In order to implement the salt pan law, it will be necessary to re-plan and build new salt farms.

Not only is the project large, but it also takes a long time and cannot be completed overnight.

Chi Fei knew that the most important thing in the northwest now was to buy grain from overseas as soon as possible, so the sooner the salt was produced, the sooner this goal could be achieved.

There was a priority, and he decided to put the matter of the salt field aside for the time being, and first make the ditch beach salt drying method of Qing Guangxu.

So, he immediately found a group of local craftsmen to make what he needed.

Since what Chi Fei had to do was not complicated, it only took five days for him to have what he needed to use.

As soon as the things were ready, he immediately began to experiment with the ditch beach salt drying method that he had only seen in Du Niang before.

The so-called ditch and beach salt drying method is roughly based on digging a reservoir in the coastal tidal flat about 4 to 500 meters away from the coast.

The reason for this distance is that the soil in this area usually has a low sediment content, which is conducive to the storage of seawater.

Of course, it also depends on the local environment, if there are some places where the sand content is low because of the soil quality, then you don't need to dig so far.

Once the reservoir has been dug, one or more diversion ditches can be dug from the reservoir to the seaside.

When the tide rises at night, seawater flows down these ditches to the reservoirs.

Because of the overnight immersion in the seawater, the soil in the reservoir will fully absorb the salt in the seawater and become salt mud.

When the tide recedes during the day, the salt workers can turn up the salt mud that has been thoroughly soaked in seawater and expose it to the sun.

When the water evaporates and the soil is semi-dry, the salt in the seawater remains in the salt sludge.

This process lasts for two to three days to saturate the salt sludge with sufficient salt.

After the salt sludge is exposed to the sun, the dried salt sludge can be put into the filter tank for filtration.

Each filter tank is divided into two parts internally, one is the brine storage tank, and the other is the brine tank.

The so-called brine storage tank is a pool about two meters wide, three meters long and one meter deep built with rocks inside the filter tank, and there are bamboo, thatch, mats and other filters underneath to play the role of filtration.

There is also an outlet at the bottom of the brine storage tank that connects directly to the brine tank on the other side.

After the salt mud is poured into the brine storage tank, the salt worker needs to jump into the salt tank and step on the salt mud densely with his feet.

Once the salt sludge is compacted, it can be filled with seawater into the brine storage tank.

After the seawater penetrates on the salt sludge, it will continue to flow to the bottom of the brine storage tank.

It is then filtered by various filters at the bottom, and then flows out of the water outlet and into the brine pool on the other side.

Salt workers usually use the branches and leaves of a shrub called yellow croaker that grows by the sea to check whether the brine has reached a sufficient concentration.

When the branches of the yellow croaker float on the brine, it indicates that the brine has reached a sufficient concentration to dry the salt, otherwise it will have to be exposed to the sun repeatedly.

If you can't find a yellow croaker branch, you can use lotus seeds.

Regarding how to dry salt, salt pans were mainly used during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty.

The so-called salt pan is actually similar to a tray.

The salt workers pour the brine in a salt pan with sufficient concentration and expose it to the sun.

After the water in the salt pan is dried, you can get natural sea salt.

The pool has to be made by craftsmen, and it is this filter pool and salt pan.

Because it was still in the experimental stage, Chi Fei didn't dare to make too much, so he only asked the craftsmen to make three filter pools and more than 300 salt pans. On average, more than 100 salt pans are distributed to each filtration tank.

In fact, the ditch beach salt drying method is not complicated, so even a novice like Chi Fei, who has only seen relevant video materials on the Internet, is sure that the trial production will be successful.

It is precisely because this method is not difficult, as long as someone has seen the production process with their own eyes, it is necessary to keep it confidential to avoid leakage.

To be on the safe side, Chi Fei simply bought an old salt farm near the sea as an experimental base. A tall wall was built around the salt works to keep it off from outsiders.

Before the wall was built, Chi Fei could only send soldiers to guard the outside day and night, not allowing anyone to enter.

In order to personally experiment with this method, Chi Fei did not pretend to others, and simply became a salt worker himself, using only a filter to conduct experiments.

Whether it is a series of processes such as mud turning, mud drying, filtration, brine, and brine, he has to do it all himself.

It wasn't until half a month later that Chi Fei, who was almost half a black man, went to his eldest brother Ning Yabai with a smile on his face to ask for someone.

The candidate for this salt worker, Chi Fei is left to Ning Yabai to decide, and he chooses a trustworthy henchman to do this, he only needs someone who can do things.

Regarding the question of this candidate, Ning Yabai also had a headache, and it stands to reason that the most reliable is his henchmen. But these people were going to fight with him, and it was a waste to send them to be salt workers.

In the end, he thought about it for a long time, and could only choose from among the sons of the Ning family who brought over.

The sons of these families were not only born in the Ning family, but also the deed of sale was also here in the Ning family, so naturally they did not dare to have two hearts about the Ning family, and it was no problem to use them as salt workers.

In order to motivate these children, Chi Fei promised to pay them monthly according to the amount of salt produced. The more salt you make, the more money you make.

There are a few young sons who are quite aggrieved in their hearts, they originally worked well in Ningfu, but they were inexplicably assigned here to work as salt workers, and this treatment is really too far away.

When they heard that they would be paid according to the amount of salt produced in the future, they were even more unhappy that they thought that the salt production could produce a lot.

If salt was really so easy to make, it wouldn't be so expensive outside.

Moreover, this method of making salt without using firewood and only using the sun is unheard of, and no one has ever heard of making salt in this way.

The children of the family were seriously skeptical, and most of them did not believe that this method could really make salt.

However, a few days later, when the first batch of salt was made, everyone was dumbfounded.

Looking at the sea salt full of white flowers in the more than three hundred salt pans, not to mention that those children were dumbfounded, even Ning Yabai, who heard the news, was stunned.

Ning Yabai couldn't help but dip a little salt in his hand and put it in his mouth to taste.

When the familiar taste of salty to bitter appeared in his mouth, he not only did not frown, but showed an expression of great surprise.

It's done, it's really done!

The strong sense of joy made him excited, and he even felt the urge to hug his brother-in-law tightly and cheer loudly.

If it was Ning Yafeng, who was an extrovert, he might have done this a long time ago, but Ning Yabai, who was introverted and steady, finally restrained this impulse, and then said with excitement on his face: "Ah Zhen, will we be able to use this method to make a large amount of salt in the future?" ”

Chi Fei shook his head and said, "Big brother, you are happy too early, this kind of output is not enough to change the whole situation."

I have calculated that each filter produces less than two catties of salt each time, and even if one hundred filters are built, it will only produce one or two hundred catties of salt per filter.

It takes five or six days to produce salt each time, and it is only about 800 to 1,000 catties of salt per month.

This kind of output is much inferior to those big salt merchants in Jiangnan who have thousands of acres of salt farms at every turn.

We want to become the largest supplier of private salt in Dawei, and we are still far from this goal. ”

Ning Yabai smiled: "Ah Zhen, you are too greedy. Do you know how much firewood, manpower and material resources it takes for those big salt merchants in Jiangnan to refine so much salt?

And you can easily get so much salt in addition to spending some manpower, which is a world of difference between the two.

If you say this, the salt merchants will hear it, and you will not cry to death. ”

"Well, I'll admit it's a bit greedy. But since there is a way, you have to try it.

After the salt field method I mentioned before is tested, you will see what it means to produce 1,000 catties per mu. ”

"Okay, then I'll wait and see." Ning Yabai laughed very heartily.

Ning Yabai was full of confidence in the future at this time, and the haze that had been pressing on his heart completely dissipated.