Chapter 1034 From now on, don’t rely on salt to make money

(1034)

【Today's first update is delivered!】

Zhang Zhun really didn't have time to greet Bian Yujing. After lunch, he went to the venue. In the original Nanjing Governor's garrison, dozens of business representatives were waiting for Zhang Zhun's arrival. They had very important things and had to negotiate with Zhang Zhun in person.

Most of these merchant representatives are local snakes from Jiangnan. Except for those salt merchants in Yangzhou, the others are wealthy merchants from Songjiang Prefecture, Suzhou Prefecture and other places. Among them, the largest number are salt merchants. Other merchants, even if they are not salt merchants, have more or less related to private salt sales.

This is the first time that the Jiangnan United Chamber of Commerce has held a meeting in Nanjing. This meeting was initiated by the Ministry of Government of the Great Governor of the Hu Ben Army, and Zhang Zhun personally decided the time. The meeting time was initially set to half a month. Zhang Zhun has promised that during this half month, he would discuss matters with merchants at any time in Nanjing. No matter what their problems they have, they can raise them openly. The person who speaks is not guilty.

The content of the meeting mainly involves the development of Jiangnan business and even the whole country. The new empire in the future will definitely vigorously promote the development of commercial trade, which is inevitable. Zhang Zhun, who came from later generations, certainly understood the importance of commercial tax. Compared with agricultural tax, industrial tax and commercial tax are the real big heads.

However, the development of commercial trade in the new empire was an orderly development, not an disorderly development. It was done by people from all walks of life, rather than rushing around, and when they see what money they make, they all poured into this industry. Therefore, Zhang Zhun felt that it was necessary to make some healthy regulations on commercial trade to prevent many adverse phenomena from occurring.

The main purpose of this business association is to formulate corresponding laws and regulate abnormal competitive behaviors, and to improve a relatively standardized trading system when the new empire is established. This trading system should be as fair as possible. Fair competition is the core spirit of the new "Commercial Law".

As the Hu Ben Army progressed rapidly, its nature gradually changed, and it changed from a rebel to a ruler. Some transactions that were previously privately conducted are now on the table. This so-called private transaction represents private salt.

There is no doubt that Zhang Zhun started his business by relying on private salt. Now, the Hu Ben Army has controlled the country's regime, so of course it is impossible to continue selling private salt. Since private salt cannot be sold, it must be open to the official business. Since it is an official business, there must be corresponding regulations, and those who sell private salt cannot take advantage of loopholes, resulting in the flood of private salt.

Zhang Zhun's meaning is very simple, and he greatly reduced the price of salt. In the past, it took dozens of cents per kilogram. Now, Zhang Zhun decided to lower the price of private salt to three cents. No matter how much the purchase price is, in the store, you can only sell three cents at most. If it exceeds this price, the relevant departments of the Hu Ben Army will punish you. Of course, you have to sell two cents, one cent, or even not charge money and give it for free. That's fine.

Obviously, in this way, there is no room for private salt to smuggle. Only three cents per kilogram of salt can fools smuggle. Smuggling private salt will not have huge profits and does not require any attack from the Hu Ben Army. This business will naturally disappear.

Now, the Hu Ben Army is step by step reducing the price of salt. At present, around the Changlu Salt Field in Beizhili, which produces huge salt, the price per kilogram of salt has been reduced to about five cents. With the continued implementation of the policy, the standard price of three cents will eventually reach.

"What?"

"Three cents?"

"This Zhang Zhun is crazy!"

...

Of course, the implementation of relevant regulations will definitely not go smoothly. Zhang Zhun's approach was beyond the expectations of too many people. When they learned that Zhang Zhun had decided to lower the price of salt, many people's first reaction was that Zhang Zhun's mind might have been broken.

In all dynasties, salt was the main source of huge profits for the country and the most important part of the country's fiscal revenue. During the Tang Dynasty, the price of a pound of salt even reached more than 300 civilians per catty. A considerable part of the finances of the Ming Dynasty came from salt tax. During the fiscal period, the JAC salt tax accounted for more than 70% of the national fiscal revenue. Without salt tax, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Now, Zhang Zhun actually gave up the salt tax!

Many people can't understand why Zhang Zhun did this.

However, Zhang Zhun had a good reason. The high-priced salt was actually disguised heroin, which would make the rulers addicted. The more the rulers rely on salt, the more they ignore the development of other industries. This abnormal development method will eventually make the rulers fall off the platform quickly.

Yes, salt should be exclusive to the state. As the most basic livelihood product, the country must firmly control the price of salt. However, this price must not be high. Zhang Zhun heard some university professors talk about the right to operate salt in later generations. Among them, there is an example, Zhang Zhun's impression was very profound.

