In just three days, salt merchants from the ten prefectures and 105 counties in Yunyang had gathered in Hutoubao. Basically, those who could come came, and more than a dozen had not arrived yet. It was because they were temporarily in other provinces, and important figures also came to attend the meeting.

Salt has always been the most profitable commodity, and salt merchants are also the richest merchants. Moreover, these salt merchants have their own backers. Although they are rich, they cannot move as soon as they want. They can move their whole body with one move. These salt merchants have a special status. But now, Liu Jun killed Zhou Wenshun when he said he was killed, and even uprooted the Zhou family.

Many people know that Zhou Wenshun is behind him from a prince of the Chu Wang family in Wuchang City. Such a relationship is already hard enough, but now, people are dead, their families are all in prison, and their family's wealth is confiscated.

No one wants to confront Liu Jun, King of Hell at this time.

Everyone came with the idea of ​​making money with peace of mind, calming things and eliminating disasters. As for what major plans Liu Jun has repeatedly proposed, win-win cooperation, etc., few people believe it. Everyone believes that Liu Jun just wants to grab food and just wants to get a share of the pie.

Liu Jun really wanted to get a share of the pie, but the profit was too high. As far as he knew, the nobles in the court only sold these salt intake orders that they obtained through privileges every year, and they could make a profit of one million taels of silver a year.

The most powerful Yangzhou salt merchants are said to have a capital of no less than 30 million taels. They can make a profit of nine million taels every year, of which only one million taels will be paid to the state. After excluding all expenses, they will still get a net profit of five million taels.

The treasury collected only more than 2 million taels of tax per year.

Hubei is a province with a large population. Since the development of Huguang in the Ming Dynasty, it has become a granary in the world. The population has increased greatly, and of course the more salt is consumed. Huguang belongs to the official salt sales area of ​​Huai salt, with an annual sales of official salt reaching more than 600,000 salt. Now Liu Jun's Yunyang Town has occupied half of Huguang. In addition, there are several prefectures in Henan, Shaanxi, and Sichuan, such as Huguang is only a big one.

However, although Yunyang is an important area that consumes salt, it does not produce salt. The salt required must be transported in from Yangzhou, Guangdong, Fujian, or even Shanxi or Sichuan.

But is there really no salt in Huguang area

No, there is salt, and there is a lot of salt.

Just a while ago when Liu Jun sent troops to Sichuan, Zhang Shan was ordered by Liu Jun to investigate private salt dealers and found something. At that time, he found a group of private salt dealers, all of whom were just scattered dealers, carrying the people who had gone out of townships to sell private salt. After Zhang Shan caught them, he wanted to follow the clues and investigate, but unexpectedly found that the salt of this group of people did not come in from other provinces, but was actually the salt he made himself.

Finally, after careful investigation, I found that these people were digging salt in Yingcheng County, De'an Prefecture, west of Huangzhou.

It turned out that it was a gypsum mine. In the past, when the mine owner mined gypsum, he only took white gypsum, and used the upper and lower layers of blue gypsum that had coexisted with it as apart from the waste residue. Then the waste slag accumulated over time to form a hill. It rained heavily, and the water generated by the slag flowed to nearby rice fields and killed the rice seedlings. Local people found that the water that killed the straw was salty and boiled to produce salt. Farmers near the slag soaked waste slag to get juice instead of salt, and the surrounding residents followed suit.

Later, the mine owner's gypsum business failed. The mine owner simply took the risk. Instead, he simply stopped taking the gypsum, but directly used waste holes to store water and drew water to boil salt. Once the water was taken, he could get three or four kilograms of salt, and then sold the salt to some bold people nearby, and they would then pick it outside to sell it.

This news is not too surprising. At least many of the salt merchants here know about it. But they sent people to inspect the mine. The scale is too small and cannot produce much salt a year, so they don’t even look down on it.

Liu Jun looked at these people and shook his head. The salt merchants may not look down on the newly discovered mine, but Liu Jun was quite excited when he found out because the salt merchants looked down on the mine because they were just selling salt, not salt producers. The output was not high, so naturally they were not attractive.

But who is Liu Jun? He is the general of Yunyang. He is still holding the special order of raising funds from the emperor. This raising funds from multiple sources naturally includes collecting salt by himself.

The only thing that made Liu Jun hesitate before was how much reserves there were in Yingcheng's salt mine. He sent a lot of people to investigate and found that the area should be a large salt layer with a large amount, and at least there is no need to worry about not having salt harvested for a hundred years.

With enough reserves, the rest is how to make the money. Under normal circumstances, Liu Jun should be recruiting people to pick salt, but in the end Liu Jun refused this idea. First, salt harvesting requires a lot of labor, and second, it takes slow results. Liu Jun urgently needs money, but what he needs is a business with less investment and quick results.

Finally, after thinking about it, Liu Jun came up with the idea of ​​borrowing a chicken to lay eggs.

Liu Jun waved his hand and teams of personal soldiers entered the hall, causing a stir in the hall. Many businessmen thought Liu Jun was about to take them.

But then I found out that this was just a false alarm.

The soldiers came in and gave them a notebook.

Liu Liangzuo took the notebook handed over by a soldier and found it was printed. He glanced at it, and then he was quickly attracted by the content on it.

