Zhu Yijun stood under the eaves with an expressionless face. Empress Wang stood not far from Zhu Yijun, quietly looking at her husband, the Emperor of the Daming Empire.
After a while, Zhu Yijun breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to look at Empress Wang and said with a smile, "When did you arrive?"
"Just now," Empress Wang said with a smile, "I saw that Your Majesty was lost in thought, so I didn't let anyone disturb Your Majesty.
It's raining heavily outside. Your Majesty, it's better not to stay outside for too long, lest you catch a cold. "
Zhu Yijun smiled and reached out to hold Empress Wang's hand, saying, "Alright, I'll listen to the Empress."
Empress Wang smiled and said with a hint of joy on her face, "Your Majesty seems to be a little gloomy. There are many ministers in the court, and the Empress Dowager and my concubines in the harem. Your Majesty, you can worry about them."
Zhu Yijun smiled and waved his hand, saying in a deep voice, "I'm not thinking too much. I'm just thinking about where to start."
Speaking of reform, Zhu Yijun knew very well what the Daming Empire was like. Rather than saying that reform was complicated, it was more appropriate to say that it was riddled with holes.
The whole Daming Empire was like a big sieve. Zhu Yijun felt like a dog trying to bite a hedgehog, but he had no idea where to start.
After pondering for a long time, Zhu Yijun felt that he had to start with money. Without money, he couldn't do anything!
Although he was pondering, Zhu Yijun knew that what he had to do now was to stabilize the court, not do anything else.
After chatting with Empress Wang for a while and having lunch together, Zhu Yijun went to read the memorials.
Most of these memorials were nonsense, and Zhu Yijun couldn't be bothered to read them.
However, today's memorials were quite interesting. They were all memorials of impeachment, and the one being impeached was none other than Pan Cheng, the Minister of Rites who was about to succeed.
Speaking of which, Zhu Yijun was not familiar with Pan Cheng. After Ma Ziqiang died, Pan Cheng became the Minister of the Ministry of Rites.
However, Pan Cheng did not stay as the Minister of the Ministry of Rites for too long. After about two years, Pan Cheng retired again.
After Pan Cheng retired, the Minister of Rites was Xu Xuemo, who was about to retire.
After Xu Xuemo retired, Zhang Juzheng recommended Pan Cheng and hoped that Pan Cheng would enter the cabinet as the Minister of Rites.
Zhu Yijun really didn't like it when the Great Ming Dynasty's officials often played the blame game. When they encountered something that didn't go their way, or when the emperor didn't listen to him, they would play the blame game and go home.
This kind of atmosphere could not be tolerated. The responsibility system had to be implemented!
After flipping through several memorials, Zhu Yijun found that all of them were about impeaching Pan Cheng. It was obvious that Pan Cheng was being targeted!
Without thinking about it, Zhu Yijun knew that someone didn't want Pan Cheng to enter the cabinet.
Obviously, after Zhang Juzheng died, many people couldn't sit still and wanted to enter the cabinet.
Zhu Yijun sneered and threw the memorials aside. He didn't want to touch Zhang Juzheng's people now.
Even if he wanted to do something in the future, he definitely wouldn't do it like this.
After flipping through a few memorials, Zhu Yijun suddenly saw a memorial, and the expression on his face suddenly became playful.
This memorial was from the Imperial Censorate's Supervising Censor, Cao Yikui. The contents of the memorials also interested Zhu Yijun.
Cao Yikui's memorials only involved one thing, salt!
In this era, salt and iron would always be the most profitable. Cao Yikui's memorials described in detail the shortcomings of the Daming Salt Law, as well as the corruption of local officials. However, there were layers upon layers of exploitation, and countless people used salt to enrich themselves.
In particular, some salt merchants were unscrupulous and turned a blind eye to the court's laws.
At the end of the memorials, Cao Yikui proposed nine suggestions for salt production.
First, clean up the kitchens. Second, remove the heavy duties. Third, ban the smuggling of salt. Fourth, eliminate old debts. Fifth, ban the illegal frying of salt. Sixth, restore the salt permits. Seventh, change the salt (changing the rich country into a salt field and the new town into a silver field to facilitate business). Eighth, cut the lack of silver. Ninth, pay the taxes. Ninth, buy the surplus salt.
Among these nine suggestions, the one that attracted Zhu Yijun's attention the most was the buying of the surplus salt by the officials.
To put it bluntly, this suggestion was for the salt field officials to collect the surplus salt. The surplus salt would be bought by the rice merchants, so that the productive salt would also benefit.
At the beginning of the Hongzhi era, the merchants had no salt to pay, so they were allowed to buy the surplus salt.
Once the ban on the illegal buying of the surplus salt was lifted, the unscrupulous merchants used the official permits to smuggle in the salt. This caused the palace to be blocked, and the system of collecting the surplus salt by the officials was obstructed.
Zhu Yijun tapped on Cao Yikui's memorials. He pondered for a moment. It seemed that his first attack would be on the salt administration.
Glancing at Zhang Jing, Zhu Yijun said, "Go and find this Cao Yikui for me!"
Salt and iron were the two most important sources of income for a feudal dynasty. If he wanted to increase his income, he could definitely start with salt.
However, he still had to listen to what Cao Yikui had to say about the specifics.
Cao Yikui was a Jinshi in the second year of the Wanli era. He was not old, around 30 years old. He was at the prime of his life.
"This subject greets Your Majesty!" Cao Yikui walked into the imperial study of the Palace of Heavenly Purity and knelt down to greet Zhu Yijun.
"Rise!"
Zhu Yijun said calmly, "I am very interested in your salt administration memorials. Tell me, how did you come up with this memorials?
I know that this salt administration can affect the whole body! "
Cao Yikui was stunned. For the salt administration?
After understanding what was going on, Cao Yikui instantly became excited.
"When this subject was inspecting Hebei's Cang County, I saw some local officials using their authority to manage salt affairs and tax revenue to buy and sell salt for profit." Cao Yikui said in a deep voice, "If even local officials are selling illicit salt, how rampant are the salt merchants?"
"This subject believes that salt is the lifeline of the imperial court. Ever since merchants were allowed to buy surplus salt, the imperial court's salt income has been declining, and its income has decreased greatly."
"This subject believes that it is time to change the salt administration. Setting up the salt fields, investigating the officials, and severely punishing the salt merchants who sell illicit salt are urgent matters." Cao Yikui said with some excitement, "What contributions did those salt merchants make to the country?
Why did they buy land and become rich? "
When Zhu Yijun heard Cao Yikui say this, he suddenly laughed. "Then tell me, just how rich are those salt merchants?"
"In reply to Your Majesty, this subject does not know," Cao Yikui said in a deep voice after thinking for a moment.
Zhu Yijun nodded. Although Cao Yikui said he didn't know, everyone in the imperial court knew that the salt merchants were rich.
However, this matter could not be mentioned. If he did, there would definitely be officials coming out to talk about the salt merchants' contributions and so on.
Zhu Yijun had studied the salt Daming Method in detail, but it could be said that the salt merchants had ruined it.
The salt administration in the early Ming Dynasty encouraged merchants to transport grain to the frontier in exchange for salt permits and gave them the right to sell salt. It was also known as opening the center.
The system of opening the center followed the system of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, but the Ming Dynasty opened the center more to attract merchants to transport grain to the frontier and replenish the military grain reserves at the border.