New Shun 1730

Liu Yu, who had another meal with the emperor, came out of the palace and it was already dark.

During the meal, the emperor did not abide by the rule of not saying anything after eating, and spoke a lot of words such as reform and reform.

Thinking about the things the emperor had told him, Liu Yu felt that the emperor's southern tour had opened his eyes. How much dissatisfaction was he holding back?

In Liu Yu's view, these few things to be dealt with are not difficult. The emperor was worried that something would happen to the rice shipping for the first time, but there was no need for it. Those on the canal could do anything, but what ability could those on the sea do?

If you can still accomplish great things on the sea and under the escort of battleships, then why do you have to be a rabbit carrying a gun? There are plenty of opportunities to make a fortune in the sea outside, and the emperor really overestimated these people.

As for the reform of the salt industry, the emperor underestimated the stock of private capital. In fact, there are many people who have the ability to enter this industry, but they were not given the opportunity before.

Do you really think that without the Huaibei salt merchants, the salt industry will not be able to function properly? It's nonsense. If it doesn't work, just turn the private salt dealer into a regular official. This can be solved.

How can a group of businessmen who rely on state administration to grant monopoly rights to excess profits have such far-fetched business warfare skills?

On the contrary, the emperor didn't care much and believed that monetary reform and land reform were the truly important reforms after the fourth level.

Dashun is not like San Francisco and San Francisco, which can mine 5 million taels of gold and tens of millions of silver in ten years. If the currency is not reformed, the more overseas trade develops, the more big things will happen.

They don’t have the right to issue banknotes. The right to issue banknotes lies entirely in the hands of foreign trade. If capital speculation is really allowed, those people in Songjiang Prefecture who hold silver and foreign currency will depreciate the price to 1,500 within two years—— Even if you are not making money through speculation, lowering the price to 1,500 means that goods that originally cost one tael of silver can now be bought for only 6 coins, and then sold outside, at the original purchase price, and you will get 50% profit.

Liu Yu wanted to take them outside to make a fortune and accumulate capital, not to go to Europe to learn from Lei Feng and stabilize prices for them. Dashun has not experienced the impact of the price revolution. The cost is already low enough, and there is no need to use monetary means to continue to increase trade advantages.

Thinking of this, I couldn't help but shook my head secretly, turned back to the palace, and muttered.

"tinker"

After muttering this sentence, he sighed, got on the carriage, and wandered towards his home.

After resting in his own Duke's Palace in the capital for two days, attending court for two days, and pretending to be dead, he spent two or three days in a daze, and finally met an acquaintance.

Liu Yu, who received the notice of welcome, also went to the gate of the mansion to greet him personally. Shi Shiyong, whom he hadn't seen for several years, was wearing a military attaché uniform of the Boy's Army, and he smiled and said some polite words without much barrier.

After welcoming him into the mansion, Liu Yu said: "Your Majesty is sending Brother Shi to Huaibei?"

"Yes. This time it is both an open investigation and a secret visit. His Majesty told us that we don't care about the salt administration. We only care about people. He also specifically told us that if the Duke wants to do something, we can easily obey it, as long as we report it on time. "

Liu Yu said with a smile: "You're killing a chicken with a bull's knife."

Shi Shiyong also smiled and said: "Your Majesty attaches great importance to this matter, and we know what to do. But I don't know much about how the court will change it. What are the advantages and disadvantages, it is up to the Duke to arrange it."

"The salt from the Huaibei salt field is sold to several provinces and many state capitals. Not to mention the nearby ones, such as Fengyangfu and Bozhou in Anhui, and the far away ones as far as Shangcai and Ruyang in Henan. The market is too big and needs to be solved. Too many people.”

"Investigate, how to investigate, to what extent, and who should be arrested first. These princes need to give some guidance."

Liu Yu couldn't help laughing when he heard this: "You should know that private salt dealers are none of your business, right?"

Shi Shiyong nodded and said: "That's natural. We don't care about private salt dealers. That's the job of local officials and salt inspectors. What we mainly check is the fishy things in official salt. The key is that there are many fishy things in official salt." , priorities, how to say?”

Liu Yu waved his hand and said: "It's not that troublesome. Weeding is for growing crops, not for weeding. Don't worry about weeding if it doesn't hinder the growing of crops. Only those that hinder growing crops should be managed. We should control what should be controlled and what should not be controlled. Watch and talk when you get there.”

Shi Shiyong smiled and said: "With this sentence, I feel relieved. When will we set off? The prince is in the light and I am in the dark? Or what?"

"Leave in three or five days. You don't need to go in the open or in the dark. Just go to Haizhou first. Just go there with a big fanfare." Liu Yu counted the days and realized that he had nothing to do in the capital. He wanted to see friends and family. He was not involved in court matters at all, and the emperor was not prepared to let him play around in the court.

Shi Shiyong had known Liu Yu for a long time and knew Liu Yu's style of doing things, so he said: "In this case, we must be prepared. Your Majesty specially told you to protect the Duke of the country. I have also selected some good players here, and We need to send some hidden stakes in advance.”

Liu Yu didn't take it seriously and just smiled.

If there are too many debts in the heart, there is no need to worry; if there are too many lice, there is no need to itch.

I have offended a lot of people over the canal dismantling. The abolition of the canal has actually offended many salt merchants and officials, and cut off their financial path through canals and ships. This time the emperor wanted to change the salt policy and law himself. He was obviously not the one who took the lead, but he still allowed himself to do it. This showed that he wanted to attract firepower.

This matter is actually very safe. No one would be stupid enough to dare to use a knife against a duke openly. If they really did, it would not only shake the officialdom of a prefecture or a county, but there might be a nationwide purge, which would be considered an open challenge to the imperial power.

