There is a reason for Wang Yuan's excitement, salt was a good thing in ancient times. Since the reign of the dynasty, this thing has been one of the important civilian goods monopolized by the state. Almost every dynasty will implement a monopoly system of salt, iron, grain, and tea, and these monopoly basic materials will create huge profits every year and bring huge income to the imperial court.

The Tang Dynasty was no exception, and the sale of illicit salt was absolutely prohibited, and only the imperial court carried out the monopoly. But even so, the sale of private salt is still repeatedly prohibited. Illegal salt dealers continue to sell illicit salt at the risk of beheading, because the profits are really considerable.

In addition to a limited number of salt wells and salt mountains, the main sources of salt in the Tang Dynasty came from seawater drying salt in the southeast coastal area, and the output was extremely limited. During the Tianbao period, the price of grain and rice was as cheap as grass mustard, but the price of salt basically remained at a high level. Taking Chang'an as an example, the price of grain in Chang'an in the sixth year of Tianbao was only 180 yuan per stone, and the price of an ordinary cloth was only 230 yuan, which can be described as outrageously cheap. This is the reason why most people in Datang only have two or three times a month, but they can feed a few families.

Still in Chang'an, the price of salt is around and below per bucket, that is to say, the price of salt per stone is always around. Don't underestimate the consistent salt price of this stone, the Tang people have a strong taste and like to eat pickled food, which has led to a huge consumption of salt. The population of Jingzhao in Chang'an is about 1.5 million, and ordinary people consume 400,000 stones of coarse salt a year. That is to say, in Chang'an alone, ordinary people spend 400,000 yuan of income every year to consume salt.

This is just the ordinary people in Chang'an. In the Tang Dynasty, the standard of salt supplied by soldiers was twice as high as that of ordinary people, and there were more than 300,000 soldiers and horses in the north and south of Chang'an City, as well as more than 300,000 soldiers and horses in Gyeonggi, and these soldiers consumed about 150,000 stone of salt every year, which is the consumption of 150,000 yuan.

If you think it's just people who eat salt, you're very wrong. The amount of salt eaten by livestock is also extremely large. Especially the war horses in the army. Horses are weak to run without salt, and like people, if they want to have strength, they must eat salt. This can be seen from the regulations on the supply of horse salt stipulated by the Ministry of War of the Tang Dynasty. 'Horse salt, one horse and three days of salt, nine liters in one month, five buckets and four liters in six months. The first army of horses and horses was 37 stone and 5 buckets of salt, 1,125 stone in one month, and 6,750 stone in six months. ’。 The number of so-called 'horses in one army' is equivalent to 12,000 war horses. The number of cavalry in Gyeonggi exceeded 80,000 and the number of horses raised exceeded 100,000, so the salt for military horses alone required 50,000 stones, which was also a huge amount of 50,000 yuan.

There is no need to count the salt for pig-like cattle and horses raised by the people, but the nearly two million soldiers and civilians around Jingzhao in Chang'an consume more than 600,000 yuan in salt every year. Looking at the world of the Tang Dynasty, there are nearly 100 million people, nearly 1 million troops, and more than 400,000 war horses, and the salt consumed by this huge country every year is worth tens of millions.

This is a huge cake, of course, this cake belongs to the imperial court, and the imperial court is qualified to obtain this huge benefit. But for Wang Yuan, in today's situation, even if he takes a risk, as long as he has the opportunity, he dares to take a bite of this cake.

Of course, the premise is that he has salt, and there must be a hidden channel for selling salt. Now that he has received valuable information, he has learned that there is a salt lake in the territory of the Tubo people west of Jiannan, and Wang Yuan will of course think about it in this regard. As for how to hide people's eyes and ears and do this thing that the imperial court will never allow, Wang Yuan's first thought is to cooperate with Yang Guozhong.

Yang Guozhong's household department was closed to the monopoly of salt, iron, grain, tea, and other affairs, and as long as this channel could be opened, the salt obtained from the salt lake would not be like the monopoly system of the imperial court. Or simply make a private deal with Yang Guozhong, pull Yang Guozhong into this deal, and let him also get a huge profit, this matter will be completed nine times out of ten.

With Wang Yuan's understanding of Yang Guozhong, this guy is not a person without courage, and he can do a lot of incredible things for money. For example, in the matter of buying and selling Kunlun slaves, it was Yang Guozhong who came up with the method of attributing the identity of black slaves to the imperial court for public sale, which allowed the Tang Dynasty to increase its income by millions from the black slave trade every year. Yang Guozhong himself also made a huge amount of oil and water from it. It can be said that as long as it is profitable, Yang Guozhong will never refuse.

