The next affairs of the Ministry of Punishment are relatively simple: the revision of the Ming Dynasty Code did not happen overnight, and only a small number of citizens have opened their horizons. Moreover, the officials of the Ministry of Punishment are generally old-school officials who have passed the imperial examination, and Zhu Youdong is not the same.

I hope they can understand my true intention. So, don’t rush this, just do it slowly first.

Most of the affairs of the Ministry of War are routine: there are still sporadic ethnic minority rebellions in the southwest and northwest. Regarding these rebellions, Zhu Youdong adopts the attitude of "suppress first, ask for reasons later". After the suppression is completed, it is indeed the place of the Ming Dynasty.

If the official is disgraceful, then punish the local official and maintain the status quo of the place. If the chieftain is a bastard, then kill the whole family of the chieftain, and then either replace the chieftain (a relatively poor place with little output), or implement reforms.

Earth returns to flow.

What is more troublesome is the Mongolian invasion problem due to the north and northeast: the demise of Jianzhou made the Mongolian problem become more prominent. Lin Dan Khan had been the Mongolian Great Khan for ten years at this time, and his own ability and prestige were considerable.

With the improvement of the level, more than 30,000 herdsmen were able to gather to carry out more threatening invasions of Jiliao, Xuanda and other places in the Ming Dynasty.

Regarding this situation, Zhu Youdong's strategy is: Henghaiwei sends one thousand households to Jiliao at a time, and then leads the local garrison to fight Lin Dan Khan. Well, this guy is practicing with Lin Dan Khan, and trying hard to kill every

The soldiers of Henghaiwei are all trained as officers - after all, an ordinary Henghaiwei soldier must be able to serve as the commander-in-chief when he goes out to other guard posts and military towns.

The Ministry of Rites does not have many things to do. 1615 is the year of the provincial examinations for the two capitals and thirteen provinces. The really busy time for the Ministry of Rites will be next year.

Well, next year, the year Bingchen, there will be quite a lot of celebrities among the Jinshi this year. Even among those who failed, there are also many outstanding ones.

As for the last official department, Zhu Youdong, after listening to the report from Zhao Huan, the minister of the department, smiled and said: "Otsuka Zai, I am looking for you to ask for someone."

"Your Highness, you are polite. You are the supervisor of the country, so why do you want to talk about it? Your Highness, please make it clear."

"Well, in your hometown of Shandong, there is a salt inspector named Bi Maokang. Do you know?"

"Meng Houchen knows that he is from Huizhou and was a Jinshi in the 26th year of Wanli. The young man was famous for his dexterity in calligraphy and painting. After he became an official, he was also famous for his ability to do practical work. In the past year, when there was a drought in Shaanxi, he took charge of the relief work and lived with little money.

There are many people. After serving as a salt patrol in Shandong, he quickly sorted out the debts of all generations. He can really be called an official!"

"Well, I want to transfer him to Beijing to be the Minister of Household Affairs. How about that?"

"I have no objection!"

"Okay, I will issue an order later. If there is no objection from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, please ask the Ministry of Civil Affairs to handle it as soon as possible."

"I obey."

Zhu Youdong is just a history buff and not an expert on Ming history, so he only remembers some of the historical celebrities of the Ming Dynasty.

In terms of military experts, he knew Zhao Shizhen and had a deep memory of him. But Bi Maokang only had a little impression of him. In the first few years after time travel, he had no chance to promote talents by himself, so he forgot about it as time went by.

The reason why I remembered it at this time was actually not because of military research issues. It was because His Highness Taisun was planning to rectify the salt policy of the Ming Dynasty starting from the 43rd year of Wanli.

When Lao Zhu founded the People's Republic of China, his overall economic policies were very conservative, but his salt policy was more advanced.

Salt tax absolutely plays an important role in the finance of a country based on agriculture. For thousands of years, the Chinese Empire has collected salt tax in roughly three ways.

One is the total monopoly system: the state controls all salt fields, production, transportation, and sales, and the state is responsible for everything. The advantage of this system is that the state can control the entire process, set the price of salt extremely high, and do its best to rob the people.

copper plates. The disadvantages are inefficiency, corruption, and the emergence of illegal salt.

The second is the on-the-spot taxation system: the state sends officials to major salt fields. The production of the salt fields is handled by private individuals. After the salt is produced, state officials collect the salt tax at the salt fields. The rest is transported and sold by the state.

Ignore it all. The advantage of this is that production is efficient and illegal salt is basically eliminated. The disadvantage is that the country gets relatively little.

The third type is the on-site monopoly system. The production of the salt field is privately owned. After the salt is produced, all the salt is sold to the state at a fixed price. Then the salt merchants go to the salt field to purchase from the state. After the purchase, the salt merchants are responsible for transportation and sales.

The advantage of this is that the country can steadily earn the price difference and interests are protected. Manufacturers and dealers are also more motivated.

As for Lao Zhu, he created the Kaizhong method.

