Ming Dynasty: I risked my life to teach the prince, the emperor begged me not to die

Chapter 173 Zhiwei sees it
What happened next was just as Chen Ce had deduced. It was no longer a conflict between the Jinyiwei and the Ministry of War, but a quarrel between the teachers of the Eastern Palace and Ma Wensheng.

Li Zhen successfully extricated himself from the matter.

Returning to the Northern Pacification Office, Li Zhen couldn't help but sigh at how amazing Chen Ce's deduction was!

But when Wei Wenli told Li Zhen about the strange things that happened to Chen Ce during the time Li Zhen was away, Li Zhen was so shocked that he couldn't close his mouth.

After killing the people from the Eastern Depot, he was able to get away with it?

That would be fine, but is it possible to eradicate the problem completely?
Li Zhen was completely convinced. He looked at Wei Wenli with deep eyes and said deeply: "Wenli, you did a great job. You saved Chen Ce's life. I thank you on his behalf!"

Li Zhen stood up, clasped his fists, bent over and saluted.

Wei Wenli quickly moved aside and said, "Master Li, you can't do that."

……

Ministry of Rites.

Today, Ning Cheng came to the Ministry of Rites to be on duty as usual. This was his third day at the Ministry of Rites, and everything that needed to be handed over had already been handed over.

As soon as I arrived at the duty station this morning, I was called by a clerk to the duty station of Cheng Minzheng, the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel.

"This subordinate greets Master Cheng."

Ning Cheng saluted respectfully. Cheng Minzheng was his immediate superior, so Ning Cheng did not dare to violate the proper etiquette and looked very respectful.

Cheng Minzheng waved his hand, motioning Ning Cheng to sit down and have tea.

"How is it? Are you used to it on official business?"

Ning Cheng was somewhat flattered, not knowing why Cheng Minzheng was so nice to him, and hurriedly said, "Your Excellency, I am used to it."

"Have a seat. You're welcome."

Cheng Minzheng said kindly: "Just get used to it. If you don't understand anything, just ask me. Don't think it's troublesome."

Ning Cheng quickly took the opportunity to say, "Sir Cheng, I have been transferred to the Ministry of Rites..."

Cheng Minzheng nodded: "I did it."

Ning Cheng thanked him gratefully and was moved to tears.

"How is it? Is your daughter married?"

"what?"

Ning Cheng looked at Cheng Minzheng in astonishment, his face full of confusion.

What does Lord Cheng mean by this? Why is he suddenly concerned about whether my daughter is married or not? Could it be that he transferred me to the Ministry of Rites in order to marry me?
Ning Cheng hurriedly said, "Not yet."

Cheng Minzheng said with an "oh", "A girl's lifelong event should be decided early. Now, there's nothing else to do. Go do your work."

"Here."

Ning Cheng left, still confused. What on earth did Lord Cheng mean by this?
Was that just a test to see if my daughter was married? So, he was going to propose marriage?
At the moment, this seems to be the only reasonable explanation. After all, Ning Cheng has been in the officialdom for so long, he knows that no one will do anything without benefits.

Being transferred to the Ministry of Rites was too strange from any angle, as he and Cheng Minzheng didn't even know each other.

The fact that Lord Cheng promoted himself two levels in a row can only mean that he had a purpose.

If my daughter could marry into the Cheng family, it would be a good family and she would be marrying above her station.

……

Zhu Houzhao was scolded again today.

It was not because of the Northwest incident, but about the Zhang brothers exchanging salt permits.

Zhu Houzhao suffered a loss in silence. He really didn't expect that his two uncles would be so shameless that they went to Hebei to exchange a thousand jin of salt in his name!
The Zhang brothers looked like dead pigs that were not afraid of boiling water. Anyway, they had already exchanged the salt. If they sold 400,000 kilograms of salt at the price of five cents per kilogram, they could make six or seven thousand taels of silver for free.

Zhu Houzhao blushed and found Chen Ce in indignation, cursing and saying that his uncle was the most shameless.

Chen Ce didn't care whether the Zhang brothers took advantage of Zhu Houzhao, because they were all family anyway.

However, many problems were reflected from the Zhang brothers, and they took this opportunity to inform Zhu Houzhao of the dangers involved.

