"Oops! Oh my salt, oops! O my bread and grass! ……”

When Dugu Feiyang walked into the main hall, Lu Xingqing, the king of Lu Fangguo, was wearing civilian clothes, with his hair scattered and barefoot, walking around the palace of Yatent City, pulling his hair with his hands and wailing.

After the inner servant passed the word, Dugu Feiyang stood with a half-bow next to him for a long time, and he didn't see Lu Xingqing wanting to summon him, so he had to ask for instructions: "King Qiqi, the minister went to the grassland countries to sell salt on this trip, and fortunately he did not fail in his mission......

Before he finished speaking, he was interrupted by Lu Xingqing, only to see Lu Xingqing's face flushed, stepped forward and grabbed Dugu Feiyang's collar, his eyes widened, and he gritted his teeth and said, "Is the money you earned from the dozens of truckloads of salt you sold comparable to my loss?" Then, he suddenly realized something, let go of Dugu Feiyang again, rubbed his hands alternately in front of his chest, and paced back and forth in the palace again, stomping his feet from time to time.

"King Qiqi, on the way back, the minister also captured more than ten soldiers of Yunmeng Kingdom." Dugu Feiyang has long known what kind of virtue his king has, although he is rich in the entire Lu Fangguo, he is greedy for money and stingy, short-tempered, and at the same time likes to blame the responsibility on his subordinates, so he has long been surprised, and continued with anger.

"More than ten soldiers, how much money can they be worth? Could it be that Yunmeng Kingdom could still use its thousands of stones of grain to redeem these more than ten lives? Lu Xingqing waved his hand impatiently, signaling Dugu Feiyang to withdraw.

Dugu Feiyang returned to the mansion, only to see Dugu Yueying jumping up and down and asked, "Daddy, isn't the king happy to see you?" Dugu Yueying followed her father out into business for the first time and made a lot of profits, so she was very happy, and she didn't notice Dugu Feiyang's already blue face.

At this time, the butler came forward and asked, "Lord Zhuguo, may I ask what to do with the more than ten captives, whether to kill them or ......"

"How many hills can you fatten if you kill them? Throw it at any salt lake! The farther away the better! Dugu Feiyang's patience had reached the limit, and he suddenly raised his voice and roared.

In this way, Prince Showa and more than a dozen of his retinue were starved for a day and a night, and before they could be released from the strips of cloth and rope that were stuffed in their mouths, they were re-escorted into a large cage, and after a few tosses, they were thrown into a large boat, and then sailed to a strange salt lake to work as coolies.

The salt lakes of Lü Fangguo are mainly distributed in the hinterland of Lü Fangguo at the bend of the Yellow River, south of Zhongtiao Mountain, north of Emei Mingtiao Gang, east of Shushui Yaotai, west of the Yellow River Gudu, is one of the most fertile salt lakes in Lü Fangguo, owned by Lü Xingqing, the king of Lü Fangguo, but there are also a few privately mined salt lakes around, such as Dugu Feiyang has a salt lake with a large area given by Lü Xingqing.

Coolies in the salt lake scrape the salty soil directly from the salt lake, and then use plant ash and other materials to absorb the lake water and use it as a raw material for salt production. When making salt, the raw material for salt making is first rinsed with water to dissolve the salt to form brine. Then the brine is placed in a large pot and heated with wood to evaporate the water and obtain salt grains. This method is called decorating with brine salt. In order to increase the salt concentration, the raw materials for salt production are often exposed to the scorching sun.

In order to prevent the coolies from escaping or refusing to work, the salt lake steward also put heavy shackles on them every day to prevent them from having enough to eat, and built fortifications and sent overseers to guard the exits of each passage. The other side of the salt lake is unguarded, but it is separated by the Yellow River, and it is impossible to cross the river without boats.

In order to make them succumb, the steward of the salt pans exposed them all to the scorching sun, buried most of their bodies in the salt lake, only exposed the area above their necks, and then refused to eat or drink (the salt lake has a high salt content, and ordinary people cannot sink it, similar to the Dead Sea in the west, which is also a wonder of the salt lake). If the average person continues to stay in this environment, although they will not drown in a short time, they will slowly become dehydrated and die due to the different concentrations of fluid inside and outside the body after a long time. In order to survive, Wang Zizhao and the others had to endure humiliation and steal their lives, promised to stay in the salt lake honestly, and became a coolie in the salt lake. In order to prevent them from making trouble together, the steward also divided Wang Zizhao and them into several groups, mixed with other coolies, and took turns to harvest brine, dry brine, and boil salt.

Prince Zhao and Yun Shu (Yunlong's personal entourage to Wang Zizhao), Sun Wang, Qian Ming, Zhou Jin and other five people were arranged to work and rest with Lu Fangguo's three prisoners, Tian Xi and others. Lu Fangguo's three prisoners were actually imprisoned in the county jail because their families were poor and unable to repay their debts, and the salt lake lacked strong labor, so they were trafficked to the lonely and flying salt lake by the black-hearted jailers. At the beginning, due to the language barrier, Prince Showa and they basically didn't talk much, but after a long time, they were able to understand some simple language and communicate with each other on a daily basis.

The salt lake steward saw that Wang Zizhao and others were young and sturdy, so when they divided the food, they often deliberately deducted the amount, often only gave wowotou, and even steamed cakes (generally put some dried dates and walnuts into the heart of the cake, and then steamed and boiled with fire, steamed until the outside exploded and could be eaten), let alone any melons, fruits, vegetables, rice and wheat rice. But when it was their turn to do things, they were sent to work under the scorching sun, poor Wang Zizhao, who had never touched the spring water with his fingers, but now he could only do some clumsy chores on his shoulders, so he described it as withering day by day, completely losing the luster of the past, and from the appearance, except for the clean and clear eyes, he was basically no different from a pariah. Fortunately, Yun Shu and others took care of them, and Lu Fangguo's prisoners were also honest, regardless of how much life they had, Wang Zizhao finally did not die on the spot in Salt Lake.

The coolies in the salt lake lived in even more dilapidated places, the windows were covered with air, and mosquitoes crept in at night and buzzed non-stop. In order to save money, dozens of coolies are often crammed into a large room, in which there is only one big kang, and when they sleep, everyone sleeps horizontally, with snoring, smelly feet, and sweat...... All kinds of smells are mixed together, and normal people generally can't stay at all. At the beginning, Wang Zizhao always couldn't sleep at night, and every night he would look out the window and miss his father and mother, but within a few days, because he was too tired, he slowly got used to this inhumane lifestyle.

One day, when Wang Zizhao and the eight of them were stirring salt water to boil salt with a large fire under the scorching sun, they suddenly heard a commotion on the water. It turned out that a sailboat came out of nowhere, crossed the Yellow River, and came to the side of the salt lake, and there were about 20 people who came, all of them were strong men, with naked upper bodies, and although they were wearing shorts, it was better to say that they were covered with strips of cloth, and there was a big knife pinned to their waists. Before they had reached the shore, they began to draw their bows and shoot arrows in this direction, and the stewards and overseers, as soon as they saw the arrival, ran away and fled to the fortifications.

Wang Zizhao and the others were burying their heads in work, all of them were shackled on their feet, and they couldn't run, so they had to hide behind a cauldron of boiling salt in fright. These strong men carried bows and arrows and bags, and walked straight to the place where the salt was temporarily stacked on the side of the cauldron, and a few people put the bags of salt that had just been boiled today on their shoulders, and the rest of the people saw Wang Zizhao and them, and then used their knives to threaten Wang Zizhao, who was trembling with fear, and the eight of them got on the thief ship together.