The year before last, the Lu family's income had grown rapidly due to the addition of Wu Shigong's salt sales area. But when the Lu family was about to show off its talents last year, suddenly, the salt transport yamen no longer issued salt products to the Lu family.
. And several small salt merchants in Yangzhou suffered the same fate.
The reason why the salt transport government was in charge of the government was that due to the proliferation of private salt, the court's salt tax dropped too quickly. Therefore, the salt industry needed to be concentrated in the hands of a few large salt merchants, which would help the court uniformly collect taxes.
But God knows, which year has not been flooded with illegal salt? In fact, the salt merchants all know this, and this is another drama of big fish eating small fish. As expected, the Lu family's salt is rationed
Qi family, while the salt from several other small salt merchants was distributed to several other large salt merchants.
However, in the Ming Dynasty, unlike modern business, you can engage in commercial wars by any means. As long as you win, the winner takes all. Commercial competition in the Ming Dynasty was actually limited to a very small range.
Especially the large group of Yangzhou salt merchants formed a very influential business guild. In this business guild, they basically acted in a unified manner externally to maintain high profits in the industry while minimizing friction internally.
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Of course, this does not mean that there is no competition among Yangzhou salt merchants, but this competition must have a reasonable reason. Otherwise, the winner is likely to be squeezed out by the entire salt merchant group and eventually be ruined.
Therefore, the behavior of the Qi family and other large salt merchants through the salt transportation and the yamen robbed the Lu family and other small salt merchants of Yanyin was completely against the rules. This was also the main reason why the two Lu family brothers could not bear this tone.
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But what the two brothers of the Lu family didn't know was that this unethical behavior was not a big fish eating small fish behavior done by the Qi family and other big salt merchants after they bribed the salt transport envoys. Quite the opposite.
, this is the Yangzhou salt transport envoy who found the Qi family and other large salt merchants and asked them to swallow up the salt from the Lu family and other small salt merchants.
Since Emperor Chongzhen came to power, he has recruited eunuchs to supervise taxation from various places. In Emperor Chongzhen's view, without these corrupt eunuchs and only using honest civil servants, the country's taxation situation will definitely improve.
But what Emperor Chongzhen didn't expect was that the appetite of civil servants was not small at all. What's even more incredible is that the civil servants all claimed that "taxes come from the land." In addition to increasing taxes from the land of free people, they also
Commercial tax, mining tax and other taxes are exempted if possible. The same is true for the salt tax in Yangzhou.
It can be seen from this that although eunuchs may be more greedy than civil servants, with their existence, the court can still collect some business taxes and mining taxes. But without the existence of eunuchs, the court has no control over these taxes.
Even two taels of silver could not be collected. From this point of view, for the Ming Dynasty court, it was actually better to have eunuchs to collect local taxes than to have no eunuchs to collect taxes.
Yangzhou's salt tax accounted for one-fifth of the entire Ming Dynasty court revenue. However, after Emperor Chongzhen came to the throne, without the supervision of eunuchs, Yangzhou's salt tax immediately dropped by one-third.
This was a huge hole for the Ming Dynasty court.
When this happened, one must pursue responsibility, so the original salt transport envoy was dismissed from office. And the current salt transport envoy Guan Yin took office.
After Guan Yin took office, he knew that Emperor Chongzhen would definitely fail if he did not increase the salt tax. However, he also knew that the power of the salt merchant group was quite huge. In particular, a large number of southern scholars supported by the salt merchants entered the officialdom to contribute to the salt industry.
The merchants formed a huge protective umbrella. If Guan Yin just raised the salt tax, he would definitely not be able to stay in this position for long.
So Guan Yin and his staff came up with this method: reduce the number of small salt merchants, and concentrate the salt in the hands of those small salt merchants into the hands of the big salt merchants. The big salt merchants will use their profits to increase their profits.
Part of it will be used as tax revenue for the court. Of course, a large part of it will fall into the hands of Guan Yin's private individuals.
After Guan Yin proposed this idea to the Qi family and other big salt merchants, they hit it off immediately. Although those big salt merchants were still half-hearted in front of Guan Yin, in their hearts, they had long wanted to sell those small salt merchants.
Shang's Yan Yin was swallowed. It's just that due to business rules, they couldn't open their mouths nakedly in the past. But now with the support of the Salt Transport Envoy Yamen, they can eat these small fishes from the Lu family with peace of mind.
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This is the whole story of how the Lu family lost their Yanyin. But even now, the Lu family still doesn’t quite understand the reason why they lost their Yanyin. They still resent the Qi family’s unruly behavior.
Wu Shigong, led by the steward sent by the Lu family, had just settled down in an inn arranged by the Lu family. Lu Jianyin and Lu Jianchen came to the inn to meet Wu Shigong.
