When he was young, the steward led Bai Liyan (Wei Xian) to the inner hall of the atrium, nearly sixty years a year, gray hair, wearing a brocade robe straight old man, sitting calmly in the hall and drinking tea. Seeing Bailiyan coming slowly, his eyes swept over him:

"Lord Wei, please take a seat."

Bai Liyan secretly glanced at it, and said with a deep salute:

"Wei Xian has seen Lu Hou."

"No courtesy."

"Xie Luhou."

Sitting on the right seat, the maidservant brought refreshments and then retreated. Lu Hou said at this time:

"General Wei is a young hero, and now he is in the Central Plains, and Benhou admires him so much."

Xue Teng praised it, and Bai Liyan knew that this was just a polite remark.

At last year's wedding, all the powerful people in the city competed to congratulate each other, and only Xue Teng's Luhou Mansion only sent congratulatory gifts and did not send people to attend the wedding, which shows that Luhou is extremely restrained in his grasp of the current situation and will not easily show his position and attitude.

"Lu Hou has won the award, Wei has received the favor of the king and Zhao Shuai, and he does not dare to die without his fate, as for the gain and loss of fame and fortune, it is all something outside the body, in Wei's opinion, the greater the reputation, it may not be a good thing."

"It seems that General Wei's knowledge is really different, I don't know why General Wei came to the Hou Mansion here?"

"It's not a secret, it's a matter of the salt lord's hidden household."

"Oh......" Xue Teng replied, unmoved, unable to decipher anything from the faint folds on his face.

Bai Liyan guessed that maybe Xue Teng had expected it, but he didn't expect that he would be so straightforward.

Thinking of this, Bai Liyan continued:

"Wei knows that there are countless hidden households under the command of Hou Ye, and these hidden households are tired of boiling salt and planting grass all year round, and the salt lord obtains amazing benefits from it, so although Lu Hou did not oppose Wei's Xintian system, if it is promoted to the whole country in the future, I am afraid that without Hou Ye's approval, Wei's internal history of governing Su will also be done."

"Hehe......" Lu Hou sneered: "Then what does General Wei mean, does he want Ben Hou to retreat?" ”

"Hou Ye is serious, but if it changes, it will work, and if it doesn't change, it won't work. Although Wei is not proficient in the matter of salt, he still knows a lot about boiling salt. The salt required to boil salt is very labor-intensive, and the salt that has been exported to Sun, Xu, Wei, Zhi, and Qianyue Mountain every year in the past 20 years requires at least 120,000 to 150,000 men and women for salt production, counting the old and the young, I am afraid that it will cost 250,000 people. ”

Bai Liyan's words were not serious, but Xue Teng's heart was turned upside down, and the slightly undulating folds on his face showed how violent the shock in his heart was.

"General Wei has something to say, Ben Hou listens to it."

Xue Teng's tone was faintly unhappy, and Baili Yan knew that if he forced one more step, Xue Teng set an order to expel the guest. So he reined in his attitude and said:

"Wei didn't dare, Wei didn't intend to offend Lu Hou, but there is a law dedicated to Lu Hou, if this method can be used, not only can the salt yield be increased several times or dozens of times, but the manpower consumed is only one-tenth or even one-fifteenth of the current time, but I don't know if Lu Hou is willing to adopt it."

Xue Teng was shocked again, and his silent face was stunned:

"General Wei, this is child's play!"

"Wei is absolutely not lying, has Lu Hou ever heard of the method of drying salt?"

"Salt? The hoarfrost method is obtained by drying the sea water like salt frost. ”

"Exactly, if this method can be established, it can be defeated by tens or even hundreds of thousands of people."

When Lu Hou heard the news, he laughed loudly, with a hint of mockery:

"Hahaha......"

"Does Master Hou know this method?"

"Ben Hou dares to ask you, Lord Wei, but dig a pit to pour seawater into it, and then let the sun and rain get white salt?"

"Exactly, I don't know what Master Hou means?"

"Then Ben Hou asked you, how to introduce this seawater into the pit, and how to prevent the seawater in the pit from seeping into the ground, these Lord Wei have ever considered."

"Oh...... It turned out that Lu Hou was worried about this matter, but he didn't hide it, it was really difficult to achieve it before, but now he can realize this method. ”

The salt drying method involves digging salt ponds and then introducing seawater into them. However, there are two technical problems that are difficult to effectively solve at present, such as how to introduce seawater into the salt pond, and how to prevent seawater from seeping into the ground and causing loss.

If you want to dig a salt pond, you have to be close to the beach, and after the sea water is poured into the salt pond, the sand quickly seeps into the ground because of the softness. The second is the seawater introduction method. At present, it is only possible to carry the original method of people carrying it on their shoulders, pouring buckets of seawater into the salt pond, and infiltrating the ground while pouring, so it is extremely inefficient.

However, after the excavation and construction of the Yongxing River dry dock, the problem of how to divert water and drain water has been solved, and at the same time, the tidal method can be used to introduce seawater, and the key technology is the closure and sealing of the water gate.

The salt pond can be connected to the sea through a single or multiple channel outlets, which are closed by a water gate and then opened at high tide to introduce water and seawater into the salt pond and closed immediately after low tide. The depth of the salt pond is lower than that of the canal, which leads to the salt pond at an inverted slope to prevent the salt pond seawater from flowing back into the sea.

In this way, salt ponds can be dug out of the beach, and then the ground can be tamped with clay, set on fire to harden, and bricked or, in a few years, cement can be laid to prevent the lower layer of dry salt from being polluted by the soil.

