In the Southern Song Dynasty, I competed with Mongolia for the world

Chapter 226
During the Zhidao period (995-997), the imperial salt tax was 235.8 million guan. At that time, the salt tax was not included in many areas, including Sichuan, and the tea tax was 285.3 million guan.

By the tenth year of Xining (1085), the court’s salt tax revenue was 1203 million guan, of which Sichuan, Hedong, Guangnan and other roads were not included in the statistics.The tea tax income of the imperial court was 202.9 million, of which 122.9 million was not included in the tea tax in Sichuan. Really no control.

When everyone saw the figures, they knew that the emperor was going to take action on the tea and salt tax.

Because from the Northern Song Dynasty to the present, before Zhao Yurui ascended the throne, the tea and salt taxes in Sichuan, Fujian, and Guangdong and Guangxi were often unclear, and they were not even included in the court catalogue.

However, the central government of the imperial court seems to be used to it, and often does not count the statistics of these provinces.

So where did the tea and salt tax revenue of these provinces go?

Generally speaking, it is for local self-use, so it is not enough to be handed over, and there is no need for statistics.

However, in the ten years of Xining, the Sichuan tea tax of 122.9 million guan was not paid, and it was also included in the statistics.

In other places, it was dismissed with the word 'unclear'.

Under normal circumstances, local officials definitely have their own pockets and corruption.

After Zhao and Rui ascended the throne, they began to strengthen the rule of remote provinces, but when they registered last year, the tea and salt taxes in Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian were still pitifully low.

These two places are big salt and tea producers.

Zhao and Rui couldn't manage them in the early stage, because there were too many things to do, and now they can finally clean up together.

"I want to take advantage of the reform of the salt and tea tax to sort out the tea and salt tax in the Song Dynasty." Zhao Yurui said that he will reform the system again: "The time is set for next year, and this year is already September. The main thing is to do the preparatory work. .”

After he ascended the throne, almost every year he had to take something out to reform the system.

This year we will restructure local institutions, next year we will use the tea and salt tax, and the year after that we will use the wine and commercial tax. In short, we will make changes step by step, year by year, until we are satisfied.

The tea tax and salt tax in the Song Dynasty were also in a mess, and a lot of money was collected, but the people complained a lot, and there was no rebellion, probably because they had been fighting with Jin, Liao and other countries.

The price of salt in the Song Dynasty was actually the highest in all dynasties, and I don't know how the people could bear it.

Zhao Yurui planned to take the salt price first and lower it.

During the Kaibao period, because the imperial court felt that the price of salt was too high, the imperial court ordered the price of salt to be reduced in all places. The price of salt sold at [-] yuan per catty was reduced to [-] yuan, and that of [-] yuan per catty was reduced to [-] yuan.

In this way, the price of salt in the Song Dynasty was still at a super high level.

Later, the average salt price in the entire Ming Dynasty was between seven and eight Wen, and at the lowest time, it was two to three Wen per catty.

However, the price of salt in the Song Dynasty was generally above [-] Wen.

During the Xianping period, due to the entry of green salt produced in the minority areas in the northwest (that is, the green salt of Xixia later), it was only [-] yuan per catty, which greatly impacted the market in the Song Dynasty.

It is said in history that "when the green salt was not banned, it was only fifteen yuan per catty, and the people all ate it." At this time, the people in the vicinity could eat salt.

But later, for the benefit of salt, the imperial court resolutely banned green salt and forbade Xixia salt from entering.

At this time, if there is a bold private businessman who travels thousands of miles around the Kingdom of Jin to go to Xixia to buy Qingyan, after entering the Southern Song Dynasty, he can earn blood.

The price of salt in the Song Dynasty was so high, so naturally a lot of taxes were collected.

During the Jiading period, the national salt tax was still able to collect more than 1000 million taels, far exceeding that of the Ming Dynasty. It was not until the middle and late Qing Dynasty that the salt tax reached more than 300 million taels of silver before it surpassed that of the Song Dynasty.

