Chapter 2797 2799 [Salt Administration Reform]
"Master Li, I have read the information of the Ministry of Households before, and I know that salt and iron have always accounted for a large part of the imperial court's taxation, and are closely related to people's livelihood, and it is even more important for military supplies.
If salt and iron production are open, how will taxes be collected? How to control the price? How to limit the outflow? "Xiang Nan asked.
Salt and iron monopoly, production and sales are controlled by the government, so that taxes can be collected smoothly. If it is open to business, it will be difficult to stop tax evasion alone, not to mention that it will affect the national strategy.
Modern control is so strict and science and technology are so advanced that smuggling cannot be eradicated. In ancient times, the imperial power did not go to the countryside, and the control of the grassroots was quite weak. Moreover, the investigative technology was also quite backward, and there was no way to take smuggling.
And once the operation is opened, the consequence is that the price of salt and iron will be controlled by merchants and raised to an extremely high level.
In modern society, there have been phenomena of skyrocketing prices such as "garlic you are ruthless", "bean you play", "jiang you army", "scallion shock wave", "Ping what", "spicy skyrocketing".
And these foods are not considered necessities of life, and you can overcome them if you have them. However, salt and iron are directly related to people's livelihood and are indispensable for a day.
If the business is open, the common people will really suffer, and they will have to spend a very high price to buy salt and iron. At that time, those businessmen will make a lot of money, while the common people will be exploited.
The worst thing is the imperial court. Not only will they lose their salt and iron tax revenue, but they will also lose popular support, and their collapse is not far away.
At the same time, if the operation is open, once the salt and iron leak out, it will be a major threat to national security.
Although the countries in the western region can also smelt iron, they are far inferior to the rich dynasty in terms of scale and quality. Therefore, the countries in the western region harassed the border, and often took away the iron pots and agricultural tools.
If there is an unlimited supply of ironware to the countries in the western region, with their system that all the people are soldiers, they will pull up hundreds of thousands of well-equipped and well-equipped troops in minutes, which will naturally pose an extremely serious threat to the rich dynasty.
Therefore, there are three major problems that are difficult to overcome. The discussion of opening up salt and iron by the prince's young teacher Li Shaoqing is nothing more than empty talk.
…
When everyone present saw that Xiang Nan had just listened to Li Shaoqing's suggestion, he quickly listed the three most critical problems, and they couldn't help admiring him.
Xiang Nan's quick thinking, sharp eyes, and meticulous mind can be seen.
Fortunately, Li Shaoqing is not an ordinary person. He dared to propose the opening of salt and iron, and naturally he had his reasons, so he also talked about it with eloquence.
At the moment, Xiang Nan started discussing with them.
After the discussion, Xiang Nan couldn't help feeling a little bit emotional.
He is sure that although Li Shaoqing is not a corrupt official or a mediocre minister, he and the royal family are not of one mind.
Like the Donglin Party at the end of the Ming Dynasty, they kept claiming to be the country, demanding honesty and integrity, revitalizing the administration of officials, opening up the way of speech, eradicating the evils of the ruling and opposition parties, and opposing the rich and powerful to corrupt and pervert the law.
But it is also these Donglin party members who are upright, honest, and iron-boned, who can be called moral models, advocate light corvee and low taxes, making it difficult for the country to collect taxes, and they have no money to fight. Broken family.
Li Shaoqing is a similar person.
He is knowledgeable, capable, neither greedy nor robbing, honest and upright, and well-known by everyone, but if you really want to use his words, you are really a shrimp.
He is like those politicians who are now under the banner of political correctness. He is impeccable on the surface, and everything he says is correct. No one can fault him, but he is just unrealistic.
This also gave Xiang Nan a lot of insight.
He originally thought that governing the country only needs to use those honest and honest officials who are upright and selfless. Now it seems that honest officials may not be clean, and honest officials may not be useful.
Xiang Nan then wrote a statement to Li Xi regarding the discussion on salt and iron, and put forward his own reform opinions.
Today, the salt government of the rich dynasty implements the system of "people's system, official income, official transportation, and official sales".
Because the government intervened too much, many salt profits were embezzled by officials. Moreover, the efficiency of the government's work is low, and the three links of collection, transportation, and sales are all hindered.
Not only is the price of salt high, but salt is often not available. At the same time, due to excessive exploitation by the government, the enthusiasm of salt households to produce salt was not high. Production is declining year by year.
Xiang Nan suggested that salt be implemented by the people, commercial collection, commercial transportation, and commercial sales. In this way, the right to purchase, transport and sell belongs to the merchants, which is also called the "merchant monopoly system".
Supervised by the government and distributed by merchants, it can not only prevent officials from encroaching on salt profits, but also avoid the congestion of official salt and the prevalence of private salt.
This kind of commercial monopoly system was implemented in the middle and late Ming Dynasty and continued until the end of the Qing Dynasty. It lasted for nearly three hundred years, and it can be said to be quite mature.
Of course, the business monopoly system is not without disadvantages, for example, it will create a group of monopoly businessmen. For example, during the Qing Dynasty, the Lianghuai salt merchants were the most wealthy in the world, and no one knew it.
However, ancient merchants had no status, they were just fat pigs waiting to be slaughtered, and they were killed immediately after they were fattened up.
During the Qing Dynasty, since Kangxi and Qianlong, whenever the Qing government held important events, salt merchants often donated huge amounts of silver taels, ranging from one million to one hundred thousand.
So making businessmen rich is actually better than making officials rich.
…
After reading Xiang Nan's 30,000-word statement, from the disadvantages of the current salt policy, to the advantages of the "business monopoly system", to the specific implementation, and the methods of supervision and adjustment, he couldn't help but feel satisfied. nodded.
Xiang Nan's salt administration is indeed much more perfect and advanced than the current method. It seems that he really put his heart into it. It is indeed not wrong to choose him as the prince.
However, Li Xi did not implement it immediately, but suppressed this book.
Xiang Nan felt a little strange when he knew about it, but he didn't say anything. He believed that Li Zhen had his own reasons.
In the next few days, Xiang Nan was still busy with writing books, studying and participating in government affairs.
Although he has never been a prince before, he has no experience in managing a country. However, he has been a national teacher, a martial arts leader, and managed a large company with tens of thousands of people, so he still has some experience in governing.
Besides, there is nothing new under the sun. Many things that happened in the rich dynasty are compared in the history books. Xiang Nan was familiar with historical materials such as the Twenty-Four Histories and the Official and Unofficial History. With reference to the two, he naturally acted in an orderly manner.
Don't dare to say that the holy candle shines, it is considered exhaustive. But also quick thinking, shrewd and capable. It made Li Yu very satisfied, and made the courtiers understand that Xiang Nan's successor in the future must be a wise king.
And this also made Gao Ming faintly uneasy.
Because the better Xiang Nan performs, the less likely he will be controlled by him in the future. After all, there is no one who is willing to be someone else's puppet.
But now, Xiang Nan has ascended to the position of prince. They wanted to drive him down again, but it wasn't that easy.
Not to mention whether he can be driven out, even if he is driven out, who can guarantee that the next prince will be manipulated by them.
You know, if Xiang Nan is abolished, there will only be Li Chengyuan and Li Chengwen left. The Gao family has never had any friendship with the two of them. Even in the process of seizing the heirloom, there were festivals.
Even if the Gao family pushes them back to the top, let alone how much it will cost, even if they really go to the top, they may not reuse the Gao family.
"If it doesn't work, let's support our own people." Gao Ming couldn't help thinking.
(end of this chapter)