On the banks of the Qinhuai River, a pleasure boat is decorated like a flowerbed, fighting for beauty, and the fragrance is gushing. The maids are shuttled continuously. They are all the best beauties in Jiangnan. They are all charming and enchanting. When they take a look, their souls fly out!

Ji Xueru was waiting anxiously inside, and finally there was a sound of footsteps and someone got on the pleasure boat, and he hurriedly came out.

"Mr. Ding, you are..."

Ding Huizhen waved his hand quickly and signaled him not to speak. The two of them entered the pleasure boat, and Ding Huizhen waved at the women around her again.

"Let them all go down!"

Ji Xueru smiled awkwardly and said, "Sir, you think these girls are not in line with your heart. The villain is going to find something better now!"

"Don't worry about that, I'm about to die. What's the mood to see these things!"

Ji Xueru shook his head and smiled bitterly: "Sir, if you have something to do, please, you can't make such excuses for the younger ones. Isn't this a reduction of the life of a villain?"

"Brother Ji, you are the largest salt merchant in Yangzhou. If you have been rich for several lifetimes, don't pretend to be in front of me. There is a memorial, you can take it and take a look and you will know what's going on."

Ji Xueru smiled and said, "It's true that I'm not hiding it. The young man also heard that he wanted to move the salt administration, but he didn't know what the specific content is. Thank you for the reward!"

Ji Xueru opened the memorial and looked over, but after just a few lines, he trembled all over and his eyes widened. A stream of passion rushed to his forehead, and he almost got high blood pressure and got straight!

Chen Qianfu and others jointly wrote a letter, which seemed to be just to promote the momentum of Gu Zhenhua.

However, when people with a little brain are scared to death when they see their memorials, they will tremble all over. If they are involved, their necks will be even colder. In this memorial, they opened up the dark side that the gentry and officials of the Ming Dynasty were most reluctant to reveal. That is, the so-called "salt" and "sea".

The registered population of the Ming Dynasty was about 60 million. The annual salt produced was 600 million jin, which was about ten jin per person. For the stove households that produce salt, the Ming Dynasty stipulated that 400 jin of salt exchanged for one stone of grain. From this we can see that the cost of salt is about half of the food. However, in the market, one stone of grain may not be exchanged for ten jin of salt. In other words, the difference between the two is fifty times!

Putting aside this huge profit, the Ming Dynasty had a total of 2 million salt inducement, and each tax was 6 taels and 6 cents. This means that the salt tax in the Dynasty was more than 13 million taels, but in fact, when the salt tax was at its highest in the late Ming Dynasty, it was only 2.5 million taels.

On the one hand, there are huge profits, and on the other hand, there is no increase in the taxes that should be collected.

A huge interest group with salt as the linkage, absorbs more than 10 million taels of huge profits from the giant beast of the Ming Dynasty every year. Of course, this does not include private salt and hidden population. If calculated based on 120 million people, the group will take about 30 million taels of huge profits!

People in the Ming Dynasty were not very sensitive to numbers. Many times, there were often literati rhetoric such as water depths of thousands of feet, city heights of hundreds of feet, and decayed ten miles.

However, under the advocacy of Gu Zhenhua, civil servants of An** and others like numbers more and more. Putting the most intuitive string of numbers in front of them is often more shocking than the saint's subtle words!

After calculating the accounts of salt, the accounts of overseas goods were calculated. The Ming Dynasty exported more than 500,000 pieces of silk every year. Each piece of silk was between fifteen taels and twenty taels. Silk alone had nearly ten million silver. What's more, there were even more bulk porcelain.

The Ming Dynasty was not short of money, but lacked the ability to make money!

At the end of the memorial, Chen Qianfu wrote in grief and anger that the two countries of Qin and Zhao could still send more than 500,000 troops. Two thousand years later, from the Battle of Sarhu, the Ming Dynasty had only more than 100,000 wars outside the pass with the Tartars. The Ming Dynasty, with tens of millions of people, could not form a military advantage against the only hundreds of thousands of Tartars. What a irony, it was more ashamed than the ancients!

This is true. I am afraid that even if Chengzu doesn't dig out, he will not be able to stay in the cemetery. He will definitely be laughed at by these incompetent descendants to death!

The greatest power of this memorial is that it ruthlessly pointed out the shortcomings of the Ming Dynasty's finances.

Moreover, with Gu Zhenhua's bold statement "300,000 troops, 3,000 cannons, 30 million taels of silver", the two echo each other, and the finger pointed at them is the simplest and most direct problem, reforming finance!

Ji Xueru looked at the memorial and sweated all over his body. Finally, his clothes were soaked from the inside to the outside, and he felt like he was soaking in a sauna.

"What do you mean by Ding, Lord Ding, Chen Qianfu and others? Could it be that you want to eradicate the salt merchants?"

Ding Huizhen said helplessly, "What Gu Zhenhua wants to do? How can I know what he wants to do? This person is a cruel person. Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng are all capable people. Besides, the previous Donglin Party was killed by him. It's scary to think about it!"