Due to financial constraints, the Southern Song Dynasty relied more heavily on the salt tax than the Northern Song Dynasty, so it was committed to controlling the production and even sales of salt.

There are three kinds of salt in the Southern Song Dynasty, grain salt, powdered salt, and well salt. There are two ways to sell them, one is official sales, and the other is imported salt.

The official sale is the sale by the official itself, the second is to sell to the salt merchants, and the salt merchants sell it.

But no matter the first or the second type, the price is determined by the government, and the private salt farms cannot sell them privately. They must be purchased by the government first, sold to the government at the official price, and then sold to the people and salt merchants at an official price increase. .

But the official pricing was normal at the beginning, and then it became more and more outrageous.

Historical Records: "When he enters an official position, he pays eight or six cents per catty, and 36 cents when he goes out."

This is the record that Yonglijian bought salt from salt households at a price of 36 to [-] fen per catty, and then sold it for [-] renminbi, making a tearful profit of five or six times.

In the late Northern Song Dynasty, at the Qianqing Salt Farm in Xiaoshan County, Yuezhou, the price of salt purchased by the government from salt households was extremely low, no more than four to five yuan per catty. serve."

The consequence of this is that the official purchase price is too low, and the salt households quit. After being caught, they are unwilling to buy salt, and would rather do hard labor.

Of course the court of the Southern Song Dynasty saw this situation, so when Cai Jing was prime minister, he raised the price once.

"Also calculate the price of salt according to the severity, and set six salt prices. The old price of [-] renminbi will be increased by [-] renminbi—"

At that time, the lowest price salt and the highest price salt remained unchanged, and the price of the rest of the salt was raised by ten cents per catty.

But in this way, the profits of the salt households were still not high, and their enthusiasm was not high, so in the first year of Zhenghe, Zhang Cha suggested adding two to nine cents per catty.

The imperial court has repeatedly increased the price of the purchase, with good intentions, to give the salt households a way to survive, but the result in exchange is that the selling price has also increased accordingly, and the common people cannot afford it.

So the price of salt gradually increased after the Southern Song Dynasty. In the Northern Song Dynasty, it was only thirty or forty yuan a catty, and in the Southern Song Dynasty it was only sixty or seventy yuan a catty. Wen Yijin.

In the year before Zhao and Rui ascended the throne, the price of unsalted salt in Xihe, Cheng, Fengzhou and other places in Sichuan was still two hundred yuan per catty. "Every catty of worry is two hundred clouds."Of course, considering that Sichuan uses iron coins, the copper coins are about [-] Wen.

After Zhao Yurui seized power, he immediately opened a business with Xixia, bought green salt, and directly hit the price of Jieyan to the end.

Now Xixia is about to be wiped out by Mongolia, and the local salt price will rise in the future.

In the Song Dynasty, the price of official salt was high, while the price of private salt was low, which led to the fact that some local official salt could not be sold in the later period.

In the last years of Shaoxing, the Yin armies of the two Zhejiang provinces "produced private salt at fifty renminbi per catty", "while the official salt was more than a hundred yuan per catty, there was no one with a single gold."

That is to say, in the vicinity of Jiangyin at that time, the official salt was one hundred yuan per catty, and there was no market for it, and no one bought it.

The common people went to buy illegal salt for fifty Wen a catty.

At that time, Liangzhe Road, the official purchase price of salt households was 30 to [-] yuan per catty, and you could earn more than double if you sold more than [-] yuan, but you had to sell [-] yuan unscrupulously.

This is tantamount to ceding the market to private salt, so that private salt prevails, and official salt cannot be sold.

In the 12th year of Shaoxing, Guangdong saw that the situation was not right, and took the lead in changing the salt law, abolishing the official direct sale of salt, and handing it over to merchants to sell money and sell salt. The prices are also different, but the effect is still not very good.

