind of "IOU". According to the theory, merchants can get salt when they get Yanyin Shouzhi.

But under the feudal imperial power, the emperor himself would have an irresistible desire to keep issuing this IOU.For example, the whole country produces 100 million yin of salt a year, but the salt yin drawn in the capital may be 200 million yin.

This started during the Yongle period. Emperor Yongle made five expeditions to Mobei. Where did so much money come from?
So there is a record: At that time, there were merchants who waited for Zhiyan from Yongle, and their ancestors and grandchildren could not pass each other.

When some salts start to stagnate and fail to follow the rules, another problem will arise, that is, "occupation of nests".

The reason is very simple, you have the salt in your hand, and Lord Hou also has the salt in your hand, who do you think the salt farm will send the salt to?

What should the businessman do at this time?
There is no other way but to spend money to make friends with the powerful and powerful. This behavior is called "buying nests".

This is the corruption of the salt law from a macro perspective.

At the micro level, there is another important role in the Salt Law, called the kitchen household, which is responsible for producing salt, and is equivalent to a farmer who cultivates the land.

But we all know that the income of kitchen households will be continuously encroached upon by the bureaucratic system,

In the early days of Hongwu, the kitchen households produced salt for rice and stone, which was called Gongben rice.In the 17th year of Hongwu, the imperial court folded Gongbenmi into banknotes, but the value of the Daming banknotes depreciated severely.Moreover, he had to endure the extortion and oppression of his superiors such as 'general reminder'.Some of the money on him was also knocked out.

What should the stove do at this time?
In order to survive, they can only secretly take out the salt they produce and sell it.So the source of private salt appeared.After the emergence of private salt, it further weakened the attractiveness of official salt to businessmen.

Or the kitchen households simply fled. After the escape, the salt production decreased, which aggravated the problem of keeping money.

In the fifth year of Hongzhi, Ye Qi, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, reformed the Kaizhong Salt Law. The main content was to change the way merchants transported grain to border areas in exchange for salt imports instead of directly paying silver taels to the salt transport department to obtain salt imports.

Then let the imperial court be responsible for allocating silver and food to the border areas.

This approach was profitable at the time, because when the Taizu implemented the opening of China, rice was expensive and silver was cheap in the northwest, so the imperial court was only rice.
But after hundreds of years, the price of grain in the Northwest is very low, and rice is cheap and silver is expensive.Some officials were tempted to change the expropriation of rice into silver.

According to the original method, for every 2.5 buckets of salt nanometers introduced by merchants, it is only worth 5 cents of silver when converted into silver. times.

Therefore, it was recorded at that time that "Taicang accumulated more than one million silver at one time".

Also because of this symbolic reform, all the problems seemed to be caused by Ye Qi alone.

However, the corruption of the salt law in the Ming Dynasty was fundamentally the corruption of the bureaucracy. What Ye Qi did was also requested by ministers during the Chenghua period to "change the true color to the folded color".The reason why there is such a voice is because the merchants are trapped in keeping their expenditures and can no longer do it.

Of course, the destructive reforms carried out in the fifth year of Hongzhi were still very destructive. The most direct thing was to eliminate Shangtun directly.

Because food is no longer needed.Frontier merchants can only "dismiss their businesses in commercial villages".

The commercial settlements disappeared, the military settlements were ruined, and no one sent food to the border areas. The imperial court allocated military salaries every year.Therefore, in the Northwest, less and less food is imported, and more and more silver is imported.

In this way, the situation where rice is cheap and silver is expensive is no longer, and it has returned to rice expensive and silver cheap.

The increase in the cost of living of the frontier army led to the continuous increase of the military expenditure of the imperial court, and at the same time the combat capability of the frontier army continued to decline.Once a real military crisis is encountered, the recruitment system has to be activated.

The recruitment system also requires a large amount of silver.These large sums of silver can only be obtained by continuing to oppress the people.So the situation is getting worse and worse, and a vicious circle is born.

So the question is, where did the wealth go?

merchant?Yes, some salt merchants have gained benefits through the combination of government and business.

bureaucracy?Yes, they continue to exploit and embezzle, and they also enrich their own pockets.

Honorable, minister?That's right, these people continue to make profits by begging for "salt quotations" from the emperor, and there is a limit on the amount of salt among merchants, that is, no more than three thousand quotations are allowed, but Emperor Chenghua gave it to Concubine Wan Gui His brother Wantong gave five thousand yin of Huai salt, and gave [-] yin of Huai salt to the Queen's mother, Duan's family.

Emperor Hongzhi also treated his relatives very well.From the fifth year of Hongzhi, he gave King Qi 12 Yin of Lianghuai remaining salt, and King Yi of Lianghuai [-] Yin of remaining salt. Salt is [-] yuan, and the above expenses are "wedding expenses".