However, after the initial stage, the salt water seeps into the stone bricks and rammed earth to form a crystal, which increases the waterproofness and fundamentally solves the problem of low efficiency of the salt drying method.

"Master Hou, if the salt drying method can be realized, not only will the manpower required be greatly reduced, the output will be higher than before, and the cost will be lower. Why might Hou Ye dig ten salt pools in Lucheng as a demonstration, if he thinks it is feasible, it is not too late to promote it. ”

"If General Wei's new method of drying salt is really good, he won't dedicate it to Benhou for no reason."

"Lu Hou doesn't have to worry about Wei registering the hidden household and moving to another place."

"And what are you going to do?"

"All the hidden households are registered and settled on the spot for farming, as for whether to implement the law of granting land in the future, it can be left for discussion in the future, what does Lu Hou think?"

"So, this matter is still negotiable?"

"As long as the salt barons in Lucheng can get the previous profits from the salt drying method, or even more, there is room for negotiation. If not, it will be regarded as Wei Mou's incompetence, and Wei will no longer ask about it. But if he succeeds, he still hopes that Hou Ye will be honest with him, and Wei will never be embarrassed. ”

Xue Teng can be described as cunning and cunning, and what he said "there is still room for negotiation" does not mean that the new salt drying method replaces the manual salt cooking method, and the resulting policy inertia brings about the liberation of labor, but that after the success of the new salt making method, the salt lord does not want to let go of hundreds of thousands of hidden households, but wants to expand the scale of production, or divert it elsewhere to generate economic benefits.

This is not only contrary to Bailiyan's original intention and the purpose of the New Deal, but also after paying the benefits, he did not get any exchange benefits, so it is not a loss-making deal for others to make wedding dresses.

However, the background of Luhou Xue Teng is extremely special, and he cannot be forced, so he can only retreat to the second, and after liberating the hidden household labor force from the salt boiling method, he will be resettled on the spot to develop agriculture, and at the same time, he must acquiesce in the income from the resettlement of the population, and most of the income will be shared with the salt lords. In exchange for the cooperation of the Marquis in the implementation of the new policy in the future, so as to suppress the opposition of other powerful people.

Xue Teng was silent for a long time with his white hair twisted at this time, and a pair of old spicy eyes looked at Baili Yan left and right, trying to figure out the clues from the subtle look on his face.

After a moment of silence, Xue Teng held the wooden tea set on the table with his right hand, put it down and said:

"I've heard that General Wei is proficient in medical skills, but I don't know if General Wei has any experience in the art of raising children?"

Xue Teng's words turned to him, which made Bailiyan unexpected:

"Wei made his debut as a doctor in his early years, which is the profession of making a living. Looking at Hou Ye's improvement today, it doesn't seem to be a hidden disease, why did Hou Ye suddenly ask about this? ”

"Hehaha......" Xue Teng laughed: "It's not that Ben Hou has a disease, Ben Hou is asking General Wei how much do you know about the art of raising children?" ”

"This matter of raising children is mostly impermanent and uncertain, and there is no constant, and Wei is probably powerless."

Xue Teng wanted to know if there was a way to have a son, but the birth of a boy and a girl was a random probability, unless it was diagnosed by B ultrasound, if it was a girl, she would have an abortion, and then continue to get pregnant, and it was almost impossible to intervene with drugs.

At the moment, it can be roughly inferred from the difference in pulse pressure between the left and right hands of a pregnant woman whether it is male or female. Theoretically, there are two differences in the pulse pressure formed in the body of a boy and a girl during pregnancy when the pulse frequency overlaps with that of a pregnant woman, so it can be roughly judged that it is a boy or a girl.

However, from the perspective of Bailiyan's many years of diagnostic experience, the accuracy rate is only 30%, which has a lot to do with food, environment, mood, and physique.

Bailiyan only thought that Xue Teng wanted a son, but she didn't know that Xue Teng was more ambitious:

"Lord Wei misunderstood Ben Hou's meaning."

"Shhh...... What does Hou Ye mean? ”

"Benhou's niece has been sent to the prince's mansion for nearly a year, but there has been no movement for a long time, and Benhou is very worried."

"Oh, it's the crown princess."

After Xihuan gave birth to a son, Jiang Tuo, King Xian began to select the concubine of Prince Jiang Yu, and Lian Hui, the niece of the Marquis of Lu, was selected as the prince's concubine and married into the prince's mansion.

According to Xue Teng, in the past almost a year, the sexual affairs have been quite satisfactory, but the delay in getting pregnant and giving birth to a baby boy makes the Yanxiao family very worried. Not only did Lian Hui not get pregnant for a long time, but other women who had been favored by the prince did not get pregnant.

To say that infertility is a small probability event, it may also be that Jiang Yu is not fully mature and has weak fertility, but to say that only Xihuan is pregnant among eight or nine women, and the others are not pregnant, this probability is too low.

Is it only Xihuan's luck? This is clearly not a problem of infertility.

But if you want to talk about medicine, Xihuan can drug other women, and can he also drug Yan Xiao's direct blood relatives? It's impossible for Xihuan not to know what's at stake, even if she is arrogant, she doesn't have the guts.

Bai Liyan didn't think there was anything wrong before, but Xue Teng said this, which was extremely abnormal. And Xue Teng didn't respond positively to the problem of the hidden family just now, obviously to protect the interests of his next generation.