After listening to most of the recitals in the bathtub, Zhu Youzhen finished taking a bath and stood up from the bucket. He stood there with his eyes closed and his hands open, waiting for the maids to wipe the water from his body.

"Well, wait, what's going on with the towel today?" The familiar touch on his body made him involuntarily open his eyes and ask the maid next to him to hand him the towel to see.

"Your Majesty, this is a new towel from the cotton mill, but is there anything wrong?" Lu Qi suddenly asked worriedly.

"No, I just think it's good, it's much more comfortable than the white cloth before." Zhu Youzhen buried his face in a soft and fluffy towel, rubbed his hands vigorously a few times, and finally felt the familiarity of a long absence.

Sure enough, the most powerful monarch in the feudal era may not be able to enjoy the life that ordinary civilians in the industrial age can enjoy.

Zhu Youzhen sighed in his heart, and without caring about the two helpless maids around him, he wiped the water traces on his body with his own hands.

After putting on a set of regular clothes, Zhu Youzhen took the "Concise History of China" from Lu Qi's hand, and said to Wang Chengen: "That's all for today, I want to rest early today." Tomorrow morning, I will meet with the Cabinet. In the afternoon, I want to meet Liu Jingting, so I will be supervised in Shanglin Yuan, and I will also meet Wei Liangqing from the Agricultural College by the way..."

The next morning, before the official cabinet meeting, Zhu Youzhen first summoned Guo Yunhou, the secretary of the same household department, Huang Liji, the first assistant.

With regard to the tax reform package and other matters passed by the merchants' congress yesterday, the two men have apparently obtained the official documents.

Whether it is Huang Liji or Guo Yunhou, their faces are a little ugly. As soon as the two entered the room, before they could sit down completely, Guo Yunhou couldn't wait to say.

"Your Majesty, according to the resolution of the merchants' congress sent yesterday, your majesty wants to open the mining industry in Sichuan to the merchants? I'm afraid that's not appropriate, right? ”

Huang Liji said with a stern face: "Your Majesty has set aside the Zhoushan Islands off the coast of Ningbo and handed them over to the merchants to manage, and agreed to let the merchants supervise the tax affairs, which is against the rules and regulations."

The people of the world are divided into farmers, industry and commerce, as long as the four people are in their own positions, the world will naturally be stable and safe. Since ancient times, the people of the capital have always been the pillars of the country.

And the merchants are just a group of villains chasing interests, and now His Majesty does not trust the gentry, but allows a group of villains to meddle in tax affairs, so respectful and inferior, how to educate the people of the world to keep their positions?

The old minister dared to ask Your Majesty, if the discipline is destroyed and the etiquette system is disordered, how will Your Majesty plan to govern my Ming people in the future? ”

Wang Chengen carefully observed behind Chongzhen, and the remarks of the two cabinet ministers accusing the emperor made him a little frightened, and he didn't know if Chongzhen would be annoyed and angry, and make any unpredictable moves.

Zhu Youzhen's psychology was obviously stronger than Wang Chengen expected, and he turned a deaf ear to the criticism of the two ministers, and he had no intention of moving.

It was only after the two of them finished speaking that he said calmly: "I don't have to use merchants to supervise tax collection, nor do I really want to set aside a place for merchants to manage by themselves.

It's just that I think it's better to let a businessman be an official than to let an official be a businessman. I recently heard that the combined capital of the salt merchants in Yangzhou is about 30 million taels, and the annual profit is about 9 million taels.

The salt tax they handed over to the imperial court in a year was only more than one million taels, but the bribes they gave to officials exceeded 2 million taels, and they left nearly 5 million taels for themselves.

I don't know what Mr. Huang thinks, can such an official really become my Ming's reliance? I think that with such officials as a comparison, even if those businessmen do a worse job, I can accept it. ”

Huang Liji opened his mouth, but he couldn't make any sound. It's not that he can't think of words to refute the emperor, it's that he can't make up his mind.

Following the emperor's tone, it is naturally simple to accuse these corrupt officials and corrupt officials. But as the first assistant of the Ming Dynasty, he can't just blame it as if nothing happened, obviously he has to come up with countermeasures.

Either rectify the governance of the best officials, or change the way to manage taxes, always have to come out with an opinion.

Whether it is salt or taxation, the ** of this piece is intertwined, and it is not divided into political parties. If he advocates anti-corruption, he will obviously become the target of public criticism, and even his subordinates may not support him.

Seeing that Huang Liji was silent, Guo Yunhou couldn't help but say out loud: "Your Majesty, even if these businessmen are allowed to interfere in tax supervision, they can't completely hand over the mining of Zigongjing Salt and the two provinces to the businessmen to develop."

Half of the Taicang silver revenue of the Ming Dynasty comes from the salt tax, and once the salt tax goes wrong, the state finances will go bankrupt according to His Majesty's words.

The mining industry is the most labor-intensive, the mine owners often recruit displaced people from all over the world, and the mining often needs to use * and iron tools, and the mines are often in the barren mountains and wilderness. It can be said that they are blind spots that are difficult for the county government to manage, and they are also hiding places for those who are traitors.

