In the small courtyard of the ivy.
The breeze was warm, and time passed slowly.
"By the way, Brother Ce, are the bodyguards I sent here?”
" Oh!" Su Ce said," He's here. He's very strong!"”
Wei Hongying was speechless.
Who is your bodyguard? I'm a Jinyiwei!
And you, keep talking nonsense! You don't even know that I'm here.
Su Ce naturally didn't know that Wei Hongying was nearby at first, but the teacup he drank from in the courtyard last night was clearly placed on the stone table. The next day, he realized that the teacup on the stone table in the courtyard was gone.
He knew that someone had entered the courtyard last night.
It was obvious that the other party did not want to harm him. Otherwise, it was impossible for him to not make any noise last night.
Although the courtyard was surrounded by traps, Su Ce still ignored the roof.
He guessed that Wei Hongying might be on the roof. When he woke up to practice Tai Chi this morning, he vaguely noticed some movement on the roof, so he confirmed his guess.
However, since the other party liked to hide on the roof and not disturb him, he did not care.
But at the same time, Su Ce also noticed that there was still a loophole in the defense of the courtyard, which was the roof. He had to reinforce it when he had time.
"By the way, can you find some reliable people?”
Su Ce asked Zhu Houzhao.
Zhu Houzhao patted his chest." That's easy. There's nothing else but a lot of reliable people. Brother Ce, what are you doing?"”
" Uncle Ma next door is leaving," Su Ce said." I bought his house. I plan to connect the two courtyards from the inside."”
"Oh, I see. Leave it to me.”Zhu Houzhao laughed.
"Aren't Uncle Ma and the others doing business in Shuntian Prefecture? Why did he suddenly want to leave Shuntian Prefecture?”
Su Ce pondered for a long time before he spoke calmly.
He looked at Zhu Houzhao and tried his best to explain the major event reflected in this small matter to Zhu Houzhao in a clear and step-by-step manner.
"Uncle Ma spent money to buy salt.”
"But the salt guide couldn't leave the court to exchange for salt, so he had a lot of white papers in his hands. However, he had also negotiated with some salt vendors downstream.”
"He couldn't supply salt to the merchants downstream. The small merchants asked Uncle Ma for a refund, so they had no choice but to sell their houses.”
Of course, there were some twists and turns, such as Su Ce using a painting to help Uncle Ma solve the crisis, but he didn't tell Zhu Houzhao about these things.
"Since he has salt, why didn't the government give him salt?" Zhu Houzhao asked in confusion.”
Su Ce said,"Why didn't the government give us salt? It's a long story."”
Zhu Houzhao boiled the tea and listened to Su Ce's analysis.
The production of salt in the Ming Dynasty was divided by region. This system originated from the Hongwu Dynasty.
The salt in all parts of the country could be roughly divided into Shanxi Hedong salt, Lianghuai salt, Liangzhe salt, and Guangdong salt.
There were also good and bad types of salt. For example, in the northern region of Lianghuai, salt was produced through the salt drying method. The investment was small, and the salt produced was cheap and of poor quality.
In the southern region of Lianghuai, salt was obtained by frying sea salt. This method could produce high-quality salt in large quantities, but the cost was high.
In some places in Shandong, it was first obtained by washing the salt-saturated soil, and then it had to be transported twenty miles inland to boil it. Because there was no fuel near the coast, the whole process was very uneconomical.
In the Hedong area of Shanxi, salt was directly fished from a lake. Because the lake water here was saturated with salt, it could naturally crystalize in the summer months. The workers could just harvest it directly.
In Sichuan and Yunnan, salt was obtained through salt wells.
The Ming government imitated the system of the Yuan Dynasty and divided the salt production in these places into regions. They were not allowed to sell salt in the regions, or they would be punished with a serious crime.
The problem was that the government needed to spend the greatest financial burden on transporting salt. It was not the salt itself, but the transportation cost from all over the world.
If the commoners wanted to do salt business, they first had to obtain salt from the government.
However, the initial salt was very difficult to obtain and was very valuable.
Over time, the Ming government had a food crisis at the northern border. After the land annexation became more and more serious, the military system began to be destroyed. The soldiers could not grow much food.
Under such circumstances, the imperial court had to bear the burden of providing food at the border.
The problem that followed was that the transportation cost was still high. The Ming government's transportation cost to Jiubian was getting higher and higher.
Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, came up with a method-opening the middle system.
To put it simply, the imperial court distributed salt to merchants, but the premise was that the merchants had to be responsible for transporting the grain from Huguang, Lianghuai, and other places to the Nine Border Army. The Nine Border Army then issued a survey, and the merchants used this survey to exchange for salt from the imperial court.
The profits from the salt business were unimaginable.
Therefore, after Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty adopted the open-middle system, he immediately solved the problem of grain shortage at the border.
But now, two sixty years later, after more than a hundred years of development, the open-middle system was gradually being destroyed.
The reason for the collapse was that the merchants could not exchange salt for salt.
Why?
Because the Ming government was indiscriminate, coupled with the fact that many powerful vassal kings 'relatives and dignitaries would seize salt, even the current Emperor Hongzhi would reward salt from time to time.
The situation was that there was more and more salt, but they had to queue up and use their connections to exchange for salt.
The merchants could not see the benefits, so they were unwilling to continue the open-middle system. The open-middle system began to collapse.
But don't think that the merchants were fooled by the court. In fact, it was not the case. The opening of the system created the most serious crisis of the Ming Dynasty.
The rise of the great merchants in various places, such as the Shanxi merchants, was due to the benefits of opening up the system.
These merchants were naturally very intelligent. After they rose up, they began to harvest leeks.
The ones who were cut off were naturally the small merchants. They sold a large amount of salt in their hands at a discount to the small merchants, hiding the policy of salt conversion.
With this, Shanxi's big merchants perfectly transferred all the risks to the small merchants.
These things looked like merchants, but since ancient times, it had been said that merchants were good and officials were good.
During the Wanli period, the chief and auxiliary departments such as Zhang Siwei and Wang Chonggu relied on the benefits of salt to control the entire court.
By the end of the Ming Dynasty, Shanxi merchants had already started a steel business with Nurhachi.
A small matter could reflect a bigger management loophole in the Ming Dynasty.
After the destruction of the Kaizhong system and salt lead, if the management was not perfected and the big merchants were restrained, they would become the last straw that would crush the empire.
Zhu Houzhao listened to Su Ce's analysis seriously and was surprised.
Even he, the crown prince, did not know that the salt industry system of the Ming Dynasty had fallen apart to such an extent.
Wei Hongying, who was lying on the roof, was secretly surprised. She had a deeper understanding of Su Ce.
He seemed to know a lot.
A small matter could be seen so clearly, reflecting a major event in the court…
Yes, there was something!
It was a pity that he couldn't become an official. Oh, his body couldn't be an official either. It was a pity.
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