Regarding Chen Yan's complete defeat, Lin Jing did not feel a trace of victor's joy. After all, through these data, he could get an answer. This huge and decadent Ming Empire was rotten to the core.
For anyone, the best way is to let this corpse fall completely and then carve out a new dynasty. But Lin Jing has no choice at all. He would rather use this painful way to remind people.
One thing about Chongzhen is that there is no longer any chance of luck.
Drinking soup and taking medicine is of no use anymore.
Scraping the bones to cure the poison cannot save the person again.
Only by completely replacing these rotten bodies and completely removing all obstacles from the inside can we achieve rebirth.
If Chongzhen did not have this determination, then Lin Jing could only choose another path, which was to gain more nutrients before the demise of the Ming Dynasty, and then start conquering the world again one day in the future.
Chongzhen did not speak, but everyone in the court was a little shocked. They all already knew that the prince was peeling off the last fig leaf of the Ming Dynasty.
"The salt tax of our country in the Ming Dynasty is based on the salt tax system. Every time the salt is introduced, the price is 300 kilograms of salt, or six cents and four cents of silver. There is also a tax of three taels of silver and three taels of silver for ministers. If calculated according to the national output of 600,000 kilograms, the actual amount of salt in our Ming Dynasty is
We should have received 13,280,000 taels of silver...but we could only receive less than 1,000,000 taels of silver..."
When Lin Jing said this, he sighed and said: "But the market price of official salt in my Ming Dynasty is as high as 300 Wen per catty. If calculated based on 600,000 catties, it is almost 10 million and 80 million."
According to this calculation, for every kilogram of salt sold in the Ming Dynasty, the government only levied less than two cents in tax!"
Under Lin Jing's explanation of the originally complex mathematical problem, everyone quickly became enlightened, especially Emperor Chongzhen, who felt an impact on his own cognition.
"Why is the salt of Ming Dynasty so expensive?"
Yes, according to Lin Jing's understanding, when comparing the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties, the price of salt in the Qing Dynasty was the lowest, only 20 cents per catty, followed by the Song Dynasty, with 50 cents per catty, but the Ming Dynasty was the most expensive, as high as 3 cents per catty.
One hundred articles, but the problem is that the Song Dynasty can get 12 million taels of salt tax every year, while the Qing Dynasty can get 6 million taels of salt tax every year.
In other words, salt was the most expensive in the Ming Dynasty, but the salt tax was the least earned, and most of the benefits were divided among officials at all levels.
When Lin Jing said this, he finally revealed his purpose. He said in a deep voice: "To inform my father, the Yanzheng of Ming Dynasty is now riddled with holes and has reached the point where it has to be changed. If it continues,
I’m afraid I won’t be able to collect these hundreds of thousands of taels of silver!”
Punishing corrupt officials has failed, and punishing cunning salt merchants cannot solve the real problem. Lin Jing's painstaking efforts are not just for a few heads. He wants to completely eliminate the shortcomings of the salt policy, or at least completely reform the salt system!
"Reforming salt production..."
Chongzhen murmured softly. If he had heard the prince say this before, he might have been surprised, but today the emperor had been stimulated enough, and he was somewhat used to it. He said softly: "Tell me and listen."
Lin Jing was slightly excited. He didn't want to become fat in one go, but he had two goals that he must achieve. First, the price of salt would be reduced to one hundred cents per catty, and in two years it would be reduced to at least fifty cents per catty.
, the second purpose is to increase the salt tax to three million taels of silver per year.
It seems very difficult, but as long as this mechanism is destroyed, it is entirely possible to achieve this goal. Of course, in the process, Lin Jing will definitely offend the salt merchants of the Lianghuai Salt Gang and the people behind them, but he will not do it at all.
He didn't care, he wished he could kill all these silverfish as soon as possible.
"Erchen believes that the current reform of the salt system should start with the salt introduction system. Erchen believes that if we continue to control the salt introduction, it will only contribute to the endless rise in salt prices. It is better to completely liberalize the salt introduction, suppress the price, and let the people
We can all eat cheap salt..."
Hearing what Lin Jing said, Chen Yan immediately felt that an opportunity had come. He held up his hand and said: "Report to Your Highness, making salt requires burning grass and boiling salt, which is very costly. If the price of salt is too low, not only will the court not be able to collect taxes, but it will also
There will still be losses..."
"Loss?"
After hearing this word, Chongzhen couldn't help but feel a little worried, and his brows were already wrinkled.
Lin Jing snorted coldly: "Who said I need to burn grass to boil salt? Erchen thought that the sun-dried salt method can be implemented in Shandong now, and the salt-boiled method can be completely abandoned from now on. Not only will the cost be reduced by more than ten times, but the output will also be reduced.
It will be greatly improved and the people can afford affordable salt!"
Indeed, the most primitive way to prepare coke is to boil it in a pot. Basically, most people in this era use this method.
Not only does this method produce low yield and poor quality salt, but it also requires a large amount of hay to boil the salt, and it also requires pasture, so the cost is extremely high.
However, Lin Jing had heard about the salt-drying method from later generations, and he also read Song Yingxing's "Tiangong Kaiwu" and found that it also wrote about the salt-drying method, "Haifeng introduced seawater directly into the pond to dry it.
When it condenses, sweeping the food without adding any manpower is the same as breaking up the salt. However, the time it takes to form salt is very different from not using the south wind."
The "Haifeng" in this record refers to Haifeng County, Shandong Province. This shows that this method is not unusual in Shandong Province.
After listening to Lin Jing's introduction, Chen Yan nodded reluctantly, and then asked another question, "Your Highness, if the price of salt is too low, then the court will have no profit at all, so where will the salt tax come from?"
Lin Jing sneered and said: "There are tens of millions of people in the Ming Dynasty. If they can all afford salt, the salt sold will be more than 60 million jins. If the sales volume increases, we can still make profits even if the price of salt is low."
After receiving the money, Erchen believed that the salt field should strictly control salt and be fully controlled by the imperial court, cancel the kitchen household production model, and allow them to return to normal life, so that they would be grateful to the imperial court and private salt would not leak out.
"
Zao households refer to people who specialize in cooking salt from the sea. They make a living by cooking salt, but they cannot sell it themselves. They can only sell it to the court at low prices. Their lives are very difficult. Now that they have private salt, they naturally
They would find ways to secretly keep the salt and then sell it exclusively, forming a private salt market.
Lin Jing's reform was very simple. On the one hand, he liberalized production and used low prices to impact the private salt market. The second was to directly cancel household production, thereby placing all sea salt production in the hands of the court, which could completely control private salt.
The flooding can also strengthen the control of salt production.
When Chongzhen heard this, he couldn't help but nodded. He indeed recognized Lin Jing's idea from the bottom of his heart. A policy like this that could take into account the interests of all parties would be more likely to be successful when implemented.
As for the salt merchants whose interests were harmed, they were never within Chongzhen's consideration. This chapter has been completed!