"Nature really produces salt." Min Yuanqi sat up, even if he was chatting in private, he maintained a posture of sitting upright.

This time, Min Yuanjin's attitude has also corrected a lot.

"Eleventh brother, don't worry." Min Yuanqi had a good attitude, but his tone was very kind and gentle, and he said with a straight face: "Didn't Zhu Wanchun also say later that there are big people in the court who want to change frying salt to drying salt in Huaishang?" ”

"I've heard of that." Min Yuanjin said: "That person said that he was a scholar of the Ministry of Rites or a waiter, and he also served as a bachelor of Hanlin...... is called Xu Guangqi, people say that he is deeper than the sea, in addition to being admitted to the Jinshi to understand articles and poems, he also knows how to farm, he also knows arithmetic, and he also understands Western...... By the way, he also entered the Western religion and believed in that God. This person is very powerful, he didn't make it, can we do it? ”

It turned out that the person who once presided over the two Huai changes to frying is Xu Guangqi?

Min Yuanqi was a little excited, but he was also sad about the shallowness of his historical knowledge.

However, no matter how shallow he is, he knows that Xu Guangqi is a very famous scholar in the late Ming Dynasty, and more importantly, he presided over the revision of the Chongzhen calendar, which has a great impact on later generations.

In addition, Xu Guangqi's level of agronomy is very high, and Min Yuanjin's undergraduate major is "agricultural resources and environment", which makes him quite interested in ancient Chinese agronomists, and has skimmed the agricultural works of Xu Guangqi and his disciple Chen Zilong, and is quite impressed by Xu Guangqi's life's achievements...... As soon as Xu Guangqi was mentioned, especially when Min Yuanjin mentioned that Xu Guangqi had also presided over the change of frying salt to drying salt, Min Yuanqi suddenly had a sense of intimacy and a sense of overlap with history.

"Master Xu is a capable person, but unfortunately it didn't work out, and he died not long after, I was still a young ...... at the time" Min Yuanjin sighed, suddenly looked at Min Yuanqi, and whispered: "Brother Yuanqi, you should know about this, Brother Yuanqi?" Back then, the third uncle was one of the thousands of households in our Yunti Pass, and Master Xu came to us, and it was the third uncle who brought the flag army to Bachelor Xu as a guard of honor. ”

The "third uncle" is Min Yuanqi's deceased father Min Qianli, who died of illness four years ago at the age of forty-one, which is a fairly normal age for the ancients.

After the death of Min Qianli, the post of Qianhu was taken over by Li Kecheng, the deputy Qianhu at that time, and an elder of the Min family took over the deputy Qianhu, and later served as the secretary of Qianhu. Min Yuanqi was not old enough at that time, and it was only last year that he opened a hereditary military position for 100 households, and the word "trial" was added.

"How could I care about these things at the time...... Min Yuanqi said a little embarrassed: "At that time, I only cared about practicing martial arts, shooting and hunting, or going down to the river to play in the water." ”

Min Yuanjin laughed and accepted Min Yuanqi's explanation, and the relationship between the two cousins seemed to be a little closer.

"Mr. Xu couldn't do it at that time because there were too many involved." Min Yuanqi said in a deep voice: "We only have one general flag, and I will be turned into 100 households this year, it is we who are doing this in 100 households, more than 100 households, hundreds of people, and a few drying fields, how much movement can we make?" What Mr. Xu has to do is to abandon thousands of stove households and change frying salt to drying salt, which is too much movement. Let's Huaiyang locality, don't talk about the income of the salt tax, the salt will be supplied to several provinces, if there is chaos, no one can afford it......"

