A piece of roasted sweet potato was devoured by Wei Shuo and the two children, and Niuniu and Dog Dan'er almost ate the roasted sweet potato skin into their stomachs. Several other adults on the side were also drooling, Zhang Erlang's eyes lit up as if he was staring at Wei Shuo's package, if he didn't know that the rest still needed to be bred next year, it was estimated that he would have started a long time ago.

The sweet potatoes have a hint of sweetness, which is more attractive to the two children, you must know that sugar was a very scarce material in ancient times, and ordinary people usually can't afford to eat sugar.

With the roasted sweet potato, Wei Shuo reluctantly stuffed a vegetable ball into his stomach, and finally ate half full.

After dinner, Wei Shuo sat with the Zhang family's father and son and chatted for a long time.

"Uncle Zhang, how many families are there in this valley?"

Zhang Laohan smashed his lips and said, "Well, I just moved in one household two days ago, and now there are a total of one hundred and three households, and there are only about five hundred men, women, old and young together, of which only one hundred and fifty-one are young and strong. ”

Wei Shuo secretly pondered for a moment, the people in the valley are a little few, but if he wants to settle down in this troubled world, at present, these hundreds of families are the first objects of unity for him to survive in the future.

"What do you live on?"

"There are also dozens of acres of land in the valley, and everyone usually grows some grain, but without the pressure of the government and big households in the middle, the actual harvest is more than when they are outside. But even this is not enough to fill the stomach, most of the time we have to go to the mountains to collect some game and pick some wild fruits and vegetables. ”

"Aren't you thinking of finding another way out? We shouldn't be far from the sea, so why don't we go fishing? ”

In modern times, Wei Shuo has seen many fishermen, and under normal circumstances, fishermen's income is higher than that of farmers who simply farm. Of course, fishermen are taking a higher risk than farmers, especially in bad weather, which can cause both fishermen and their boats to be lost.

"Fishing? Do you think we don't want to? Hearing Wei Shuo's question, Zhang Laohan didn't say anything, Zhang Erlang couldn't help but ask: "Not to mention that there are no sea boats in everyone's hands right now, even if we have sea boats, we don't dare to go to the sea to fish easily." ”

"Huh? Don't dare to go fishing? Why? I saw that the mountains were full of trees, and if everyone cut down some and make them into fishing boats, wouldn't they be able to go out to sea to catch fish? ”

"Alas! Little brother doesn't know, in the past, many of us here have gone to the sea to fish, but in recent years, with the chaos in the world, several bands of pirates of different sizes have appeared in the coastal areas. These pirates not only attacked fishermen who went to fish, but sometimes even went ashore in Koro. ”

"Pirates? And pirates here? ”

"Of course there are pirates, it is precisely because of those hateful pirates that everyone does not dare to go into the sea to fish easily, and even the salt boiling at Second Uncle Yang's house has to be done secretly!"

When it comes to pirates, Zhang Erlang can't help but grit his teeth, if it weren't for pirates, he and his eldest brother wouldn't have gone to the mountains to hunt in the cold.

When Wei Shuo learned that the coastal fishermen were forced by pirate pressure to dare not go into the sea to fish, he couldn't help but sigh that the life of the people at the bottom in ancient times was not easy, and it seemed that the guys with a little power had to bite them off.

The conversation was unexpectedly interrupted because of the pirates, and Wei Shuo also spent too much energy because he had just encountered a series of incredible things, so he quickly fell asleep after lying down, while the Zhang family couldn't sleep for a long time because of his arrival.

After a slight snoring sound sounded in the room, the three of the Zhang family's father and son got together and couldn't help but talk about Wei Shuo.

"Dad, what do you say is the origin of this little brother? Not to mention that the clothes on his body are priceless, even those rare species in his backpack are not available to everyone. After seeing Wei Shuo asleep, Zhang Dalang finally couldn't help but ask.

"I don't know, I've lived my whole life, old man, and I've never seen any corn and sweet potatoes. By the way, the salt at home is almost gone, so you can go to Second Uncle Li's house tomorrow to change some and come back. ”

"I know Dad, alas, thanks to Second Uncle Li's family, they also moved here, saving everyone the hard work of buying salt."

……

Early in the morning of the second day, Wei Shuo heard that Zhang Dalang was going out of Second Uncle Li's house to buy salt, so he offered to go with him to take a look, and Zhang Dalang did not doubt that he led Wei Shuo out of the door. In the cold winter season, the morning in the mountains is very cold, and even Wei Shuo can't help but shiver even if he is wearing a modern down jacket.