In addition, mine owners open mines and destroy mountains and forests, often leading to soil erosion, drying up local rivers and abandoning fertile land. Disputes with the local gentry and common people were prone to either litigation or group fighting.

Not to mention that the local county order is difficult to manage, if such a strong miner, hundreds or thousands of people gather in one place, if they are instigated by evil people, will not they become the source of the disaster in the place? ”

Regarding Guo Yunhou's worries, Zhu Youzhen quite agrees, most of the private mines in this era are illegal. Therefore, the mine owners who dare to open mines are either local land snakes or some desperate people who have no way out.

For these mine owners and miners, their fear of the imperial court is the most indifferent. If the mine is mined or mismanaged and loses money, most of these miners who have no mines to mine will become a backup force for the gang of thieves in this society with strict restrictions on mobility.

This was obviously a threat to the landlords and gentry who wished to confine the peasants to the land and live a stable life that would never change.

They don't want a gang of exiles near their homes who might become thieves and threaten their own idyllic life or that of their relatives.

Yunnan is just that, after all, it is far away from the Central Plains, there are many ethnic minorities, and the gentry is weak. But Shanxi is different, although Shanxi is known as the mountains and rivers in the surface, there are not many areas around the mountains and the plain.

However, Shanxi, which borders the Yellow River, is one of the earliest origins of Chinese civilization, and its culture and economy have always been no weaker than those of the Central Plains.

Although the wealthy merchants of Shanyou are famous all over the world, the power of Shanxi people in the court is also not to be underestimated, without the protection of these Shanxi officials, Shanxi merchants can not firmly control the Ming salt industry for nearly a hundred years.

If the emperor wants to open mines in Shanxi, it is bound to touch the interests of the local gentry in Shanxi, and in Shanxi, where the mountains are high and densely forested, so many miners will pour in at once, which is obviously a great hidden danger to social security.

Although Guo Yunhou is a native of Shandong, in the face of the fact that there are a large number of officials in Jiangnan, he still has to safeguard the common interests of the northern gentry.

Zhu Youzhen pondered for a long time before he spoke: "Let's talk about the issue of salt tax first, the salt tax in the Ming Dynasty now adopts the "gang salt system", and the merchants who hold salt quotes are divided into 10 gangs according to the region, each gang salt is 200,000 yuan, each lead is 300 catties of salt, and each lead is given six coins and four cents of silver, which is called "woben", and the tax is three taels of silver, and the minister (transportation) is three taels of silver.

That is to say, the imperial court should collect 6 taels of silver, 6 taels and 4 cents of silver for each salt introduction, and if the 2 million salt introductions are paid in full every year, the tax should be 13.28 million taels of silver. Of course, this is unlikely, after all, we have to admit that the distribution of salt by the imperial court has gone out of control, often exceeding the amount produced by the salt works, not to mention that the salt works have hidden a part of the production to be sold as surplus salt.

However, even if it is calculated in the most generous way, 70% of the new salt is paid a year, and 30% is used to pay off the old salt, and the annual salt tax revenue should be more than 9 million taels.

I closed my eyes again, took out 20% and gave the salt officials a profit, and handed it over to the imperial court for 6 million taels a year.

However, after I checked the salt system, the highest revenue from the salt tax over the years was 2.5 million taels, and most of the other years fluctuated around 2 million taels.

Okay, the tax of 13.28 million taels a year, the actual payment is less than 2 percent, I want to ask, whose officials are these salt officials? Do I really dare not kill people? ”

Zhu Youzhen said in the end, his tone was calm, as if he was about to explode in the next moment. Whether it was Guo Yunhou or Huang Liji, they were all silent, and they didn't have the idea of interceding for the officials of the Salt Envoy Division and the Salt Division.

There was only one thought in their minds, how the hell did the emperor get this information. For a long time, the civil officials were reluctant to let the emperor know too much about the details of government affairs, so as to ensure that the emperor could only choose between the suggestions made by the civil officials in the absence of information.

Even emperors like Jiajing and Wanli, who are skilled in political struggles, even if they defeat their political opponents in the court, they still have to rely on another group of civil officials to handle state affairs in the end.

However, the young Emperor Chongzhen may not be tactful and spicy enough in the political struggle, but he is faintly out of the control of the civil government over the government.

Just like now, no matter how many excuses they have, they can't deny it in the face of such tangible data. To be honest, although they knew that Yan Zheng was the most important part of the Ming Dynasty, they never thought about collecting these data, nor did they think that these officials and businessmen would be able to embezzle such a huge amount.

Guo Yunhou and Huang Liji also had to leave their seats and plead guilty to Chongzhen. Zhu Youzhen didn't let the two of them get up immediately for the first time, but was silent for a long time before he said coldly.

"In fact, I've heard more than one rumor. In my cabinet, except for a few people, everyone else has relatives and slaves who interfere in salt affairs, and they are very profitable. ”

Huang Liji and Guo Yunhou, who were originally a little calm, felt a little frightened on their foreheads at this time, and the two of them were among the others that the emperor said.