Although Huang Liji and Guo Yunhou, who have been in the sea for a long time, subconsciously, they don't think that Chongzhen will use this matter to deal with the two.

But for some reason, the two of them were faintly afraid of Chongzhen in their hearts. Although the Ming Emperor is supreme, most emperors can only know what the civil officials want him to know.

But every time they stood in front of the young Chongzhen, they never knew what the emperor knew, and this was the source of their deep fear.

For bureaucrats in their position, what they hate most is not when they encounter difficult things to solve, but when they encounter unexpected situations that are beyond their understanding. In particular, every time such an unexpected situation appeared in front of the emperor.

No matter how preferential Chongzhen treats these ministers, he is always the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and he is the supreme who can decide their lives with a word.

With such frequent accidents, they can't be sure whether they can survive the Zhishi.

Zhu Youzhen watched the two gray-haired ministers kneel in front of him, confessing guilt, and was silent for a long time before saying, "I will give you a year to withdraw from the salt business." Similarly, all members of the Cabinet and the Six Ministries and Nine Secretaries were forbidden to have any association with the salt industry.

A year later, I wanted to carry out a comprehensive rectification and reform of the Daming salt industry. If there are still people who refuse to let go when they fall, it is a declaration of war against me. ”

After Zhu Youzhen finished speaking, he asked the two ministers to get up and sit back in their seats. Huang Liji and Guo Yunhou sat back in their seats tremblingly, but they were a little relieved.

Although the emperor knew about the shortcomings of the salt industry, he did not immediately ask them to fully clean up these ** officials, and gave them a one-year buffer, which undoubtedly showed that he was not to blame for the past salt industry.

If the reform of the salt industry does not investigate the previous behavior, then there is no doubt that the scope of the crackdown will be much narrower. And one year is enough time for many gentry and officials from other places to withdraw, and only the local gentry in Huaiyang are left.

Guo Yunhou glanced at Huang Liji, who was looking down, and then cautiously asked Chongzhen: "What does Your Majesty mean by the so-called comprehensive reform of the salt industry?" ”

In the 10 years since the implementation of the Gang Salt Law, the accumulated salt arrears that were originally intended to be paid off have not been eliminated. Paying off the old salt has become a means of tax evasion, and the nest of the Salt Law has become the prerogative of merchants to monopolize the salt industry. This is definitely intolerable for Chongzhen.

Zhu Youzhen said slowly: "The state has such a big deficit in the salt tax, if the benefits fall on the people, then it will be fine." However, the annual salt tax collected by the imperial court is only 2 million taels, which is equivalent to 2 wen per catty of salt, but the price of salt in various places is 5 or 60 wen, and the expensive one is 8 or 90 wen, and some areas are as high as 3 yuan.

And in order to make huge profits, profiteers mixed a lot of sediment into the official salt, and some of them were inedible. In my Ming Dynasty's salt industry, the court did not receive taxes, and the people did not get benefits, but they fattened a ** businessman and corrupt officials, can it not be reformed? ”

Guo Yunhou felt as if he was sitting on pins and needles, and it was difficult to stay stable. The corners of his mouth twitched and said: "As a minister of the household department, he can't share his worries for His Majesty, it's really..."

Zhu Youzhen interrupted Guo Yunhou's confession, and said expressionlessly: "Mr. Guo has just served as the head of the household department not long ago, and I will not blame Guo Shangshu for some things.

I just want to tell you two that I can turn a blind eye to what happened before I ascend the throne, but if I want to do the same thing in the future, it will definitely not work.

Now that I've said that, I'm going to tell you two gentlemen today what I think of this country.

I can tell you both bluntly that I never thought that the Ming was my Ming. I think that the Ming is the Ming of the Ming people. The responsibility of the emperor is to safeguard the interests of the majority of the Ming people, and from this basic position, I can advance and retreat together with the ministers.

If some people think that the Ming is just my Ming, or that the Ming is the Ming of a small number of people. Then I don't have a common language to communicate with such people.

Farmers know that when there are weeds in the field, they need to be pulled. If this poisonous weed appears in the court, I don't mind pulling it out.

The royal brother pulled out the Donglin poisonous weeds, not because what they said was wrong, but because although these Donglin party members shouted benevolence, righteousness and morality, in essence, they still wanted to damage the interests of the Ming Dynasty and enrich the interests of private groups.

Gu Xiancheng is just an anthrographer, for the sake of the selfish interests of one party, he wants to manipulate national politics and set off party disputes, and it is not a pity for such a person to die..."

In front of Wang Chengen, Huang Liji, and Guo Yunhou, Chongzhen expressed his political attitude for the first time. This made Huang Liji and Guo Yunhou, who were inseparable from the Donglin Party, finally reassured.

Although Huang Liji, Guo Yunhou and others were ministers who strongly supported Chongzhen's accession to the throne, after Chongzhen ascended the throne, he belittled Wei Zhongxian, recalled some Donglin Party officials, and removed some charges from the heads of Donglin Party members.

This made them all feel a little uneasy, for fear that one day the emperor would fall to the Donglin party and expel them from the court.

