Seeing Zhu Gaochi panicking and wanting to summon Zhu Di, Zhu Gaoxu smiled bitterly and shook his head.
‘Boss, don’t worry. This matter will definitely be known to the emperor. After all, it is related to people’s livelihood, and I will not act rashly.’
‘But before that, we must come up with a charter proposal. We can’t let the old man prepare it by himself, right？’
After hearing this, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and their hearts immediately returned to their stomachs.
One thing is that they are really afraid that Zhu Gaoxu will mess around.
After all, now that he has the title of supervising the country, even if the prince disagrees, he can still implement it forcefully.
If Prince Han commits a crime, no one here can stop him!
Fortunately, this scene did not happen, and the King of Han had not lost his mind yet.
Xia Yuanji stroked his beard and took the initiative to say, ‘If your Highness, the King of Han, has any opinions, you might as well speak up.’
‘That’s right, second brother.’ Big Fatty was a little curious and urged, ‘Hurry up and say it, don’t be too pretentious.’
Zhu Gaoxu looked at the crowd and asked with a smile, ‘The Kaizhong method is based on the official sales of salt on the spot. It is still an on-the-spot monopoly system of official sales, transportation, and sales by the people, right？’
Everyone nodded without any rebuttal.
To put it bluntly, the Kaizhong method is to fry and boil the salt in the kitchen, and then hand it over to the field official for collection and storage. This is the democratic official collection.
However, merchants relied on salt transfers to buy salt from market officials, and then transported the salt to designated areas to sell it to earn profits. This was official selling, commercial transportation, and commercial sales.
After the Kaizhong Law came into effect, merchants recruited people from border areas to reclaim wasteland and grow grain in order to facilitate the payment of grain and salt. They also built Taiwan protection units to protect each other. They called them ‘salt villages’. They received savings and transferred them to enrich border development. The miraculous effects of the frontier can be called a national policy.
‘Don’t you think this process is a bit complicated？ Why not omit some unnecessary links？ For example, omit official collection and official sales, and directly implement a commercial monopoly system of private collection, transportation, and sales.’
When everyone heard this, they were immediately stunned.
Do private merchants collect, transport, and sell？
Co-author, you want to kick the imperial court out of the Salt Law!
Then how could the imperial court make profits and obtain income through the salt policy？
There seems to be a serious illness in your mind!
For a moment, everyone’s expressions became extremely exciting, and their eyes looking at Zhu Gaoxu were full of confusion, as if they were looking at a mentally retarded person.
Prince Zhu Gaochi was also numb and coughed twice.
‘Ahem, brother, what do you mean by this？ Why can’t I understand？’
do not understand？
With your IQ, it is indeed difficult for you.
Zhu Gaoxu sighed and rubbed his chin, thinking about how to explain it.
‘Old Xia Tou, what is the population of Ming Dynasty？’
‘More than 51 million people.’
Xia Yuanji replied without thinking, not quite understanding what he meant.
Zhu Gaoxu nodded and continued to ask, ‘How much salt do these 50 million people need per year, including all consumption？ It is estimated to be 60,000 kilograms, right？’
Everyone followed his train of thought and nodded subconsciously.
Xia Yuanji, as the Minister of Household Affairs, was particularly sensitive to numbers and promptly corrected him ‘Your Highness the King of Han, our annual salt production in the next Ming Dynasty will exceed one hundred thousand catties.’
Zhu Gaoxu was stunned for a moment, then laughed.
The Ming Dynasty produces so much salt every year, and the supply obviously exceeds the demand, so why are there still people who cannot eat salt？
The high price of salt is one aspect, but there must be other reasons for this.
Where did the extra salt go？ Whose pocket was drained？
‘So, Old Xia Tou, what is the official price of salt？’
The official salt price, which is the price sold to merchants, is on the high side due to salt introduction and salt tax.
Xia Yuanji raised a finger and subconsciously replied, ‘One hundred Wen.’
Hearing this price, Zhu Gaoxu nodded and continued to ask, ‘How much will the salt tax revenue be in the next year？’
‘Currently it’s about 10 million taels, which is a big improvement compared to the Yuan Dynasty.’
Zhu Gaoxu’s expression suddenly became weird when he heard this. You still feel very proud, don’t you？
‘Ahem, Old Xia Tou, have you calculated this account？ One hundred thousand catties of salt, one hundred cents per catty, what should be the real profit？’
Xia Yuanji was startled, then took out a small notebook and started doing calculations, using the numbers that Zhou Chen had taught him.
In less than a moment, Xia Yuanji’s face instantly turned pale and he accidentally tore off a few beards.
‘The real profit should be eighty million taels of silver!’
‘What did you say？’ Zhu Gaochi was startled, took a look at the small book, and suddenly became furious.
One hundred thousand jins of salt, one hundred taels of silver per jin, excluding the cost consumption, the real profit is 80 million taels of silver!
However, the imperial court’s annual salt tax revenue is only more than 10,000 taels!
Where are the 70 million taels of silver left？ Whose pocket did it go into？
Yang Rong and others also had livid faces, a little unbelievable.
They have always known about the huge profits from the salt tax.
But no one thought that the real big deal fell into other people’s pockets, and the court didn’t even get half of it!
This data comparison is a bit too scary!
Seeing this, Zhu Gaoxu sneered and said, ‘Do you think that in this Kai Zhong Fa, only those businessmen are full of food？ They don’t have the guts to eat such a large amount of money!’
‘Indeed, opening up the law to China is a national policy that benefits the country and the people, but now it has become a tool for some people to make money, and it is time to innovate.’
Everyone was silent for a while. They didn’t think there was any problem before.
But when the clear data was in front of them, they realized that there was a big problem!
If this data is known to the emperor, it will definitely cause a bloody storm!
The emperor had no money to fight, so he had to look at Xia Yuanji’s face all day long.
Good thing now, it turns out that someone took his money!
It’s strange that the emperor is not furious!
‘The king intends to reform the salt law, divide it by region, and hand it over to a wealthy businessman to sell salt according to the rules set by the imperial court. Without the involvement of local officials, the central government will dispatch a salt patrol censor to supervise!’
Everyone looked at each other in shock after hearing this, and then began to discuss.
Compared with the Kaizhong Law, this new Salt Law abolishes the salt introduction system, which is equivalent to cutting off the channels for collusion between local officials and salt merchants, and also removing the tools for those people to make profits!
But this new salt law also has loopholes!
Xia Yuanji took a deep breath and asked, ‘May I ask His Highness the King of Han, if the new salt law is followed, how can the court’s salt tax be guaranteed？ Merchants make a living by pursuing profits…’
‘Simple, if you want to become an imperial salt merchant, you must pay a huge deposit first and let them act honestly. If anything goes wrong, the deposit will be confiscated and his home will be ransacked. It will be considered a breach of contract fee…’
‘In addition, the salt sales rights in each region are auctioned every three to five years. This is equivalent to distribution rights. This region only allows his family to sell salt, and the court guarantees it…’
‘Furthermore, the salt merchants sell salt for the imperial court, which gives them a status similar to that of imperial merchants. The imperial court charges agency fees.’
‘In areas near the border, we can order local salt merchants to continue cultivating fields to meet military needs according to local conditions, and we can charge them less agency fees. For prosperous places like Zhili and Lianghuai, we can charge more agency fees…’
Everyone was dumbfounded and speechless.
Although they didn’t quite understand what these ‘deposits’, ‘liquidated damages’ and ‘agency fees’ meant, they could barely understand what they meant.
The means by which this Han prince amassed wealth were truly astonishing!