The salt course is the first source of taxes in the court, and it accounts for the largest proportion. The amount of income each year depends on the sales of official salt. Over the years, Xiao Ruo and Cao followed him, and there were many internal disadvantages and it was difficult to resolve. The biggest disadvantage is that private salt is rampant, accounting for about 30% of the regular courses. The successive monarchs of the Qing Dynasty all racked their brains for this matter, intending to eliminate salt administration smuggling, but they always had little effect.

In the early years of Daoguang, the new emperor ascended the throne and made great efforts to rectify private salt sales. Jiang You, the governor of Liangjiang at that time, was ordered to take charge of the matter. In the end, he was ruined and died in a foreign land (the matter about Jiang You is not the scope of this book, so it is omitted).

The successor was Tao Shu, who was very encouraging. Moreover, when he was in Dongchuan, he had remediated the salt affairs of Sichuan Province and had great means to curb salt merchants from Lianghuai, Yangzhou and other places, and no longer had the glitz and luxury of the original.

The disadvantages of salt administration start from the Huainan Salt Farm in Huainan Salt Farm. Let’s talk about Huainan: the accumulated problems are in the dam bar. After the salt is transported from the Binhai Salt Farm, it must pass through five dams. Each time it passes, it must be called a "replacement" and "replacement" and "replacement" and "replacement" and "replacement" and "replacement" after the change is changed. Therefore, it is called "five bars and ten dams". The dam is a bamboo dam, which is used to carry salt.

Only after passing the customs can a large bag be loaded and shipped to the designated sales location, which is called "shore".

During the process of the five bars and ten dams, they exploited them layer by layer and spent money everywhere. Each salt induction costs ten taels of silver. This money will eventually be added to the cost of salt transportation. When it is officially put into the hands of the small people, it naturally causes the price of official salt to be much higher than that of private salt - this is why private salt is repeatedly banned.

Let’s talk about Huainan. The disadvantage of Huainan is floating fees. The existence of this floating fee is the main reason for the huge conflict between Tao Shu and Lianghuai salt merchants. It is roughly this: in addition to the regular classes paid every year, a part of the salt transportation income will be listed separately and handed over to the salt merchants in Yangzhou. All kinds of messy money will be added together, and hundreds of thousands of taels of taels. This money is written in the national salt affairs regular classes. It has been passed down for many years, and no one dares to intervene and change it easily.

The Salt Merchants Association is located in Yangzhou, hosted by eight companies, named "General Merchants" and the guild is called "Salt Gongtang". All expenditures in public expenses are decided by these eight companies, so there are some reasons for making public welfare private and making public expenses. In addition, there are also various affairs halls and Xiaolian Halls established to arrange private individuals. Each sign must have several or more than a dozen directors. Every year, the silver they only pay to these people will cost more than 200,000 taels! Tao Shu is determined to innovate and only retains Puji Hall, Yuying Hall, Academy, and Yixue, which are nursing homes. Except these, everything else is abolished.

In fact, in addition to the salt merchants who always rely on floating fees to enjoy themselves, there are also some people, such as the Salt Administration, the salary workers and rice papers of the Book Service, and the monthly discounts of the merchants. The public expenses and box fees collected by the Salt Administration Office are also abolished. (About the disadvantages of the Salt Administration, there will be a detailed text introduction later.)

Once the parasites who usually rely on salt officials and salt merchants have their own way out, they will naturally panic, so they use various means to obstruct the matter. Fortunately, Daoguang trusts Tao Shu very much and lets go. After ten years, he finally won the money. It is estimated that in ten years, the country's salt classes increased by more than 20,000 taels!

For granted, his approach was extremely hated. The salt merchant was always called a wealthy man. He had nothing to do on weekdays, so he used the "yezi card" as a pastime. Originally, there were some characters from the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin. Because the salt merchant hated Tao Shu deeply, he drew him and his family on the card. There was a card with two woodcutters who were each holding an axe and cutting down a peach tree. He used two axes to cut down peach (Tao) and cursed that he died early. This card was also the worst of the cards in the whole card - even if the whole card was touched, he would lose all the money! Just like the "Bi Ten" in Pai Jiu.

Tao Shu was also considered to be "not favoring the public" and died early at less than 60 years old. Lin Zexu, the person who later served should have been ordered to go to Guangdong to ban opium (Tao Shu died in 1839), and Chen Luan was sent to Liangjiang. He was Tao Shu's cousin. He could have defeated Shaojiqiu and inherited the ambition of his predecessor, but he was even more unfortunate. He died of illness at the end of the year afterwards. In addition, there were not many people who followed him, such as Yilibu, Yuqian, Niu Jian, Qiying, etc.

What's worse is that the incident in Guangdong turned into the most serious armed conflict in the history of the Qing Dynasty. Whether it was the Eight Banners or the Green Camp, facing the British's strong ships and cannons, the situation of the court was really pitiful, and they didn't care about the salt merchants' loss and getting fat. A few years later, they returned to the rich fireworks resort of the year. The results made by Tao Wenyi's passion were all turned into flowing water!

