"A total of 100 catties of snow salt, on average, we only refine 10 catties of snow salt a day, which is too little."

10 days later, Liu Jin and Zhao Erhu couldn't help but shake their heads after counting the fruits of their labor in the past 10 days.

"It's already very good to refine 100 catties of snow salt in 10 days, just the two of us, just a pot, my dad and I are busy all day and night, that is, we cook about 10 catties."

Zhao Erhu looked at the two baskets full of snow salt in front of him, and said with satisfaction.

"It's just 10 catties of salt a day, look at your fun, if you can produce 1,000 catties or 10,000 catties of salt a day in the future, then you will die of laughter."

Liu Jin smiled, the output of this boiled salt is very small after all, a person who is busy all day long can't cook a few catties of salt, not to mention that it is also very wood-consuming, and the trees around Xiahetun have long been cut down, so he has to buy wood.

If you really want large-scale salt production, it is best to use the method of drying salt, open up salt pans by the sea, use sunlight, wind energy, etc., which not only saves fuel, labor, and cost, but also can produce salt on a large scale.

"Thousands of catties a day, tens of thousands of catties, oh my God, how much does it have to be sold for?"

"How can you produce so much salt in a day?"

Zhao Erhu touched his head, he couldn't believe it.

"You'll find out later."

Liu Jin smiled mysteriously, and then began to think about how to sell salt.

Every time the salt dealer comes to Xiahetun to collect salt, it is a major event in the village, and every household will take out the salt that they have boiled for half a month, and go to an old tree in the middle of the village to wait for the salt dealer to collect salt.

Usually at this time, Tang Laohu will also send someone to collect 'run money' according to the salt sold, the so-called run money is used to open up the relationship with the above, so that the upper head will turn a blind eye to the matter of boiling salt in Xiahetun, of course, how much of this is taken to honor the county master, and how much is into Tang Laohu's mouth, it is estimated that only he knows.

Liu Jin's 100 catties of snow salt, if it is sold to private salt dealers under the public, it will definitely immediately attract everyone's attention, everyone sells coarse salt, only a few pennies per catty, but you sell snow salt, more than 200 yuan per catty, the interests are moving, how did this snow salt come about, don't think about peace in the future.

What's more important is that the people of Tang Laohu's family are also at the scene, not to mention that they will take away a large amount of money on the spot, once they are targeted by Tang Laohu, it is estimated that within an hour, Tang Laohu will bring someone over to arrest Liu Jin, whether it is torture or coercion, if he doesn't tell the way of snow salt, Liu Jin will have a hard time.

Even if he says it, he will definitely be killed by Tang Laohu in the end, such a way to make money, Tang Laohu naturally wants to die in his own hands, and the safest way is naturally to kill people.

For Tang Laohu, who is rampant in the township, bullying men and women, and doing all kinds of evil, killing a Xiucai is not a thing, and he has already done it last time just to annex Liu Jin's property, not to mention the snow salt with more moving interests.

"Now is definitely not the time to expose snow salt, how to contact salt dealers."

Liu Jin frowned, he thought that refining snow salt was already a difficult thing, but he didn't expect that it was even more difficult to sell salt.

In this era when salt and iron are regulated, the people who dare to do the salt and iron business are either people with great backgrounds and hands and eyes, or people who dance on the edge of the knife, and they are not afraid of the sky and the earth.

The salt dealers who come to Xiahe Village to collect salt belong to the latter, the kind of people who dare to do anything as long as they have money.

Of course, this kind of smuggling salt dealers has always been the target of the imperial court's crackdown, and they are also the people who are the focus of those big salt merchants.

Illegal salt dealers with real backers and backgrounds don't need to work hard to collect salt in a small village like Xiahetun, they can go directly to the official salt factory to get salt at a very low price.

In a small village like Xiahetun, there is not much salt cooked in a year, which simply cannot satisfy the appetite of those big salt merchants, which also gives those salt dealers who have no backers and no background some way to live.

Thinking about this clearly, Liu Jin's eyes lit up.

This kind of smuggling salt dealer who eats at the edge of the knife sounds terrible, relying on the sword to make money, and seems to be the kind of person who kills people at every turn, and splatters blood at every turn.

But in fact, compared with those big salt dealers, there are more than many grades different, and the big salt dealers have a huge appetite, and they take the hidden private salt in the official salt farms, relying on the huge profits of the salt industry, and use money to get through the salt factory warehouse management, up to the temple and the slaughter.

No matter how the court cracks down on private salt, it will never hit their heads, because they have enough eyes and ears, and they are wide enough, and the protective umbrella and interest chain they have established are extremely huge, and their status is almost impossible to shake.

In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, whether it was the Donglin Party or the Qichu Zhejiang Party, they were all indispensable to the support of big salt merchants, and many of them were even big salt merchants themselves.

And these small illicit salt dealers who add blood to the knife, they are completely different, many people are forced to embark on the road of selling illicit salt in desperation, doing the business of killing heads.

Naturally, they had no way to get salt from the official salt works, so they could only come to a small seaside village like Xiahetun to collect salt, and the output of coarse salt was limited and the amount was very small, and they often had to be afraid that the government would come to crack down on illegal salt.

In order to have a stable salt to collect, these smugglers are often very honest, and every time they come to Xiahetun to collect salt, they pay all the salt payments on the spot, and never owe them on credit.

The snow salt in Liu Jin's hand is definitely the best grade among all the salt, and the profit is even greater than that of ordinary salt, and a pound of coarse salt costs 5 yuan to collect from Xiahetun, and it can be sold for about sixty or seventy wen a catty all the way to the hard work and fear.

In the middle, you have to deduct the points of the checkpoints along the road, the filial piety on the top, and your own loss, etc., a pound of salt can earn dozens of yuan, although the profit is amazing.

But because the amount is small, and it will also be hit by the official and big salt merchants, it is not stable, and you don't know where the next meal will be after eating.

And in ancient times, because the transportation was basically carried on the shoulder, the better ones had horse-drawn carriages to pull the goods, and the transportation capacity was really worrisome, and it was the sale of illicit salt, many times they did not dare to take the official road, and they could only cross the mountains and mountains, and the business was definitely not as easy to do as imagined.

Therefore, it is not feasible to sell illicit salt by relying only on the two knives in your hand, more often you still have to be honest, and you must try your best to have a good relationship with all the forces on your fixed line, only in this way can you have a stable source of money.

Soon, Liu Jin had an idea, and immediately returned to his room and wrote a note with the calligraphy he had just recently practiced.

"Huzi, wrap a pound of snow salt in paper, and then wrap this note in it."

"When the salt sellers collect the salt, you quietly find an opportunity to stuff this bag of snow salt into the hands of one of them."

Then Liu Jin began to command Zhao Erhu.

"Okay~"

Zhao Erhu nodded and began to wrap the snow salt in paper, and then tied it with a rope to ensure that it would not leak out.

"Let's go, go under the old tree and watch the salt harvest."

When Zhao Erhu was busy, Liu Jin took the lead and walked to the middle of the village, ready to take a look at the salt dealers collecting salt.