The income of Daming salt class is plummeting, and the figures can be checked, but how much salt is produced in a year, I am afraid that no one can say clearly. In fact, compared with the price of salt of the Song people, the price of salt in the Ming Dynasty is relatively low, because the Song people have to give the annual currency and the constant war, the ordinary people bear the tax pressure is extremely heavy, not to mention all kinds of harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, such as salt, tea, wine, iron, these are all government monopolies, the price is quite expensive, which is equivalent to the government has collected several more taxes. The monopoly of salt and iron tea in the Ming Dynasty was soon relaxed, and the price of salt has remained relatively low. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the war and destruction and the collapse of the salt law, the price of salt gradually rose, according to Xu Guangqi, the original three or four yuan a pound of salt rose to ten yuan a pound, and the burden on the people increased a lot.

If you change the frying salt to sun-dried salt, the output will come up, the price will naturally be much lower, Xu Guangqi's idea is good, but the great scientist at the end of the Ming Dynasty just doesn't understand the chain of interests, the price of salt has been formed for at least a few decades, how many people have been injured and how many people have benefited, from the government to the salt merchants have formed a huge chain of interests, even if they know that they get more salt from drying salt, but if they take into account the loss of control over the stove households, there are many troubles, and it is normal to not be able to implement it.

Xu Guangqi's Agronomy Laboratory in Tianjin, obviously has developed a high-yield method of sweet potatoes, and tried to promote corn, but such a good thing is also a lack of support, until the Shunzhi and Kangxi years, the people in the north planted sweet potatoes and corn on a large scale, these two drought-tolerant crops can be planted in the corner of the field, and the channels for the people to obtain rations increased, which led to the population explosion from Kangxi to Qianlong, that is, the boasted Kangqian prosperous era.

Min Yuanqi knew Xu Guangqi, but the salt drying method did not come from Xu Guangqi's inspiration.

The reason is also very simple, because the salt drying method is convenient to obtain salt, and there are many similar salt drying fields in this area in later generations, including the coastal areas of Fujian and Guangzhou.

It is to add some pumping machines to make brine, and the rest of the process is similar to that of the ancients, and even in the salt fields of many coastal places, even the pumping machine is not used, because it is necessary to publicize the ancient method of making salt, the era of science and technology is highly developed, people enjoy high-tech while firmly believing that the ancients' things are better than modern manufactured products, this peculiar thinking does not know what is going on, but the ancient method of salt, the ancient method of sugar, and the ancient method of making fertilizer are all very popular and popular.

When these people were really thrown into the Ming and Qing dynasties, they felt the ancient life of less than forty years old on average, and I am afraid that they would never be so hypocritical again.

Min Yuanqi was born in the salt field in later generations, and the process of drying salt in the ancient method is quite simple, and you can understand it at a glance, he just thought it was fun at that time, but he didn't expect that one day this kind of salt farm would become a weapon to change his fate.

"I listen to Brother Yuan Qi." Min Yuanjin said very affectionately: "There are only about 20 people in this generation of our Min family, and they are scattered under many hundreds of households, and I and the sixth brother will be a small flag for Brother Yuan Qi in our 100 households, if we don't follow Brother Yuan Qi, who can revitalize the lintel of the Min family?" ”

The Min family is a family of generals who have served as commanders in Dahewei, but in the past 20 years, they have not been able to command the first level, the highest is to the level of a thousand households, and the prestige has seriously declined, as a child of the family, Min Yuanjin's words faintly touched Min Yuanqi's heart.

"When my father was dying," Min Yuanqi opened the valve of memory, and said in a deep voice: "Holding my hand, I can't speak." But I know what he means, and reinvigorate the prestige of my Min family! ”

"Brother Yuan Qi, we have had great strength since we were children, swordsmanship, knife skills, as well as sticks, knives, guns, bows and arrows, all proficient. The third uncle often sighed, that is, you can't prepare a good horse now, otherwise your riding skills must be very clever......"

Min Qianli did have a lot of regrets when he was dying, he failed to leave a solid family business, and he failed to help Min Yuanqi lay a solid foundation, and he could have worked for more than ten years at the age of his early forties, maybe he could add a commanding officer, so that Min Yuanqi's starting point would be much higher, and his future achievements may be greater.

