Early the next morning, the group walked to the beach in the morning light. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 infoThe seaside is a bit far from the village and it starts earlier than going to work in the fields. Liu Yao looked at the group of brothers in the team, although everyone had seen it, he couldn't recognize all these silent partners since he was a child. He caught up with Mei Xianzhuo and asked, "How do you divide the harvest with these brothers?" ”

"Ploughing and farming is heavy work, and everyone does it together, regardless of whose land. The cooking and watering of the back are managed by one's own land, and the harvest belongs to oneself. We also open up the wasteland, and divide it according to the head, and my family counts it as two shares. My family has more land, and everyone helps to take care of it, and each of us takes care of a piece of land, and does not take the harvest. But it's all my business. ”

"That's right. What about boiling salt? ”

"The business of boiling salt is counted as shares, one share for each person, and I count three shares."

"The cost is also spread like this?"

"That's right. If you don't want to participate in some things, you can also not participate. ”

Liu Yao was very satisfied with the situation asked. He needed a strong organization to unite a group of people to work together. Mei Xianzhuo's team is not only ready-made, but also quite united, and what is even more gratifying is that it basically operates in accordance with the laws of the market economy.

While talking, the beach arrived. On the gray sand, there is a row of simple sheds, next to which is a large pile of wood, larger than the shed.

A man was chopping wood by the shed, and when he saw someone coming, he hurried to meet him. When I got closer, I saw a swarthy and thin man, with only a piece of cloth wrapped around his waist, and his eyes sparkled like reflections on coal.

The man came forward to greet Mei Xianzhuo.

Mei Xianzhuo responded: "Qian San, you have been in the salt field and have not seen Mr. Liu yet." ”

Qian Sanyi arched his hand: "I heard that I have come back a lot." Mr. Liu is auspicious. ”

Liu Yao hurriedly returned the salute: "Thank you, Brother Qian." Is this chopping wood for boiling salt? ”

"Yes. Trees have to be transported from the mountains, which is the most troublesome. ”

Liu Yao turned around and asked the executives: "Can you get coal around here?" ”

"Burn coal and boil salt? We haven't tried. The executive said as he undressed. Everyone was undressing until all that was left was a pair of shorts. "Because coal is more expensive than firewood, and it is not easy to transport. The nearest coal has to be transported from Ding'an County, more than 100 miles of land, laborious and laborious, and the coal is not good, it is not burned. ”

"I heard about Vietnam...... Annan ...... Got good coal? ”

"I've heard that, too. Never bought it though. It's more expensive than coal. Even in the blacksmith's shop, charcoal is used. After the executive finished speaking, he led Liu Yao into the shed.

The shed was dim and hot, with 10 huge stoves lined up, taking up most of the room, leaving only a narrow passage for walking. A huge pot was placed on the stove, with a diameter of at least two meters, and when you got closer, this pot turned out to be made of bamboo, and the bottom of the pot was covered with mud, and the depth was not large. Seawater had been poured into the pot, but the fire in the stove had not been lit. Everyone put up incense tables and sacrificed again. Liu Yao was surprised to find that it was still the heavy incense case that had resisted to the mountain. It seems that this incense case has a very important position in Meijia Village.

Liu Yao was walking around the shed, pinching up a little mud at the bottom of the pot and twisting it on his fingertips, when he was suddenly pulled by Qian San, and when he looked back, he saw that a group of people were waiting for themselves with incense in their hands. Liu Yao hurriedly walked over, took three incense sticks and lit them like everyone else, stepped forward in turn, raised the incense above his head and bowed three times, and then respectfully inserted it into the incense burner on the incense table. After Liu Yao finished worshipping, he found that there were quite a few people waiting in line to worship at the back, and his ranking was relatively high.

After the sacrifice was completed, the executive's house began to light a fire. In the middle of the narrow passage lay a loose pile of firewood, and the executive pouted and lit it with a scythe, and soon a tiny smoke floated up. Liu Yao thought in his heart, this technology is different, my wife used ready-made fire to light the fire and couldn't get up for a long time. Standing next to him, a few junior students wearing only shorts, holding matches in their hands, but did not step forward, watching the executive's family stand up, circle around the small fire three times, take the firewood in their hands, and light the fire in the pot.

The water in the pot quickly steamed up and boiled. Some people went to fetch water and kept adding it to the pot. There was a person standing in front of every two stoves, recharging the firewood and checking the bottom of the pot for leaks. As long as he saw the crack and leakage, he held a piece of mud cake in his hand, and the person quickly reached into the hearth, snapped the leak, and then quickly twisted his waist out. There is a bucket of seawater next to each stove, and every time the person who fills the leak goes in and out, he pours a handful of seawater in the bucket and pours it on his head.

