Chapter 592 is dotted

However, for this request, Village Chief Shi was hesitant and noncommittal.

Of course, Lin Xiao understood what he was worried about, but looking at this sad old village chief, he felt pity and didn't want to use force.

He smiled and gave Situ Zheng a look, Situ Zheng understood, and immediately took out a small ingot, five taels of ingots, and secretly stuffed it to the village chief.

Seeing the silver, the village chief's face was complicated, and he hesitated for a long time before half-pushing and half-accepting it on the spot, and promised to take them to the salt field to have a look.

Immediately, under his leadership, everyone walked to the south of the village, and not long after leaving the village, they came to the salt pans of their village along the stone road through a not very dense forest.

This is indeed a large salt field, looking into the distance, the salt pans are like inkstones placed at will, dotted and scattered.

Pointing to the large salt pans, the village chief said that despite the fact that their location seems to be irregular, they are actually very particular, and they must be convenient to retain the sea water and make full use of the sun.

"Most of this place belongs to our village, and there are more than 300 pieces in total,"

Seeing that the old man was quite interested, the village chief said proudly, "It is all passed down from generation to generation from the ancestors." ”

"These salt pans can produce more than 200 tons of salt a year and feed thousands of people......

Looking at this large salt pan, Lin Xiao couldn't help but secretly marvel.

"These pools ......"

Seeing that there were pools of different shapes on the edge of each salt pan, and there were many large vats and iron pots without lids buried on the dams, although Lin Xiao vaguely knew its purpose, he still humbly asked for advice.

"This is a brine pool, which is used to make brine, and only extremely thick brine can be put into an iron pot for frying......"

The old village chief is actually a talkative person, and once he opens the chatterbox, he will temporarily put aside all his worries and simply introduce them......

Boiling the sea for salt is far from being as simple as it sounds, and the methods of boiling salt that have been handed down are not the same, but they generally have to go through several key steps such as collecting tide, making brine, decoction and salting.

First of all, it is necessary to select a suitable tidal flat plot by the sea, build a dam and enclose the embankment for fields, and bring in seawater.

During the dry season, when the sun is strong, the high tide floods the salt pan twice a month, and when the tide recedes, a part of the sea water remains.

The soil at the bottom of the salt pan is called "salt mud".

When the sea water recedes, the salt mud absorbs a considerable concentration of salt, rake the salt mud with a wooden rake, and then evaporate the water after five to seven days in the sun, and this salt mud contains a considerable amount of salt.

The next step is to "make brine".

Once the salt mud is dry, it has to be pushed into the salt drain in batches with a wooden rake – this is entirely manual labor.

The so-called salt drain is a small bottomless pond with a certain height made of bricks or stones around the salt pan.

These salt drains vary in size and shape, if they are square, they are generally more than two meters wide, more than three meters long, and more than one meter deep, and the bottom is lined with bamboo and thatch, which plays the role of filtration.

After the salt mud enters the pool, the salt needs to be stepped on with the feet, and then injected with seawater to rinse repeatedly, and the yellow and clear brine filtered out will flow into the brine pool on one side from the small mouth reserved next to the salt pool, and the amount will accumulate into a lot, and there will be a pool of brine.

The collected brine is filtered out of impurities, put into a large vat to precipitate for a period of time, and then it can be put into the pot to boil salt.

"Frying" is very simple to say, just an iron pot, and a large amount of firewood, the most important thing is the heat, start with a fierce fire, wait for the brine to boil, and then keep the simmer to continue to decoction.

The iron pot has big and small, the diameter of the small one is three or four feet, seven or eight inches high, each pot can boil ten catties of salt, and it can be made into salt by boiling for about three hours.

If there are many male stove households, or several partnerships, you need to use a large iron pot.

The diameter of the cauldron is often more than one zhang, about three feet deep, each pot can boil hundreds of catties of salt, and the largest can produce 1,000 catties of salt at a time.

In addition, there are also poor stove households with bamboo pots, which are generally made of bamboo strips, square and flat-bottomed, and coated with lime or yellow mud......

"Boil salt...... Don't use a lid? ”

Lin Xiao was a little puzzled, he might have to stir constantly when cooking, but if he didn't cover the pot before boiling, wouldn't it be more of a waste of firewood?

"Yes, I took the lid home with small pots,"

The village chief smiled for the first time, and then said, "The lid of the big iron pot is very particular......

Originally, because the salt pans are large and small, and many of them are passed down from ancestors, there are relatives who work together to cook salt, and everyone starts work together, and the tide, marinade, and decoction are all dried together, and finally the salt is divided according to the dingkou.

In order to prevent a private operation and cause conflicts, they made a gentleman's agreement in advance, dividing a whole piece of iron pot lid into several pieces and keeping them separately, and only on the day of boiling, everyone took out the lid and closed it......

Hearing his explanation, Lin Xiao couldn't help but laugh dumbly.

It seems that the working people of ancient times were not only industrious, but also infinitely wise.

Under such backward technical conditions, they can also give full play to their production efficiency with such a primitive way of working, and even some labor disputes on weekdays have tried their best to deal with them in their own unique ways......

There was a shed not far away, which the village chief said was for storing tools.

Out of curiosity about the ancient Yantian tools, Lin Xiao went over to take a look, there were many tools piled up inside, and the appearance was not much different from what he imagined.

Lin Xiao tried the wooden rake that raked the ground, and found that it was much heavier than the one he had seen in the countryside in later generations, which was used to harrow rice.

It seems that the processing capacity of ancient times is indeed backward, and it can only be manufactured by the most cumbersome method, and in the hot summer, it is so hard to drag such a heavy tool to work under the scorching sun.

He approached a brine pool, there was only a small amount of brine in the pool, but there was a layer of white flower salt condensed on the wall of the pool, which was crystal clear and beautiful, and very delicate, and looked very much like the refined salt produced by the salt factory in later generations.

This greatly surprised him, sea salt can reach this level without going through the refining process, at least he has never seen it, this time all the way to procure, is very large coarse salt.

He stretched out his finger and gently scraped it, dipped a little and put it in his mouth, it felt lighter than the fine salt of later generations, it melted in his mouth, and the salt fragrance was rich.

"I don't know what the sodium chloride content is......"

Without the various instruments of later generations, of course this cannot be analyzed, but Lin Xiao secretly thought that it would be good if it could be produced in large quantities, just by virtue of the appearance of this salt, why worry about not being a hot item.

But it is too much for such a good place to be so poor.

"Sure enough, life is in dire straits......"

As he was sighing, he suddenly saw a group of people also walking towards Yantian, the first of whom was riding a horse, which is a rare thing in the local area.

Behind this person, followed by more than a dozen figures in Tsing Yi and small hats, when Village Chief Shi saw it, a look of fear and disgust immediately appeared on his face, he turned his head to Lin Xiao and said, "Master, it's Zhai Dahu who is here, a businessman." ”

"Dealers?"

"Uh-huh, uh-huh......"

The village chief seemed to be very afraid of this businessman, and he didn't even have the time to say a word to him, so he hurriedly greeted him, bowed with his hands crossed, bent over and bowed his back, and his attitude was very respectful......

Lin Xiao didn't understand who this Zhai Dahu was, and it stands to reason that there is no subordinate relationship between the farmer and the stove household.

However, judging from the old village chief's respectful and frightened appearance, this person must not be a good person, and nine times out of ten he is a local tyrant and bully.

Dealing directly with this kind of person, he has no mind or interest now, so he simply looks at it from afar......