The two sisters looked at the confident young man in front of them, feeling a little dazed for a moment.
Confident and calm.
Quite different from his usual shamelessness.
Just now, could he bribe the emperor with a smile?
Zhuge Hui sighed and said: "Liang Xiao, the salt and iron monopoly, wine tasting, etc. that the imperial court can handle have all been done. The money you are talking about is for His Majesty to do business, or is it?"
Liang Xiao replied: "The Prime Minister also mentioned salt and iron. This salt is one of the most important incomes!"
"Are you proposing to strictly investigate smuggling?" Duan Yunxiu asked curiously.
Liang Xiao shook his head: "In Da Zhou, smuggling is a capital crime. Private salt trading is not as rampant as in Da Chu. The results are visible, but this can only treat the symptoms, not the root cause. The real problem facing Da Zhou's salt policy now is the production of salt.
It’s too low. If His Majesty can significantly increase production and monopolize the salt business across the country and even surrounding countries, it will be easy to improve the finances!”
The empress asked curiously: "How to increase production? Send more manpower?"
Liang Xiao then took out a stack of handwritten letters from his arms, selected the thickest one, and handed it to the empress.
"This is the sun salt method, which uses seawater and sunlight to make table salt. It is different from the traditional methods of boiling the sea to make salt, well salt, and rock salt. All it takes is labor and time, and seawater is indispensable.
Use inexhaustible resources..."
After listening to Liang Xiao's explanation of the salt-drying method, everyone's eyes lit up.
"Can this salt-drying method really produce edible salt?" Duan Yunxiu looked unbelieving.
Liang Xiao said resolutely: "As long as the salt fields are well made, it will be possible! But the process may need to be gradually improved. After all, this is just an idea that Chen accidentally discovered back then. Everyone knows the principle of boiling the sea into salt. In addition to salt, there are other impurities in seawater.
But as long as seawater continues to evaporate, the salt inside is the first to precipitate."
The two sisters looked at Prime Minister Zhuge Hui, and saw that he also looked expectant.
The empress asked: "Can you estimate how much revenue this salt-drying method can increase for the court?"
Liang Xiao said solemnly: "The annual increase in salt administration revenue ranges from five million taels to more than 20 million taels. It all depends on how well your majesty keeps secrets!"
"hiss……"
The sound of everyone taking a breath was heard at the scene.
Even though the two sisters were nobles in the world, and even though Zhuge Hui was a highly respected minister, they were shocked when faced with this astonishing number!
"Prime Minister, what do you think, Prime Minister?" Duan Yunxiu's voice was trembling.
Zhuge Hui flipped through Liang Xiao's salt-drying method, nodded slightly, and exclaimed: "When I was young, my wife and I liked to study some tools and learn some ingenious things. Judging from the content of the salt-drying method provided by Liang Xiao, I think it is feasible.
, after all, this is just a further improvement on the principle of boiling the sea into salt, and the cost is extremely low!"
The two sisters looked at Liang Xiao blankly, with expressions of disbelief on their faces.
Annual income increase of at least five million taels, or even tens of millions of taels??
The empress said word by word: "If the increase in income is as you say, the rewards I will give you in the future will definitely not disappoint you."
Liang Xiao reminded: "Your Majesty, don't just be happy. First of all, you must ensure that there are enough reliable manpower to prevent them from committing theft. At the same time, they are responsible for supervising the workers and preventing the leakage of this method. Therefore, Da Zhou must also guard his own.
Coastline. In addition, massive amounts of salt will impact the existing salt market, causing salt prices to drop."
Zhuge Hui smiled and said: "Reducing the price of salt is not a big problem. In this way, the common people can afford salt for a long time, and the sense of recognition of Your Majesty will naturally be greatly enhanced."
Liang Xiao glanced at Zhuge Hui approvingly and continued to explain.
"There are still some private salt merchants in the country who secretly smuggle salt to Beihu at high prices and earn huge profits. If the price of salt decreases, as long as Your Majesty pays more attention to the sea salt produced by the sun salt method, they will have nowhere to obtain sea salt and will face high prices.
The cost of rock salt and well salt will make it more and more difficult to do business, which will indirectly affect Beihu’s access to salt and weaken Beihu.”
"Because of the salt-drying method, the imperial court still needs to invest part of its troops. It can logically arrange for additional recruitment of troops from various places. Those families who are surrendering do not dare to risk the disapproval of the world and persuade the country to increase troops. With the increase in troops, they can deal with domestic and foreign affairs at any time.
In case of emergencies, at the same time, we will expedite the promotion of the work of allotments, and the integration of officials and gentry into errands and payment of food. After a year or two, His Majesty will have money in hand and will naturally be more confident."
"If the Salt Administration can increase revenue like this, I will have more confidence to fight Beihu!" The empress looked at Liang Xiao who was talking eloquently, and her heart was surging.
I have always underestimated him...
Liang Xiao added: "Increasing revenue from the salt administration is just one of the ways to make money."
"What? Is there any other way?" Everyone was surprised and happy.
Liang Xiao took out another document from the pile and handed it to the empress.
"There are more than 50 million people in the Great Zhou Dynasty, and private transactions often involve signing contracts. Your Majesty can implement stamp tax and have the government notarize transactions between people, so that people can sign contracts with confidence when trading, and the government can collect one thousandth of it.
Or a stamp tax of two thousandths. In addition, when people trade with the government, they can also sign a contract when applying, and they also pay a stamp tax of one thousandth..."
Liang Xiao's explanation was refreshing to everyone, and they all nodded in praise.
Duan Yunxiu said excitedly: "Sister, this is the best of both worlds! With the official certification of people's contracts, they can trade with more confidence, which will eventually indirectly promote the development of people's livelihood. This stamp tax seems to be a small amount, but there are so many contracts in the country that the accumulation is small.
After we become more successful, it will definitely not be a problem to earn hundreds of thousands of taels or even one or two million taels a year after deducting labor costs!"
Zhuge Hui echoed: "What your Highness said is absolutely true. The key is that this method is extremely mild and does not force the people to seek official certification. However, for the safety of their transactions, the people must be willing to pay a little stamp duty for stability. The revenue from stamp duty will continue to flow!"
"
The empress flipped through the documents with her jade hands, handed the stamp tax to Zhuge Hui, and nodded: "Very good... Liang Xiao, the salt-drying method has yet to be verified. This stamp tax alone is a great achievement, enough to be promoted to an official position!"
Liang Xiao thought for a while and said: "Your Majesty still needs to stabilize those aristocratic families. I am not in a hurry to serve as an official. I can completely stay behind the scenes and provide these suggestions to Your Majesty. The specific implementation requires Your Majesty and the Prime Minister."
They, these loyal ministers, work together, but I can’t help you.”
"I understand what you mean, but now that the treasury is empty, there is really not much I can do for you except returning the title of Marquis Lanling to you..." The empress said at the end, with a look of shame on her face.
Liang Xiaozheng picked out one of these documents and opened it. Hearing this, he said with a smile: "Your Majesty allows Your Highness the Princess to take care of me. I am very grateful. I am not in a hurry to let you inherit my father's title."
The empress looked at each other with her sister who was full of joy, and the guilt in her heart was slightly reduced.
But soon, her eyes fell on Liang Xiao's pile of documents.
Only two documents recorded such earth-shattering strategies for governing the country, and he actually had...
"Liang Xiao, you obviously brought so many good ideas for governing the country, can't you... show them all to me!"