The post of the guard is not valuable, Min Qianli has always hoped that Min Yuanqi can be transferred to the battalion military post as the military attache of the guard, but even if he goes to the three major battalions of Caojiang to serve as a sentry officer, he will not succeed without a deputy Qianhu. Min Qianli accidentally contracted typhoid fever when he was still trying to lay out, which was an incurable serious illness at the time, and he died not long after.

However, Min Yuanqi did not regret it, the situation changed very quickly after Chongzhen's sixteenth year, although his memory was vague, he also knew that the small court of Hongguang in the Southern Ming Dynasty perished quickly, and the Beijing battalion soldiers in Nanjing were also disbanded or surrendered and became pigtail soldiers. When he crossed back by himself, he was a little minion for the Qing court to unify China, of course, he would not be so cheap.

If you can resist, you will resist, and if you can't resist, you must accumulate wealth, and try to get out, at least you have tried.

"Let's do it." Under the starry sky, Min Yuanqi said slowly: "It may not disappoint the ancestors. ”

"Well, everything is up to Brother Yuan Qi."

……

From Yunti Pass to Huai'an, it took a total of four and a half days to go back and forth, which is extremely fast.

From Min Yuanqi, who tried a hundred households, to the first five small flag officers to follow, there was not much confusion among the banner troops.

Everything is still in order.

The endless plains and acres will continue as usual, and nothing real will change for a few days. A small number of men and women walked around the fields, but at this time there was not much farm work, probably just to see if there were any weeds, and they were hoeed with hoes.

The children are running around and playing in the village, of course, these are under the age of five or six, and those over the age of five or six are helping the family to feed the chickens, ducks, geese, pigweed, and dry firewood.

However, there are very few people who have dogs in these years, and they are basically raised by well-off families, and there are few cows and horses in the entire hundred households, let alone dung.

There are more chickens and ducks, and the feces are regarded as treasures, and children often quarrel over a piece of chicken dung.

Children in later generations may quarrel over anime characters, and the reason for the quarrel is a piece of chicken poop or duck droppings.

There are still strong fireworks on the seaside, in fact, many local stove households are frying salt in their own homes, that is because the private stove households are produced by one household by themselves, and the military households are organized by the officers to fry the salt, Min Yuanqi only takes two percent, which is quite a generous proportion, many hundred households take three percent, or even four percent, anyway, even if they take fifty percent, the military households only dare to be angry and dare not speak.

Just like the acres of land in front of us, although it is mainly saline-alkali land, the average yield per mu is only more than one stone, compared with the average yield of three stones per mu in the south of the Yangtze River, it is far from the average yield of three stones, even if it is such a meager income, most of it is handed over to the commander and thousands of households, a small half is the general banner of hundreds of households, and only one percent belongs to the military households themselves.

These lands were originally given by the state to the flag army of the guard, to feed the flag army, two points of training to defend the city, eight points of tuntian farming, or making armor and weapons to hand over to the national arsenal, the military households left enough for themselves to eat and then handed over the grain, in the early Ming Dynasty, the general went out to fight less than 100,000 people, more than hundreds of thousands of people, Taizu was able to sweep the Mobei during the year, recover Liaodong Yunnan, in Liaodong can also follow the Liaojin Post Road all the way north to the extreme north, and operate the Nuer Gandu Division. During the reign of Chengzu, he was able to conquer Annam with an army of 300,000 or 400,000 and sweep the grassland with a main force of 300,000 troops, also because of the strong national strength and strong military strength.

The decline brought about by the civil engineering change is only a superficial cause, and the internal reason is that the burden on the military households is too heavy. At the beginning of the country, it was a war, and the conditions for the military households were good, but later the world was peaceful, and the military households were much worse than the civilian households, because the tax standards set by Zhu Yuanzhang were much lower than those in the Tang and Song dynasties, and the production recovery was very fast from the beginning to the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and the average living standards of the households were not bad, and the military households were much worse in comparison. After the martyrdom of Chengzujing, for the support of the military generals, the supervision of the military attachés of the guard was relaxed, the law was corrupted, the hereditary assessment was in vain, and the occupation of land by officers also became the norm.