When the reputation of "salted fish is too guarded" spread all over the world, Fang Zhongyong was worried, salted fish is not salty, uh no, there is no salt.

Supposedly, guarding the sea, it should not be without salt anyway. However, at that time, or since the successive dynasties when Qi Guanzhong implemented salt and iron, salt was controlled by the state as a strategic material, and the sales from production and transportation channels were monopolized by the state.

The reason is also very simple, in addition to the initial purely for profit, whether the supply of salt is abundant and whether the price is stable are important matters related to thousands of households, and the so-called strategic materials are also. Fang Zhongyong vividly remembers the huge impact of the tsunami in the country of Ugua that year, which caused a nuclear leak and caused panic about salt safety.

Although the rumor-mongers were quickly brought to justice, the alleged excessive sea salt radiation levels have also been shown to be unscientifically unfounded speculation. But what if it's true? The importance of salt can be seen.

Of course, the Northern Song Dynasty court was not mediocre on the whole, and never slackened in the production, management, and sales of salt, which was related to the national economy and people's livelihood.

However, the Song Dynasty followed the old law of the Five Dynasties, and implemented the system of combining government and commerce, stipulating that either official sales or trade could be done according to the prefectures and counties. Therefore, the official sales area and the trade area were divided, with the coastal states and counties as the official sales areas, and the inland states and counties as the trade areas. In the official sales area, the salt is sold by the state and county, and the province is declared according to the tax profits collected every year, and the transshipment makes it win, so as to support the cost of the road.

Its salt production follows the old system of the Tang Dynasty, and the household registration of pavilion households is set up, specializing in boiling salt, stipulating the amount of production, and compensating the capital, that is, the salt boiled is converted into two taxes in the spring and autumn; Set up farms, supervisors and other salt administration institutions in the salt-producing places to supervise the production and collection of salt.

Note one word – cook.

Boiling salt is simply the process of boiling a simple concentrated brine with a firewood fire to obtain salt crystals. Its production technology is backward, the output is small, the labor productivity is low, and the cost is high. In particular, the amount of firewood consumed is large, and it costs about 400 catties of firewood to cook a load of salt.

Backward production technology has led to high salt prices. After comprehensive consideration, the Zhao and Song Dynasty courts set the price of 47 wen per catty of official salt.

At first glance, the price of salt at 47 wen per catty does not seem too high, because we seem to have become accustomed to the use of guan, gold and silver as the unit of measurement in various literary works.

But have you ever wondered if you are willing to eat fifty dollars of salt when we are used to two dollars per pound of salt? With the relatively affluent social status quo of the Song Dynasty, the annual balance of each household was only three or five times. Based on the monthly consumption of two catties of salt per household, it is necessary to spend a consistent amount of salt expenditure in a year.

As an ordinary person, you spend more than 1,000 yuan a year to eat salt, and scolding your mother is probably light!

And there is another big problem, since it is official salt, it is rationed according to the number of people.

The two Zhejiang road transfer envoys Wang Yong is the famous face of the Zhenzong Dynasty, and his father-in-law is the famous Lu Yijian.

Who is Lu Yijian?

The nephew of the prince and master Lu Mengzheng, the son of Lu Mengheng of Guanglu Temple, has been a high-ranking official from the generation of his great-grandfather, and he is a proper official N generation. In the sixth year of Tiansheng (1028), Lu Yijian worshiped Tongping Zhangshi and Jixian Hall scholars. The high status and the illustrious family background are really not comparable to the grassroots such as Yan Shu.

In the second year of Ming Dao, Zhao Zhen annoyed him for deceiving the Empress Dowager Liu, reformed his phase, and promoted Chen Yaozuo to be the prime minister temporarily. But Chen Yaozuo is old, his body and energy are no longer good, and the rumors are about to die. Lu Yi simply felt that his opportunity had come again, as long as he got rid of the obstacle in front of him, Yan Shu.

That Wang Yong is Lu Yijian's son-in-law, and he doesn't need Lao Taishan's instructions, so he wants to restrain Lao Taishan's opponent Yan Shu and Fang Zhongyong, who serves Yan Shu as Lao Taishan, no matter what, he can't let Fang Zhongyong learn from Su Yijian, the champion of Taiping and rejuvenating the country for five years, and become a bachelor of Hanlin for six years, and become a governor for ten years, right?

I never thought that Fang Zhongyong was Yunwen Yunwu, and he had made great contributions as soon as he arrived in Taizhou, and the official Qin ordered the right to know that Taizhou was still receiving the judgment. Good guy, he was promoted to the fifth grade in half a year, and in another two years, he will not be riding on Lao Tzu's head.

As a result, there is no salt in Taizhou, to be precise, there is no extra salt for salting fish. - Wang Yong was not so stupid and dared to cut off the salt that the people ate.

Fang Zhongyong went to ask for good words, and there was no extra salt; Speaking in person, Wang Yong told him very politely that the official salt and official match, and the official is also a clever woman, and it is difficult to cook without rice! Why don't you ask the official to send some salt?

That official tone is so good that no one can find fault with it.

Give the emperor an excerpt, and when the emperor and the bigwigs in the court have discussed it clearly, the will will go down to the two main salt-producing areas of Qingzhou and Binzhou. The salt factory arranged production and transportation again, and more than half a year has passed. As long as everything is going well, if some links are not smooth, there may be no shadow for a year!

Make your own, right?

was sued by this ill-intentioned Wang Yong, saying that he had intruded on the salt administration, and he would be in trouble if he was not subservient. Fang Zhongyong believes in his own judgment, this guy can definitely do it.

The so-called enemy of the enemy is a friend, presumably with Wang Yong's personality and status is slightly higher, so that Chen Zhizhong's relationship will not be too good?

