Chapter 144

"Spare my life~"

"It hurts me to death~"

"Great King, I am wronged~"

A crowd of salt merchants, some clamped with pressing sticks, some seated on tiger benches, some confined in standing cages.

Under torture, each screamed more miserably than the last.

This was not feigned; it was truly painful.

Since childhood they had lived on fine clothes and rich food, raised in luxury and ease; where had they ever suffered such torment?

"Hand over all your hidden family assets obediently, and you will not need to suffer further."

Lin Dao kindly comforted the salt merchants: "Wealth is merely an external thing; why bother suffering for the sake of external things."

Meritorious nobles and imperial clansmen can be subjected to Kang Xiang; civil and military officials can be subjected to Kang Xiang; county clerks and yamen runners can be subjected to Kang Xiang; treacherous merchants naturally can be as well.

These salt merchants are all treacherous merchants.

On the surface they are official salt merchants holding Great Ming salt permits, responsible for selling edible salt to the common people everywhere.

But in private, they are the Great Ming's largest private salt smugglers.

The salt merchants sell private salt under the guise of official authority, frantically devouring the Great Ming's salt tax revenue.

Once reaching several million taels, the salt tax had dwindled to only a few hundred thousand taels by the Chongzhen era.

Those vanished salt taxes were all pocketed by them through the method of selling private salt.

Of course, such a huge piece of fat meat as private salt was not something the salt merchants alone could swallow.

All the powerful nobles of the Great Ming.

From imperial relatives and vassal kings at the top, down to local gentry and court civil and military officials, countless people had their hands in it.

They cooperated with each other, selling private salt in the name of the government.

They gained personal profit, yet what they earned was the court's tax grain.

However, this is still not the most outrageous; the most outrageous is the tea tax.

Once revenue reaching several tens to over a hundred million taels, by the late Chongzhen era the collected amount was only a paltry few hundred taels.

The tea leaves were all taken by local gentry everywhere for export.

All of it was smuggling, so naturally no tax could be collected.

To have even a few hundred taels was just giving the Emperor some face.

The Great Ming's civil officials are the most typical case of one face on the surface, another behind the scenes.

On the surface they shout loudly for the sea ban, even going so far as to burn blueprints and watermark materials to make a name for themselves.

But behind the scenes, every single one of them is building ships.

Ship after ship of tea leaves, silk, porcelain, rhubarb and other goods are shipped overseas, exchanging for ship after ship of silver.

Yet civil officials will not help the court collect their own taxes, so it is all open and brazen smuggling.

Not a single copper coin of customs duty is paid.

Thinking of these things, Lin Dao also shook his head repeatedly.

"For such a Great Ming to have lasted two or three hundred years is also a miracle."

The salt merchants undergoing Kang Xiang, blood flowing from their wounds, soaked through the expensive ling luo luo duan they wore.

Zhu Yuanzhang once stipulated that merchants had no qualification to wear these.

Unfortunately, his ancestral system is selectively effective when it comes to Great Ming civil officials.

Whatever benefits civil officials, all of it is ancestral system that cannot be violated.

Whatever harms civil officials, like flaying and stuffing with straw, no one even mentions.

The salt merchants opened their mouths to speak, yet their throats were parched and they could not utter a word.

Lin Dao greeted his personal guards: "Give them water."

Several buckets of cold water splashed onto their faces; the salt merchants trembling with a shiver instantly revived somewhat.

The moment they opened their mouths it was stammering pleas for mercy: "Great King, spare our lives~~~"

"Sigh~ Why persist so stubbornly? It is only more suffering."

Lin Dao unhurriedly called out: "Bring mulberry paper."

Water torture: cover mouth and nose with mulberry paper, spray cold water on top.

After a few layers of mulberry paper go down, a person will fall into intense agony.

This is an extremely terrifying punishment in the ancient world.

"Zhao Zhilong, write a letter for me."

Lin Dao smiled at the crowd of salt merchants: "He said that when conducting Kang Xiang in Jinling City, as long as water torture was used, there was no one who did not open their mouth."

"Even how old they were when they still wet the bed, or when they peeked at someone bathing — all can be made to speak."

He cast a benevolent gaze over the salt merchants: "Why don't you try continuing to persist in silence, create a miracle for me to see?"

There was no miracle.

These salt merchants are merely leeches sucking blood on the body of the Great Ming Empire.

A thing like a leech doesn't even have a single bone; where would it get the strong will to endure cruel Kang Xiang?

A few sheets of mulberry paper go on, then spray some water.

After a while, uncover them; the salt merchants all collapse.

Unable to endure the torture, they one after another confess their own families' secrets.

Fleets and shops in various places, private warehouses in various places, estates in various places, hidden silver locations, hidden side rooms and distant branches, etc.

One family's foundation, all their concealed strength, was confessed completely clean.

The scribes recorded all of these one by one.

Lin Dao instructed, "Lock them all up."

These salt merchants cannot be dealt with for the time being.

We must wait until everything they have confessed is in hand before taking action.

After all, the power hidden by a family is usually known only to the Patriarch.

If we kill them outright, it will be troublesome to find them again.

Yangzhou City is under curfew, with troops everywhere inside the city.

They sealed off the mansions of salt merchants everywhere and arrested the salt merchants' clansmen.

The operations outside the city were even larger in scale.

The hidden cargo warehouses at the docks, and the private salt ships hidden in the hidden waterways.

The salt worker backbones scattered in villages everywhere, and the salt merchant offspring indulging themselves on Slender West Lake.

All goods were confiscated.

All personnel were arrested and thrown into Yangzhou City's Great Prison.

The salt merchants who once dressed in fine clothes and rode fine horses, acting rampant and unchecked, have thus completely declined.

Once everything is taken out, they will set out together.