Liu Yao watched from the side, amazed, and at the same time thought, the executive couldn't do this, his fluffy hair had to be burned off.

Just as he was thinking about it, he saw the executive's family withdraw from a furnace. The soaked hair clings to the head, steaming hot. Liu Yaoxiao walked out of the salt drying room with a smile, picked up a hoe, and whispered to Mei Xianzhuo: "Brother Tai, give me one person, and I'll try a new way of making salt." ”

Mei Xianzhuo's eyes lit up, and he knew that there was a good way, so he beckoned to Qian who had just put down the bucket.

Liu Yao took Qian San back to the woods far from the coast and dug up the soil. This is the soil used to paste the bottom of the pot, and after making the mud cake, it has a good water barrier, and it has been pinched just now, and it is very sticky. Liu Yao asked Qian San to pick up a handful of soil and walked to the beach near the sea. The sea in front of me is blue, the white waves are rolling, and it is the time of high tide.

When he came to the beach, Liu Yao asked Qian San where the high tide of the sea is generally highest. Qian San put down his pick and pointed to a faint line on the beach with his foot. The sand particles on the line are clean and simple, and the sand grains on the line have some debris such as grass stems and leaves. Liu Yao asked Qian San to pour the soil out of the line. A handful of dirt was so pressed that the flat pole was bent, but there was only a small pile on the beach, which didn't seem to be enough, so he led Qian San and walked back, and went to pick up another handful of soil. When I turned around and walked, it was the sun that came down, and the sweat came down. When I looked up when I wiped my sweat, the sky was blue, the woods were green, like a computer-processed picture, and the smoke wafting from the roof of the shed became thicker and thicker.

Liu Yao found three bamboo rafts in the salt burning room and took them to the beach and placed them at different heights. There is a slight overlap between the bamboo rafts, so that the water in the first bamboo row can flow to the second and then to the third. Of course, the bamboo raft could not hold water, so Liu Yao asked Qian San to paste the mud cakes evenly on the bamboo raft, try to be as smooth as possible, and then make a side with mud strips around the bamboo raft to form a tray with a depth of less than half a foot high.

Liu Yao filled each plate with seawater, and instructed Qian San to check from time to time, if the water is dried to one-third, fill the lower plate with medium plate water, fill the middle plate with the upper plate water, and then pick up water to fill the upper plate, and so on, until the salt comes out of the lower plate, then no longer fill the water, and directly dry the lower plate to collect salt.

"In this way, there must be another one in the next plate, otherwise when it is dried, there will be nowhere to go for the water in the middle plate." Qian San said with a deep groan.

"Makes sense." Liu Yao patted Qian San on the shoulder and said: "I know a lot of things, but in fact, how to do it is really not very clear, so we need to think of a way together." ”

"Just doing this, does it really work?" Qian San asked suspiciously.

"I don't really know how quickly I can get the salt out. However, I can say with certainty that in the future, there will be no more burning salt on the beach, only dried salt. ”

"Burning salt is affected by rain. You have to dry the salt very quickly, so that you will burn the salt. Qian San touched his chin and said softly.

Staying in the salt field until dark, seeing that the bamboo raft showed no signs of cracking, and the water level dropped quite obviously, Liu Yao told Mei Xianzhuo that he would not come tomorrow, and the rest of the matter would be arranged by Qian Sanhui.

In the afternoon of the second day, a layer of salt had been spread on the third bamboo row. Although the first layer of salt cannot be removed cleanly from the mud cake, the salt that has been piled on top of it can be easily scraped off, and it can be expected to be very clean. And in these two days, it is nothing more than a person leisurely drying off thirty percent of the sea water in the plate, putting the water in the second plate into the third plate, and then putting the water in the first plate into the second plate, and then filling the first plate with sea water.

The people who burned the salt were excited, stopped the stove fire, and sent people to Mei's house to drag Mei Xianzhuo and Liu Yao to the salt farm.

Although the bamboo rafts do not look sturdy, and it is not known whether it is possible to make an impermeable pool on the beach, this method does not require burning wood or intensive labor, and everyone can imagine that the value of this method is very great. Mei Xianzhuo didn't speak for a long time, and his eyes lit up and looked around the three clay plates. After seeing enough, he raised his head and said to Liu Yao: "Brother, you have ten shares in this salt business!" Liu Yao said loudly: "Not enough! My wife, son, and daughter each have two shares! When everyone heard this, they were stunned for a moment, and saw that Mei Xianzhuo nodded, and they all agreed.