Wei Shuo walked on the mountain path, looking around at the thatched huts scattered in the valley, and from these messy and dilapidated thatched huts, you can see how difficult it is for people to live here. It didn't take long for Zhang Dalang and Wei Shuo to come to a small courtyard made of fences.

"Second Uncle Li, is Second Uncle Li at home?" Zhang Dalang stood outside Second Uncle Li's courtyard and shouted, and then he turned his head and explained to Wei Shuo in a low voice: "Second Uncle Li's family turned out to be from Langya, and his family has lived by boiling salt for generations. ”

"Fortunately, Second Uncle Li's family came over, and since his family moved here, people in the valley no longer have to go to Buqi County to buy salt. Moreover, the salt of Second Uncle Li's house is cheaper than the price outside, and sometimes he accepts barter, unlike the salt merchants outside, who don't want anything but copper coins. ”

Hearing that Second Uncle Li was from a salt household, Wei Shuo's eyes lit up, and a golden avenue to get rich quickly suddenly appeared in front of him. As a necessity of life, it can be said that as long as it is produced, it will not be sold. Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty implemented the monopoly of salt and iron, smuggling salt began to spread on a large scale, and it has become a stubborn disease that cannot be eradicated by all dynasties after the Han Dynasty.

In fact, in ancient times, Qingzhou was a traditional area of salt production in a very early period, and in the Spring and Autumn Period, the Qi State Guanzhong allowed the Qi people to 'boil seawater to make salt', and since then the Qingzhou area has become an important place for salt production. It is recorded in the history books: "The return of the salt is also like the people of the city." "That is, there are so many people who boil salt that it is like rushing to the market.

Because Guan Zhong's salt monopoly policy fully took into account the interests of all social strata, it was well received by the public.

History: Guan Zhong "set up the benefits of light and heavy fish and salt to support the poor, Lu is virtuous, and everyone is happy".

This fundamentally avoids the possibility of illicit salt.

Imagine that under the condition that the interests of producers and consumers can be fully protected, what market is there for the illegal production and sale of smuggled salt? What profit is there to be made? The only thing is that it is high risk and high cost. Therefore, later generations looked through the relevant documents of this period, but they really could not find the literature records of the production and sale of illicit salt in the territory of Qi during the reign of Qi Huan, and there were no relevant prohibitions on smuggling.

It was only in the fourth year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (119 B.C.) that the official sale of salt was implemented, and after the private cooking was strictly prohibited, the interests of the bottom salt households were not fully considered, resulting in "salt began to be divided between official and private", and at this time, the high salt tax has become a heavy burden on salt households, and a large number of salt households began to engage in selling private salt.

"Brother Zhang, how much does the salt outside usually sell?"

"During the Taikang period, each catty of official salt was about five yuan, and private salt was generally one to two dollars lower than official salt. But in recent years, with the invasion of the Hu people, the price of salt has become higher and higher, and now a pound of official salt is sold for more than ten yuan, and even private salt is more than eight yuan. Alas, the price of salt is so high that it is bitter for ordinary people like us. ”

Thinking of the high price of salt, Zhang Dalang couldn't help but shake his head, the price of salt is too high, ordinary farmers can't afford to eat it, but there is no way to eat salt, everyone has to use the meager income in their fields to buy high-priced salt from salt merchants.

Zhang Dalang's casual complaint brought a huge shock to Wei Shuo, he could think that there were huge profits in the ancient salt industry, but he didn't expect that the profits were so huge, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a huge profit. In modern times, the price of a catty of salt is about two yuan, and five baht a penny in the Western Jin Dynasty is equivalent to four corners of RMB, and a catty in ancient times is almost half the weight of a catty in modern times, that is, the price of a catty of official salt at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty is about 5 yuan.

"Da Lang is here, come to the house!"

Just as Wei Shuo was pondering, Second Uncle Yang opened the door of the house and let Zhang Dalang and Wei Shuo into the house. Second Uncle Yang didn't ask much when he saw a stranger next to Zhang Dalang, after all, there were outsiders in this valley from time to time who came to settle down, and he didn't know what kind of relative this was from the Zhang family.

"Second Uncle Yang, do you still have salt at home? I want to go back a little bit. ”

"Yes, yesterday Kuroko boiled a pot of salt and didn't have time to sell it, so you can take it and eat it first."

"That's great, this is my dad asked me to bring the venison, how much salt do you think you can exchange?"

Saying that, Zhang Dalang handed a deer leg to Second Uncle Yang, this deer leg was left by the Zhang family for a long time, and he was reluctant to eat it, so he could only exchange it for some salt now.