Military settlements were implemented in the Ming Dynasty, but it was difficult for military settlements in the north to achieve self-sufficiency in food. At this time, grain transportation from the interior was needed for support. Many places in military settlements were remote and dangerous places. Therefore, if the state organized grain collection and transportation,

This cost would be too high to bear. Then Lao Zhu accepted the advice of Shanxi businessmen and officials and founded the Kaizhong method.

The specific method is: merchants buy grain and transport it to the designated location by the state. Then local officials will check and accept the grain and put it into storage, and then give the merchant a certain amount of salt according to the amount of grain. The merchant will take the salt and go to the corresponding national salt farm to obtain salt.

Then sell it and make a profit.

In this process, the soldiers in the army received food, and the country saved freight and losses. Although the merchants worked harder, they obtained the commodity salt and further made profits. Moreover, the merchants purchased grain, transported grain, and collected grain along the way.

Salt has greatly promoted the development of various service industries along the trade routes. Therefore, as soon as this method was launched, it quickly gained support from big bosses from all sides.

In this process, the only people who suffered were the common people: The merchants spent so much time and effort to get the salt. If they don't set the salt price higher, how will the profits be reflected?

Having said that, during the Ming Dynasty, it was already a great initiative to have such a way to solve the food ration problem for frontier soldiers.

However, this method naturally brings more problems.

First, the collection of salt taxes was damaged: as long as merchants have proof of the delivery of grain, they can get the salt. With the salt, they can get the salt for free - in this process, the country cannot collect the salt tax.

In other words, the country's cash income decreases.

Secondly, it is easy to breed corruption: since you can get salt if you have a salt guide, that means that the salt guide is money! And who makes the salt guide? Officials. And the ethics of officials in the Ming Dynasty, hahaha...

....

It was fine when Lao Zhu and Zhu Laosi were in power, and everyone did not dare to let go. The overall operation of Kaizhongfa was pretty good. After the death of these two ruthless men, the clans, officials, and gentry of the Ming Dynasty all

Reaching out towards Shiobiki - of course these guys will not work hard to transport the food to the garrison and then get Shiobiki, but rely on their official authority to get it directly for nothing!

They were happy to get it for free, but the output of the salt field was only a little. You took away the salt and took away the salt payment. Those honest civilian merchants worked hard to transport grain to the garrison and took the salt to lead them away.

However, the salt farm could not obtain salt, so naturally it was impossible to obtain profits, and everything was lost. Starting from the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, it appeared in the notes of Ming Dynasty that the grandfather obtained the salt, but the grandchildren could not

Records of obtaining salt from saltworks.

Kaizhongfa, which was so destroyed by corruption, naturally led to a bad situation where the garrison was short of food, but no merchants were willing to transport it, and the people had to eat high-priced salt.

Naturally, the next step is the proliferation of private salt and the collapse of the national salt policy.

Since the Western Han Dynasty, salt tax has been an important part of the fiscal revenue of the Chinese Empire. In the late Southern Song Dynasty, the national finance almost completely relied on salt tax to support the army against the Mongols. The salt tax of the Ming Dynasty...

Let’s make a comparison. During the Northern Song Dynasty, the state taxed 30 Wen per kilogram of salt. In the Ming Dynasty, it was about 20 Wen. What about the price of salt? The market price in the Northern Song Dynasty was 50 Wen per kilogram, and the market price in the Ming Dynasty was 300 Wen per kilogram, six times higher than that in the Northern Song Dynasty.

.The price of salt in the Northern Song Dynasty has always had a very bad reputation in history due to excessive taxation resulting in excessively high selling prices...

During the Northern Song Dynasty, there was no Ming method of encircling the sea to dry salt, so the salt production was limited, and the natural taxation was also limited. Even so, the annual salt tax in the Northern Song Dynasty could reach more than 1.2 million guan. And what was the salt tax in the Ming Dynasty at this time? Before the currency reform,

It is close to 1 million taels. After the reform, it is only over 1.3 million taels.

According to Cao Sanxi's calculations, if the Ming Dynasty could have a complete salt tax collection system like the Northern Song Dynasty, the annual salt tax revenue alone would not be less than 1.5 million yuan!

This makes Zhu Youdong, who now has to subsidize at least 3 million yuan to the Ministry of Household Affairs every year, unable to sit still.

Besides, as a time traveler, Zhu Youdong still has some ideals: it is a bit difficult for the people of the Ming Dynasty to be wealthy, but as a time traveler, it would be really outrageous if he could not feed and clothe most of the people in the country.

The national census is the first step to rectify various chronic diseases of the Ming Dynasty. The next step is to reconstruct the Yellow Book and the Fish Scale Atlas, so that people across the country can pay taxes relatively fairly - only in this way can they have enough food and clothing.

.

But now, it seems that this salt policy has to be overhauled! As a time traveler, if people across the country cannot afford salt, then they will really live up to this title.

Therefore, Zhu Youdong asked Wen Tiren: I want to rectify the salt administration, please recommend someone. Then Lao Wen recommended Bi Maokang. After hearing the name Bi Maokang, Zhu Youdong slapped his head: Oh, this person is not only an official, but also an official.
Chapter completed!