These are all stories of this dynasty, and Gong Yu is naturally familiar with it. Moreover, he has been a former minister of the border and has seen many of the disadvantages of the salt administration. He also knows that if he cannot cleanse the mud and sand in one fell swoop, he is afraid that the common people will suffer deeply by the salt administration, and there will be something that cannot be said to happen. The events of the Guangxi cult can be learned from the previous situation.

Thinking of this, Gong Yu put on his clothes and ordered the servant to get a candle. He sat in front of the case to draft a memorial, which hurt the shortcomings of the salt administration. However, he was the governor of Hubei and could not take charge of the salt administration of Lianghuai. He could only make a statement about the shortcomings of the salt administration after the official salt arrived at the 'shore' and requested that the trial be carried out first in the province.

When the official salt reaches the shore, he or she has to pay an official fee as usual. This kind of expense is called the 'box fee'. Moreover, there is no fixed quota for the box fee. Generally, one or two cents are charged for each salt inlet. The same is true.

What he wanted to achieve was to do something in this regard. Reducing the box fee significantly would be equivalent to reducing the cost of some of the official salt, and naturally the price would also be reduced. In addition, he mentioned two more items in the comments: First, the method of selling tickets and salt in Huaibei Salt Field, the tickets are divided into three combinations, indicating the quantity, transportation and sales location and deadline respectively, and the salt tickets are not separated, otherwise it would be considered private salt. It would be like the invoices used in later generations.

The second article is to crack down on private salt sales. The emperor asked the emperor to issue an order to instruct the Green Camp navy along the river, along the lake, along the river, and along the Eight Banners soldiers to vigorously arrest them, and then punish them according to the law. They must always know that the official law is just like the furnace.

Gong Yu was able to be a local governor, so he naturally would not do such a thing as competing for merit. The reform of the bad rules in Hubei Province can express his feelings. In the Lianghuai Salt Administration, he just took the text of the reversal of the disadvantages of the salt administration in the memorial written by Lu Jianying last year and copied it in its original form. He would not mention any of the others. I think it would not have touched Lu Jianying's anger.

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There are six articles on the reform of canal transport that Lu Jianying stated, and the first thing he said was the difficulty of hiring sand ships: "...Sea transport was founded, people were waiting and seeing each other, and merchant ships were afraid of hiring, and they were afraid of hardships, which led to their hiding."

Article 2 says that management is not easy: the management is not easy: There are thousands of soldiers and soldiers loading and unloading grains along the way. There are still fires and falls into the water. Now the shipping industry is changed to sea transportation, and all the charters are newly established. It is not known whether it can match the actual situation. The members of the transportation are also afraid of mistakes and take responsibility.

The next two points are about the difficulties when handing in rice. One is to hire sand ships at the same time, which is not enough to use them. In this way, there will be "unevenness" during the delivery of rice, which is afraid that "stop the ship to wait for the rice" and "spark the rice to get thinner". It will also affect Hyacinth.

The last two points are about the cost of shipping. There are more disputes and less discussions, so it is difficult to mediate; the last section is Hyacinth: Merchant ships go to Tianjin, the wind is beneficial to the southeast, and the sails are suitable for the northwest. If the first wind is not smooth, it will affect the second transportation.

This memorial was originally a helpless move by Lu Jianying. Over the past year, he had undertaken too many requests and requests from all parties during his tenure in Liangjiang. Even Qi Junzao from the capital also asked someone to bring him a letter, vaguely asking him to postpone the emperor's case and requested the temporary suspension of the canal reform.

Who knew that the seal of the seal caused the emperor to be furious! In his court sent to Lu Jianying, the emperor did not hide his disappointment: "When the official came to Beijing last year, I said: The matter of grain transportation was very extensive, but I was determined to modify the bad policies of the previous dynasty, and Lu Jianying and others needed to do it carefully, so I occasionally had resistance, so I should bear it for him. The words were still in my ears, but the official was already afraid of being in a hurry and stopped and watched, which really disappointed me!"

In addition to this letter sent by the Military Affairs Office to the Governor's Office, the emperor also added a passage to the blank space of the memorial: "I will never allow you to do this in Liangjiang! I treat you as a national sage, which is really better than scolding me. If you have this idea in your heart, you will not be punished by God. I advise you to be yours."

After receiving the memorial, Lu Jianying was so scared that he quickly submitted a memorial to apologize. This time the emperor did not say anything more, but just criticized: "I understand." and threw it aside.

Lu Jianying was both upset and regretful! As a minister, it was not easy to be able to invite the emperor to favor him. He had just shown such a sign and was moved by others. He submitted such an inappropriate memorial, which was like a devil. Recently, Gong Yu's recent report on the fact that the salt transportation fee in Hubei Province won the emperor's heart, and the prosperity and reign of the officialdom was so fast!
Chapter completed!