During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, salt merchants were endowed with absolute monopoly rights, reaped huge profits and lived a luxurious life, but their monopoly rights were also a tool for the government to make profits, thus laying a hidden danger of weakness. When it is difficult to ensure the financial revenue of the imperial court and the government, it is a foregone conclusion to cancel the monopoly right of salt merchants and replace the old system with the new system.
Pay a huge amount of silver to obtain monopoly management rights, and salt merchants make huge profits.
Salt has been the object of long-term monopoly management in the history of China. Both the Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty regarded salt monopoly as an important means to increase fiscal revenue. However, it was not until the Ming and Qing Dynasties that salt merchants were given absolute monopoly rights.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, due to the accumulation of a large number of soldiers in the northern border to resist the Mongolian forces, the court stipulated that salt merchants must first collect grain from the frontier fortress, and then the government issued salt guides according to the amount of grain collected, and merchants could only go to the salt field to collect salt marketing after they got the salt guides. This system is called "Open France". By the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Sino-French policy was gradually abandoned, and salt could not be sold.
In the forty-five years of Wanli (16 17), Yuan Shizhen, who was in charge of rectifying salt policy, began to implement the "outline method" to digest the backlog of salt introduction. He divided the old quotations in the hands of businessmen into ten categories and compiled a booklet. Every year, one program introduces the old and nine programs introduce the new. In order to avoid new competition and facilitate management, the number of businessmen has been strictly controlled. When new citations are issued every year, they are based on the original merchants and citations in the outline book, and anonymous people in the book are not allowed to join. In this way, those well-known businessmen (so-called "outline merchants") have obtained the monopoly right chartered by the government, which can be used to reap huge profits, and this right can be inherited.
In the early Qing Dynasty, the salt law of Ming Dynasty was followed. In order to sell salt, salt merchants must first pay a salt course to the salt transportation department and get a salt agent, then go to the designated salt-producing area to buy salt from the kitchen households, and then sell it to the designated salt-selling area (called "bringing salt ashore"). However, salt can not be collected casually, and businessmen must prove that they have the privilege of selling salt based on dens. In order to be lured, businessmen must "recognize the nest" in advance, that is, pay huge sums of money to obtain the monopoly right granted by the government.
In the actual operation of salt law, the role of salt merchants has split, and there have been names such as nest merchants, transport merchants, market merchants and general merchants. They have different functions in the salt cycle. Woshang, also known as Shang. In the early Qing dynasty, there was no distinction between nest merchants and shippers. All salt merchants with nests sell their own salt. Later, because some salt merchants with nests lacked capital and could not pass, they rented nests to merchants without nests to operate, so there was a distinction between nest merchants and shippers.
Woshang does not manage the salt industry by himself, but simply relies on renting nests to collect huge profits, which is the most prominent manifestation of salt monopoly. Freight forwarder, also known as renter. The goods mainly sell salt, so we should first pay the nest price to the nest merchant, rent the nest, and then have a class at the yamen of the Salt Transportation Department. They act as a bridge between the producing area and the selling area in the circulation of salt. The marketer is a businessman who buys salt from the kitchen family in the designated saltworks and then resells it to the transporters. They seized the privilege of buying all the salt produced in the saltworks, so they often exploited the producers cruelly by means of unequal exchange.
There are various complicated reasons for the salt law of Ming and Qing Dynasties to adopt this system of "guiding the shore with key merchants", but the most direct reason is that the Ming and Qing countries do not have much power to directly control the social economy, so they tend to take the form of "package" to seize the powerful people and instruct them to shrink to the end. This is especially obvious in the setting of total quotient. Ordinary merchants, also known as ordinary merchants, are well-off and well-funded people among merchants. The yamen of Salt Transportation Division appointed them as the general merchants and assigned the bulk merchants to their names. A class is collected every year. When it is introduced, the general dealer should supervise the completion and be responsible for banning illegal salt. If the imperial court has any measures on salt policy, it is often necessary to negotiate with the chief businessman.
In addition to the monopoly of management rights, the court also gave salt merchants many other preferential conditions. For example, they are allowed to "increase the price" (increase the price of official salt), "increase consumption" (increase the weight of each quotation) and "borrow money" (that is, borrow money from the state treasury to operate). With such a guarantee, salt merchants can be said to be profiteering.
In all aspects of salt purchase, transportation and sales, relevant officials all extend greedy hands.
Although salt merchants have the monopoly right to operate, they can make huge profits, but the imperial court and the government do not give them these benefits for nothing, but point to their increasing fiscal revenue, so their burden is also very heavy. According to Tao Shu, Governor of Liangjiang and Salt Administration in Daoguang period, in the early years of Qing Dynasty, there were more than 902,000 regular salt fields in Huai 'an (including today's six provinces of Henan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Anhui, Hubei and Hunan), only 1.8 million. However, by the Qianlong period, this figure had reached more than 4 million taels of silver, which was several times that of the original. However, after twenty years of Jiaqing (18 15), the amount of money needed to be paid in salt-producing areas of counties in Huaibei and Huaibei has reached more than 8 million yuan each year.
