The reason has a lot to do with the implementation of the two tax laws.

The two tax laws stipulate the tax amount for each province and state, but it is relatively simple and crude, that is, the year with the highest tax amount in the calendar year is used as the benchmark. The same goes for salt profits, since Liu Yan's brilliant peak is 6 million guan a year in the entire southeast, then this standard is the future, and the Tang government is to give 6 million guan quota to the field and court officials in various salt and iron fields, such as the Hangzhou salt field is 360,000 guan per year, and the Suzhou salt field is 1.05 million guan per year, which is the "salt class" of the field officials, whether they can achieve or exceed this quota and become the only standard for the officials of the examination field.

In this case, in order to complete the rationed salt quota, of course, each field must show its own magic, which is the so-called "competition for class".

But after Liu Yan, it is actually difficult for the salt class to reach six million again.

Why? Quite simply, the shortage of money is an important factor, and the price reduction of cloth is another important factor.

After the accession of the current emperor, most of the Tang Empire has recovered from the wounds of war, rice and grain have been abundant year after year, cloth weaving has also steadily rebounded, and the number of households has also continued to grow: the price of rice is getting cheaper and cheaper, and the same is true of cloth.

In the past two years, the cloth in the southeast of Jianghuai, a medium-quality horse, actually only needs to be consistent.

However, the salt merchants still bought salt from the government at the price of "one piece of cloth and four dollars" in the past, and with the preferential treatment of the false valuation method, they took advantage of the price difference to make a big profit.

In short, the cloth sold by the salt merchants was a horse of four runs (virtual), and when it was handed over to the imperial court, its original form was revealed.

So is it okay for the inspection yard and the salt factory to abolish the false valuation method and ask for the actual market price to sell salt to salt merchants?

The answer is no, because this will make the salt merchants feel unprofitable, and once it is unprofitable, they will not come to the salt again, so that no amount of salt in the pavilions and fields of the government will be of any use: salt can only be profitable if it is purchased by merchants and then sold to the people for consumption.

If the salt merchants do not come, for the salt and iron officials, they will not be able to complete the "salt class", so what awaits them will not be promotion, but will be a severe punishment from the imperial court.

Therefore, at this time, the initiative of the game was not in the hands of the officials, but in the hands of the salt merchants.

When the emperor waged war against Heshuofang Town, he increased the price of salt from 110 wen to 200 wen per bucket, hoping to make more profits.

But the reality slapped them in the face, the price of salt rose, and the market price will inevitably rise (up to 300 Wen per bucket or even higher), in short, the burden will eventually be passed on to the people, but the miraculous thing is that the price of salt skyrocketed in the short term, and soon fell again: the people will automatically reduce their desires before high prices, which is the unchanging truth of ancient and modern times, the people eat salt "Buddhism" up, either the vegetables and rice are light, or simply buy private salt, the price of salt can only fall back after touching the ceiling.

In this way, the salt and iron institutions still could not complete the quota of "six million guan".

In the end, when Bao Ji was the transshipment envoy of Biandong, he came up with a way, which is what Lu Zhen said, "to use light goods to expand the virtual number". Bao Ji raised the price of salt to 350 yuan per bucket, but it was impossible to sell this money, these figures were just to deceive the superiors in order to complete the salt class. In fact, Bao Ji and the salt merchants reached a tacit understanding: in addition to the cloth and silk, the salt merchants took out more "light goods" to extract salt, that is, tortoiseshell, lacquerware, porcelain and other miscellaneous things placed in front of the emperor, and deliberately raised the price of these light goods in the account book until the number of six million yuan was scraped together.

This produced a strange phenomenon in Gao Yue's mouth: the price of the salt courtyard was 350 wen per bucket, but the price sold to the people on the market was 200 wen per bucket, but the salt merchants still made a lot of money, because most of the 350 wen was offset by light goods.

Then these so-called light goods were sent all the way to the capital by boat.

In fact, where is the light goods worth the money, the salt profit of 6 million guan, really reselling, the actual income is often not more than 3 million.

This year it was even worse.

According to the information obtained by the imperial court, Li Na and Tian Xu instructed the merchants of the town to sell the surplus salt to the southeast Jianghuai land at a low price, so that the local salt price dropped sharply, and the salt merchants asked the yards to reduce the price, and the yards did not dare to lower the price in order to complete the salt class, so the salt merchants secretly forced the yard to use this kind of silk as a 'light goods' salt." At this time, Gao Yue held up the fragments of Huaixi earthen silk and said, "I am afraid that this earthen silk is not even worth 500 wen, but it is actually marked with two runs and 200 wen, which deceives Your Majesty and makes the salt law corrupt." ”

"This earthen silk was woven by Wu Shaocheng in Huaixi to let the Cai people, especially rude, originally I had to use it as a city horse money to pay back to the Hui, but now it seems that even the Hui people can't be deceived. Presumably, Huaixi Town also colluded with the group of salt merchants in the southeast and deliberately dumped these local silks to them to extract salt. The emperor took Gao Yue's words and was furious.

This is Li Yuanping's trick.

"After I pacify Qiang, we must destroy Huaixi!" The Emperor's fist slammed into the long case, and the tortoiseshell and lacquerware shook and fell to the floor with a grunt.

"Even so, when the salt profits were transported to Jingshi along the Cao Movement, they were extorted a lot by the daitang of various towns, which reduced consumption even more."

"Xuanwu and other towns are all raccoon dogs, and I don't want the Dou Zacha Gangfa to be poisoned so far!" The emperor is adding fuel to the fire.

"Your Majesty will be angry for the time being." Before Lu Zhen and Jia Tan could speak, Gao Yue couldn't wait to step forward and give advice to the emperor first, "Since Xingyuan, Fengxiang, Xichuan, and Dongchuan have been approved by His Majesty to implement the meridian law, the tax money and Hudou rice income have increased greatly, and the ministers, Wei Gao, Liu Changqing (now promoted to Ba Kui Observation Envoy), Xie Facheng (Dongchuan Metropolitan Soldier and Horse Envoy, Du Huangshang entered the court as the prime minister, and stayed for Dongchuan) is willing to give the extra 700,000 guan money and 900,000 stone rice to the imperial court this year to fill the Qiang army. ”

Hearing this, the emperor was so moved that tears were flashing in his eyes, and he almost blurted out the sentence "beloved son-in-law".

In addition, Du Huangshang also stepped forward to suggest: "Xingyuan and Fengxiang cotton weaving is prosperous, and now I Tang Guanxi, Guanzhong, Shuofang military towns and Shence military towns, most of the soldiers' clothes are changed to cotton cloth, and the demand for southeast cloth is not as hot as that of the Daizong Dynasty, so Liu Yan's former false estimation can be abolished." ”

"Not only must it be abolished, but it is also necessary to reform the salt law and the transshipment method, but this is also a matter after the Pingqiang, and the peace of Huaixi Caizhou is synchronized, and the ministers can take care of it in the long run." This time, the emperor was sober-minded, and the decision he made was reasonable.

Lu Zhen added: "Although the southeast salt law is corrupt, the taxable rice and grain are still the place where the imperial court relies on, and the minister suggested that the three observation envoys of Xuanhui, western Zhejiang and eastern Zhejiang should be merged again to rebuild the Zhenhai Tooth Banner, so that Han Hui, the younger brother of Han Jingong, will be unified, and the Zhenhai will be used to deter Li Na, Liu Shining, Wu Shaocheng and other Xiaoxiao from the southeast. ”

"Yes!" At this time, the emperor had already made up his mind to confront the Kanto region immediately, otherwise he would like to ask who is in the world of Shenzhou now?

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