The status of salt has also been further improved, and even a trend has been formed - which country has more salt, it proves that the country is rich and powerful. Hedong Salt Pond, which produced the best salt, not only became a treasure basin to help Duke Wen of Jin to dominate in the Spring and Autumn period, but also made the State of Wei the richest of the seven Kings in the Warring States period, and was an important target for Qin to attack the state of Wei.

Guan Zhong also put forward the method of revitalizing the country with the benefits of fish and salt, and took the lead in implementing the official monopoly on salt in the State of Qi, which opened the first salt finance in the history of China for more than 2,000 years. Therefore, the State of Qi had sufficient financial revenue to expand its army and prepare for war. It also built the Great Wall of Qi and sent a large number of troops abroad to help Duke Huan of Qi become the first overlord of the Spring and Autumn Period!

With the previous lessons, the government of Qin and Han Dynasties had to strengthen the management of "salt law" system. Because of successive wars in the Han Dynasty, the Treasury was empty, Emperor Wudi of Han officially implemented a monopoly on salt and iron, and the government recruited the people to fry salt, and the salt was collected, transported and sold by the government. At the same time, heavy taxes were imposed on them. Anyone who tried to sell salt iron without permission was punished by cutting off his left toe.

However, due to the low efficiency of the government-run business, the poor quality of salt, and the inflated price of the official monopoly, the people are dissatisfied and resentful. Especially during the Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties of the three countries, grain was sold to 500,000 money, and the price of salt as a condiment was even higher than the price of grain. Therefore, in the course of historical development, in order to maintain social stability, the central government abolished the salt monopoly law.

It was not until after the Rebellion of An and Shi in the Tang Dynasty that the imperial court again picked up the monopoly Law and used the tax collected from salt to support the army. The tax rate was even higher, and the salt merchants profited from it, but since the whole salt-selling business was run by the court, most of the money went to the court. After the Song Dynasty Chanyuan Alliance, the compensation paid to Liao may only be a little salt tax.

Thus, the monopoly Law was extended to the Yuan and Ming dynasties and became the most stable and important source of fiscal revenue. In the Yuan Dynasty, the proportion of salt tax revenue was as high as 80%.

Salt is the most lucrative business than luxury goods such as tea, silk and porcelain. So that when it comes to ancient rich merchants, people's first impression is not the Jin merchants who opened silver, nor the national emblem of traveling merchants, but the famous salt merchants.

Especially in the Qing Dynasty, the Qing government gave special privileges to salt monopolists who had the privilege of monopolizing salt transportation and marketing. They took advantage of the privilege to gain huge commercial monopoly profits, and became prominent businessmen and magnates in the Qing Dynasty. Among them, the Yangzhou salt merchants are the most famous, they sleep flowers and willow, buy official titles, and spend a lot of money. How did this group of people with the greatest wealth ever accumulate wealth?

In fact, as early as the Tang and Song dynasties to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, as the lifeblood of the empire, salt finance, has made the canal source Yangzhou into an Oriental metropolis. In addition, the state salt transport office of the Ming and Qing dynasties was located in Yangzhou, which monopolized the richest salt market in the two Huai provinces, with rich merchants gathering in the city and tens of thousands of overseas residents.

The wealth of salt merchants is beyond ordinary people's imagination, according to the "Qing Dynasty Wild History" record, in the Qianlong period of Yangzhou salt merchants, assets of less than one million taels of silver can only be considered small merchants, can not enter the upper class society.

However, no matter how rich you are, no matter how rich you are, no matter how rich you are, no matter how rich you are, no matter how rich you are, no matter how rich you are, no matter how rich you are. Because salt is a state-controlled commodity, salt merchants must rely on government-issued "salt primer" to extract salt from salt farms and then sell it.

And this is equivalent to the pass of things are controlled in the hands of the "salt transport department", want to get, naturally, it is necessary to deal with the government, which is bound to be involved in some petty interests of the government, so the salt officer can naturally get a lot of oil and water from it, is one of the best. In addition to cultivating good relations with officials, the salt merchants in Yangzhou also worked hard to go up the ladder - to curry favor with the emperor.

During the Qianlong period in the south of the Yangtze River, Yangzhou salt merchants took the initiative to take charge of the matter. They not only set up a stage on the river that the emperor must pass through, placed huge longevity peaches, and invited actors to play gods to wish the emperor's birthday; Hundreds of thousands of taels of silver were also spent to build a palace for Qianlong, and the famous slender West Lake in Yangzhou was re-cleaned and renovated for the emperor to play.

According to the Five Rules of Emperor Gaozong's Southern Tour, even Emperor Qianlong, who had always been famous for his extravagance, sighed with regret: "The wealth of the salt merchants is great!"

In addition to taking the upper route, these salt merchants also used the technique of transferring flowers and trees to perfection. After they removed the salt from the salt yard, they secretly traded with the salt traffickers who sold private salt, and carried large quantities of private salt onto the ships. Fifty-eight articles of official salt per catty, forty-two articles of private salt, private salt as official salt to sell, how can not be rich over time?

In addition, they are also very good at the means of selling sheep's head to sell dog meat - shoddy. Various impurities are mixed into the high price and low profit of official salt, and these impurities are also sold at the price of official salt.

At the same time, because the quality of official salt was degraded by salt merchants, the people had greater demand for private salt, and private salt was still controlled in the hands of these salt merchants, and they naturally bid up the price of salt and made huge profits.

Through a series of subterfuge methods, red top salt merchants have in a sense controlled the economic lifeblood of a country.

The salt merchants and the government formed an alliance of interests, and the government indefinitely protected the salt merchants' misdeeds, and the salt merchants generously funded all the special expenses of the government and officials, so that they were both prosperous and harmful.

As the saying goes, wealth is not exposed, proud is not rampant. Salt merchants lost a lot of money in the process of receiving and driving, coupled with the luxurious life, so that they became the object of endless collecting wool of the court: every time the country encountered major events, salt merchants were needed to "repay".

In the end, under the double blow of the cancellation of the government order of salt and the Taiping army, the salt merchants never recovered from it, and gradually disappeared in history with the abdication of the Qing emperor.