The Struggle History of the Fourteenth Qing Dynasty

His Huang Ama thought of a way: set targets.

How much salt the common people eat every day does not count, but the emperor directly sets the task.

Kangxi stipulated that each person should buy [-] catties of salt per year, no more than no less, and the salt will be distributed to you half a year in advance, and you will be asked to pay back the debt with rice and silkworm cocoons in autumn.

What is the concept of seventeen catties of salt?It is equivalent to consuming a certain amount of salt per person every day, no matter the size or the head.

Brother Fourteen stuck out his tongue, thinking that it was no wonder that in the late Qing Dynasty, soldiers of the Eight Banners were often defeated at the first touch on the battlefield. I dare say that the previous generation had eaten too much salt, and it may be due to hereditary high blood pressure... Cough cough, this is his blindness Guess it.

"But even so, this group of people can't prevent tax evasion!" Kangxi was very unconvinced when he thought about it: "They are salt merchants, all of whom are rich and unfaithful to the court. Private sale is a common thing, and it has formed a certain sales channel, which makes people hard to guard against. For example, if you add sand to the official salt, it is said that it is waste salt from the salt field. What can you do? There is even good salt. , It’s just waste salt.”

Brother Fourteen gritted his teeth: "This is official salt for writing, and private salt for reading, right?"

"You narrow-minded ghost!" Kangxi was even amused by his words: "There is no way to do this."

Brother Fourteen nodded: "I understand."

From the perspective of the Qing Dynasty, Jiangnan was inherently unstable, and the factor of instability was the reason why the Qing Dynasty killed too much at the beginning.

For a nomadic people, how easy is it to stay stable?

This is not something that can be solved by fighting on horseback.

"You have asked so many questions about salt affairs, do you have some ghost idea?" Kangxi knew his [-]th son too well.

He doesn't do things that are not beneficial.

"Huang Ama, tell me, who is the richest person in the world?" Elder Fourteen asked Kangxi a question.

"It's not me." Sure enough, Kangxi was the first to deny himself: "I am the emperor, but I am not a rich man. The treasury will be emptied by these moths."

"Oh, this minister knows." This matter has become a knot in the heart, whether it is the emperor or the minister, in fact, they all have this knot.

"Then tell me, who is the richest person in the world?" When mentioning money, Kangxi became interested, and the emperor was also short of money.

Especially in the future, there will be a series of actions, and money will be needed everywhere.

"Salt merchant!" Elder Fourteen slapped his thigh: "Huang Ama, do you know how rich the salt merchant is?"

"I know too well." Kangxi heard the fourteenth elder brother mention the salt merchants, and he didn't even want to eat: "All the rich are dying, and they are crying poor with the ministers I sent. How many ministers have been played by them. between."

Kangxi's statement is not without grounds. The group of salt merchants has existed in all dynasties, and they are united as one to control the salt affairs.

In the early Qing Dynasty, the salt law followed the Ming system, and basically implemented the feudal system of leading the shore.

To transport and sell salt, salt merchants must pay the salt tax to the Salt Transport Envoy and receive the Salt Yin (certificate for transporting and selling salt).

However, to receive Yanyin, you must rely on Yinwo (also known as Wogen, Genwo), which is a certificate that proves that you have the privilege of transporting and selling salt.In order to obtain this privilege, salt merchants must admit their nests to the competent government departments.

When recognizing the nest, you have to pay a huge amount of silver taels, which is the big head of the salt administration.

The salt merchants who hold the Yinwo have the hereditary privilege of transporting and selling table salt.

A salt monopoly merchant with the monopoly privilege of salt transportation and marketing franchised by the Qing government.

Merchants took advantage of this privilege to grab huge commercial monopoly profits and became prominent contemporary wealthy merchants.

In the Qing Dynasty, the salt merchants in Yangzhou were the most famous. The salt merchants in Yangzhou mainly included Shanxi merchants, Shanxi merchants, and Huizhou merchants, and about half of them were Huizhou merchants.

These businessmen have made great profits, but they are afraid of being traced by the court, so every time officials appointed by the court come, they will do everything possible to lure them into the water.

Either sending beautiful women, or bribing gold and silver, all kinds of methods emerge in endlessly.

Elder Fourteen felt that the tricks he used to watch TV in his previous life were not enough for other salt merchants to play!

Then Kangxi told him a story about a business dispute:

In the late Ming Dynasty, the famous "dispute of business registration" in Yangzhou was actually a major outbreak of business grievances between Shanxi merchants and Huizhou merchants.

