After everyone finally digested and absorbed all of Sun Ce's orders, Sun Ce decided to inspect Haiyan County.

Haiyan County, as the name suggests, is famous for salt.

Haiyan County was established as a county in the 25th year of the reign of King Qin (222 BC). It is named because of "the seashore is widely reprimanded, and the salt pans face each other".

Salt is a necessity for human beings, and it is a strategic material for the current era.

In the Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty in the fourth year of Yuanzhan (119 B.C.) adopted the imperial historian Zhang Tang's suggestion to collect the benefits of salt and iron from all over the world to return to the officials, set up national salt and iron institutions in various places, and appointed people who had become rich by operating salt and iron as officials. The salt-producing flat stoves that were originally owned by the wealthy were returned to the state, and the government directly organized the production, transportation, and sale of salt, without borrowing from the vendors. The official cooks the salt, the official sells the salt, and the production, transportation and marketing are completely government-run. Salt historians call it the "total monopoly".

In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Emperor Guangwu implemented a policy of reducing taxes in order to consolidate the re-established Han regime. Abolish the salt monopoly law implemented since the Western Han Dynasty, abolish the ban on private cooking, and allow the people to make salt and trade it freely. Salt officials were set up in counties with a large amount of salt production to collect salt taxes. Because its production, transportation and marketing are all privately owned, the government levies taxes. Salt historians call it the "on-the-spot taxation system".

On May 10, Sun Ce led his troops to Haiyan County.

This time, Sun Ce was lightly charioted and obeyed, and was escorted by Hou Ling, the personal guard of the Guards Division, with 500 soldiers. He was accompanied by the main bookkeeper Hengjie, Cangcao was engaged in Lusu, and Hucao was engaged in Gu Yong.

Haiyan County is not a large county, with a small population, about 30,000 and less than 10,000 households.

At this time, the county magistrate of Haiyan was leading a group of subordinate officials to greet Sun Ce.

The county magistrate of Haiyan is surnamed Cui Mingpeng, the word Ziyou, and a native of Guangling County, Xuzhou.

Cui Peng is not good-looking, his skin is a little dark, and his figure is not tall, so it is really appropriate to describe him as black and short.

It's human nature that people like people who are good-looking.

There are really a lot of people like Cui Peng who can't be promoted because of their black dwarf.

No matter what the era, people pay great attention to appearance. You don't see, the staff of the government departments in later generations have to wear suits and leather shoes every day. It's the same now, if you look ugly, you will lose a lot of opportunities.

However, Sun Ce II is a human being, of course, he will not simply judge his talents and learn from appearance, if he only talks about appearance, does Sun Ce want or not, the military advisor Pang Tong?

Obviously, Sun Ce's visit to Haiyan County was an opportunity for Haiyan County Mayor Cui Peng.

Of course, Sun Ce would not care about the careful thinking of a small Haiyan county magistrate. After all, as a real prince, he has a lot of things to consider.

For example, now, one of the questions that Sun Ce is constantly thinking about is "salt politics".

In today's troubled times, Emperor Guangwu's original "salt administration" is no longer out of date, and the production of salt must be in the hands of the government, how can this kind of strategic resource be controlled by private individuals?

The county seat of Haiyan is nothing more than a rammed earth city wall, and only the city gate is covered with green bricks.

It's a small county town, and the strategic location doesn't matter.

"Subordinates meet the lord!" Cui Peng saw Sun Ce coming slowly, and bowed his hand.

Sun Ce nodded, jumped off the horse, and said, "You are Cui Peng, the magistrate of Haiyan County?" ”

"It's a subordinate!" Cui Peng nodded and said.

Sun Ce looked at Cui Peng, who was slightly ugly in appearance, and said after a moment of silence: "I won't enter the city first, just take us to the salt flats to have a look." ”

Cui Peng was stunned for a moment, and then a flash of joy appeared on his face.

The opportunity came, Cui Peng said secretly in his heart.

"Obey the orders of the lord!" Cui Peng replied.

About a stick of incense passed, Cui Peng brought a donkey out of nowhere and rode on it himself, which looked quite funny.

Sun Ce looked at Cui Peng with interest, only to see Cui Peng riding on a donkey, and arched his hand: "Lord, the salt flats in Haiyan County are widely distributed, and basically all beaches have places to boil salt. ”

As Sun Ce expected, the method of producing salt today is still the most primitive decoction method.

The so-called decoction method, that is, using a plate for frying and a pot for cooking, is known as "boiling the sea for salt" in history. The use of decoction to produce sea salt is not only low in yield, but also poor in quality.

An important drawback of the decoction method is that it requires sufficient fuel.

Seawater is inexhaustible and readily available. However, to get enough fuel, you need to cut down enough firewood.

Almost all the residents of Haiyan County make a living by boiling salt, because boiling salt requires a stove, so each household is also called a stove household.

If there are many strong men in the stove household, the family will often have a better life, because they can cut enough firewood, so they will cook more salt every day than other people's homes.

As for those who have few strong men in their families, or even no strong men, their lives will be extremely difficult.

After walking for about half an hour, Sun Ce saw a lot of smoke, and people walking around under the smoke.

When Sun Ce got closer, he heard many stove households saluting Cui Peng, and said bluntly: "County Magistrate Cui is here again!" ”

Obviously, Cui Peng, the county magistrate, is still quite competent.

Sun Ce took a closer look at the stove.

The stove is square, about 1.5 meters wide and 0.3 meters high, and is made of bricks and mud.

A square iron pan with a side length of more than 1 meter and a height of about 0.1 meter is placed on the stove. The stove was littered with firewood and a few salt packets that had been made.

The salt bag was placed in a large wooden basket, Sun Ce opened the salt bag, and couldn't help frowning, this dark yellow thing full of impurities can also be called salt?

No one came to stop Sun Ce, everyone could see that Sun Ce was obviously older than Cui Pengguan, otherwise Lord Cui would be able to salute him? And he is such a young official, many people are secretly speculating in their hearts.

"This is boiled salt?" Sun Ce pointed to the contents of the salt bag and asked Cui Peng beside him.

Cui Peng nodded and replied: "This is what ordinary people eat, but the salt in the lord's mansion should be well salt from Yizhou!" ”

Sun Ce pondered for a moment and asked, "What is the daily output of boiled salt?" ”

Cui Peng replied without thinking: "If there is enough firewood, ten catties of salt can be produced per pot every day." ”

Sun Ce frowned and decided to teach the salt drying method to the stove households, so that the salt production could be expanded. The greater the salt production, the more salt taxes there are.

After returning to Haiyan County, Sun Ce discussed the salt drying method with Cui Peng, Hengjie, Lu Su, and Gu Yong.

The four of them were all amazed.

On the second day, a large number of salt pans appeared on the beach, and this was the experiment that Sun Ce led the people to experiment.

The salt pan is divided into two parts, one is an evaporation pond and the other is a crystallization pond.

First, the seawater is introduced into the evaporation pool, and when the water is evaporated to a certain extent by the sun, it is poured into the crystallization pool and continued to be exposed to the sun, and the seawater will become a saturated solution of salt, and the salt will gradually precipitate out after drying. The resulting crystals are our common coarse salts.

Sure enough, only three days later, patches of coarse salt from white flowers were drying in the salt pan.

Seeing this scene, the entire beach, all the stove households were boiling.

They no longer have to get up early and late every day to chop wood, and they no longer have to go through a lot of hard work but only get a very small amount of salt.

All the stove households remembered this person, the person who changed their fate, he was Sun Ce.

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