The burden of salt merchants is not only to pay for salt, but also to bear the extra exploitation of officials. In order to strengthen the collection of salt courses, the court set up various institutions and officials. In addition to receiving salaries, these officials also have a generous pension fund to avoid their corruption. But they still regard salt merchants as pigs and sheep in the circle, killing them at will, giving them a secret and giving them an endless stream.
In all aspects of salt purchase, transportation and sales, relevant officials have extended greedy hands and pulled out geese. Bao during the Daoguang period said: "Huai merchants operate transportation, please introduce, outline and listen to money and grain." In the first yamen of the Transportation Department, there are four rooms: revenue and expenditure, Guangying, shelving and delivery. Each of them went in and out five or six times, traversing the four leaders of economy, finance, knowledge and inspection, and all the businessmen were the owners of the company. So every business was ordered to leave the hands of the company. Then, transfer to the yamen, Tian staff, dam staff, supervision and inspection, salt distribution, and then transport the salt to the shore. If you invest in a room through a department, there will be a fee. The total cost is almost mixed, but the twists and turns are prepared. " It can be seen that the internal organization of salt administration yamen is complex, officials are exploiting at different levels, and businessmen have their own difficulties.
At that time, it was pointed out that among all the things that need to deal with the government, nothing is more difficult and arduous than salt merchants. In a word, the expenses paid by businessmen in secret are almost half of the cost. During the Yongzheng period, the emperor carried out reforms to make many bad rules transparent and prevent officials from floating. Salt merchants in the salt areas of Guangdong and Huai Provinces stipulated that they would give 82,000 pieces of silver to the Salt Administration every year in the name of "official business" and 42,000 pieces of silver to the Salt Transportation Department every year in the name of "salary".
In addition, whenever the salt carrier leaves or is transferred, the salt merchant will give a large sum of money as usual. Salt officials earn so much, no wonder everyone is scrambling to do it. For example, the position of patrolling the salt empire was only six products at first, but it was a lucrative job that everyone envied, and it was generally not for others, and it could only be held by officials of the "internal affairs office" equivalent to the slaves of the emperor. During the reign of Kangxi, Xu Li, an official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, served as the salt administration of the two Huai Dynasties for a long time. When he left office, he was still reluctant to go, repeatedly playing the emperor and demanding re-election.
It should be pointed out that although the emperor repeatedly issued decrees prohibiting officials from corruption, it was actually the biggest apportionment of salt merchants themselves. Emperor Qianlong made six southern tours before and after. Although he verbally said that "everything comes from the inner government, it is no trouble for the company to provide 100 million yuan", but the main expenditure is the money of Luchang and Huaibei salt merchants. Salt merchants rushed to win the favor of the emperor, and spending money didn't count.
During the Qianlong period, the case of introducing salt into Huai River resulted in a deficit of more than RMB 1 0,000,000, including "preparing for a southern tour". Not only that, since Kanggan, every time the imperial court encountered major military supplies, celebrations, relief work and projects, salt merchants had to actively donate money, ranging from several million to hundreds of thousands. During the reign of Gan family, salt merchants all over the country donated as much as 30 million taels of silver. Among them, the salt merchants in the Huai and Huai Dynasties donated 6 times, totaling 5.5 million taels of silver, to support the imperial court in suppressing the An Baili uprising in Sichuan and Chu, during the short four years from the 4th year of Jiaqing (1799) to the 8th year.
Salt merchants live a luxurious life. It is said that the Western Empress Dowager, who is far away from Beijing, will imitate the prostitutes in Yangzhou when combing her hair.
Salt merchants basically monopolize the national salt sales, and can arbitrarily lower the buying price and raise the selling price to reap huge profits. However, due to traditional economic and political reasons, they tend to use the money they earn to buy land or donate officials instead of expanding reproduction. In addition, they will also put a lot of money into extravagant life consumption, especially the salt merchants of Huaibei and Huaihe who live in Yangzhou.
Yangzhou is the seat of the yamen of the Huai Salt Transportation Department, where salt merchants gather. According to "Qing Chao", Huang Juntai was the first of eight merchants in Huaihe River at that time. He needs 50 taels of silver to eat a bowl of fried rice with eggs. The reason why this bowl of fried rice with eggs is so expensive is that every grain of rice should be completely separated, and every grain of rice should be soaked in egg juice, with golden outside and white inside. This bowl of rice is served with fish soup, including carp tongue, silver carp brain, carp white, grouper liver, yellow croaker fat, shark wings, turtle skirt, eel blood, bream paddle, mullet fillet and so on. , extremely exquisite. What is even more astounding is that it is said that the eggs he ate were laid not by ordinary chickens, but by chickens that ate ginseng, atractylodes rhizome and other drugs, so they tasted particularly good.
