Selling cute and begging for tickets, Big Luo Luo and Little Lori are rolling all over the ground together

Yangzhou Garden.

The air inside the room was dull, and it was supposed to be a very spacious and elegant hall that was breathable and leaky, but now it was neither airtight nor moonless. The garden outside is still a white snow scene, and the floor tiles in the ventilation and moon hall are all connected to the ground dragon, which bakes the room warmly, plus a delicate wine banquet, this scene should be a time when the owner of the garden and a group of friends drink and enjoy the snow. But these people in the room were all like mourners, and their expressions were panicked, which made the atmosphere of the entire Ventilation and Moon Hall bleak, as if the end of this group of people had come. Two years ago, these people who wore silk clothes and had no ideas on their faces, but they were all people with tens of millions of family assets and hands and eyes, and they were the most magnificent people in the two Huai salt merchants who were once rich in the world, but now they are in a panic.

Huang Xiqing is the host of this wine banquet of drinking and appreciating the snow, this garden, known as one of the four famous gardens in China, is Huang Xiqing's father, the big salt merchant Huang Zhiyun built with a huge amount of money, and is now shared by the five brothers of the Huang family. Yangzhou is the base camp of the two Huai salt merchants, and Huang Xiqing is the general merchant of the two Huai salt merchants, today invited the largest salt merchants in Yangzhou to come over, naturally to discuss how to serve the Ming court - this is not a disguise, where does the arrogance of the two Huai salt merchants come from? Isn't it a monopoly power that is obtained in exchange for the imperial court and the imperial court officials?

Thinking that Tao Shu, the governor of Liangjiang in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and Lin Zexu, the governor of Jiangsu, reformed the salt administration and broke the monopoly of the salt merchants in Huaibei with the ticket salt method. Later, Tao Shu also wanted to promote the ticket salt law to Huainan, but fortunately, Cao Wenzhenggong (Cao Zhenyong) came forward and said: "Is there a prime minister's family who starved to death? ”

The words are beautiful. But how could Tao Shu and Lin Zexu not know what they meant? Therefore, the salt policy reform stopped in Huaibei. Only then did the two Huai salt merchants survive. But now Huainan is Zhu Ming's world. Although Zhu Jishi did not deprive the two Huai salt industry of monopoly for the time being, how could these big salt merchants with very sharp noses not smell the south wind of salt reform? Lan Fangxing's refined salt, the big salt merchants here have all seen it, but no one understands how this kind of salt is dried?

Of course, they know the salt drying method, the Northern Song Dynasty has it, and the stove households in Haizhou, Huaibei Province, use the salt method to make salt, but where is the salt so fine and white? This salt does not appear to have any impurities at all. If it was left in the past, the salt used to pay tribute to the emperor in the palace was not so exquisite, but now the wholesale price of this kind of Lanfang salt is only twenty-five small copper dollars per catty, which is cheaper than private salt! It is said that it is still tax-included - in fact, this Lanfang line is Zhu Datianzi's industry, and whether or not to pay salt tax is the same thing for Zhu Datianzi.

It turned out that he was an official in Beijing, and in the spring of Daoguang 28, he saw that the signs were wrong, and Cao Tong, the son of Cao Zhenyong, who resigned and returned to Yangzhou, is now a representative of the Cao family, one of the eight major salt merchants.

His news is better than that of several other big salt merchants: "The cost of Lanfang salt is about 3 to 5 small copper dollars per catty, and it is sold for 25 small copper dollars, and the Zhu family can get at least 20 small copper dollars." If you can get rid of the illegal salt, just the 13 provinces of the Southern Dynasties. You can always sell 1 billion catties of salt every year, right? A profit of 20 million silver dollars is at your fingertips......"

"What? Can 5 copper dollars make a pound of Lanfang salt? ”

"This, this, this...... How is this possible? How will their Lanfang's stove households and salt cubes live? How to pay the floating fee of Lanfang's salt administration yamen? ”

"Could it be that Zhu Tianzi turned the natives of Lanfang into slaves and used slave labor to make salt?"

"Even slaves have to eat. The life of our two Huai stove households and salt Ding has also been bitter, and no matter how bitter it is, it will be reversed......"

The people in the room immediately shouted, but their faces were full of disbelief. They are all generations of salt merchants, and they don't know anything else, but can they still know the way of salt? It's not that you can't get a pound of salt, but the problem is that you get what you pay for, and the salt of a few coppers is mixed with sediment, and it would be good to have half of it be salt. But the purity of this Lanfang salt is at least ninety-five, and it has to be boiled and purified repeatedly, even if there are 20 coppers, it may not be able to boil out.

