New Shun 1730

These merchants and gentry remembered clearly what Liu Yu said at the beginning.

He only wanted to abolish salt and reclaim wasteland, and he didn't want to care about the messy things about the property rights of the grass field.

Liu Yu said this to express his attitude.

But now, it has become like this, and these merchants are really afraid that they can't end it.

Because they are afraid that if they really push Liu Yu to the limit, there will be a bigger crime waiting for them.

[The crime of stealing and selling official fields]

This crime is much more serious than privately boiling salt, but in general, local officials in various places are trying to smooth things over and dare not deal with it according to the law, for fear of causing a big incident.

The ownership of the grass field has never been in the hands of salt households or merchants from the beginning to the end.

It is not unfair to directly label it as the crime of stealing and selling official fields for private transactions.

Of course, local officials dare not really follow the law. If they dare to do so, they will not be able to sit firmly. If they make a little noise, they will have to leave.

But these merchants think that Liu Yu is different.

He still has the army, and he has said long ago that he only wants to abolish salt and reclaim wasteland, and thinks that the property rights of the grassland are purely trivial matters.

I am afraid that the fuss will anger this duke who has fought on the battlefield, and he will directly lead the army to forcibly take the land.

According to the law, the property of the stolen and sold official land will be confiscated and the land will be returned to the government.

Of course, both the buyer and the seller are guilty of stealing and selling official land.

But those who sell the land have nothing left, and at most they will be thrown into exile in the Nanyang plantation.

If the property of the land-buying merchants is confiscated and the land is returned to the government, they will be in tears.

As for whether Liu Yu dares to do this, it seems that the market merchants are worried that they may really dare to do it.

Many people were killed in Huaibei just now. If they really get excited, they will enforce the national law, take back the state-owned land, declare that all previous transactions have violated the crime of stealing and selling official land, and arrest all the merchants. At most, they will give the salt households a little sweetness. Now it seems that it is not impossible.

What makes the market merchants even more uncomfortable is that a large number of students are pouring in now.

Those who support and oppose reclamation are writing essays crazily.

They all use their own relationships and resources to incite emotions and describe the lives of these salt households in the style of the Spring and Autumn Period.

The lives of the salt households jump back and forth between peace and happiness and hell.

The salt households described by the reclamation faction feel that they will die tomorrow. If they have any ability, they definitely don’t want to cut grass, boil salt and spread ash.

The salt households described by the anti-reclamation faction are full of hope for life, but they are dissatisfied with the exploitation of the market merchants.

The students are making more and more troubles, and these salt households feel that something is wrong.

Now, whether they support or oppose reclamation, the spearheads are gradually directed at these market merchants and swindlers.

Those who support reclamation say that these swindlers violated the national law and should be directly charged with the crime of stealing and selling official land, and all the swindlers should be confiscated, and the state should directly rent them to reclamation companies for reclamation.

Those who oppose reclamation also say that these swindlers are rich and unkind, and use all means to embezzle those grass ponds, so that the lives of salt households are getting harder and harder, and the grass ponds of these swindlers should be taken back, divided equally, and fixed identities for boiling salt, and non-stove households are not allowed to have ponds.

Anyway, there is no saying that the market merchants who support the swindlers can just take the money and leave.

Moreover, the attitudes and rumors in the market are also quite unfavorable to these market merchants and swindlers.

There are rumors that these market merchants wanted to sell the grass ponds from the beginning, and deliberately instigated the salt workers in their grass ponds to make trouble in order to raise prices. At that time, it was the salt workers who made trouble, and they were the ones who took the money.

There are also rumors that these merchants deceived the reclamation company because the people in the reclamation company had no idea how complicated the salt-diggers' grass-marsh land was, and they paid the money when they saw the contract. As a result, the salt-diggers are now making trouble, and the reclamation company asked these merchants to return the money, but the merchants refused to return the money.

Such rumors have their own basis for spreading rumors. It is obvious that the merchants are squeezing the salt-diggers and salt households.

But these merchants themselves also have "hardships". It is obvious that Liu Yu threatened them to accuse them of "private cooking". They are afraid that this crime will be implemented and their homes will be confiscated, so they have to voluntarily sell their land.

Now the students from Yangzhou are also pointing their fingers at them.

The merchants know that they have obviously been abandoned by the merchants and general contractors in Yangzhou, and now they have become the target of public criticism.

Liu Yu, the only one who said that he would act according to the contract, is probably just because he thinks it is more convenient to pile up the contracts together to avoid so many troubles. After all, he said that his purpose is to abandon salt and reclaim wasteland.