By the way, Lianghuai Yanyin is relatively expensive in table salt.The so-called salt-induced stagnation mostly refers to Lianghuai and Liangzhe.Salt farms in places like Shandong are more than open to business, and there is even no business to do so.

However, even though Lianghuai and Liangzhe Yanyin are so stagnant, these are the rewards.

So the real beneficiary may not be Ye Qi.

Perhaps a group of people known as the ruling class.

So can the Kaizhongyan method be changed as it is?

In a word, absolutely impossible.

First, the problem of keeping money is very serious, and the businessman is not being taken advantage of. He knows that he can't get enough salt, so who will send you food?

Second, the "favor expenditure" of merchants was already very high during the Zhengde period. From the Department of Salt Transportation and the Department of Salt Promotion to inspect the salt censor, the pockets of all officials were filled by salt merchants. At this time, the opening of the The price of salt must be set very low to attract businessmen, otherwise it will be meaningless.But it was very low, and the income of the court dropped sharply, and in the end it was all subsidized to corrupt officials.To solve this problem, it is necessary to solve the bureaucracy, so the Chinese law has not been improved and then started to rectify the bureaucracy?Is the administration of officials so easy to rectify?
Third, after the commercial settlements were destroyed, commercial capital in Northwest China retreated sharply, and the rich lost their money. Who will go to the commercial settlements for you?Insiders?Will not.Businessmen place the utmost emphasis on risk management.In other words, now that the policy is changed back, will it be changed again?Once trust is broken, it is very difficult to rebuild.Don't say it won't be changed again, who knows if there will be another Ye Qi.

Fourth, what are you going to do if you change it back, and spend another few decades in ruins?

Therefore, in addition to Ye Qi’s reform in the fifth year of Hongzhi in the official history, Yuan Shizhen’s salt administration reform in the Wanli period was not a backward reform, but the implementation of the so-called outline law.

As for Gu Zuo, he couldn't see that problem.

What he can see now is probably the hard life of the kitchen households, the decline in salt production, the high price difference between official salt, the flood of illegal salt, the disuse of commercial settlements in the frontier,

At the same time, clansmen, nobles, and ministers obtained a large amount of Yanyin through power, which caused most merchants to be trapped in keeping their expenditures, and Yanyin could not be sold at a price.

The imperial court's income from salt lessons had to decline again and again.

In a word, the salt law is broken and there are too many people who are attached to it and suck blood, which originally belonged to the imperial court's income.

"...In this case, the imperial court can only start from scratch." The emperor sighed, "Or, Li Qing thinks that the salt law can be changed back?"

When Gu Zuo came to report these problems, he must have come with a solution, no matter whether it is effective or not, at least it is the solution he has been thinking about.

"Your Majesty, I have been watching the salt law for many years, and I was also distressed by my inability to solve such a complicated and widely involved maladministration. However, Shao Fu and Mei Ji made me think that the imperial court might change private salt merchants into official salt merchants. Like Shibosi, the access system is generally implemented, and the merchants who jointly operate salt with the imperial court are controlled to a few or a dozen, which is convenient for the imperial court to manage and supervise."

Gu Zuo lacks knowledge of modern economic theory.But Zhu Houzhao knew that the change of the salt industry from the earliest government-run official operation to the government-run commercial operation in the Ming Dynasty was actually an improvement in efficiency.

Therefore, it cannot be changed backwards. The government and business are essentially government-run, and the government conducts unified production and sales. In this way, there will be a lot of corruption problems in a few years, and the efficiency of officials is much lower than that of businessmen.

In fact, doing so is a bit like the Qing Dynasty's salt method.Merchants completely knelt down in front of the imperial power, taking pleasing the imperial power as the highest standard, and after making peace with the government, the problems of corruption, tax evasion, and smuggling of private salt were also very serious.

Zhu Houzhao rubbed his nose, "Mr. Li, if this revision is followed, within a few years, these businessmen will also collude with my ministers to greedy for money, and then they will do a lot of private salt with acquiescence. By that time, the court's salt Taxes are still reduced. This change is to change from fattening one group of people to fattening another group.”

Gu Zuo did not dare to completely deny this phenomenon, and the problem of private salt has never been eradicated in all dynasties.

This is something that cannot be eliminated originally, because there are "administrative costs" in the official salt, and with the corruption of official governance, this cost must be getting higher and higher.At the same time, officials do not produce table salt for themselves, and the quality is bound to be poor, so high prices and poor quality are the fate of official salt.

Once this situation occurs, private salt will inevitably appear.Because it can be profitable.As long as it makes a profit, someone must do it.

Now that it was him and Gu Zuojun and his ministers anyway, Zhu Houzhao tried to express his thoughts, "Liqing, what do you think... what if the salt farms were also handed over to the salt merchants?"