Cao Tong looked at the big salt merchants in Manchurian brocade clothes and were discussing, and he sneered in his heart. He had already consulted foreign businessmen in Shanghai, what was the name of this Lan Fangxing's method of making salt...... Industrialization! Build large salt pools with ash on sunny beaches, purify impurities with chemical additives, and boil salt brine in boilers. The production cost is low, I don't know how much, and the salt produced is fine and white. They Westerners all use this method to make salt, and there is no difficulty at all, and there is no threshold for Yangzhou salt merchants to open Western-style salt factories - as long as the imperial court can approve it.

But the question is...... There are more people who rely on salt to eat in Lianghuai, and there are more than one salt merchant in this room. There are also salt gangs, salt dings, stove households, and various yamen in charge of salt, all of which add up to more than 100,000! A few large salt farms that use Western salt methods can cut off the livelihood of more than 100,000 people?

In addition, these Westerners not only have the magic method of making salt, but also the method of spinning and weaving! There are also fast boats that can fly back and forth on the sea, and dragon cars that can travel hundreds of miles a day with black smoke and carry tens of thousands of stones. If they are all introduced to China, it will not be the salt industry that is unlucky! It is not only the hundreds of thousands of salt and stove households in the two salt industries that are unemployed......

It seems that there is still some truth in this method of closing the country to the outside world!

Just when Cao Tong's mind drifted to military affairs, a voice suddenly said faintly: "What if...... I said, we still have to find a backer, and if you don't accept it in the south, you can find the north! ”

North? The Qing Dynasty? Still is...... Taiping heavenly kingdom!?

Cao Tong's eyes were attracted by the person who spoke up, and it turned out to be Li Wen'an, a Dantu salt merchant (the same name as Li Hongzhang's father). Their Li family sold salt along the Yangtze River to Huguang, and Huguang has now become the world of Lanfang salt. There is no market for Huaiyan at all, although the Dantu Li family also has tens of millions of properties, but there is no income, and there is always a mountain empty. In addition, the Li family also suffered a heavy loss in the Liangjiang money crisis this day, and hundreds of thousands of Lixinzhuang's tickets were not worth two dollars, and now they heard that Lixinzhuang will be reorganized to establish a credit bank, and all Lixinzhuang's certificates of deposit and silver bills can be converted into five-year certificates of deposit, which are guaranteed by HSBC. This incident really made Li Wenan depressed to death.

Huang Xiqing glared at him and said in a deep voice: "Huaishan, aren't you joking?" Although we are merchants, we have also read the books of the sages, but we cannot take refuge in the worship of God, nor can we go to Yidi. ”

The Yidi he was talking about was, of course, the Manchu Qing who lost the city of Beijing and retreated to the northeast. In the eyes of all scholars who have not been Manchu officials, the Manchus have lost Zhonghua Zhengshuo and become Yidi - of course, they are scholars who want to learn and excel. Now there is no imperial examination in the Manchu Dynasty, but there is an imperial examination in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but if you don't take the Four Books and Five Classics, you can get the truth of worshipping God, and the scholars in Jiangnan won't. So the only Ming Dynasty that has the imperial examination for them is Zhengshuo! This is also the reason why Zhu Ming did not encounter resistance from the scholar class in Jiangnan. Beijing was defeated by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the Manchus ran away to be barbarians outside the Guan, and they wanted to oppose the Ming Dynasty again, are they ready to be emperors themselves?

Li Wen'an's eyes flashed, and he seriously analyzed Huang Xiqing, a big salt merchant who wanted to be an official (he really became an official in history): "There are not only the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Manchu Qing Dynasty in the north, but also Lin Muweng, Zeng Disheng, and Miao Yu...... Now Zhu Tianzi is putting them in front of him, using them as a barrier against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, so that he can concentrate on sorting out the territory in the south of the Yangtze River, just to deal with people like us! When he straightens out Jiangnan, will there still be room for the feudal towns of Huaibei and Shandong to exist? Moreover, Huaibei and Shandong may not want to be bigger, and if they want to be bigger, they must have a source of income. Isn't the source of this Miao Yusan's salary the salt of Huaibei? The Zhu family wants to collect all the salt profits, but not only knocking out our rice bowls, but also cutting off Miao Yusan's salary! But now he has to rely on Miao Yusan. If we can join forces with Miao Yusan, there will be no chance to turn the benefits of Huainan into the benefits of Huaibei......"

Before his words fell, Cao Tong interrupted in a deep voice: "Brother Huaili, are you on Miao Yusan's line?" ”

Li Wenan smiled faintly, but nodded slightly. (To be continued......)