One problem is that the salt in the salt lake in the old guide's mouth is poisonous salt, and it is not clear what kind of salt lake it is. In terms of Wang Yuan's knowledge reserves, the salt in the salt lake is mixed with a large number of impurities, which will be harmful to people. This may be the reason for the so-called poisonous salt in the mouth of the old guide. However, Wang Yuan visited the salt factory in the salt lake in later life, and knew that most of the salt in the salt lake could be processed and used for consumption. Of course, there will be various ways to make it pure and fine in later generations, but a small amount of impurities will not actually have much impact on humans and animals.

The coarse salt that Datang is now marketing all over the world is also some salt that contains a lot of impurities, many of which are sediments after being directly exposed to the sea, containing sediment impurities and a large number of other salts. The question now is how to be sure that this salt lake is a normal salt lake, and if it is really all poisonous salt, then this matter can not be mentioned again.

……

The old guide and his wife personally instructed to use soil and poria to steam and boil the mountain roots together, of course Wang Yuan refused to take his things for nothing, since this thing was so precious as the old guide said, Wang Yuan naturally wanted to spend money to buy it. The old guide refused to accept the money, and Wang Yuan persuaded his subordinates to pay for the medicine for twenty yuan.

This kind of sand scorpion king is actually not that expensive, if a sand scorpion king is sold in the pharmacy, it will only be about five or six times, but Wang Yuan is grateful for the old couple's intention to come from Yazhou to deliver medicine. In addition, the old guide inadvertently revealed such important information to himself, which is difficult to buy even for a thousand dollars.

Wang Yuan was not in the mood to go to the Yamen, so he simply stayed in the house to talk with the old guide, and the topic did not leave the salt lake in the northwest of Bison City. According to the old guide, the area of the salt lake is really not small, the radius is probably twenty miles in size, it is quite a large salt lake. This is how the old guide described the poison salt. A lot of white salt-like stuff is precipitated on the salt lake tidal flats. When I first saw it, some villagers thought it was edible salt, and although it was a little bitter, it also had a salty taste. However, after taking it home and feeding it to the animal, the animal died soon after, and when the stomach was dissected, it was found that the stomach and intestines had been burned and eroded. Therefore, the theory of poisonous salt has spread far and wide, and no one dares to eat the salt in this salt lake anymore.

Wang Yuan understood most of the things in his heart that the crystals precipitated around the salt lake may not be salt, and the real salt should be in the lake water, even if there are precipitated crystals, it will be at the bottom of the lake. And the things on the shore should be something else that crystallizes more easily than table salt. But no matter what, Wang Yuan feels that seeing is always believing.

When Wang Yuan made this request, the old guide was stunned for a long time and did not speak, the last time the marshal touched the Jinchuan River on the edge of Bison City, and almost encountered a large number of Tibetan soldiers and horses. This time, we had to cross Bison City to the salt lake thirty or forty miles to the west. What did the bird do where it didn't lay eggs?

"Dashuai, are you worried that a sand scorpion king will not be enough for your lady to heal? So you want to go and catch a few yourself? This is not necessary, a sand scorpion king can definitely be cured. Besides, it's so easy to catch the Sand Scorpion King, and you may not be able to catch it if you go, didn't you hear the old man say, did you only catch three in this life? ”

Wang Yuan smiled dumbly, and the old guide obviously had the wrong idea. But Wang Yuan couldn't tell him his purpose, he just said, "You just say if we can go there." ”

The old guide frowned and thought for a long time and shook his head: "It's too dangerous, the soldiers and horses of Bison City patrol the area around the salt lake very tightly, because they know that we people in the Tang Dynasty like to go to the salt lake to catch sand scorpions, so it is easy to run into them." It's easy to do if there are few people, but it's impossible to hide when there are too many people. In addition, Dashuai, you can think about it, it is in the desert eighty or ninety miles away from the border of my Datang. Entering the desert land for hundreds of miles, this danger is not trivial. ”

Wang Yuan still said the same thing: "If you have to go and see, can you get there." ”

The old guide thought for a while and said, "If you must go, it's not impossible." ”

Wang Yuan smiled: "I am relieved to have your words, this matter is so decided, I must go and take a look." ”