According to Liu Yao's plan, large stones were lifted and buried on the beach as the foundation of the mud pan. Qian San also creatively proposed to make a mud tray on the stone instead of bamboo rows, directly using the three-way soil (this is the original cement) mixed with lime, yellow mud and river sand. Liu Yao was very interested in this, and told Qian San to find the best Sanhe soil formula according to the method of "planning, experimenting, and recording". For the sake of safety, several long-term control groups with different formulas were also made to see which formula was more reliable after soaking in water for a long time, as well as after repeated exposure to the sun and soaking in water.

Zhao Shilu, who had learned a lot from leveling the fields, spent three days choosing a just right height that would allow the sea to automatically enter the first layer of mud when the tide was high. The large porcelain bowl level plays an important role in this, and the clay pan is made very horizontal. Qian San also used his experience to design a convenient gate. The stone gate, which looks very heavy, can be easily opened and closed by a single person. He also combined the law of the tides and wrote a clay tablet for the best time to open the sluice gate and placed it in the shed to put in the clear water with less sediment.

Although the first batch of clay pans was only experimental, each piece was only about 100 square meters, everyone had already automatically called it Yantian. It took only three days to build three salt pans. After the seawater was put into the salt pan, no one expected that after only three days, the salt on the last clay tray would crystallize, and the first batch of salt would almost be harvested.

It was the morning of the third day, and there was no sign of the seawater in the last mud tray the night before, and although it tasted bitter, no one, including Liu Yao, was sure when the salt would be seen. Qian San was not in a hurry because of this, and after getting up in the morning, he went to the woods to spill a comfortable urine before walking to the salt pan to check. Everything was red in the morning glow, and it wasn't until I got closer that I saw so many salt grains piled up on the Sanhe soil. Qian San picked up a handful and found that the salt grains were snow-white, the color was uniform, and he looked up, how much salt should be collected in this salt field. This salt pan is not only much more efficient than boiling salt, but also of much better quality. Thinking of this, Qian San ran to the shed with the salt in his hand, shouting as he ran: "Get up!" Get up! Go and call Mr. Liu and Mei Yuanwai! ”

When Liu Yao arrived at Yantian, the sun was already high. He didn't get to see the first salt harvest, only a few large bamboo baskets placed on the edge of the salt pan to drain the water. It turned out that everyone who was burning salt ran to Liu Yao and bowed, lining up one by one. Liu Yao hurriedly returned the salute one by one, and he couldn't say jokes such as "mountain people have already calculated" that he wanted to say, and he was moved in his heart.

Qian San roughly counted that the output of this salt field was more than three times the estimate! Mei Xianzhuo rubbed his hands around the salt basket again, and after the turn, he instructed the Zhao family father and son and Qian San to lead the villagers to dig more salt farms. After the salt farm was built, the brigade withdrew, and Qian San stayed behind to be the person in charge of the salt drying plant, leading the remaining troops to dry the salt and improve the process to ensure the highest efficiency.

After ordering this, Mei Xianzhuo paused, turned back to Liu Yao, who was squatting on the edge of the salt pan and rubbing salt grains, and said, "Sir, do you think this is good?" ”

Liu Yao stood up and said, "I'm wondering, after the expansion here is done, can we send all the women and old men in the village who can work to Qian San." Those who go to work are paid. Let's swap out all the men here and build a house. ”。

When Mei Xianzhuo heard this, he was first surprised, and then he was happy, and he couldn't keep his mouth shut, and said happily: "I have to send Qian San to sell salt." Li Jiangong is back, so much salt has to be sold by a capable person. Everything else is up to you. You can do whatever you want. Breakfast is fine. ”

"That's what you said! You ask Mei Xiang to make me breakfast tomorrow, and I want three eggs! Liu Yao also said happily.

"You have two sons and daughters."

"My son and daughter each eat one, and the two of us take turns eating the other." The smile disappeared from Liu Yao's face, and he said firmly: "Eating breakfast, being able to eat eggs at breakfast is a good thing for everyone." Next summer, I'm going to have everyone eat one egg a day. Thinking that in Roosevelt's time, Americans could not cook a turkey every Sunday, so Liu Yao had to start with eggs to make a wish.

Everyone didn't quite understand Liu Yao's mental journey, but they had already heard about the Liu family's breakfast, and when they thought of having an egg to eat every day, they began to feel that they had captured something.