Shanxi merchants in Huai'an and Yangzhou prefectures were specially approved by the imperial court to have "merchant status" because they settled in other provinces. Their children can enter schools in Huaiyang two prefectures, and there are still 7 places that do not need to return to their original places to take the imperial examination every year. .Huizhou, the hometown of Huizhou merchants, and Huaiyang belong to South Zhili Province. According to regulations, their children are not allowed to go to school there.In the fifth year of Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, Huizhou merchants jointly wrote a letter requesting that all the children of salt merchants could go to school on the spot, which was approved by the emperor.

But this invisibly harmed the interests of Shanxi merchants who had original school status. It happened that the prefect of Yangzhou at that time was also from Shanxi and supported the protests of his fellow villagers, so the policy was postponed.

Not long ago, Huizhou merchants operated in many ways, and because of the change of dynasty, they became interested again, and Kangxi was moved by the situation in the south, so they licensed an additional seven places under the "business registration" in Yangzhou, so that the children of Huizhou merchants can Participate in the imperial examination.

The "dispute of business registration" went through the Ming and Qing dynasties and lasted for decades. Shanxi merchants won first and then lost, and Huizhou merchants finally got their wish.

And because of this, Kangxi was able to allow the imperial court to control half of the country in the salt affairs, and not let the salt merchants lead by the nose.

But even so, the salt business is still a big problem.

Don't dare to move easily, once moved, the salt merchants will cause trouble, stop the shops that sell salt, and refuse to accept the salt from those salt farmers, etc., and all of them are "rich as hell"!

"Huang Ama, do you want money from the salt merchants?" Elder Fourteen asked Kangxi.

"Fourteen, wash up and go to bed." Kangxi put down the bowl and chopsticks lonely: "Huang Ama doesn't eat much, but Huang Ama is the emperor, and he hasn't found a way to deal with the salt merchants all these years."

It is not only the ministers who owe money to the treasury, but also the taxes of the salt merchants.

"They can spend money to buy Yangzhou skinny horses, and they can sprinkle gold leaves into the tide of Qiantang River, just to see the grand scene of silver wolves floating in gold." Elder Fourteen picked up the bowls and chopsticks: "Huang Ama, why I can't watch them build tall buildings, watch them entertain guests, and finally watch their buildings collapse!"

"You have a solution?" Kangxi looked at him in disbelief.

"Then if you want to eat this bowl of rice, Erchen will chat with you in detail!" Elder Fourteen handed the bowl and chopsticks to Kangxi again: "It's been a night, and I just drank that bowl of soup and ate half of it." Pancake, what can you do? After eating and drinking enough, Erchen will talk to you about the great cause of earning money! After eating so little, you will lose weight, Huang Mama and Er Niang should start nagging again."

"Then eat some more." Kangxi had an appetite this time, and ate a bowl of rice and some vegetables.

Brother Fourteen is really hungry. He is not in the palace right now, and he doesn't pay much attention to his meals. He has been out of the palace for many years, and the food is so delicious that it is delicious!

It was rare for Kangxi to pick a few fishbone for him, and Brother Fourteen's food tasted even better!

After eating and drinking enough, he confessed one thing to Kangxi, and he handed over a recipe for drying salt: "Take a look!"

Kangxi took it over and looked at it with a strange expression on his face.

Don’t ask Fourteenth brother how he knows the recipe for drying salt. The main reason is that when he was at work, a few girls saw clearly that they were all in trouble when they saw the show. What kind of prescription is used to make a fortune and so on.

There is something like [-] life push and so on.

As a real case of modern time travel to the Qing Dynasty, Brother Fourteen will tell you in person: You are the kind of cannon fodder who travels to ancient times and can't survive three months!

Since the appearance of a Wu Emperor in the Tang Dynasty, the subsequent dynasties have been very strict with women, and in the Qing Dynasty, women are restrained so much that they are about to pervert!

Regardless of whether you are studying science or liberal arts, a woman in ancient times is a man's accessory. No matter how capable you are, you are just making wedding dresses for others.

Besides, this prescription, no matter it is the prescription of drying salt or the prescription of glass, will harm the interests of some people, especially the prescription of drying salt, which will shake the whole Jiangnan!

You must know that Jiangnan is dominated by salt merchants, and the wealth of Jiangnan salt merchants is number one in the world!

If you are a small person who offended so many people, do you still want to live?

Unless you dress up as a princess or something, but you will also be treated as a different kind. People in ancient times didn’t pay attention to science. Do you understand the truth that if you dress up as a man, it’s okay, but the premise is that you have to be the best in the world. The determination of the Lord, you need to have subordinates who want to change the sky, and the current emperor is too stupid, the people want to have a stable life, unless the life is really hard to live, generally they will not choose to rebel, if there are no above conditions , you failed to rebel but made great achievements, and you still can't escape death.