"Yingcheng Salt Farm recruitment plan." Liu Liangzuo read gently and continued to look down. The more he looked, the more he was surprised and the more excited he looked. This was indeed a huge plan. Zhennan Hou actually found a large salt mine in Yingcheng. Then he wanted to recruit people to mine the salt mine together. According to the above plan, Liu Jun was preparing to dig salt wells and use water to mine salt. Three years later, it is expected that the salt farm would dig hundreds of salt wells, with a salt worker of 100,000, and an annual salt output of more than one million dan. As long as the salt well is added in the future, the output will continue to increase.

A 100 kilogram of salt per tuft, and a 300 kilogram of salt per tuft. In the past, Huai salt sold in Huguang province at 600,000 kilograms of salt per year, which does not include the sales of private salt entering Huguang. On average, a common person earns at least 10 kilograms of salt per year, so the transaction of salt can be done all the time, and the profit is also extremely high.

Liu Liangzuo secretly calculated in his mind that when official salt is cheap, one cent per pound, one cent or even six cents of silver when it is expensive, while private salt is between one cent and one cent and five cents, with a huge gap. But even if it is one cent per pound and five cents, private salt is still profitable without paying taxes.

Although the price of private salt is lower than that of grain, private salt is constantly boiled out with energy sources, but the grain output is fixed.

A pound of private salt costs one cent five cents, a pound of one pound is five cents a day, and a pound of one pound is one million pounds this year, which is 150,000 taels.

Of course, the accounts cannot be calculated like this. The people here are not pure private salt dealers. In fact, most of them have the identities of official salt merchants. This means that they can sell the cheap private salt that does not pay taxes in the name of official salt, but the price is very different, ten times the difference, and sometimes it can reach forty times the difference.

There is another most important place. Yingcheng is located in De'an, Huguang, near the Han River, and very close to Wuchang and the Yangtze River, which means that the salt here can be transported quickly and conveniently. Compared with many salt merchants who have to transport salt from the southeastern sea, the salt produced by Huguang must have more advantages from thousands of miles away.

Of course, in the face of this temptation, some people still raised doubts.

The court strictly prohibits private salt. Generally, private salt is leaked from the stoves in the court's salt factories. This kind of private salt is relatively secret. For example, Liu Jun, if you want to build a salt farm in Yingcheng, and it is a salt farm that plans to produce hundreds of thousands of dan per year, wouldn't that be too ostentatious? The court can allow it.

"Of course it can be allowed." Liu Jun smiled and said to the salt merchant. "You don't know that the emperor asked Liu to train a new army, but the court has no food and salary for the time being, so the emperor asked someone to raise funds for themselves. Now I plan to collect salt and pay, which can help the court solve a big problem, and the court will of course agree. In fact, I have submitted a memorial to Your Majesty that I want to collect salt in Yingcheng, and the emperor has allowed me to set up a salt farm in Yingcheng. The salt harvested in the salt farm can be sold, and the income is used as military salary, money and food for training troops."

As soon as Liu Jun said this, all the merchants were excited.

The biggest trouble has been solved. With this intention, Liu Jun can start picking salt at will. This means that Yingcheng can really provide a large amount of salt in the future.

No one asked at this time if he would have to pay a high salt tax if he would buy salt in Yingcheng in the future.

"Everyone, now, we have an excellent opportunity. I plan to directly recruit one million taels of silver as equity capital, recruit craftsmen who dig salt wells, recruit workers who pick and boil salt, and build a large salt farm in Yingcheng Salt Field."

"One Million" Many people took a breath of air conditioning. Although all the salt merchants here were rich, one million taels of silver was still surprising.

"That's right, it's one million taels of silver, a total of ten thousand shares, and one hundred taels of silver per share."

A salt merchant stood up and asked, "Then we invested money in it. Are we considered shareholders of the salt factory? Can we participate in the management decisions of the salt factory?"

Liu Jun dispelled his dream without hesitation, "Of course not. The salt farm is established by me, belongs to the court, and is managed by us in normal times. When you invest in the bank and enjoy the right to dividends."

Some salt merchants felt a little disappointed and began to whisper.

"According to our expectations, every 100 taels of silver you invest in, you can get a return of about ten taels of silver a year. This is 10% of the annual income. This is definitely a higher income than burying the silver in a cellar or using the silver to buy a house and land."

"In addition, you don't have to worry about your equity. If you have three years, as long as you have three years, you can withdraw the principal at any time, and we will return it with a lot of money."

Many people are tempted. There is a 10% return rate every year, so there is no dissatisfaction. When buying land, it is not said that the land is priced but not marketable. Moreover, most of the land has to be bought out. A mu of fertile land produces five stones a year. A tenant pays half of it and gets two stones. In the end, it gets about one stone and seven or eight stones of rice without hulling, and also pays the land tax and other parts. The final income is just one stone more grain. You can get more than one tael of silver, and a mu of fertile land now costs more than ten or twenty taels or even higher. In terms of calculation, the annual income is far less than 100%.

Of course, the benefits of investing in a salt farm are not only these. Liu Jun told them that if you invest in a salt farm, you have the qualifications to buy salt from a salt farm first. Moreover, they will definitely be tax-free when buying salt.
Chapter completed!