"Your two uncles are lucky. At least they can exchange for salt." Zhu Houzhao: "Ah?"

"What does it mean?"

Zhu Houzhao didn’t understand. Was it so difficult to exchange it for salt?
Chen Ce nodded and said, "It's difficult, very difficult."

Zhu Houzhao scratched his head: "Why?"

Chen Ce said: "Many private merchants and individual investors have salt permits issued by the imperial court. This batch of salt permits can even be traced back to the previous dynasty."

"There are too many salt vouchers, but there is only so much salt, so there is a first come, first served rule for exchange. The rich and powerful can exchange, but some small merchants and ordinary people have no connections and can only queue up at the back. Some people can't even exchange a single voucher of salt for three generations."

"So much so that the salt permits in the hands of many people ended up becoming nothing more than blank official documents."

Zhu Houzhao was puzzled and asked: "Since he has a salt permit, why doesn't the government exchange salt for him?"

Chen Ce said: "Why the government did not exchange salt for us is a long story."

The Ming government imitated the Yuan Dynasty's system, dividing the salt production areas into regions and prohibiting cross-regional salt trading, otherwise it would be punished severely.

The resulting problem is that the government's biggest financial burden in transporting salt is not the salt itself, but the cost of transporting it from north to south.

If ordinary people want to do salt business, they must first obtain salt permits from the government.

But the original salt permits were difficult to obtain and very valuable.

Over time, the Ming government faced a food crisis on the northern border. After land annexation became increasingly serious, the military settlement system began to be destroyed, and the soldiers could not grow much food on the land.

Based on this premise, the imperial court needed to bear the cost of food supply on the border.

The problem that followed was that transportation costs were still high, and the cost for the Ming government to transport to the nine borders was getting higher and higher.

Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, came up with a solution - the Kaizhong system.

To put it simply, the imperial court issued salt permits to merchants, but the prerequisite was that the merchants were responsible for transporting grain from Huguang, Lianghuai and other areas to the Nine Border Army. The Nine Border Army would then issue a Kanhe, and the merchants would use this Kanhe to ask the imperial court to exchange it for salt permits.

You can imagine how huge the profits are in the salt business.

Therefore, after adopting the Kaizhong system, Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty immediately solved the problem of food and fodder shortages on the border.

But today, two centuries later, after more than a hundred years of development, the Kaizhong system has gradually begun to be destroyed.

The reason for the collapse was that merchants could no longer exchange salt for salt with their salt permits, so naturally they would not undertake the task of transporting grain to the Nine Borders.

why?
Because the Ming government issued salt permits excessively, and many powerful princes and relatives would seize salt permits, even the current Emperor Hongzhi would reward salt permits from time to time. These people had the priority to exchange for grain.

The resulting situation is that there are more and more salt permits, but in order to exchange them, one has to queue up and use connections.

The merchants could not see the benefits and were unwilling to continue to implement the Kaizhong system, so the Kaizhong system began to collapse.

But don’t think that the merchants were fooled by the court. In fact, Kaizhong created one of the most serious crises in the Ming Dynasty.

The rise of big merchants in various places, such as the Shanxi merchants, was due to the profits gained from the Kaizhong system.

These businessmen are naturally very smart. After they rise to prominence, they start to reap the profits.

The ones who were cut off were naturally the small merchants. They sold the large number of salt permits in their hands to small businessmen at a discount and concealed the policy situation that salt permits were difficult to exchange for salt from their subordinates.

In this way, Shanxi's big merchants transferred the risks perfectly, transferring all the risks to small merchants.

By the Wanli period, prime ministers such as Zhang Siwei and Wang Chonggu controlled the entire court by relying on the benefits of salt permits.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, Shanxi merchants had begun doing steel business with Nurhaci.

A small incident can reflect the larger management loopholes in the Ming Dynasty.

After the destruction of the Kaizhong system and the Salt Permit, if management is not improved and the big merchants are restrained, they will become the last straw that breaks the camel's back.

Zhu Houzhao listened carefully to Chen Ce's analysis and was surprised.

Even he, the crown prince, was not aware that the Ming Dynasty's salt system had fallen apart to this extent.

(End of this chapter)