Xu Zixian pointed to the beach at his feet, and said to Wei Yi with a smile: "This is the salt field, well, our salt field." ”

Wei Yi has no trouble in this regard, near the end of the month, his rest day has two days, plus the government affairs are simple, to be precise, there is no government affairs to be done in a hurry, Penghu is only a few dozen miles away from the Eastern Domain, Wei Yi asked for a small sentry boat, a single sloop and a single sail, floating across the sea, less than two hours, he arrived from Penghu County to the Eastern Domain.

Wei Yi knew that Xu Zixian was on patrol as soon as he arrived in the Eastern Domain, and after he caught up with the patrol, Lin Shaozong brought him to Xu Zixian.

In front of me was a barren land, but there was a row of houses on the beach and on the shore, and there were large stoves, and mountains of dry firewood.

Wei Yi shook his head vigorously, and said with a smile: "Mingda, when you wrote to me last month, didn't you say that you wanted to go around the sea to dry salt?" I read your letter and laughed for half an hour before stopping. Later, when I remembered that you had done everything, I regretted it again and laughed at myself for half an hour. Then I asked my subordinates to grind the ink, wrote a letter to Brother Zizhang, and then laughed wildly while writing, this thing is too cola. Now you show me this salt-boiling salt-boiling salt, you're making too much of a joke. ”

When Wei Yi spoke, Xu Zixian himself couldn't stop laughing, and he also looked very happy.

Chen Zuocai, Lin Shaozong and others all smiled.

Nan'anhou is becoming more and more authoritative, not only has high prestige on the island, but also has more and more prestige.

Except for a few people, most of the people call Xu Zixian a prince, and there are fewer and fewer people who can call him a cousin.

Even Chen Duzhong, although he was quite cooperative in the previous handover, but with the reduction of authority, all power was gone, originally Xu Zixian called him the ninth uncle, and Chen Duzhong called Xu Zixian's expression, but now they meet, that is, they just call the prince lightly.

The higher a person goes, the fewer friends he has, which is a helpless thing.

The young man's friends are different, Xu Zixian and Wei Yi, Xu Xingwei's friendship is from the age of twelve or thirteen, and the friendship at that time has no impurities, even if it is from the clan or the noble gentry family, there is still a lot less consideration between each other, just pure friendship.

Xu Zixian has Xiaomei and Xiuniang as companions, and the inner house is a place for him to rest and relax, but outside, there are no more than a few people who can make him feel pure friendship.

"Do you see that beach?" Xu Zi first pointed to the large beach fenced with bricks and stones, and said: "That's the brine pool, that's the diversion pool, that's the crystallization pool, we keep bringing in the seawater, lighting the brine, and then drying it, diverting water, stirring, drying it, and finally producing salt." You've come just in time, and you'll be ready for salt in the next two days. ”

Wei Yi followed Xu Zixian's finger and found that several miles of the seaside were surrounded by brick and stone structures.

The salt pond is high and low, and there are obvious white traces in the low place, according to Xu Zixian's introduction, there is already semi-crystallized seawater.

"The important thing is the refraction of the sun's rays, the wind, and the water, and the constant stirring, which is actually a very simple thing, but no one thought of it before." Xu Zixian had some smug look on his face, at this time there must be no salt drying method, the salt drying method was used on a small scale in the late Southern Song Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty in history, and it was not promoted until the middle and late Ming Dynasty.

However, the salt drying law had limitations, and it was only slightly advanced in the Wanli period, and then the imperial court and the government did not mean to advance, and the same was true in the Qing Dynasty after that.

In modern times, it is a pity that the salt drying method has become the mainstream salt extraction method by the seaside.

The frying salt method is too far from the salt drying method.

According to the division of types, in the Ming Dynasty, there were six kinds of salt, such as sea salt, well salt, pool salt, nitrate salt, river salt, and rock salt, among which the output of sea salt was the highest among all salts. In the Ming Dynasty, there were mainly sea salt producing areas such as Changlu, Shandong, Liangzhejiang, Lianghuai, Fujian, and Guangdong. There are two production methods of sea salt in the Ming Dynasty: decoction salt method and salt drying method.