So, girls who want to clean up, take a good wash and have a beauty sleep.

It's still a pushover, these two people live next door as neighbors now, but they basically don't have any private interaction, so don't be too cold in their relationship.

However, thanks to those daydreaming girls, the Fourteenth Master at that time retaliated and searched the recipe for sun-drying salt on the Internet, which was actually a matter of process.

Sun-dried salt is generally selected in summer, the temperature is high, and the evaporation is fast. There are six steps in total:

The first is to receive the tide, which is to introduce seawater into the salt pan when the tide rises in the morning;

The second is to make brine, that is, seawater is introduced into the second salt pan after drying in the first sea field for one day, and then introduced into the third salt pan after drying in the second salt pan on the second day, and so on until the ninth salt pan, here The concentration of seawater is relatively high;

The third is crystallization. The brine from the ninth salt pan is introduced into the tenth salt pan, and the old brine and new brine are stirred, so that the salt produced is finer;

The fourth is to prevent typhoons and thunderstorms. Pay attention to the weather. There are many typhoons and thunderstorms in summer, which will dilute the concentration of seawater. Therefore, before it rains, introduce the brine from the salt pan into a pond with a cover. Dried, and then introduced the brine into the salt pan;

The fifth step is to renovate the salt field, because the salt will make the soil soft, in order to better dry the salt, the soil should be compacted, usually before the off-season and peak season;

The sixth step is to collect salt.

In fact, sun-dried salt existed as early as the Ming Dynasty, but the method of sun-dried salt in the Ming Dynasty was used alone in the inland salt mines and salt lakes, because the lake water is not as risky as sea water. After all, there are typhoons at the seaside, but not at the salt lake. .

So there are ways to dry salt, but it is lake salt, not sea salt.

No one thinks about drying sea salt, because the sea is very windy and rough, and the wind is high and rough, but the recipe for drying salt provided by Brother Fourteen is for drying sea salt!

Kangxi frowned a little at the beginning, after all, sun-dried salt is lake salt, sea salt...but gradually, his eyes began to light up!

This night, the father and son slept together. Brother Fourteen told Kangxi a lot, and Kangxi also made a lot of records himself.

The next day, the Cao family came to pay their respects, and Cao Li brought her two daughters.

The two girls of the Cao family, the older one is smart, the younger one is smart, they are well educated, they are generous, and they have inherited the quietness and elegance of Jiangnan beauties. Their skin is fair and supple, their lips are red and their teeth are white. They are so comfortable to look at.

After the fourteenth brother met, he thought it was no wonder Cao Xueqin was able to write "A Dream of Red Mansions". The girls in it were written after his aunt, and maybe his aunts and sisters.

Kangxi really liked it when he saw it: "The nurse's two granddaughters are good, I will take them back and find two good husbands."

What this means is that he will not accept the two granddaughters of the wet nurse. It is not easy to be an imperial concubine. I am sorry for the low status of the wet nurse.

Finding a mother-in-law is different.

Kangxi is a matchmaker, and that is a marriage bestowed by the emperor. As long as the two girls don't commit suicide, they will basically be guaranteed for the rest of their lives.

"Old slave, thank you, Long Live Lord!" Mrs. Sun really thanked happily.

The grievances of being forced to separate the family and the government and the clan are gone. The granddaughter's marriage is settled and she has a future. Why don't she help her grandson in the future?

She is just such a grandson.

No matter how important relatives are, they are not as important as grandchildren.

What's more, Long Live God bestowed a marriage on a matchmaker, so could the family be wrong?

In addition, Elder Fourteen has a good relationship with his grandson, even if she is dead now, she can still close her eyes.

The old lady was happy, Cao Li was even happier, her daughter's marriage was guaranteed, and she was no longer afraid of those cats and dogs.

It's easy to talk when we meet in the future, who can resist the decree and disrespect for relatives?

Let's see how those aunts talk to her in the future!

The third elder brother Cheng Baylor was even more depressed. He also wanted to recruit a girl from the Cao family into the mansion, so he asked the branch of the Cao family to communicate with the Cao family first. After having a child, can I still be promoted to a side Fujin?

This is a rare favorable condition, but now it is hit hard by Huang Ama's words.

The Cao family is not stupid either!

If the emperor decides the marriage, it must be the first wife. It is not appropriate to have a first wife, so I will treat you as a concubine with no name or distinction?

It is possible to become a side Fujin only after giving birth to a child.

What if there is no child?Don't you want to be a concubine for the rest of your life?

He also asked the Cao family to pay a large amount of dowry, what a dream!