If this matter is handled publicly, it would not be so serious. You can attack, smear, frame, etc., and follow the nonsense process in the court. You may lose or win.

But this matter is actually a private path of "imperial power". The emperor clearly needs a tool to attract all the firepower. At this time, if you move yourself, it is equivalent to the local forces openly challenging the imperial power and asking the importance of the tripod - local affairs, the emperor, you'd better not care about it, whoever cares about it will die.

If it really comes to that, the emperor will have two choices.

Either, pretend to be dead, deal with it in a formal way, declare that all his ambitions are nonsense, and admit defeat; or, really bring out the deterrent force that has been scaring people before, the people of the Wude Palace system and the new school system, and have a major blood transfusion to create the official atmosphere of the Hongwu period.

The deterrent force cannot be used. In theory, it is the most powerful before it is used. But when it really comes to that step, it can only fight to the point of mutual destruction, and it has to be used.

…………

Huaibei.

Haizhou.

The salt merchants with the most capital in the Huaibei salt industry are waiting anxiously.

The news that the court sent Xingguo Gong to inspect the Huaibei salt administration has come, and the fast horses sent out early have continuously reported the shortened distance.

This is not a routine inspection, but an accidental act specially assigned by the emperor.

But the rumor about the reform of the salt administration has already been spread.

Reform, reform, any reform always requires getting rid of the old and supporting the new.

If it were someone else, these salt merchants would not be too panicked, but the emperor sent Liu Yu.

Before the boom of trade in Songjiang Prefecture, who was the richest group in the world?

Naturally, it was the salt merchants.

But now, who is the richest group in the world? I am afraid it may not be the salt merchants.

It is just that the salt merchants have a deeper foundation. Relying on "making friends with scholars" and "clan relations", they have accumulated for two or three hundred years and have people inside and outside the court.

The elegance and culture of Yangzhou are all related to these salt merchants. Without money, playing hammer art, a large number of literati are supported by salt merchants.

In the eyes of salt merchants, those merchants in Songjiang Prefecture are just a group of nouveau riche.

Since they are merchants, when a group of merchants have to talk about identity, bloodline, family, and official positions, and when they want to despise another group of merchants as nouveau riche, they can only say that these merchants have "fallen".

The reason they are afraid of Liu Yu is because of the nouveau riche behind Liu Yu.

A mere Huaibei Salt Field, the salt industry monopoly of the 46 prefectures, has a capital turnover of only a few million per week every year.

If it were someone else, maybe these salt merchants would really give them a good show, and let them know the embarrassing situation that the salt industry cannot operate without capital.

But the group of "nouveau riche" behind Liu Yu, if they really want to reform the salt administration, they will be able to pile up money in an instant when they hear that the annual turnover is only three to five million taels. The nouveau riche in Songjiang Prefecture know how much salt makes money, but they just don't have any connections...

The current situation is also funny.

Salt merchants dare not play the capital card, and they are all thinking about using official connections to pressure salt administration reform.

The Duke does not play the official card, and people think that he wants to use capital to promote salt administration reform.

The several major salt merchants waiting for Liu Yu in the front are all Hui merchants, who have made their fortunes by relying on the salt administration reform of the Ming Dynasty for more than a hundred years.

The court has been corrupt year by year. In order to save trouble, it has no time to manage the huge group of three merchants, and simply let some capital-rich ones do the general contracting.

The general contracting is divided among secondary contractors.

The imperial court only dealt with the general contractors, and the general contractors paid the taxes, thus avoiding the trouble of dealing with the sub-contractors.

They thought this was troublesome, that was troublesome, and they saved costs everywhere, but the result was all costs and leaks everywhere.

If the salt administration was really reformed, the general contractors would be the first to be affected.

Individual merchants and sub-contractors still had a way to survive.

Because these individual merchants and sub-contractors had routes, markets, and sales stores.

The general contractors only had the monopoly rights granted by capital and administration.

Individual merchants and sub-contractors still made money from the people. No matter whether they raised the price or took advantage of the situation, in the end, they still took money from the people for every pound of salt.

The general contractors had neither the market nor the sales channels, but only strong capital, similar to the decision-making of "tax farmers", and they also made money from the sub-contractors - if they wanted to sell salt, they had to pay the general contractors a certain amount of silver.

This is similar to what Liu Yu did to the Netherlands: it was not the Dutch financial capital that revived the shareholders of the Dutch East India Company, but the Dutch market, routes, and smuggling channels. Tangible capital is shit in the eyes of the emerging class group of Dashun, and the intangible capital accumulated for two or three hundred years is a priceless treasure.

The same is true for these salt merchants.

They can suppress the court because the court has no money. Dashun has no state-owned assets at all and cannot mobilize many resources. In short, there is no money.

But for the same reason, they can't suppress Liu Yu, who has a group of upstarts with tens of millions of taels of equity behind him, especially these upstarts who are afraid that they have long drooled over the salt profits.

Liu Yu's reputation, even in the business community, is polarized. Some people get rich with him, and some go bankrupt because of him.

Although Liu Yu did not propose the salt administration reform, the salt merchants who had suffered great losses from the reform of the canal were naturally angry because they were assigned such a "fire-attracting" task by the emperor.

But... they were helpless.

Several general contractors looked at each other, and they all saw some tension, fear, vigilance and helplessness on each other's faces.

"Hey... I think our ancestors overcame difficulties and accumulated such a large family business. Now that the Duke is here, it's hard to say whether this family business can be preserved."

Someone complained in a low voice, and several people around him also sighed in the same way, thinking that their ancestors had accumulated money one copper coin at a time and walked step by step to today. Are they going to be destroyed in their own hands?