"Li Meng, can we really make money this time?"

On the trail in Jiaodong, Zhao Neng pushed the wheelbarrow while asking Li Meng, who was walking in the middle, Li Meng's strength was used to push the wheelbarrow, and he didn't care about answering, and the demeanor of more than a dozen people on the side seemed to be relaxed, but they were also looking left and right, looking very nervous.

There were four or five wheelbarrows in this group, and the rest were carried with flat poles, whether they were on the carts or on flat poles, all in bulging straw bags.

In the summer of the fifth year of Chongzhen, the area of Denglai was particularly deserted, and Kong Youde made a rebellion in Dengzhou, plundering officials and people, doing all kinds of evil, and even having animal acts of cannibalism where military rations were not enough. Denglai's military garrison has always been relaxed, and the imperial court can only mobilize troops and horses from all over the country to suppress it.

However, this tense situation also has a benefit, there are very few pedestrians walking on the official road, the soldiers are all transferred to quell the rebellion, and there are no patrols, Li Meng and a dozen of them do not have to worry about being caught when they walk on the path. As for why so nervous.

Quite simply, what these children of military families are doing now is to do illegal and illegal activities, trafficking in illicit salt.

Li Meng was knocked unconscious, and when he woke up, he still had a pot in his hand, which was used to boil salt. Relying on the mountains to eat the mountains, relying on the sea to eat the sea, so close to the sea, you have to rely on him to earn some food and clothing money to spend.

In all dynasties, the monopoly of salt and iron tea, all those sold privately are felonies, and the degree of this felony is basically to cut off the head and hang the head, just to ensure the profits of the government's monopoly, but if there is a profit, someone must take risks, such as selling salt.

The good fields of the military households of the Xue family were all occupied by officers at all levels, but they were all a big family, looking at those barren lands and not being able to do anything, they were all thinking of some other way out, and boiling seawater and boiling salt was the easiest and easiest way.

Ten miles south of the Xue family's thousand households, there is a Lingshan salt farm, as long as you boil out the salt, the salt farm will buy, a load of salt, about one hundred and twenty catties, can be sold for three dollars of silver.

The sea water is inexhaustible, there is no shortage of firewood and grass, and there is a lot of silver to supplement the family, so all the military households who do not farm the land are boiling salt at the seaside, and Li Meng is also caught by Zhao Neng to boil salt, and the money earned from boiling salt can subsidize some living expenses.

It's just that there are some risks in selling this boiled salt to the salt farm, and there is a patrol officer Mu Laozhong who investigates illegal salt in Jiaozhou nearby, and the inspection of illegal salt in these years is generally the largest local illegal salt dealer, and hundreds of ruffians are gathered under his hands, rampaging between several counties.

This patrol can sell illegal salt, but no one else is allowed to sell it, and people are arrested everywhere, and after being caught, people can be fined and extorted, and the salt goods also fall into their own pockets, and the most oily thing is not.

Among them, the military households of the Xue family, which are inferior to even civilian households, especially those who boil sea salt, are the best targets for Mu Inspection.

In Li Meng's almost blank memory in the past, "King Mu Yan" is one of the words he fears, which can scare a fool like this, which can be seen to be full of majesty. Hundreds of families in the Xue family boil a lot of salt every year, but most of the silver falls into the pockets of this King Muyan.

And this is not the only thing that has plagued the military family, the girl in Zhao Neng's neighbor's house committed suicide by throwing herself into the sea with a stone after being ruined by this inspection, and Chen Liuzi, who was pushing a cart there behind, he boiled salt last year and saved one or two or five dollars of silver, and wanted to buy medicine for his father to treat his illness.

As a result, he was caught by Mu Xunjian's subordinates on the way to sell salt, saying that he was selling salt and stolen money, and he snatched it after a violent beating, and Chen Liuzi's father had no money to see a doctor, so he went within a few days.

Speaking of which, this side is the guard, and the other side is just a small nine-product inspection, an army and a people, it stands to reason that they should not be afraid, but in the past few decades, those who have fought outside are recruited soldiers, and all those who are in the guard are all soldiers who work in the field, and they can't get rid of their military status, and to put it bluntly, they are half-slaves. The inspection of illegal salt can be investigated, and the salt policy with the largest oil and water is stuck, and all parties are in a tie, and they have money and power in their hands, which is naturally prestigious.

The hundreds and thousands of households of the Xue family were polite when they saw King Mu Yan, for fear that their little wealth for selling smuggled salt would be cut off by the other party, which was the case above, not to mention the children of the military families below.

When Li Meng tossed and turned at night, he remembered one thing, when Zhao Neng was boiling salt, he chatted with other people and said that after the salt was harvested in the salt field, some of it was mixed with sand and sold as official salt, and some salt was not known where to buy. Li Meng, who thought of this, had a heart.

The next time I went to the salt field to sell salt, I inquired about it, the stove households and salt Ding in the salt field are also bitter people, and there is no secret mentality, more than a dozen dollars will know everything, the original salt in the salt field is also divided into two parts, one part is bought by the Mu inspection, and the other part is sold to the private salt dealers in Fengmeng Town.

The official salt and the Mu patrol came to buy salt, a load of salt and a tael of silver, a load of salt of one hundred and twenty catties, and the smuggled salt dealers in Fengmeng Town were one tael and five dollars of silver.

Hearing this price at that time, Li Meng gasped at that time, he had a load of three dollars of silver on his side, and he would have a profit of one or two silver when he sold it to the salt farm, and he didn't have to do anything, and he collected the difference.

Li Meng, who is already a completely modern person, is deeply influenced by the market economy, and there is so much price difference, no matter how he thinks about it, he feels that this money should be earned by himself, I really don't know why my neighbors and friends don't do it.

Li Meng naturally wanted to go over to ask, but fortunately, everyone thought that he had recovered from a fool to a normal person, and what he said was seriously considered, it turned out that the people of the Xue family's thousand households were unwilling to directly traffic illicit salt to Fengmeng Town, because they were afraid that they would be caught by King Mu Yan on the way.

More people's reasons are even more laughable, the vast majority of people don't know about the salt farm selling salt to the salt dealers in Fengmeng Town, Li Mengben thought that it would be very troublesome for him to convince everyone, who knows that this situation is said, as long as the salt is sent to Fengmeng Town, which is more than 20 miles away, how can a load of salt make an extra one or two silver, everyone is excited, and everyone wants to make this fortune.

Since everyone has this meaning, it is much easier to do, when Li Meng went to the Lingshan salt field to deliver salt, he heard one thing, Laizhou Salt Zhengmu inspection will collect salt in the salt field on June 13 and 14, he himself is a big private salt dealer, every time he buys salt is a large transaction, so he can't get out of it, and he won't leave until two days later.

The gap in these two days is a good opportunity for the Xue family's thousands of households to sell smuggled salt, and everyone is pondering one after another, this fool has indeed become smarter, and things are so well considered.

Since King Muyan is not there, everyone knows how to walk the path, and there are huge profits - for the children of poor military families, the profit of a load of salt and a tael of silver is a lot of money.

On the 12th of June, Zhao Neng and Chen Liu took the lead and called more than a dozen soldiers who were familiar with each other, and each of them had 1,200 catties of salt in store for this kind of work of boiling salt in the sea. I went to my neighbor and borrowed a chicken cart (wheelbarrow), and I took a flat load of salt.

On June 13, eleven people got up early and pushed the cart out of the door, and when they just walked out of the house, everyone was still a little frightened, and after walking for half an hour, they looked back and couldn't see the houses of the Xue family's thousands of households clearly, and gradually walked into the woods.

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