In the Salt Transport Bureau yamen, Lin Daozheng was examining the confidential documents confiscated from the mansions of various salt merchants.

One was the private salt sales network in various places.

Who the private salt downlines of each prefecture, state, and county were, how much private salt was sent monthly, how much settlement payment remained, where the cargo was handed over, and so on.

These were all the capital by which the salt merchants survived.

With these local sales channels, they could then make the private salt business bigger and stronger.

Furthermore, there were the backers behind each salt merchant family.

The list was thick: the great eunuchs in the Imperial Palace, the imperial relatives and noble kinsmen in Jing City.

The vassal kings in various places, civil and military officials in the court, the mansions of meritorious nobles in the Two Capitals, retired local gentry, and so on.

It could be said that, apart from the Emperor, everyone with some power in the Ming Empire was involved in the private salt business.

"The powerful nobles of the Ming, together sucking the blood of the Ming."

Lin Dao shook his head repeatedly, "The salt tax that should have been paid into the National Treasury was transferred into their own pockets in the form of private salt."

"When the Ming falls, those dead powerful nobles all deserved it!"

These things were not of much use to Lin Dao.

At most, they could serve as auxiliary material when raiding homes.

Lin Dao put down the things, sat on the chair, and seriously considered economic problems.

"Land nationalization, prohibiting transactions."

"Cut off land merger from the root."

"The field tax does not need to be increased; only miscellaneous taxes need to be cancelled."

"Salt tax, tea tax, and the like are actually all the same; they must be placed under state monopoly."

"And commercial tax."

"Maritime trade is so prosperous that the silver flowing into the Ming is counted in hundreds of millions of taels."

"But the court cannot collect customs duties; it is all smuggling."

"If taxes cannot be collected, they can only squeeze the common people; when the common people cannot survive, they raise the banner of rebellion—such a Ming would be strange not to fall."

"A strong tax collection system must be established."

"The work of collecting taxes must be done by a dedicated yamen, not scattered among local officials everywhere, giving them the opportunity to line their own pockets."

"These tax-collecting yamen must possess strong military force to ensure everyone pays taxes."

"Whoever dares resist taxes will be met with armed tax collection."

Lin Dao, with his eyes closed, lightly tapped his fingers on the tabletop.

"As for salt, I can temporarily support it on my end; there is as much salt as needed in the Modern World."

"However, shops dedicated to selling salt must still be established everywhere here, and salt field production must be restored as soon as possible."

"Salt production technology must be innovated; boiling salt and the like are too backward~"

Lin Dao opened his eyes and saw Bian Sai approaching timidly, along with her younger sister Bian Min.

"Great King."

The petite Bian Sai stepped forward to salute, "Hot water has been prepared; please bathe, Great King."

"Mm."

Lin Dao rose, and the Bian Sai sisters led the way and served him in front.

One night passed without a word.

In the morning, Lin Dao stretched his arms, and his joints cracked.

His gaze swept over the two sisters, Haitang and Spring Sleep, sleeping, and a satisfied smile appeared on his face.

"My body is getting better and better."

"Even one versus two, I am not at a disadvantage."

Lin Dao stayed in Yangzhou for a few more days.

Besides handling and arranging the salt business, more importantly was arranging the men and women brought back from the Northern Lands.

Some men were selected to join the military unit as auxiliary soldiers.

The rest were each allocated dozens of mu of land, leased to them for farming.

A batch of wounded soldiers retired and entered the various counties and townships of Yangzhou Prefecture, establishing local government offices.

These soldiers had all attended night school and were not illiterate.

As for the women, they were arranged to marry the soldiers.

Their hometowns had long been destroyed by the Tartars, and their families were almost entirely killed off.

With nowhere to go, being able to marry Regular Soldiers with extremely high income was considered the best way out.

After a round of arrangements, a battalion of troops was left to garrison, and Lin Dao led the main army across the river southward, entering the territory of Changzhou Prefecture.

The military preparedness of the Ming Army in the Jiangnan region was extremely poor.

Although after learning of the news of Jinling City, various places hurriedly strengthened their military preparedness.

But most of the funds and grain habitually fell into the pockets of superiors and subordinates alike.

The forcibly conscripted civilian militia couldn't even get enough to eat, and some places even required the militia to bring their own dry rations; with such an attitude, who had the heart to risk their lives.

Those daring to engage in field battle all collapsed at the first touch.

As for defending cities, Lin Dao summoned the commoners of nearby villages and, right before the garrison troops, began distributing land.

The result was either internal strife breaking out within the city, or the city gates being directly opened to surrender.

"This 'Register of Local Gentry' is truly a good thing."

Flipping through the booklet in his hand, Lin Dao also smiled.

The detailed records of all locally prominent gentry and scholars in this province and prefecture were all recorded within.

He didn't need to expend energy searching; he just took the book and went to confiscate property and arrest people.

While confiscating property, he would also seize the clan registers, and then arrest people according to the clan registers.

Truly worry-free and effortless.

Lin Dao firmly remembered the Ming Dynasty's lesson and abolished all the privileges of these gentry and scholars.

All fields and land, including mountains, forests, rivers, and so on, regardless of whose name they were under, were all confiscated.

Wherever he went, any household that had slaves was ordered to release them all on the spot.

This happened to correspond with the servant uprisings raging across various parts of Jiangnan.

Lin Dao reorganized the military establishment in Changzhou.

Salt was divided by prefecture; each prefecture recruited one battalion of men as Regular Soldiers, serving as the primary garrison force of the locality.

These Regular Soldiers truly received fields belonging to themselves.

In order to protect their own fields, their combat will far surpassed that of the Ming Army.

Having arranged these matters, Lin Dao continued eastward, arriving beneath the walls of Suzhou City.

End of Chapter