Xu Zi thought about this matter first, and finally felt that with a large pot of several hundred catties of boiling salt and frying salt, the government is easy to control official salt and put an end to private salt.

"Boiling salt and frying salt, these are the methods in front of you, using pan iron, iron pot, every ding every day and night can get thirty catties," Xu Zixian continued: "Salt and iron are exclusively sold, and then the iron is released, but the salt has never been available. I investigated the salt drying method, and there was a small-scale implementation before, and then it was abandoned one after another. The imperial court knew that it could use this method of saving manpower, iron, and firewood, but it refused to promote it, Yanke, what do you think? ”

Wei Yi smiled and said: "The iron plate weighs more than 10,000 catties, and the iron pot weighs more than 100 catties, and the imperial court has a strict order, any iron yard, mine, private casting iron plate, iron pot, hanging." Under this strict order, who dares to do anything wrong? In recent decades, illegal salt has been rampant, mainly because the authority of the imperial court has gradually lost, and the people have been squeezed by excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes, so that the people have no livelihood. The people can't survive anymore, so they naturally prefer to risk their heads. Even twenty years ago, the salt method was quite successful. The annual income of the imperial court is more than 100 million guan, and in terms of salt law, it is at least more than 10 million guan per year, even if illegal salt is rampant now. ”

"That's because the imperial court has raised the price of salt." Xu Zixian said: "During the Wenzong period, the price of salt was still four to six wen per catty, and it rose to more than ten wen during the Chengzong period, and now the fine salt has reached forty wen a catty, and the black salt cake has to be twenty wen a catty. The cost of private salt is three or four wen a catty, because the iron tools have to be purchased at a higher price, and they have to act in concealment, even so, the sale of illicit salt for twenty wen a catty is a huge profit, and the imperial court has to cut off at least a few hundred heads of salt dealers a year, or it is repeatedly banned, why not? There are so many profits that you can't stop it. Now the price of salt is high, most of the people can't afford to eat fine salt, most of them use black salt, there is grit in it, it is shoddy, even if it is so, just put a little bit in the pot. When I was on Fujian Road, the women of those destitute families had their calves as thick as their waists, and when they pressed it, it was a pit. Those black salts can't be used as salt at all, let alone dare not put them in full. ”

Wei Yi nodded silently and said, "Fortunately, the people of Penghu will not be short of salt, just catch a few sea fish and boil them, and the salt will be replenished." ”

"But not everyone has that opportunity." Xu Zixian said: "Everyone thinks that Fujian Road is near the sea, so there is enough salt?" That's a joke. I asked someone to fry the salt here, and compared it to the salt pool, I knew the advantages and disadvantages. In order to accumulate wealth, the imperial court has not used the salt drying method for more than 200 years, which is simply a sin! ”

Xu Zi was a little angry first, no, in fact, he was very angry.

There are many ways to fry salt and boil the salt, but the yield is not high.

A family works around the clock, and the salt output is only a few dozen catties a day.

There is also a lot of firewood to waste, pollute the environment and atmosphere, and a lot of pig iron to support the utensils for frying salt.

The cost of manpower, material and financial resources was enormous, and the production was very small, not because there was no better way, but because it was to meet the needs of the rulers.

From the time humans began to work together to help each other, the tall and strong took the right to speak, and it was relatively fair at that time, because the tall, powerful and courageous men had more prey, and they could become chiefs and gain dominance over the tribe.

People distribute the prey, distribute the fruit, and the chiefs get the best share.

People traded, and the hunting tribe took out the prey and exchanged it for the fruit with the tribe that was good at picking. The tribes of the seashore exchanged fish for meat, and those who had meat were exchanged for food.

That's fair too.