"Everyone doesn't have to make salt."

Zhang Zhun said clearly.

"I'm going to tell you a small case."

After a moment of silence, Zhang Zhun's eyes swept across the audience and said in a daze.

The case that Zhang Zhun wanted to tell happened during the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty. However, now that the Tartars have all perished, the Qing Dynasty must have disappeared. However, this does not prevent Zhang Zhun from telling stories. Replacing the background of the Qing Dynasty is still a very philosophical story.

At the beginning of the 11th year of Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty (1806 AD), a "float price sick civil case" involving four provinces along the two Huai Rivers. The cause of this case was that Wang Bingtai Salt Store in Wuxi, Jiangsu and Jinkui counties reduced the salt price by 2 cents per catty.

Some economists and historians in later generations also humorously called it "a bloody case caused by two cents of money". It was precisely because of this strange name that this case attracted Zhang Zhun's attention. It should be noted that at that time, "a bloody case caused by a steamed bun" and "a person cannot be shameless to the point of ××" were very famous.

Let’s briefly describe this case. In the year when the incident happened, private salt in Jiangsu Province was flooded, which made official salt unsalable. The salt shop in Huizhou, which specializes in Wuxi and Jinkui counties, was under great pressure to stock, so I thought of a way to reduce the official salt from 30 ounces per pound to 28 ounces to shorten the price gap with private salt.

Wang Bing Tai Salt Store originally wanted to temporarily reduce the price. When residents saw that the value difference between official salt and private salt was not very different, they did not have to take the risk to buy private salt. Private salt was unsalable, and private salt dealers would be stuck. Without profit, there would be no salt owl. When the salt owl changed his career to other businesses, the private salt disappeared, and the official salt would naturally be popular. By that time, the official salt would be restored to the original price for sales.

Since it was a temporary stopgap plan, the government probably would not prohibit it, so Wang Bingtai just asked the magistrate of the two counties to issue a notice, but did not report to the salt transport envoy. However, unexpectedly, the notice of the price reduction was posted by him, and Zhang Yingji, the salt transport envoy of Lianghuai, urgently posted the notice to prevent the price reduction of the two counties. The result is naturally conceivable, and the people can only be happy. Of course, the price reduction of two cents is actually not a joy.

However, it was very unpleasant to reduce the price by one, and the other did not reduce the price. After all, it was a very unpleasant thing, and the people were fooled by the people of the tin and Jin counties! As a result, this incident caused the unwillingness of the people in the tin and Jin counties, so Zhang Jiangmei, who donated the ninth rank as the plaintiff, sued the salt merchant and the salt transport envoy for "salt merchant Wang Bingtai and other ill people at the floating price, and Zhang Yingji, a salt transport envoy, was not allowed to reduce the price (salt price)."

After the paper was handed over, there was no need to explain the detailed process of the intermediate judgment. Anyway, the final result was that a group of officials' black hats were removed or demoted. This mere two cents of salt price actually caused all the salt merchants in Lianghuai to be fined silver. The two county magistrates involved in the case, Zhang Yingji, and Yan Zheng Yanfeng, were punished to varying degrees. What is even more amazing is that Zhang Jiangmei, the plaintiff in this case, was punished for one hundred scepters for three years. The final outcome of the judge of this case, Na Yancheng, was not very good. The only winner was Emperor Jiaqing, who received a fine of one million taels of silver.

There is no reason for the case of a foolish monk breaking the gourd. However, there is no doubt that the most unfair thing in this case was the salt merchants. They obviously wanted to sell at a price, but in the end they were fined by Emperor Jiaqing for the false charge of "sick people with low prices". They all felt that they were very wronged. I did this to protect the market for official salt, so why did I suffer such a cruel punishment?

In fact, some smart viewers have already gained some insights when they see this. Emperor Jiaqing's seemingly fair judgment was to warn one person and prevent the possibility of salt merchants selling at a lower price. The Hui merchants couldn't figure it out and were only full of grievances.

The final result was that after this case, the price of salt continued to rise, and the people were increasingly exploited for the necessities of life. After this crackdown, the salt merchants in Huizhou no longer dared to stand out for the price of salt. Huizhou salt merchants completely lost their pricing power in the operation of the salt industry and became tools for the Qing rulers to plunder the world's wealth.

This case clearly shows that the salt merchants in Huizhou are as rich as the country, and what hides the humiliation of relying on power and being at the mercy of others. Huizhou merchants focus on the operation of the salt industry. Salt is not of great value in itself. Look at China's long coastline, you will know that where there is a sea, salt fields can be opened to dry salt.

