Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 456 Daming Has Changed
The Ming Dynasty's salt administration has always been a chronic disease.

Before Chongzhen 17 years ago, it was the main fiscal revenue of the central court.

But the price brought by this main financial revenue is that the price of salt remains high, and it is difficult for the people to eat salt, resulting in a decline in the nutritional level of the people across the country.

This is not good for the long-term genetic development of a nation.

Besides.

The Ming Dynasty Salt Administration's support policy for salt-producing kitchen households has also become worse and worse.

Cause official salt output and quality to decline sharply.

Although it is now restored to the previous opening method.

It is just to reduce the transportation pressure for military wars, but these transportation pressures will eventually be allocated to the price of salt, which will increase the burden on the common people.

The salt tax reform that Zhu Youjian asked Gao Hongtu, the chief assistant of the cabinet, is actually half of the profits from the government, and most of the profits from the salt merchants, reducing the price of salt to a level that ordinary people can afford.

The first thing the government wants to do is to abolish the opening of the Chinese law again, and restore the previous system of paying for salt, but lower the price of salt.

in this way.

The cost price of salt can be reduced.

But at the same time, the government raises the base price of salt for kitchen households, so that the government earns less difference, but it can benefit the kitchen households.

As for the sale of salt prices, the government will also provide a reference price range that the common people can afford to buy, and prohibit salt merchants from driving up salt prices, so as to avoid the phenomenon that they would rather pour salt into the sea than sell it.

In this way, salt merchants will definitely no longer be able to make a lot of profits by selling salt.

And the market space for smugglers who rely on taking official salt to sell as private salt will also be squeezed.

Zhu Youjian asked Gao Hongtu to carry out the salt administration reform based on the establishment of a group of salt companies based on the current salt field area of ​​Daming.

Institutions such as the salt industry transfer envoy and the patrolling salt censor were abolished.

That is to reduce the government's management of salt production.

The state-owned salt industry company is responsible for recruiting kitchen households for production and operation, and then the state-owned salt industry company distributes salt merchants around the country for sale.

And these state-owned salt companies are equivalent to the government-run salt merchants of Ming Dynasty.

They increase profits in increasing salt production and reducing salt costs.

Salt merchants in charge of sales can order salt from salt companies in various places and sell it all over the country as long as they have a business license.

At the same time, the Ministry of Households established the Salt Administration Department, which is the Salt Industry Corporation.

The Department of Salt Administration regulates the price of salt and the output of salt, and at the same time cracks down on salt sellers who counterfeit salt.

The head of the state-run salt company is appointed by the Department of Salt Affairs and does not need to go through the cabinet.

Unlike before.

In this way, the salt industry has great independence.

The difference between the state-owned salt industry company and the previous transshipment company is that it is responsible for both production and sales, and the salt profits obtained can be allocated by itself, and there is no need to send them to the capital.

This means that the imperial court gave up this part of the salt profit, and this part of the salt profit can be used to improve the treatment of the kitchen households and stimulate the enthusiasm of the kitchen households to produce salt, thereby increasing the salt production, and having enough money to improve the process.

Distributors, that is, salt merchants who wholesale salt from the state-run salt company, do not have to go to the army to exchange for salt leads as before, but directly order salt from the state-run salt company, and then sell salt according to the reference price set by the salt administration department.

In this way, although many salt merchants are relieved of the burden of transporting grain, they also do not have the benefit of selling salt at a high price.

After that, the number of salt merchants on the wealthy side will definitely decrease significantly.

The government can only collect salt tax from state-owned salt companies and salt distributors to obtain income from the salt industry.

But under the lower salt price, if these salt merchants are still profitable, the government's taxation should not be too high.

In addition, the person in charge of the state-owned salt company and the salt distributor must be mostly people related to the government. As a tax-setting household official, naturally, he will not set the tax too high to make his relatives unprofitable. .

The current Gao Hongtu's reform of the salt administration is to transform his family, relatives, and well-connected salt merchants into a state-owned salt industry company. The provincial salt administration sub-divisions contracted the major salt farms in Daming to be responsible for salt production.

In this way, most of the salt merchants who were deprived of the profits of the salt industry had no choice but to be forced to transform or transfer their hatred to civil officials such as Gao Hongtu.

The Guards also lost the salt benefits they gained from salt, but because Zhu Youjian ordered the governors of each war zone to cooperate with the reform of the salt administration, the Guards did not have any troubles.

After all, today's governors still listen to Zhu Youjian's words, and no one knows whether these state-owned salt companies and bulk salt distributors have anything to do with them.

In the end, it was the imperial court and most of the salt merchants who had no official relationship.

Zhu Youjian can make up for the loss of the imperial court by expanding the scale of the domestic commodity economy, further opening up the ocean market, and plundering overseas markets.

And most of the salt merchants can also use this reform to force these merchants to use their funds and business means to other industries and increase the economic scale of other industries.

Zhu Youjian's ultimate goal is to reduce the burden on the common people, let the common people spend more of their income on non-food purchases, reduce the Engel coefficient, and improve the quality of life of the common people in Ming Dynasty.

With the abolition of a large number of loans from the central bank of the Ming Dynasty and the cancellation of the guide system, and the opening of commercial ports such as Songjiang, Ningbo, Quanzhou, and Guangzhou along the coast, the commodity economy of the Ming Dynasty developed rapidly. The increase in jobs has doubled the income of the people of Ming Dynasty.

However, due to the decline in grain production due to the decrease in owner-cultivated farmers, the increase in currency issuance, and the inflow of a large amount of silver, inflation has increased, the price level has remained high, and the salt price has risen sharply since the resumption of the opening of China, making the living costs of the people of Ming Dynasty Still very high.

Therefore, Zhu Youjian’s surrender of salt benefits can improve the quality of life of the people, promote them to transfer more wealth to education consumption and entertainment consumption, or pursue better taste and luxury goods, and promote luxury brands appear to further promote commercial development.

In short, this is a virtuous circle.

As long as the imperial court controls commercial taxation, it can transfer profits in other ways to promote commercial development. As long as commercial development develops, imperial court tax revenue will not decrease but increase, and the living standards of the people will also improve accordingly.

Because commercial profit-seeking fundamentally relies on improving productivity to increase income, which increases the total wealth of society.

It is already difficult to increase productivity in traditional agriculture, unless now a hybrid rice is produced to increase the yield per mu to several thousand catties, but this is obviously impossible.

Even if we want to provide agricultural output through chemical fertilizers and mechanized farming in the future, we must first promote the development of industry and commerce.

With the stability of the domestic situation, the eradication of a large number of big bureaucrats, the recovery of the land of the vassal kings, and the encouragement of reclamation measures, the number of self-cultivating farmers controlled by Huangzhuang and directly managed by the Ministry of Households has increased a lot, and the industry has also developed in great strides. Coupled with the economic stimulus brought by a large amount of currency injection, the social production capacity of the Ming Empire reached an unprecedented high.

The Northern Expedition is currently the main way to consume social production capacity. Countless agricultural products and industrial products will be consumed through the situation of war, which will bring about the unification of civilization and promote the healthy development of history.

Both peasants and workers, as well as craftsmen and low-level merchants, need war.

Otherwise, the millions of craftsmen of the Daming Ordnance Institute would not have participated in the demonstration.

This is also the root cause of the failure of the civilian group to resist the Northern Expedition.

Daming has changed, and it is no longer a self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy.

~

ps: I feel a little uncomfortable today, with chest tightness, shortness of breath, and tiredness, so I won’t update after a night’s rest. Book friends don’t have to wait, and I will resume updating tomorrow.This word is not money

(End of this chapter)