That Chen Zhizhong also mentioned Fang himself on the establishment of the Salesian Bureau last time, which seemed to have a good relationship. Why don't you ask him?

went to the pacification department yamen to ask for a meeting, but Chen Zhizhong happily agreed to help Fang Zhongyong, and he could also jointly invite the Lining Haiyan field incident to continue the good governance of the government and the people.

When it was over, Chen Zhizhong said: "Zhongyong, I'm afraid the old man won't be able to accompany you for long in these two Zhejiang." The old man's official luck is not good, and within three months, he will be transferred to Jiangning, and his other Taishan will become colleagues. ”

Fang Zhongyong said: "Jiangning Mansion is the capital of Jiangnan East Road, but you want to promote the Lord to appease the envoy along the way?" ”

Chen Zhizhong smiled bitterly: "You don't know something. That Wang Yong annoyed me with hindering his path to Qingyun, and launched his old and old attacks on me, which can be regarded as a flat tone! As for promotion, just wait! ”

Inadvertently, Fang Zhongyong was involved in officialdom.

If you want to say that Wang Yong is a bad person, I am afraid that it may not be; Just like this, Chen Zhizhong must be a good person, not really. It's just that the positions are different and the interests are different. The so-called different ways do not conspire with each other, in fact, you can also imitate the sentence that different benefits are not the same way.

No matter what, salt production matters.

If you can't prepare enough salt in advance, will you see the fish stink and the fishermen go down the old path? Besides, you can't give up halfway with your six-dollar business!

The reason why it is said to be making salt, not boiling salt, is because Fang Zhongyong feels that boiling salt is too wasteful of firewood.

Is firewood abundant locally? Not really. If there was really a lot of firewood, the imperial court would have set up a salt farm here a long time ago, and where would Fang Zhongyong be needed to make salt himself.

Of course, it is not accurate to say that salt is made, and the most accurate statement should be to boil salt in dry water.

With the traditional boiling salt, the advantages of drying salt are obvious, building a fence by the sea, building a simple water storage and evaporation pond, and diverting the tide water into the pool to dry to a considerable concentration, and boiling it into the pot can become salt. The shortcomings are also prominent, what to do if the weather is cold when you are basking in the water, what to do if it rains and has wind and waves? It's all up to God to give face.

In fact, this method is not Fang Zhongyong's first creation, there is a more trouble-free salt drying method in Fujian, that is, it all depends on the sun, and the sun is enough for 180 days.

However, in coastal areas, it is too rare to see no rain for more than a month, so the salt drying method has not been carried out on a large scale. Fang Zhongyong didn't have so much time to waste, and the amount required was relatively large, so he had to sacrifice the Confucian treasure "The Golden Mean" to make a compromise. High efficiency and more salt.

As for the issue of environmental protection. Which of our mothers said that she will not beat you to death!

But after all, it has not yet been officially recognized by the imperial court, and Fang Zhongyong only knows a rough idea of this method of drying water and boiling salt. Let's get a brine pool of dozens of acres of land first, and then let's experiment it.

Don't say it, this salt making is actually really simple.

There are also many local fishermen who make their own private salt because they can't afford it. It's just that the impurities in the brine are not cleanly removed, and I don't know how to filter the sand and gravel grass foam, and the salt made is black and black, and after it is dissolved in water, it will float a disgusting black object.

It's disgusting to look at, and it's disgusting to eat, because it's poisoned. Therefore, unless absolutely necessary, ordinary people do not dare to try.

It's just filtering and detoxifying, what's so difficult?

Have you ever seen a home purified water filtration unit? A layer of big stones, a layer of small stones, and a layer of activated carbon, it is not expensive to collect your old 800.

Fang Zhongyong will never make activated carbon, and there is no need for that for the time being, find some good bamboo charcoal instead, it's a big deal to replace it often.

In this way, the salt that came out of the pot in the end was as white as snow and as fine as sand. The big bear tasted it and tried to see if there were any side effects.

The big bear carefully picked up a small handful, put it in his mouth, and after a slight touch, he quickly spit it out.

Fang Zhongyong became nervous: "Poisonous? ”

"The salt smell is too strong to stand it."

Come to think of it, there are no messy pollution sources in the current seawater, and pesticides and heavy metals do not exist at all. As far as our local method of salt is concerned, not to mention how many years ahead of the West, at least the salt made will never be eaten badly.

The experiment was a great success!

Fang Zhongyong returned to the study, picked up the pen and wrote the performance to report the reward, at least he had to let the official family know that he didn't have any different intentions, I did this for the good of your old Zhao family!

While writing the recital, Fang Zhongyong was also aggrieved: I'm too difficult! Left in the afterlife, there is no salt, just take two yuan to buy a pack, unlike us, you have to work hard to make it yourself.

Although the purpose of making salt is to marinate salted fish, isn't it all for the long-term development of Lao Zhao's company? Why doesn't anyone give a thumbs up?

There are still likes, but it will take some time.

A month later, Zhao Zhen received an excerpt from Fang Zhongyong's "On the New Legal System of Salt", and read it with great joy. Ling Yousi tried it, and the salt obtained was better than what Fang Zhongyong described. The decree was issued that all salt farms should act in accordance with the law, and the output of salt increased greatly, and the price of salt fell accordingly.

After more than a month, the "like" that Fang Zhongyong was looking forward to came, and Dr. Zhongsan was added to it, which was a small half-level increase.

Although it is not a big gift package, the name of a doctor can be regarded as a sign that Fang Zhongyong has truly entered the privileged level. The so-called punishment is not a doctor, it is by no means just talk, as long as Fang Zhongyong does not commit heinous crimes in the future, his life should be worry-free.