It is precisely because of this worry that Huang Liji, Guo Yunhou and others seem to be a little tied in their work, for fear of offending too many officials and ending up in a bad situation.

It was precisely because he saw the hesitant wait-and-see attitude of several cabinet ministers that Zhu Youzhen had to express his heart to the two at this time.

Huang Liji and Guo Yunhou automatically ignored what Chongzhen said about doing things from the position of most people, and they all focused on the emperor's hateful attitude towards Gu Xiancheng.

Although they had just been reprimanded by Chongzhen, the two cabinet ministers felt that their relationship with the emperor was closer. They felt that now they and the emperor had the feeling of their own people.

Seeing that Huang Liji's expression softened slightly, Zhu Youzhen continued to say: "The focus of the comprehensive reform of the salt industry is first of all to make the people afford to eat salt, which is my only requirement.

If we want to make salt affordable for the people, we must first abolish the monopoly of the salt system. The purpose of the implementation of the salt system was to eliminate the old salt arrears and increase the salt tax revenue for the state.

But the salt tax revenues of the past decade tell us that neither of these goals has been achieved, and therefore the salt system has proven to be a failure.

Therefore, I decided to abolish the salt system, no longer restricting merchants from entering the salt industry, and not preventing merchants from quitting the salt industry. Anyone, as long as they are willing to pay taxes, can run a salt business. ”

For the first half of Chongzhen's statement, Guo Yunhou and Huang Liji both expressed their willingness to accept that the abolition of the salt monopoly is not a bad thing. But letting go of the salt industry made them feel a little unacceptable.

Guo Yunhou first said: "Your Majesty, the liberalization of the salt industry and the expansion of the number of salt merchants may lead to the expansion of the number of private salt, and it will be more difficult to manage the salt industry..."

Zhu Youzhen shrugged his shoulders and said: "Now there are eight adults in Daming who are eating illegal salt, and this number will expand again, will it still exceed ten percent?" ”

Huang Liji finally couldn't help but say: "But Your Majesty, although the salt tax revenue has been stolen a lot, even the salt tax collected now accounts for half of Taicang's annual income.

His Majesty had abolished the Liaoying in many provinces, and had drawn up many plans for the construction of water conservancy, and although His Majesty had rectified the Jingying and Liaodong armies, the expenditure of the treasury had not decreased, but increased.

Now, if His Majesty's reforms cause the salt tax to continue to be lost, the minister is worried that the Ming Dynasty's finances may be in trouble. ”

Zhu Youzhen listened carefully to Huang Liji's reasoning, and then said calmly: "Then Mr. Huang and Mr. Guo, first listen to my salt industry reform plan.

I plan to spend a year registering all the existing salt references. Then according to the ratio of 1:1, it will be replaced with a new salt introduction, and each new quotation will be set to 100 catties of official salt, with a face value of 2 taels.

In accordance with the order of the new registration, it is sold publicly in the salt market every month. The salt that was not delivered in the current month will be invalidated.

The distinction between regular salt and surplus salt was abolished, and all salt from salt farms had to be traded in the salt market, and direct trading between stove households and merchants was prohibited.

In addition, if the price of local salt exceeds 65 wen a catty for half of the time in a year, the region will no longer designate salt farms for sale in the next year, and salt from any region can be sold here. ”

Guo Yunhou couldn't help but ask: "What does Your Majesty mean by the salt market?" ”

"I plan to open five salt markets in Yangzhou, Hangzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, and Chengdu to trade salt. The salt market and salt works will be restructured into part of the salt company. Zhu Youzhen explained to him.

Huang Liji and Guo Yunhou both heard what Chongzhen meant, that is to say, the emperor wanted to change the situation that the imperial court was only responsible for collecting taxes in the past. The emperor wanted to bring all the salt produced in the salt works under the jurisdiction of the imperial court.

"Your Majesty, in this case, the salt company needs to buy all the salt in the hands of the stove first, which is a very large amount." Guo Yunhou once again reiterated his concerns.

Zhu Youzhen nodded and said, "What you said is right, so next year I will use the salt tax as collateral to issue salt bonds." This year, the number of salt quotes in the household department shall not exceed 1.5 million citations, and from this year, salt quotations will no longer be used for rewards.

The clans and nobles were no longer allowed to get involved in the salt trade, and those who were still in the salt industry after a year were to be stripped of all their honors and let them work as salt merchants. ”

Huang Liji glanced at Guo Yunhou and found that this household secretary also showed an expression of ignorance about the salt industry public debt, so he said to Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, this salt industry public debt can only be used as money if it is sold."

But now Your Majesty's policy of reforming the salt industry is afraid that it will be resisted by many people, so who will subscribe to this salt industry bond at that time? ”

Zhu Youzhen did not answer Huang Liji directly, he said vaguely: "Whether the salt industry bonds will be sold, first of all, we must first determine the scale of the public bonds issued.

The size of the public debt depends on the actual amount of salt produced by each salt farm. Therefore, within this year, I asked the household department to do two things, one is to register the amount of salt introduced, and the other is to investigate and summarize the actual amount of salt produced in salt farms in various parts of Daming..."