In the Qing Dynasty, Li Dou's "The Story of the Original Boat in Yangzhou" comprehensively recorded the extravagant style of salt merchants in Yangzhou, so it is self-evident that salt merchants will come up with various tricks to entertain themselves. For example, if you are tired of beauty pageants, choose ugliness, and expose the face of a big girl in the sun with soy sauce to see who is uglier. For another example, in order to compare who is rich, everyone carved their names on the gold foil and ran to the pagoda in Jinshan, Zhenjiang to throw it out to see whose gold foil floated to Yangzhou first.
Salt merchants live a very leisurely life. They build pavilions, raise troupes to open theaters, ponder exquisite dishes, visit brothels, and raise "thin horses" to make fertilizer and powder. The lifestyle of salt merchants has profoundly influenced the social atmosphere in Yangzhou. At that time, there were a lot of idle people wandering in the market. They are not engaged in production, have nothing to do, "wrap water in the morning and wrap water in the evening", and wander between teahouses and bathhouses. The lifestyle of Yangzhou salt merchants also played a leading role in fashion. It is said that the Western Empress Dowager, who is far away from Beijing, combs her hair to imitate the prostitutes in Yangzhou, otherwise it will be too trendy.
The extravagance of salt merchants in Huai River and Huai River is not only to satisfy their own desires, but also to serve the needs of bribing officials to some extent. Although salt merchants are dissatisfied with the blackmail of officials at all levels, they need the protection of these officials, so they often try their best to prepare items that satisfy officials.
Gao Feng was born in the Ministry of the Interior and is a real dude. He is completely indifferent to salt affairs and only knows how to collect property. Salt merchants collect beautiful women and treasure for him according to their lustful and greedy characteristics. Therefore, Gao Feng even promised to write off the previous deficit.
Lu Jian, the envoy of salt transportation in Huai River and Huai River, was once famous and enjoyed himself. He only felt that yellow and white things were vulgar. Salt merchants are interested in this and spend a lot of money to buy rare books and inscriptions. Lu Jian once thought the bribe was good, so he accepted it gladly, and then continued to accept it. In a word, the salt merchants in Huaibei carefully figured out the hobbies of officials, infected officials with their own lifestyles, and made them "get into my trap." What is concealed under the extravagant atmosphere is the corruption of officials and collusion between officials and businessmen.
The new system of breaking monopoly has gradually replaced the old system, and the scenery of salt merchants is no longer a foregone conclusion.
After the mid-Qing Dynasty, the pressure on salt merchants to donate gradually increased, and they had to taste the bitter fruit of "borrowing money to pay interest". Coupled with the extortion of officials and the luxury of life, many people are trapped in a situation where they are weak outside and weak inside, making ends meet. In order to overcome the crisis, they had to constantly raise the price of salt, so that people were forced to eat light food, and people's grievances boiled. Private salt took the opportunity to become popular, accounting for almost half of the official salt.
Official salt was badly unsalable, and merchants began to default on salt courses, which directly affected the financial revenue of the court. In order to increase the income of salt courses, the Qing court was determined to reform the salt law. In the 12th year of Daoguang (1832), Tao Shu, the governor of Liangjiang, proposed that the salt affairs of Lianghuai be managed by the governor of Liangjiang in order to unify the affairs. Later, he boldly introduced Huaibei salt as ticket salt, that is, businessmen with small capital were allowed to operate in places where traffic was inconvenient and businessmen refused to go. They don't have to recognize the nest, but they pay the salt class and give the ticket to the official, so they can sell salt with the ticket. Tao Shu's move soon received practical results, which not only facilitated the people, but also increased the income of the court. In the thirty years of Daoguang, Lu Jianying, governor of Liangjiang, introduced this method into Huainan. Later, the ticket salt method was gradually extended to Fujian, Zhejiang, Luchang and other salt areas.
Changing the outline method into the ticket method fundamentally abolished the monopoly of salt merchants on salt industry, deeply violated the vested interests of salt merchants and aroused their strong dissatisfaction. It is said that the salt merchants at that time hated Tao Shu's guts and designed a new gauge. They added two new cards, one is "Peach Tree", and the person who got this card "lost all the victories", so once they got this card, they were all scolded. Another card is "Miss Tao", which is a metaphor for Tao Shu's daughter. "Whoever gets this card will be filled with joy, be in heaven, which is simply ridiculous and obscene. But in any case, the new system gradually replaced the old system, and the scenery of salt merchants is no longer a foregone conclusion.
Looking at the rise and fall of salt merchants in Qing dynasty, we can see that their monopoly management right is also a tool for the government to make profits, which is the profound reason for their tragic fate. (The author is an associate professor at the Institute of Legal Ancient Books of China University of Political Science and Law.)