The Guangxi Transshipment Department once raised the price of salt in Guangxi from 160 Wen per catty to [-] Wen, but it was soon stopped by the court.

In the Southern Song Dynasty, not only the price of salt was different from place to place, but also the law of salt was different from place to place, which was quite confusing.

Different counties in the same state capital can have different salt prices.

Zhao and Rui want to unify the national salt price, at least the official salt price must be unified, and at the same time benefit the salt households and benefit the common people.

He still remembered that when he was king of Yi, the official salt that Chief Quanbao had just bought was of extremely poor quality and the price was high.

After Zhao and Rui talked about it, the head of security began to buy private salt, which was of good quality and not expensive.

So Zhao Yurui asked: "All of you have more or less done the salt tea business, do you think it is necessary to change the system now?"

Li Huang and Du Fan expressed that it was indeed time for restructuring.

Now if this situation continues, the people will complain and complain, and there will be trouble sooner or later.

In fact, some Yan people in the two Zhejiang provinces of the Southern Song Dynasty rebelled, but they were suppressed later.

The imperial court compulsorily buys at low prices and sells them at high prices, and common people lose money in making salt, not to mention making money. Who can do this?

If they were smuggled to salt merchants who smuggled salt, they would be beheaded if they were caught. Wouldn’t this force rebellion?
So Zhao Yurui said, "What do you guys think?"

Li Huang conveniently said that the purchase price of the imperial court can be increased to benefit the people, which is basically the old routine.

Zhao Yurui didn't speak, and felt that Li Huang's level was not very good, but most ancient people were only at this level.

Du Fan is the Secretary of the Household Department. He thinks that the income of the imperial court will be reduced, but he can't say anything. After all, benefiting the people is the top priority and can ensure the stability of the salt industry.

But how much to increase and how much to let go, this is something that needs to be carefully decided.

Once this decision is made, it cannot be easily changed.

Therefore, Zhao and Rui are holding a meeting in September, demanding that the system be restructured next year.

"It's not enough to just increase the purchase price." Zhao Yurui said: "The salt tax in my dynasty is all government-managed, and it can only be sold officially. Not to mention the extremely high price, private salt is still rampant outside."

"I intend to let go of the right to sell."

Zhao Yurui wanted to switch to the method of the Qing Dynasty and let go of the right to sell.

In fact, the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties all used the Yin method, and of course this system also inherited the Song system.

In the quoted law, the folks also have the right to sell, but it is different in each dynasty. Compared with it, the Qing Dynasty was a little more advanced, otherwise it would not have tens of millions of salt tax revenue in the later period.

The salt tax in the Qing Dynasty was restructured because of the Huaihe River.

At that time, the gap between Huainan and Huaibei had reached the point of reform. There were 23 salt fields in Huainan, but only 3 in Huaibei;

During the Daoguang period, the Qing government reformed and abolished the General Merchant, allowing all private traders to sell on their own.

People who want to do this, sign up by themselves, the court registers their name, age, place of origin, etc., and then issues a license, and they go to the salt farm to sell salt with the license. In less than a year, the salt sales tax in Huaibei exceeded the quota. There are more and more private traders, and the supply of salt is in short supply.

In February 18 of Daoguang, when Piaoyan started, the private funds present on the day reached 200 million taels, which shows that it was very successful.

In the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, salt was also used. Merchants got the salt to sell the salt. The salt was the merchant's own. It was often robbed by robbers, local bullies, or other salt merchants on the road, and the court didn't care.

But in the Qing Dynasty, the merchants were like the imperial court distributors. The salt they took was still official salt, and they were only selling for the imperial court.

"Abolish all official salt sales shops. The official salt farms of the imperial court are only responsible for making salt, and then wholesale it to salt merchants."

In the first step of Zhao Yurui's restructuring, the officials of the Southern Song Dynasty did not sell salt to benefit the people.

(End of this chapter)