This was great to read and know about - thank you!

Thank you, that was so interesting and insightful!

This thanks for posting this. It cleared all my doubt.

But it would be interesting as salt for silver actually can starve people. First grains for salt will empty grain in military base then even if they purchase grains from local market still it's coming from local market it can't be that huge to store those big granaries and if they are then local people will suffer. As one needs to balance local market consumption and emergency times granaries. Otherwise one drought and u have nothing.

Main issue with this reform will be how common people will afford salt? Because salt price will get increased for sure. It's already not affordable and seeing salt as necessity , living condition of people will be poor.

Plus this treasure filling idea by this reform looks good but ultimately the core issue is also that ministry of revenue is corrupt as well. They never tried to investigate that why treasury is empty. Plus silver is still easy to liquidate than grain so corruption should rise imo. Yes filling of treasury is imp but so as root cause.

Considering its a drama focused on salt administration i guess i should not think about this.

Plus emperor i think he is smart. If it works he will get praised along with zhao ling. And if failed emperor escapes away without taking any accountability. It goes against the core essence of monarchy. Ministers are supposed to aid and kings needs to take accountability. This kind of court politics serves only kings as he is literally facing no danger.

PeachBlossomGoddess:

swagata:

Main issue with this reform will be how common people will afford salt?

Salt is a commodity where supply is limited and demand is inelastic. So even though today it is free market price bc of relative abundance, in history governments strictly controlled the price. While the Ming dynasty salt reform solved some problems in the grain-for-salt system, it created others. There were good aspects of it as well - it silver became a currency for the government. But speculation also caused silver prices/inflation to soar along with salt. The problem was ultimately the empire was corrupt and the officials were constantly looking for ways to profit at the cost of the people. In the end that is what led to its downfall. And even though the Manchus were foreign occupiers, they were better at administration and it was not until modern times that corruption also ultimately took them down.

Interesting. This also helped me in understanding the freedom movement of my country. We revolted against salt laws where we were not allowed to make salt. And later as form of resistance we broke the law and made salt from sea water. I never understood why people were frustrated on the very not making salt. Now it explains. Sometimes in today's era we fail to understand how long we came to get all these in abundance in our daily life. That's the beauty of wuxia cdramas where along with cultural exchange we also learn to appreciate little things we have today.

PeachBlossomGoddess:

swagata:

We revolted against salt laws where we were not allowed to make salt.

Most smart governments know that you need to make sure everyone can afford the essentials. When there is not enough food on the table, people will revolt.My country till this day still controls the price of sugar.

Sad. But ig controlling sugar that's the only way to control my ice cream cravings.

Because govt can be smart but still be ignorant to all these issues. We have wonderful example from the world where people are starving and dying but still certain leader all he cares for is sushi in his plate.