Who knows if this person will change his attitude and directly choose to send troops to collect the land and return it to the government when the situation gets out of hand?

Now both sides are holding high the banner of "righteousness" and pretending to care about the survival of salt households.

Although they are all pretending to care, this pretense makes people on both sides feel that it is most reasonable to make the salt merchants bleed.

Today's salt merchants are divided into two types.

The so-called salt merchants are responsible for collecting salt from salt households and then trading with salt merchants in Yangzhou.

After the 45th year of Wanli, the government completely withdrew from the salt industry, letting go of everything from production to official warehouses and then to transportation.

Some salt merchants did not occupy the grass marshes, they just covered this salt-producing area. All the salt produced by salt households can only be traded in fixed places.

Their way of making money is not that troublesome, and it is not worth it to occupy the grass marshes.

A bucket of salt weighs 200 kilograms. Make a bucket of 230 kilograms. The salt farmer comes to sell salt and fills the bucket. This bucket is said to be 200 kilograms. Not selling? Don’t sell and drink the northwest wind? If you go to other places to sell salt, you are selling illegal salt. If you dare to sell illegal salt today, you will be caught tomorrow.

If you do it casually, you will get about 10% of the salt for free, and if you sell it casually, it will not make a lot of money?

There are also some traders who have invaded Caodang.

Relying on loans to salt farmers, they quickly bankrupted the salt farmers, then took the grass ponds into their own hands, and then hired some cheap salt farmers to cook private salt, and relied on the bankrupt salt farmers who relied on them to complete the official output. .

The main trouble now is the latter.

The former is actually easy to say, because many traders saw that the situation was not right and had already come to Liu Yu to express their hope of surrendering.

Because whether it is to restore the original salt household grass farm and official salt collection policy; or to establish a large-scale salt drying farm in Huaibei.

The existence of these market players is of little significance.

Maybe they would wait and see at the beginning, but when Yangzhou gave up the car to save the commander, and proposed the policy of equal distribution of grassland and ensuring constant output for the people, these market players would understand that they were abandoning their son.

As long as Huainan still produces salt, Yangzhou merchants can still make money by attracting business.

But if the imperial court collects salt into official warehouses and controls the production of salt, what value does the business have? Or if the imperial court is setting up a large-scale salt drying farm, does it have to take off its pants and fart, and then let these dealers sell it again?

Therefore, these dealers have been secretly communicating with Liu Yu. Firstly, they hope to leave some shares to them when they build a salt drying farm; secondly, they hope Liu Yu will not thoroughly investigate their trick of cheating and exchanging big barrels for small barrels.

In the past, they could still rely on their own capital, thinking that their capital was rich, and the court had no money to officially collect salt and turn over millions of taels of silver a year.

So many times the court turned a blind eye to what they did.

The situation is very different now. There are many forces that can replace them. If we don't retreat quickly at this time, will we stay and wait for death with Yangzhou Yinzhou?

However, they, like those merchants who invaded Caodang, were also pushed to the forefront this time.

Now everyone is pretending to care about the living conditions of Shiohu, so who is responsible for the miserable living conditions of Shiohu?

Originally, Yangzhou was planning to abandon the army to protect the commander. Furthermore, whether one supports the equal distribution of grasslands or supports land reclamation, one premise is that the living conditions of salt households are worrying and changes must be made.

Anyway, we couldn't find the court's weird salt policy, after all, it was separated by several layers; we couldn't find any merchants, and they didn't trade directly with salt households.

It's hard to say that there is a problem with the court's policy, so in the end it will all fall on the traders.

Of course it was not unfair at all.

It is not a lie to use large barrels larger than the specifications to collect salt and seize the salt produced by salt households for free.

It is not a lie to lend money to salt households at high interest rates and directly use the salt as low-price mortgage for interest when selling salt.

It is not a lie to encroach on the ownerless grassland and prohibit salt households from mowing the grass.

The merchants in Yangzhou dressed up the Yangzhou shipping business as a white lotus and put all the issues of salt policy reform on the merchants.

Finally, we came to a conclusion: as long as the grassland is divided equally and the court directly collects the salt, replacing the market merchants, then the Huainan Salt Industry does not need to reform the salt production system at all.

Market traders can serve as an outlet for the anger of salt households and common people.

It can be regarded as an explanation to the court.

These traders sensed the huge public opinion and their own crisis that could be instigated, and finally learned to cut off their tails to survive.

If it doesn't stop, looking at this posture, hundreds of soldiers will definitely eat people like myself. Moreover, everyone is full of shit, cheating, defrauding, borrowing, and peddling private money. Who can stand up to the investigation?