Later, it was discovered that shellfish could be collected as an equivalent cargo, and shellfish could be used to facilitate the trade of a wider range and variety of goods.

The chiefs did not abdicate when they were old and weak, and they used money to buy off the able-bodied warriors to protect them, and at the same time passed on the position of chieftain to their children and grandchildren from generation to generation.

Then these people were called nobles, and they passed on their rights to their children and grandchildren, and they enjoyed it for life, and they cooperated with the sorcerers of the tribe to make up many myths to maintain this unreasonable system, and then they were given many nice names, duke, marquis, uncle, king, and finally became emperor.

This is very unfair and unreasonable, under the generations of dynasties there are peaceful and prosperous times, it seems that everyone is doing well, but the interests of the chiefs are always put first.

When the common people have no way to curb the greed of the upper classes, it is simply unrealistic to expect the chiefs to cede power and interests themselves.

As far as the current situation is concerned, for the high-level leaders of Great Wei, salt profit is the first thing, and the rest are all false things. No matter what people's hearts and interests are, they can't worth the benefits of tens of millions a year.

Even if illicit salt is rampant now, and hundreds or thousands of illicit salt dealers are executed every year, the income of the imperial court is still more than 10 million yuan.

As for whether the people's bodies are swollen, whether children have grown into big necks because of lack of salt, who will really care about these things, who will really care?

Anger didn't help, in fact, Xu Zixian hadn't paid much attention to these things before.

He was born in the Hou Mansion, although the Hou Mansion of Nan'an is a famous broken and settled marquis, but Xu Zixian has never lacked food and clothing since he was a child, he eats very well, there are fish and meat at every meal, and he also has brocade robes to wear, in fact, there are always a few robes to wear throughout the year.

No matter how depressed the Nan'an Hou Mansion is, the standard of living is still far above that of ordinary people, not to mention those destitute families.

Previously, Xu Zixian would not consider the problem from the perspective of the people, which was simply impossible.

And now Xu Zixian can, even in addition to anger, he also has a solution to the problem, as evidenced by the large salt pond in front of him.

It is not without capital to build salt pans from the sea, and the salt pans in front of me have invested thousands of times, and it is only one of the many salt fields, and it may have to invest more than ten or twenty or even more in the future.

"My salt man, on average, can produce hundreds of catties of salt a day, one is a few hundred catties, ten thousands of catties, hundreds of tens of thousands of catties, and a thousand hundreds of thousands of catties. I have a big enough beach, enough brine, and a big enough crystalline pool. If it is hundreds of thousands of catties a day, millions of catties, how much is this? Xu Zixian smiled and said to Wei Yi: "But I can't go too far, the Great Wei private salt market is about four or five million, no more than six million at most, I will lower the price, use the best quality of official salt, sell the price of private salt, the illegal salt will be swept away without land to hide and lose profit margins, which is harmless to the imperial court." But if I sell 10 million guan of salt a year, what I grab is the market of official salt, no, in fact, official salt will still be greatly affected, but the impact should not be too big, not more than 2 million guan. So I will sell to Jinghu, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangzhou, Fujian and other places, where there is the most private salt, and the official salt is not sold very much. Those who buy and official salt are nobles, officials, gentry, and wealthy merchants, and they are not worth saving the salt money of dozens of yuan. For an adult man, six grams of salt a day is enough, and one pound of salt is enough for a hundred people to eat for a day. The people I want to help and make money are the poorest people, who would not have bought salt and salt. Well, that's how it works. ”

Wei Yi didn't say much, he just showed a gentle smile on his face, and said to Xu Zixian: "Urgent for the needs of the people, think about what the people think, Mingda You are originally such a person, there is no need to say more." ”

"Well, I feel a lot more relaxed." Xu Zixian smiled and said, "I was too nervous before, there are always more changes than planned, and we have to do the most things in the shortest time, which is really a bit stretched." If Yantian does this, it will be a ...... It really took so much of the pressure off me. ”