However, salt is a special commodity that people cannot live without. Therefore, it naturally became the best tax carrier for feudal society with low productivity. Therefore, since the Han Dynasty, salt has been franchised by the government. The Hui merchants, who focused on the salt industry, did not take a path of independent development at the beginning, but played the role of the spokesperson of the government who was both business and official.

The salt merchants in Huizhou, who are dependent on the bureaucratic system, have a lot of profit margins. The salt business operations are all hereditary monopoly, that is, the franchise rights of the salt industry can be passed down by father and son to grandchildren. On the premise of profitability, with the increase of population and the increase of salt consumption, the rapid accumulation of wealth of the Huizhou salt merchants' families is unimaginable to ordinary people. For example, the salt merchants such as Bao Zhidao and Jiangchun, the family wealth of the salt merchants should be counted in units of billions of dollars to modern currencies. At the productivity level at that time, it is not an exaggeration to describe their wealth as "rich can rival a country".

Through intimate connections with the Qing government, the salt merchants in Huizhou could even obtain the credit from the treasury as startup capital, and could almost make a fortune, or even a profit without money. At that time, Yangzhou, the base of the salt merchants in Huizhou, could only be described as extravagant. The biggest trouble of those rich and powerful merchants was how to spend the money that flowed like a tide and wave.

However, the salt merchants in Huizhou did not know that their extravagant desire was already "the sunset was infinitely beautiful, but it was just near dusk". In order to maintain their status and wealth, the top priority of the salt business in Huizhou was to manage their backers behind them, that is, the Qing rulers. Although they repeatedly and repeatedly increased their efforts to lose donations and pay tributes, the Qing rulers could not satisfy them.

As the number of the privileged class of the Qing Dynasty increased in a magnitude, far faster than the accumulation of wealth of salt merchants, the bannermen's extortion of salt merchants became more and more powerful. By the late Qing Dynasty, the true face of the Tartars had been fully demonstrated, and even the last fig leaf was torn off without hesitation.

During the Jiaqing period, Lianghuai Salt Field, which dominated the salt merchants in Huizhou, had as many as 92 kinds of taxes. According to Jiaqing's "Lianhuai Salt Law Records", in the more than 100 years from the tenth year of Kangxi to the ninth year of Jiaqing, the total amount of money and property donated by Lianghuai Salt merchants was: more than 39.3 million taels of silver, more than 20,000 stones of rice, and 330,000 stones of grain. Each time the merchants donated, there were millions of taels, and at least hundreds of thousands of taels of taels, and the rest of the ordinary donations were difficult to enumerate.

Among the salt merchants in Lianghuai, Huizhou has the advantage, so the burden of donation mostly falls on Hui merchants. Jiang Chun, a big salt merchant in She County, who was once one of the general merchants in Lianghuai, always encountered a donation, "a million-dollar fee is the first to handle", and eventually ended up bankruptcy.

In the ninth year of Jiaqing, due to the suppression of the White Lotus Rebellion and financial difficulties occurred, the Qing government began to rush to deal with this situation, which was not stingy with killing chickens to get eggs and drinking poison to quench thirst. The higher the salt price, the less the sales volume of salt and the more exhausted the tax source. Because the higher the price of official salt, the greater the profit of smuggling salt, the more private salt dealers, and the less the number of people buying official salt.

In order to pass on the financial difficulties caused by the exhaustion of tax sources, the Qing government stipulated that salt merchants must pay corresponding taxes before obtaining a sales license for salt. In the context of large profits and fast sales, it is not a problem for salt merchants in Huizhou. However, when the profits of the salt industry are spread thin by heavy taxes and heavy taxes and numerous extortions, and private salt is flooded, it becomes a fatal problem.

For example, Changlu Salt Field, the salt area is in the Yellow River Flood Zone. Today, the junction of Anhui, Shandong and Henan is a place of four wars in history. The Yellow River often diverted, with serious natural disasters and strong people. Private salt is the most rampant here. Private salt dealers have strong armed forces and are well-organized, and even dare to confront the government head-on. Faced with such armed private salt, salt merchants, let alone obtain profits, are almost impossible for even guaranteeing capital.

Often, the salt that was finally sold this year was often accumulated five or six years ago, but the capital from five or six years ago had not been completely recovered, and new salt was suppressed again. What came with the new salt was heavier taxes. The entry of salt industry operations was monopoly, and corresponding withdrawal was also monopoly.

This means that when the hereditary privileges become obligations, even if they lose money, they can only bite the bullet and pay, otherwise they will be deceived by the emperor. In such a desperate situation, many salt merchants in Huizhou tried their best to escape by getting sick and going home to perform filial piety. What's more, they actually chose to escape. Overnight, the building was deserted and disappeared without a trace.

