On the wide beach of Tanggu, Tianjin, Liu Jin rode a tall horse, accompanied by Tong Yuan and several stewards of the Changlu Salt Farm, to inspect the salt farm under construction here

At this time, on the vast tidal flats along the coast, a large number of people braved the severe cold and worked tirelessly, these people were thinly clothed and emaciated, and they knew at a glance that they were poor people in the nearby coastal areas.

In later generations, the area near the sea meant a developed area and a high-income area, but in this era, the area near the sea was the opposite, and the area near the sea meant that there was no fertile land, no green mountains and clear waters, and it meant poverty.

Liu Jin has a deep understanding of this, he himself was born in Xiahetun is very poor, there has always been a girl to marry out, not a girl to marry in, is a well-known poor nest in ten miles and eight townships.

"In winter, we must prepare hot water for everyone to soak their feet, and at the same time, we must prepare hot tea and ginger soup, and everyone must ensure that they eat every day, and they must have meat for three meals."

Liu Jin looked at the people who were working in the bitter cold, thought about it, and instructed the steward of the Changlu Salt Farm beside him.

"Yes, we have prepared hot water and ginger soup, that is, on the food, if there is meat for three meals, it can only be cheap fish, and there is not so much pork in the market at all."

Liu Jin's side, Li Jiye, the chief manager of Changlu Salt Farm, is also an old man from Xishan Coal Industry, he nodded and said.

"Fish and meat are fish and meat, Tong Yuan, you go back and let Tianjin Port send it over every day."

Liu Jin nodded, the nutritional value of fish is actually no worse than other meats, but this fish meat is not so satisfying to eat.

Eating fish is now a common thing for the people in Beijing and Tianjin, the fishing industry here in Tianjin port has begun to gradually prosper, and the sea fish caught back every day are piled up, not only to meet the huge demand of Beijing and Tianjin, but even now it has begun to sell to Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, these regions.

The marine fishing industry in these regions has not yet started, the demand for meat is huge, the price can be higher, and the market is always moving towards more profitable regions.

"Okay, Teacher~"

Tong Yuan took out a charcoal pen and a notebook to record what Liu Jin ordered.

"In this way, give us another ten cents a day's wages, and if we don't handle it well, we can't treat them badly."

"Our salt works occupy their coastal area, which will affect their livelihoods, and the staff of this salt farm should take care of the people around them as much as possible, so that everyone can also enjoy certain benefits with our salt works."

After thinking about it, Liu Jin commanded Li Jiye again.

"Childe, the most difficult thing for our salt factory now is the matter of recruiting workers, spending money to hire them to build a salt factory, this salary is a little higher, and a lot of people are willing to come, even if it is winter."

"But the recruitment of long-term employees in our salt farm has not been going well, and everyone is reluctant to come to work in our salt factory."

When Li Jiye heard this, he couldn't help but vomit bitterness.

During this period of time, he has been recruiting workers in the Tanggu area, and it is easy to recruit people to build salt fields, but it is even more difficult to recruit regular workers in the salt farm, and no one is willing to come at all.

"Why is that?"

When Liu Jin heard this, he immediately hurriedly asked, Li Jiye is an old man from Xishan, and he is already very familiar with the management of Xishan.

"I am in accordance with the treatment of Xishan Coal Industry for the treatment of workers recruited in the salt factory, as long as you are willing to work hard, there will be no problem in earning two or three taels of silver a month."

"But one of the things that everyone is very worried about is that everyone is afraid that after entering the salt factory, they will change their household registration and change to a stove household, which will affect their future generations, so although the salary is very high, no one wants to come."

Li Jiye told the reason.

"Changed to a stove household?"

"We are just recruiting, what does it have to do with household registration, not to mention that we are not the imperial court, how can we change people's household registration casually?"

When Liu Jin heard this, he was confused, it was just a simple recruitment, you do things for me, I will give you wages and food, where will there be any household registration matters.

"I also told the people around me, but everyone didn't believe it, because everyone thinks that salt has always been a camp drilled by the imperial court, don't look at what we are doing now, maybe it will be taken back that day, and the people who work for the salt works will suddenly become stove households."

"What is the situation of this stove household, everyone knows very well, the stove household is even poorer than the military household, and no one dares to do things at all."

Li Jiye said helplessly.

Hearing Li Jiye's words, Liu Jin was also silent for a moment, and immediately deeply felt that this household registration system was an extremely important shackle restricting the development of capitalism.

Because of the existence of the household registration system, the common people of the Ming Dynasty could not move around at will, and many people did not even go out of their own county in their lives.