In the Kaizhong Salt Law, the links of transportation and sales were handed over to merchants, and the production, that is, the salt farm, was still in the hands of the imperial court.The imperial court controls the source of salt by controlling the salt field. If there is goods in hand, are you afraid of running out of money?
Gu Zuo was shocked, "If this is the case, the imperial court can only levy taxes, and the income from salt tax will be reduced even more!"

Zhu Houzhao shook his head, "No. I will not give the salt farm to the salt merchants for free, but just auction off the right to operate the salt farm to the salt merchants, and the imperial court will get a fixed income. The rest will be borne by the merchants themselves. It has nothing to do with the court."

In this way, the imperial court will no longer intervene in any link of production, transportation and sales.At the same time, there is no longer the problem of private salt.Because all salt is private salt.

"This...the problem is that the imperial court cannot control the salt field, so it can no longer control the salt!"

Gu Zuo, as an official of this era, considered from the perspective of the imperial court, had a natural tendency to want to control the salt.Because salt is also a kind of strategic material to some extent.

However, Zhu Houzhao did not have confidence in the government-run salt industry. In fact, since the monopoly of the salt industry, private salt has always been a chronic problem in the governance of the salt industry in the past dynasties.The salt industry system in the Qing Dynasty was considered good, but private salt was also rampant in the late Qing Dynasty.

"You don't have to worry, let's just discuss first. In the fifth year of Hongzhi, the Minister of the Ministry of Households at that time reformed the Kaizhong Salt Law. The purpose was to relieve the merchants' difficulties in keeping their expenditures, and to increase the income of Taicang. This method is mine. It is not an auction of the property rights of the salt farms, the salt farms still belong to the imperial court, what is being auctioned is the management rights of the salt farms, and the income obtained can also be used to offset the salt.”

"At the same time, the imperial court is no longer responsible for the production of the salt field, so a series of agencies such as the Salt Transportation Department and the Salt Research Department are no longer needed. This will not only reduce expenditures, but also eliminate officials' corruption from the root."

Gu Zuo frowned, and asked: "In this way, the production and sales of salt are all in the hands of merchants. Merchants value profits and deliberately raise the price of salt. Wouldn't the common people suffer from it?"

Zhu Houzhao shook his head, "I won't auction off all the salt farms to one or several companies. They must be operated by multiple companies, and there will be no regional restrictions. If someone's salt is expensive, people don't have to buy it."

"What if the salt merchants unite with each other and raise the price uniformly?"

Zhu Houzhao thought for a while, "There is indeed such a possibility. In this case, administrative intervention is required, and fines and arrests are all acceptable."

"Your Majesty, it's not just that. The salt industry is hugely profitable. It's fine if the imperial court gets a high price, but if the price is low, wouldn't all the profits go to the salt merchants?"

"If the auction is to be maintained, it is necessary for the salt merchants to make profits. If there is no profit, who will buy these salt farms? As for the profit, the imperial court can add a deadline. For example, if you go to auction a salt farm, the imperial court will make an agreement with you, The right to operate has five or ten years, and you can get all the profits within the time limit. After the expiration, the imperial court will take back the right to operate and re-price the auction. If it is really a huge profit, then other competitors will also increase the price when they auction the salt farm. This leaves room for the court to adjust.”

This approach is a bit bold.

This suddenly changed the salt law from government-run commercial transportation to commercial-run commercial transportation.The imperial court has become a hands-off shopkeeper, except for a fixed income, it doesn't care about the rest, so as to reduce its own costs to the greatest extent.

Sounds like it might work too.

But there is another point.

"In this way, the Shangtun in the northwest will not be able to recover."

The corner of Zhu Houzhao's mouth twitched, "Not necessarily. The court can accept different payment methods."

In fact, our ancestors were really smart, and many systems were designed ingeniously, but after all, they were limited by the times, such as this different payment method.

Gu Zuo was puzzled, "I dare to ask Your Majesty what are the different payment methods?"

"It is the combination of true color and folding color."

The so-called true color is food.Folding color is silver.

Zhu Houzhao explained: "If there is a war in the border area, the salt farm photographed by the imperial court can be determined to be [-]% of the original color and [-]% of the color; , must meet this requirement first. This can also avoid the problem of saving money, because the salt farm is operated by the merchant himself, and he can produce salt whenever he wants."

"Furthermore, there are more than 200 counties producing salt in Daming, each auction must not be all sold out, but must present a ladder order, for example, forty in the first year, the management right is five years, second, Three, four, and five years are the same, and in the sixth year, the salt farms sold in the first year can be auctioned again, and this cycle continues, and the imperial court can obtain the income from the auction of the salt farms every year."