Faced with this situation, the smart and skillful Huizhou salt merchants believed that only price reduction was the only way to save the salt industry, but they suffered a huge blow as soon as they tried. The authority of the Qing government was unquestionable. In the eyes of the Qing government, reducing salt prices was a provocation to the imperial power, and this was more intolerable than anything else.

The salt merchants in Huizhou finally came to an end: the higher the salt price, the less sales volume, and the more exhausted the tax source. In order to ensure tax revenue, the Qing government could only further increase the salt price, so a new round of vicious cycle began.

In this environment, the best outcome of the salt merchants in Huizhou is to be able to escape from the salt industry. For example, Bao Qiyun, a member of the Bao family of Tangyue, was sent to handle the Huaibei salt transportation after taking over the position of his brother Bao Zhidao. At that time, the official salt in Huaibei was "had been stagnant for a long time" and there was no way to make a profit when it was unsalable. The taxation was still very high, which led to many salt stoves being closed.

In order to cope with the government's taxes, a few surviving salt farms had to sell salt at high prices. This was of course not profitable for salt merchants engaged in salt transportation. Moreover, if the ship was in danger of sinking during the salt transportation, the losses were considered by the salt merchants. Bao Qiyun was well aware of this, so how could he open his eyes to make a loss-making business?

Therefore, he would rather bear the serious crime of "resisting his illness and resigning" than to lose his family business to himself. Fortunately, he received a special amnesty from Emperor Jiaqing, and the serious crime of "resisting his mistake" was fined only 50,000 taels of silver.

Bao Qiyuan, who took back his capital, no longer had the idea of ​​using commercial salt. He returned to his ancestral home, purchased fertile land, and built a large amount of construction. The Tangyue Archway Group we saw today was built and repaired by him.

This grand building complex proves the glory of Huizhou salt merchants and also contains the helpless fate of Huizhou salt merchants' inevitable decline. History tells us that only independent personality can have independent merchants and eras of prosperity.

Zhang Zhun emphasized through this case that two key points are: the first, the new empire will not rely on salt to provide national fiscal revenue like any previous dynasty. The second, no businessman or family should hope to make huge profits from salt. You should do something else.

He didn't want the new empire to be as corrupt as the Qing Dynasty. He didn't want the new empire merchants, like the salt merchants in the past, to make money by relying on privileges. The new empire merchants should have started from scratch, made their fortune through their own abilities, through their own eyes, through hard work, and honest management.

"The country will implement a specialization for any necessities for people's livelihood and will not be transferred to anyone's hands. The price of a specialization will definitely not be high. After deducting various expenses, the profit should be very thin. So, don't expect that I will make any gaps in the management rights of salt."

"And I can tell you that you don't expect to make any openings in the future. Even if I die, I will leave strict orders that I will not allow the price of salt to rise, nor will I allow the salt to be transferred to private management. If you want to make money, you should think of other ways."

"Everyone should look at a longer-term perspective. Your eyes should be staring abroad. I believe you have seen the world map I have drawn. As you have seen, the world we are in is really big and there are many ways to make money."

After the case was finished, Zhang Zhun said slowly.

All the merchants here looked at me, and I looked at you, all lowered their heads a little sadly. Obviously, they all believed that Zhang Zhun was definitely not joking this time. Since he said that, he would do this. In the future, it would be absolutely impossible for everyone to make money through salt.

It’s so regretful. The way to make money with salt is really too safe. It’s just that you can get money by lying down. They all couldn’t understand why Zhang Zhun took the initiative to give up the way to make money that had been passed down for thousands of years. Perhaps, Zhang Zhun was considering the long-term stability of the new empire. For ordinary people, it is indeed unprecedented happiness to be able to buy a pound of salt for three cents.

"Governor, we firmly agree with your proposal. From now on, we will not do salt business anymore. But, please give us a clear guide so that we can have hope! For overseas trade, the farthest thing we have to go to the Nanyang area. No matter how far away we are, we have never been to any place. Please give us some advice."

A business representative stood up and said.

"right!"

"right!"

"right!"

Other business representatives agreed.

In order to develop maritime trade, in addition to the vigorous removal of obstacles by the Hu Ben Navy, you must have a considerable understanding of the customs, folk customs, resources and specialties in various places. Only by understanding what the market needs and what you can buy can you better arrange your business. If you are blind, you will definitely lose money. When it comes to the most familiarity with the world, Zhang Zhun is the one who painted the world by Zhang Zhun himself. All the merchants want to dig out everything that Zhang Zhun knew in his mind.

"I know what you'll ask."

"I have prepared a gift for you."

Zhang Zhun smiled confidently, then patted his hands gently.
Chapter completed!