In addition, the existence of this household registration system has seriously affected the improvement of productivity, and the sons born to the stove are the stove households, and they have been for generations, and they have been squeezed to death by the officials of the salt works, and there is no way to resist.

Everyone's worries are not unreasonable, once you enter the salt farm to work, even if you are not a stove household, others will think that you are a stove household, and it will be difficult to marry a wife when the time comes, who would want to marry a stove household?

The children born are not able to study and take the imperial examination, and they have to cook salt in a pot for generations.

"It seems that this matter is to ask His Majesty for a holy decree, or to find Zhu Hou to make a decree according to this prince, even if he opens his mouth to promise everyone, it is useless."

Liu Jin quickly realized in his mind that this matter was something that even he couldn't solve, in fact, everyone was worried, afraid, afraid that once he entered the salt factory to work, he would become a stove household in the future, and he would be a lowly stove household for generations.

Even though the current treatment offered by the salt farm is very attractive, no one dares to gamble on the future of themselves and their future generations.

"I will make this matter clear to the Son of Heaven and ask Your Majesty for a will, and then you will take this will to recruit workers."

After thinking about it, Liu Jin also said to Li Jiye, he was very helpless, if he wanted to develop capitalism in this era, there were really many shackles.

The previous opening of the sea was fiercely opposed by the courtiers, and now it is only half of the salt field, because of the existence of the household registration system, it is difficult to recruit workers, and this feudal dynasty has too many, too many restrictions on the germination and development of capitalism.

"It is no wonder that capitalism in the West has to carry out reforms and control the right to speak after it has developed to a certain extent, in the final analysis, so that the relations of production can keep up with the development of the productive forces."

"The old horse is really powerful, and he breaks the mystery in one word."

In his heart, Liu Jin couldn't help but express his admiration for Marx again.

"Are there any difficulties other than recruitment?"

Liu Jin looked at the vast tidal flats, where thousands of people were busy, using cement to build dikes and transform the tidal flats into square salt pans.

The investment in Changlu Yantian was huge, even greater than the investment in the Miyun Iron Works, and the silver handed over to the state treasury alone was 2 million taels of silver, and the total amount of funds raised reached 5 million taels of silver.

But in fact, only three million taels of silver can be used to invest in the construction of Yantian, of course, three million taels of silver is definitely a huge amount, that is, Liu Jin and Zhu Houzhao are now wealthy, otherwise they really can't do it.

Three million taels of silver were smashed, and the Changlu Salt Farm directly bought all the tidal flats around Tanggu that were hundreds of kilometers long, and at the same time, it also placed a large number of orders for more than 10 large cement factories in Tianjin and Beijing, preparing to build a super large salt field here.

The long, open, flat, muddy beach is ideal for salt pans, and more importantly, the climate is perfect for salting.

The rainy season here is very short, the temperature rises particularly quickly in spring, the wind is more and less rainy, the sunshine is sufficient, the evaporation is vigorous, in the most ideal place to dry salt, the salt production in this area accounts for a quarter of the country in later generations, and the scale is very huge.

Such a good place, Liu Jin naturally wants to occupy it first, not to mention, this salt farm is not built a little bigger, but it can't make much silver.

"Childe, we have never done this salt drying method, we have also consulted many old salt farmers, and we have also built some salt pans for experiments, although some salt has also been produced, but there has never been a way to achieve the kind of snow-white salt like sugar you said."

Li Jiye thought for a while and said.

Liu Jin has told him the detailed salt drying method, and he did what Liu Jin said, and it was indeed the salt that was dried, and the efficiency was indeed very high, but there was no way to say that it reached the level of high-quality salt that Liu Jin said.

The salt drying method is actually very simple, using light, temperature, and wind to evaporate the water in the seawater to obtain salt.

The specific operation is to first introduce seawater into the evaporation pool, after the feng shui sun exposure, the water evaporates to a certain extent, and then the crystallization pond is introduced, and the sea water will slowly evaporate, so as to obtain salt.

Of course, there is no difference between the salt obtained in this way and the salt obtained by the boiling salt method, the only difference is to see who is more efficient and produces more salt.

Similarly, the obtained salt is also coarse salt, there are a large number of impurities in it, the taste is very poor, and the crystals are also yellow, so it must also go through some chemical treatment steps to remove the impurities in order to obtain snow-white and snow-white refined salt.

"I forgot to pass on the most important step to you, this step is very important, we need to add some things to the crystallization tank to make the best salt......"

Hearing Li Jiye's words, Liu Jin patted his head, and actually forgot to explain the matter of exmoval, so he hurriedly explained.