As soon as they saw Wu Shigong, Lu Jianyin and Lu Jianchen bowed their hands to Wu Shigong and said, "Master Wu, I'm rude if you don't greet me at the city gate."
Wu Shigong also quickly smiled and returned the greeting: "No problem! But I am traveling in casual clothes this time, so you two gentlemen should call me Mr. Wu."
Wu Shigong welcomed the two Lu brothers to his room and sat down. Lu Jianyin said: "Mr. Wu, I take the liberty of asking you to come to Yangzhou this time because the brothers have something to talk to in person. Mr. Wu is tired from the journey, so he will take a rest first and wait.
In the evening, my brother will be the host and let Mr. Wu appreciate the night view of the Little Qinhuai River."
"You're welcome! You're welcome!" Wu Shigong smiled and waved his hand. For Wu Shigong, when he came to Yangzhou this time, he had no mood or time to go to any romantic places. He was not the protagonist of some Internet article, and he would come to Yangzhou as soon as he arrived.
An affair.
Wu Shigong wanted to talk about good things as soon as possible and return to Runing Mansion as soon as possible. So Wu Shigong said to the two brothers of the Lu family: "Brother, I am impatient. I don't talk about good things and have no intention of having fun. Do you want to tell me about the salt farm immediately?"
Explain clearly."
Lu Jianyin and Lu Jianchen looked at each other. They didn't expect Wu Shigong to be so anxious. Lu Jianyin nodded, stood up and said, "Okay! Mr. Wu knows that our Lu family has a salt farm, which produces
The amount of salt can reach more than 20,000 shi per year. If production is at full capacity, it can reach more than 30,000 shi."
"But due to changes in the Lu family, the Lu family has lost its salt source since last year, and the salt in this salt field cannot be sold. Mr. Wu, I don't want to lie to you. There are not one or two salt merchants who covet this salt field.
, they all forced the Lu family to sell the salt farm to them."
"But because they stole the salt from the Lu family by any means, our Lu family will never sell this salt farm to other salt merchants. But those salt merchants are very powerful in Yangzhou, and they have joined forces and are unwilling to acquire Lu family.
The salt products from our salt farm are now abandoned.”
"So the reason why I invited Mr. Wu here this time is to borrow the property of the two Hou Mansion houses behind Mr. Wu. Otherwise, without the support of the Hou Mansion, the salt farm will be swallowed up by other salt merchants sooner or later. Our Lu family can take over the salt farm."
Give it to Mr. Wu, but Mr. Wu is in Henan, and he will definitely not care about this salt farm. Our Lu family can manage this salt farm. As long as Mr. Wu gives us 40% of the profits of the Lu family, plus we have
With the support of the Hou Mansion, our Lu family can borrow some salt from other salt merchants with whom we have good relationships, which can completely solve the problem of not being able to sell the salt in the salt farm."
After listening to Lu Jianyin's words, Wu Shigong frowned. This was different from what he had imagined before coming. Along the way, Wu Shigong and Yuan Xingshan once guessed the reason why the Lu family gave him the salt farm. But their guess was the most likely.
That is, the Lu family wants to use the territory controlled by Wu Shigong in Henan to sell salt from their salt farm.
Wu Shigong had already been mentally prepared for the Lu family's split. He was also prepared to agree to give the Lu family 40% of the profits. But what he didn't expect was that the Lu family was interested in the power of the Xue and Wu families behind Wu Shigong.
But we know our own affairs, let alone whether the power of the Xungui family in the capital can reach the southern region of Yangzhou. Just talk about the situation of these two princes. The Xue Mansion is still thinking behind closed doors. If you step in rashly
The Yangzhou salt merchant circle with fierce interest disputes may make the current situation even worse.
But what about the Wu Mansion? Wu Shigong believed that if he told his father Wu Weizhong about this situation, he would definitely accept it with a smile. But Wu Shigong himself would not get anything. At most, his father Wu Weizhong would give it to him.
Some of them are just eating scraps, which does not help their own income.
Wu Shigong thought about it for a long time, and finally decided to agree to the Lu family's conditions first. Wu Shigong took it upon himself to lend the power of the two princes' houses to the Lu family. As for any problems in the future, we will see about it at that time.
Let's do it.
Seeing Wu Shigong agreeing, the two Lu family brothers laughed happily. They also agreed immediately. The Lu family would pay for the goods that Wu Shigong brought this time, and help Yuan Xingshan prepare the goods and goods to be transported back to Runing Mansion.
Boat.
Then, the two Lu brothers left and prepared to arrange Wu Shigong's banquet in the evening. Wu Shigong also stretched and wanted to lie down on the bed and take a rest.
