After the death of the previous emperor, the Empress Dowager became arrogant

Chapter 187: All Caused by Salt

Yuan Qing took some snacks and placed them on his table. Seeing that he looked worried, he asked, "Why, you have no idea?"

Lu Zhao pushed all the open case files aside and took a piece of cake from the plate to eat.

"It's just a mess," he raised his hand and pointed, "How can I check this?"

Yuan Qing sat over, took the case file in his hand, nodded and said, "It is indeed difficult to investigate. There is little relevant information, but many people are involved. It can be seen that they have been in a group since the year of the incident. If there is no solid evidence, the court really can't do anything to them."

After hearing this, Lu Zhao felt even more hopeless, so he piled the things up and said, "I won't investigate anymore. Whoever wants to deal with this mess can deal with it!"

"No, Mr. Lu, I can help you." Yuan Qing took something out of his bag, "Look, I brought you something good today."

Lu Zhao looked over and asked, "What good stuff?"

"The account book," Yuan Qing said mysteriously, "It's the account book of the Lou family."

"What did I think it was?" Lu Zhao straightened up and lay back down. "I've already looked through the account books of the Lou family. If there was evidence, how could I not see it?"

"It's different. This time I'll show you an old one." Yuan Qing unfolded one of the pages, pushed it in front of him and said, "Here, take a look. This is the account book that my grandfather made when he was still in charge of the family. There may be something you want in it."

Lu Zhao became excited upon hearing this and started to read quickly.

The more he looked at her, the more frightened he became. He couldn't help but ask, "Do you mean the salt permit?"

"That's right." Yuan Qing said, "When I was checking the accounts, I deliberately paid attention to the part of that year. After I got the case file, I calculated the years according to the list recorded on it, and found that all the things were caused by the salt permit."

One is salt, and the other is minerals. These are the good things that the imperial court holds tightly and does not allow others to touch.

Although there were many salt fields built, many of them were not controlled by the imperial court itself. If the court wanted to profit from them without causing public outrage by snatching food from the tiger's mouth, it had to go through the official route so that both parties could benefit from it.

Only by distributing the salt evenly in this way could we put pressure on the salt merchants and make them willing to take food out of their own mouths to supply the imperial treasury and expenses.

It is equivalent to taking this business off the beaten track and giving it a "legal" cover.

The salt permit was originally established to connect salt merchants and government officials as a "middleman". It belonged exclusively to the imperial court, so the court had a legitimate reason to share the money.

At that time, the salt sold on the market was divided into private salt and official salt. Only the official salt sold with the permission of the government was sold through formal channels. If salt merchants wanted to make a profit, they had to first obtain salt permits from the government, then use the salt permits to obtain the corresponding amount of salt, and finally resell it at a high price.

There are currently two ways to obtain salt permits.

One is to complete the tasks assigned by the government and offset the salt price in other ways. The tasks can be changed at any time according to the current situation.

The other way is to purchase directly by payment.

The government made money from the salt merchants buying salt permits, while the salt merchants made money from the difference between buying and selling.

The government raised the price of salt permits, so the salt merchants had to raise their selling prices accordingly. None of them wanted to suffer a loss, so they squeezed the people desperately, and the price of salt remained high as a result.

This was the kind of business that the salt merchants in Pingzhou did back then.

Ji Kang took advantage of the court to lower the price of salt permits and gave them benefits. They took the opportunity to raise the price of salt and make a lot of money in order to "repay the favor". The salt policy of the Yuan Dynasty was messed up by them, which forced the court to conduct a strict investigation.

At the beginning, the Yuan family took advantage of the trend to do some official salt business, but they soon realized that something was wrong and stopped it in time.

Pingzhou caused the biggest disturbance at the time. The eyes and knives of the imperial court were focused there, and they had no time to care about other places. Many merchants escaped this way.

The Lou family has always been cautious. Even if they are wealthy, they have to keep clear accounts of their properties without any ambiguity.

This gave Yuan Qing the opportunity to find evidence.

Although Jiangzhou had salt fields, the quality of the salt was not as good as that of Beicheng. At that time, almost all southern merchants wanted to visit Beicheng, and the Lou family was no exception.

Pingzhou could not produce good salt, so the salt used had to be transported from the north city first, stored in warehouses, and then exchanged or sold by merchants, and then flowed to other places in various ways.

In other words, Beicheng is the important production area of Yuan Dynasty salt.

If we can find the official who was in charge of the salt administration in Beicheng at that time and obtain from him the list of people who had transactions with him, then it will be clear who was involved.

This is a very critical point.

"Can you find out who was the official in charge of the salt administration in Beicheng at that time?" Yuan Qing asked.

Lu Zhao and Lu Huaizhou are from the same place, so he should be more familiar with the affairs of North City.