Some dealers worked hard and after meeting Liu Yu, they took the initiative to propose, "We can't bear that the salt households are unemployed, and we are willing to give up part of the grassland and let them redeem it."

…………

At the same time, Lin Min, the governor of Jiangsu Province, was reading the articles written by the students who wrote the essays, shaking his head while reading.

Especially when I saw the "Discussion on Salt Reclamation in Huainan" which carried their demands, I smiled helplessly.

In this article, "Discussing the Salt Reclamation in Huainan", all problems in Huainan's salt administration are attributed to the existence of market traders.

Why are there fewer and fewer official salt courses in the country and why is private salt so rampant? Where do all those private salts come from?

Because salt merchants are squeezing salt merchants, salt merchants cannot survive unless they secretly sell private salt.

Market dealers keep prices low, and salt merchants mix sand into the salt. Anyway, they only look at the bucket.

The official salt is of inferior quality, while the good salt fried by salt households is found in smuggling circles.

Moreover, if the salt households did not sell private salt secretly, they would be exploited to death by the dealers, so private salt was banned repeatedly.

Why is Shiotou's life so miserable? There are a lot of examples given because those dealers are squeezing salt consumers.

Then, a conclusion can be derived from this:

As long as market dealers are banned, Huainan Salt Administration can return to its peak state.

First of all, all the grasslands occupied by traders must be taken back to government ownership.

Secondly, count all the salt bakers and salt households to ensure that everyone who makes salt has his or her own farm.

After it is determined, follow the enfeoffment system and let Caodang belong to a certain salt household forever.

Then many salt fields were divided, and the court established warehouses in each salt field.

In order to prevent these salt households from being exploited by merchants, the court should take the initiative to undertake the task of collecting salt, and at the same time give salt households a certain amount of rice and other grains to ensure that the salt households will not be affected by the fluctuation of grain prices.

After ensuring a certain amount of rice and grain in exchange for salt, the rest will be paid with silver.

All those who come to the salt area privately with salt will be hanged once they are caught.

Salt households can only sell salt to the court. If they are caught selling it to others, they will also be punished with the same crime and hanged.

The court will set up small loans for salt households in various salt fields, and temporarily lend them grain and rice at low or no interest when they are in difficulty. Afterwards, the salt households will repay with salt.

Ten households form a bao, ten bao form a big bao, and five big bao form a township. Township schools will be set up to educate salt households so that they can live in harmony with their neighbors and avoid disputes.

Based on a township, eleven percent of the proceeds from each salt sale will be put into the township warehouse to prepare for famine or for the use of township school teachers.

Each village and township shall monitor each other, and those who sell private salt shall be reported.

The court shall also control the price of salt, so that salt households will not have too much money and become distracted, nor will they be in trouble because of lack of rice.

In this way, within five years, private salt will be eliminated, and official salt will be popular.

Within ten years, neighbors will be harmonious and education will be successful.

Within twenty years, the countryside will be peaceful and prosperous.

The people will be happy at work and will not have the desire to be rich or poor; merchants will not be able to occupy and salt households will not be worried about losing money.

After reading it, Lin Min had a feeling that this Huainan Salt Law was really born four hundred years late.

This set of things has been tried in the previous dynasty, and practice has proved that it will collapse within twenty years. In fact, there was no harmonious education and success in neighbors, nor was there a peaceful and prosperous countryside.

Moreover, this dynasty has no way to issue paper money, and has abolished the in-kind tax. The only thing it can control is silver, which is real money and cannot be printed casually like paper money.

Four hundred years later, when these students think of the salt administration, they can only think in this way, which really makes Lin Min not know what to say.

He saw with his own eyes the efficiency of the Huaibei salt field and the steam engine that pumped brine all day long in the salt field.

However, these students who were studying in Yangzhou Academy were still fantasizing about building the prosperous era of kingly way in their hearts.

Even Xu Guangqi, a hundred years ago, did not think of retreating, but proposed to reclaim wasteland and dry salt. A hundred years later, the perfect method these students can think of is to retreat.

But retreat... Lin Min thought, have you asked those salt households, is this what they want?

But this article is still the biggest one among the short ones, and it is relatively reliable.

The rest are much less reliable than this.

But all these reliable and unreliable ideas and requests for salt administration reform have one common feature: the salt permit inheritance system and the general contractor system are not the reasons for the problems in the salt administration. The reason is just the market merchants. All we need to do is to eliminate the market merchants to solve all the problems in Huainan.

There is no need to reclaim wasteland or waste salt.