Qi country, Jimo.

"Come, Ying'er, do you know what is the most profitable?" Tian Jian looked at Tian Ying, smiling rather than smiling.

The shy Tian Ying lowered her head, pinched her sleeves in her hand, and said slowly: "I think it's a jewelry business, each piece of jewelry is worth a fortune, and it is said that the Suihou Zhu of that year was a priceless treasure." ”

"Nope." Tian Jian shook his head and looked to the east, "It's sea salt, it's the most profitable way to buy salt, jewelry can only be rich and a businessman, but it can't strengthen a country, but sea salt is different, since Jiang Taigong was named Qi State, Qi has always been a big country, the reason is the benefit of fish and salt in Qi country, people can not bring jewelry, do not wear brocade clothes, do not eat delicacies, but he can't not eat salt!" ”

The chemical composition of salt is mainly sodium chloride, that is, Nacl, as a human body is acidic saline-alkali balance, in order to maintain the homeostasis of the body, then sodium ions and chloride ions must be ingested, because when human mental activities stimulate neurons, sodium ions and chloride ions are needed to act as transport substances.

If you don't consume salt for a long time, your body will slowly become edematous, because the density of the cytoplasm inside the body needs to absorb water, and the water you drink will continue to be absorbed at this time, and eventually the cytoplasm will become larger and larger, and people will be thirsty!

Tian Ying nodded as if she didn't understand, she never thought that the salt she usually saw was so beneficial that it could reach the level of a strong country.

But if she knew that in the later Great Unification Dynasty, the main taxes in addition to grain were salt taxes and iron taxes, she would be even more surprised!

It's a pity that Shandong's green salt was later defeated by Huaiyan, so that Shandong's salt industry collapsed!

During the Warring States Period, salt was sold only in Shanxi's Jiechi and Qi countries, and the battle between the Yellow Emperor and Chiyou in Hanquan was a battle for salt in Jiechi.

However, the salt production of Jiechi is very small, and it may not be enough to supply Wei alone, let alone sell it to other vassal states, so in the Warring States Period, only the salt of Shandong, that is, the salt of Qi, was the royal road.

As for the state of Chu? Although they could also produce salt, they lost to the Qi State in the long-term competition, so Qi salt determined the salt vein of the Warring States Period.

"Ying'er, come here, the widow will show you something." Tian Jian couldn't help but take Tian Ying's jade hand and hurriedly went to a corner of the palace.

Although Jimo is located in the mainland of Qi, it is still relatively close to Huaihai, which is why Tian Jian came back to Jimo at that time, instead of Jucheng and Gaotang.

Salt is a necessity for human survival. The history of salt production in China can be traced back to at least 5,000 years ago, almost in sync with the history of Chinese civilization in the annals. According to the source of salt, salt in ancient China can be divided into several categories, such as sea salt, lake salt, well salt, rock salt, etc., and each salt has a different production process.

China has a long land coastline, and people have been producing sea salt for a long time. Before the Tang and Song dynasties, the production of sea salt was relatively primitive. In the early days, the salty soil on the seashore was scraped directly, and later the seawater was absorbed with plant ash and other materials as a raw material for salt production. When making salt, the above raw materials are first rinsed with water to dissolve the salt to form brine. The brine is then placed in an open container, heated to evaporate the water, and the salt grains are obtained. This method is called decorating with brine salt.

It is worth mentioning that before frying salt, the brine needs to be dried to increase the salt concentration. People usually put lotus seeds into the brine, and the brine concentration is determined according to the shape and position of the lotus seeds, and the principle is exactly the same as today's density meters.

After the Song and Yuan dynasties, in many coastal areas, frying salt was gradually replaced by sun-dried salt, saving a lot of fuel costs. In some places, a series of salt ponds were built on the seashore to divert seawater, thus eliminating the need for brine leaching.

In addition to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the most famous salt lake in ancient China was the salt pond in Yuncheng, Shanxi, which was the Xie Chi of the Wei State. The production process of lake salt is basically the same as that of sea salt, and most of them are dried by the method of drying.

Rock salt, also known as salt mines, is actually a solid layer of salt-bearing rock deep underground. There are two main ways in which rock salt was mined in ancient times. The first is to dig roadways to extract the salty rocks. The rock is then crushed and dissolved to extract the salt. The second is to dig deep wells to the salt-bearing rock layer, inject water to dissolve the salt, form brine, and then draw brine. This method is the same as the production process of well salt.

Among the ancient salt-making processes, the production process of well salt is the most complex, and it also best reflects the wisdom of the ancient Chinese. The production process of well salt has undergone an ever-evolving process. As early as the end of the Warring States Period, Li Bing (year of birth and death unknown), the Taishou of Qinshu County, had dug a salt well in the Chengdu Plain to draw brine and fry salt. At that time, the diameter of the salt well was large, the wall of the well was easy to collapse, and there was no protection measure, and the depth was shallow, so it could only absorb shallow salt brine.

After the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhuo Tube Wells appeared in the southern Sichuan region. Zhuo tube well is a kind of small deep well, when sinking the well, the use of "slotted" drill bit, the use of impact mode to crush the rock, water injection or the use of groundwater, bamboo tube to draw out cuttings and water. The diameter of Zhuo tube well is only the size of a bowl, and the wall of the well is not easy to collapse. The ancients also knotted the bamboo of Da Nan, socketed it from end to end, wrapped hemp rope outside, coated with putty, and went down to the well as a casing to prevent the wall of the well from collapsing and fresh water from soaking. When taking brine, use fine bamboo as a brine tube, insert it into the casing, the bottom of the cylinder is made of cooked skin as the opening and closing valve, a tube can draw several buckets of brine, a large wooden frame is erected on the well, and the brine is extracted with a roller and a car plate.

In a corner of the palace, several temple people came and went carrying small buckets and pouring "water" into some large pools! These large pools are built in an orderly manner, and the water in the pools can flow to other pools according to the height of the terrain.

In ancient times, there were no such sophisticated filtration tools as in modern times. Therefore, to make salt, the salt drying method is the best, but it is different from the ancient salt drying method, Tian Jian's salt drying method makes full use of chemical knowledge.

The seemingly simple pool, in fact, according to the density of impurities, these insoluble impurities are removed first, and then go through a process, and finally the brine with high concentration of salt is injected into the salt pool, so as to finally obtain high-purity salt, that is, the salt of Baihuahua!

"This is the foundation of the strength of the Qi State!" Qi Guo looked at these busy workers and couldn't help laughing out loud.

With high-purity salt, and the amount of these salts is large, this is the root of Tian Jian's crushing of all the salt dealers in Qi State, the salt industry of Qi State has always been controlled by Qi State Zhutian, and the royal family occupies the largest share, but it is not Tian Jian's.

If you want to do anything, you can't do it without money.

If the Qi State wants to change the law, it needs high-intensity military suppression to ensure that there will be no mutiny, and the command of the army is also in the hands of the nobles, although the royal family has the right, but when necessary, the nobles can join forces to overthrow the royal family.

It's like England in the fifteenth century, it seems that the king has an army in his hands, but when the nobles rebelled, the king was honorably revolutionized.