"Or, you can make a fuss about the payment method. For example, the auction price is slightly lower, but [-]% of the annual income of the saltworks should be attributed to the imperial court. However, I don't recommend this kind of complicated design. Every additional procedure will cost you money." It’s a space for greed.”

After listening to Gu Zuo, he was greatly inspired and shocked, "Your Majesty's words are deafening, and there is no sage. Your Majesty. However, I am thinking that there will probably be officials who will seek profits from the so-called auction, and the officials in charge of this matter must be Once the salt merchants' holdings are out of supervision, it is possible to deliberately lower the auction price."

Zhu Houzhao nodded,

This statement is more realistic.

However, compared with so many institutions and officials such as the inspecting salt censor, the salt transportation department, and the salt education department, the number of officials who are only responsible for the auction function will be greatly reduced.

"If it is low, it is low. The income of the imperial court cannot be less. This institution and officials should be placed under the Ministry of Households, and directly led by the Minister. I don't care about the decline in the income of the saltworks. I have to fill up the treasury. .If you are willing to cut your own way, there is nothing anyone can do about it.”

Zhu Houzhao thought it might be a good idea to try this first, "Salt administration is about the country and the country, and it cannot be decided by you and my ministers here. It should be discussed by the officials of the cabinet. Li Qing, you can also try to improve this method after you retire. The imperial court also needs to reduce the burden."

If the income is about the same, in fact, this is not impossible. Even if there is not much growth, at least a large number of corrupt officials have been thrown away.Salt, there are too many corrupt officials here.

So much so that in the Ming Dynasty, as soon as they knew which official was going to be the censor of salt, they must have thought that this guy was going to be greedy for ink.

Gu Zuo really had to think carefully, the idea of ​​the emperor had never occurred to him.

In fact, the salt laws of all dynasties have been extraordinarily complicated in order to be able to collect a little more tax.But the more complex it is, the more loopholes it has, and the harder it is to change once it's broken.

Zhu Houzhao really couldn’t think of any way to improve the Kaizhong method in the Ming Dynasty. One of the reasons is that there are too many procedures in it.

Every link has a lot of power and interests intertwined. It is really not easy to sort out these lines.

In fact, even this change is not a perfect solution.

Because if the kings of later generations also grant the auction rights of the salt field to some dignitaries like Chenghua and Hongzhi, there is really no way.

This is the fate of autocratic imperial power, and such a situation will definitely appear, so what can we do?
In a world ruled by man, if that person is unreliable, what system can work?

Now the Ming Dynasty's Salt Law is already in a corrupt situation, such a change can ensure the court's income to the greatest extent, and secondly, it can get rid of the big burden.The most important thing is to greatly reduce the difficulty of reform.

Because if you insist on sorting out the lines in the current salt law, you can't do it without killing people and bleeding them into rivers.

However, this problem does not exist when starting a new stove. No matter what tricks there were in the past, the court stopped playing, and the emperor would not go into it. How much money did the patrol salt censor or the salt transport department have? .

After the difficulty of reform is reduced, the degree of implementation can be improved to the greatest extent.

On the contrary, if it is a relatively complicated set of salt policy, it will inevitably be difficult to promote it.

So this is actually a choice based on the current situation and comprehensive consideration.

Gu Zuo didn't stay idle after retiring, he went to Li's mansion looking for the right time.

Li Dongyang also frowned when he saw his memorial, "It's a good thing that your Majesty intends to innovate. But the matter of opening the sea has just subsided, and there are still resentments in the court. Doesn't it seem a little impatient to use the salt law at this time? "

As a cabinet minister, he naturally considered the court's emotions.

Gu Zuo is a technical bureaucrat. He has already ascertained the emperor's rhetoric and gained support, so he couldn't wait any longer. One day, all the people in the world will suffer! Can't afford to wait!"

"It's not that I don't want you to change. The old man said that His Majesty wants to change the bad government and start a new dynasty. This is naturally a good thing. The old man means that it may be easier for you to wait a few months. Besides, Your Majesty never I have never seen a salt merchant, and the auction method I mentioned is not completely dead. It can be seen that His Majesty also has the intention of trying. Why don't you take this opportunity to research in detail? Don't you know that the more important the state affairs are, the more cautious you must be."

"Yang Yingning's situation in the Northwest is that if you succeed in the scheme, you will live, and if you fail in the scheme, you will die. Could it be that Li Qing wants the salt law to frame you? If the reform of the salt law fails, your death will be a minor matter, and the court's salt law will become rigid. , No one dares to move, this is the big deal."

Li Dongyang's words showed the prudence of a mature bureaucrat. He reminded Gu Zuo that major matters should be carefully investigated.

Gu Zuo listened to the words, "Why don't you go down to contact the salt merchants!"

Li Dongyang couldn't deny it.

If the salt law is really going to be changed, it will indeed be a major event.

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