When Ji Xueru heard this, he knelt on the ground and burst into tears: "Mr. Ding, my child went to Xuzhou before and was still detained there. According to his reply, Gu Zhenhua was cruel and ruthless, and actually arranged them next to the prisoner who asked for help. He cried day and night, which scared the child to death!"

While crying, Ji Xueru took out a land deed from his arms and sent it to Ding Huizhen.

"Sir, this is the small manor in Hangzhou. A small thing is not respectful!"

"What do you mean? I can't ask for it."

Ding Huizhen hurriedly pushed it over, not daring at all.

Ji Xueru suddenly showed a sneer on his face: "Why, Lord Ding doesn't want to help me anymore. Well, if the villain is desperate, you don't think about it when the time comes! It's said that salt merchants in the world are rich, and we have some money, but the big boss is eaten by you officials. Something is going to happen, and I want to eat it all, but I won't admit it again. Let's tell you that there is no such cheap thing, and we are not vegetarians. At worst, we can do it together!"

Ji Xueru broke up his face, but Ding Huizhen became scared.

"Brother Ji, I am not ignoring it, but I am not able to do anything! But don't worry, I will work hard and keep the momentum safe! "

In normal times, Ding Huizhen's guarantee may be useful, but now, you must never think about it.

On the second day after their meeting, Pei Heng, the clerk of the official department, wrote a letter to Chen Qianfu and others, and then joined forces with the Sixth Censors and the Censorate, and a total of more than 120 censors wrote a letter to him.

Pei Heng said very clearly. Who was the murderer who exposed Chengzu's corpse? They were those greedy rats. They eroded the wealth of the Ming Dynasty, shook the foundation of the country, did not pay taxes, did not fight, and had their own profits. This led to the relaxation of military preparations, internal and external troubles, the displaced people, the invasion of the Tartars, and the harm to the country and the people!

Now, innovating bad policies, reorganizing finance and taxation, regulating military and economic martial arts, and rebuilding the Ming Dynasty is to avenge Chengzu and truly loyal to the Ming Dynasty! Whoever dares to obstruct is a thief who treasons of the country, and whoever is accomplice of the Tartars!

Even the Tartar accomplices were shouting out, but they almost used the knife. When the transfer reached this point, which official dared to stand up easily? Maybe he would be beaten into a traitor and be ruined!

For a time, reforming the salt administration and striving for strength became the hottest topic. However, Ding Huizhen and the others were not worried. After all, so far, Gu Zhenhua and his team have not proposed any reform plans.

To put it bluntly, this is probably because Gu Zhenhua and the others are so poor that they are crazy. If they want to find a few fat pigs, they are targeting the salt merchants. Since that's the case, then give up a few to fill Gu Zhenhua's appetite. As long as they don't shake the foundation of the salt administration, they can still enjoy wealth.

These officials put on an ostrich attitude. No matter how powerful the outside shouted, they would do nothing and even handle normal affairs. This was also a common method used by court officials.

Negligent policy! Negative confrontation!

This move was very good for the emperor of the Ming Dynasty. However, when they met a ruthless man like Gu Zhenhua, they made the wrong plan again.

Just when the news broke out, the salt merchants Wang Shouzhong and Fei Honglin joined forces with seven salt merchants to write to the court. They said that the salt administration had countless disadvantages, and the people were exploited, and the court's salt tax was lost. With a loyal heart to the country, they were willing to hand over their money and assist the court in clearing the salt administration.

In order to show their determination, the two of them also voluntarily donated five million taels of property as military expenses.

The fortresses were all broken from the inside. When these salt merchants spoke, the officials would never be able to play silence again! Many people were also wondering, these two people had their brains or had taken the wrong medicine, how could they dig their own graves!

No matter what others think, these two are open-minded and dedicated five million yuan in property.

When everyone saw this, they were shocked. There were at least a dozen salt merchants of their level in Yangzhou. Their property alone was as many as tens of millions. No wonder they were eyeing them. This is the crime of being innocent and possessing a treasure!

Of course, outsiders don’t know that the money is just a left hand turning to the right hand.

Gu Zhenhua would not swallow this money, but would use it as the fund for the start of overseas trade. He had sent people to Shanghai for inspection, lighting up this Oriental pearl in advance, and it was also the era of officially opening up the ocean.

Gu Zhenhua's actions must be more than that. After Wang Shouzhong and the others wrote a letter, An ** immediately rushed to the Ji family and controlled all their houses.

The Ji family has been passed down for five generations, and they all operate salt. They don’t know how much money they have. When they walked into the gate of the Ji family for the first time, the soldiers of An** were stunned!

Good! The emperor lives in this way!

What is the fairyland on earth? This is it!

Strange flowers and plants, strange rocks everywhere, layers of pavilions and towers, and gurgling clear water all reveal the owner's wonderful thoughts. The plaques and couplets hanging everywhere are all from famous masters of the world, making friends with them and having a wide range of hands and eyes.

Ji Xueru's second brother Ji Xueming was responsible for family affairs. He was also worried that his brother was not around. An ** suddenly came and scared him.

"You, why did you break into my Ji family?"

"Hahaha, since it's a private treason, it means that your family has private treasury! If your Ji family is infringing on selling private salt, it's better to surrender!" (To be continued...)
Chapter completed!