The ship stopped suddenly, it was still on the sea, there was no land in sight, and it was almost noon. The sudden halt of the boat was a surprise.

The businessmen who were thanking the white crane looked around.

Bai Chongxi, the father of Bai Minghe, also walked out of the cabin, looked at the sky, he had already slept for a full day and a night, and when he saw so many people on the deck, and all the adults were there, he hurriedly tidied up his clothes.

"Have you arrived?" Xing'an, who was sitting under a large umbrella on the side, stood up.

"When Xingdu returned to the capital, he wanted to ask for credit for the Guangdong sailors. Half of the sturdy laborers in the military households of the Guangdong Navy Division are here, and this is real hard work. It took four months to get such results. I believe that if Xingdu is asked to check on foot, I am afraid that Xingdu will have to walk for several days and nights in a row. ”

Bai Minghe was also a little excited, he didn't know much about the salt industry, he had only seen the salt pans when he was traveling.

Fortunately, there are still some really good salt farmers in Guangdong, who mention the white cranes to those things they see, combined with their actual work experience, and this is why there are salt pans here.

In the distance, two three-hundred-hundred-material Feiyan ships approached, and the guns on board were mounted on the bow.

First, it is a deterrent, and second, whether the artillery hits the enemy ship or not, it also has the effect of warning.

The flag on the bow of the white crane kept waving, and there was a response, one of the boats had already lit a torch, and the other boat came over, and saw the official defense document of the yamen of the Guangdong Metropolitan Division in the near distance, and then shouted: "My subordinates welcome all my lords, please forgive me if my duties are located!" ”

"Very well, if anyone approaches without permission, you can open fire." Yang Neng also shouted at the bow of the boat.

"Obey your lordship!" The captain gave a Ming salute and ordered his ship to get out of the way, and the two boats did not follow. Continue their perimeter patrols.

Yang Neng said: "This is the first post, and there are two more in the future." Although the income here is small compared to sea trade, it is related to people's livelihood here, so it cannot be underestimated. ”

The second post is the fort on the shore, and a small boat came to inspect it, and at the same time saw the official defense documents before retreating.

"Yang Du has a good hand. Strict rules are naturally a good thing! Xing'an praised beside him.

The third post is a 1,500 patrol ship, a real warship. This is a warship in actual combat, even if there are no pirates in the South China Sea, but there is no relaxation of vigilance here.

Isn't there some fuss, what's here?

Many people were thinking, but no one was asking.

It wasn't until about a mile further on, when the boat began to move closer to the shore, that one could see what was on the shore. There are no beautiful beaches here, only rocky beaches. But on the rocky beach, patches of snow-white and dazzling salt pans appeared in front of you.

"Yantian is so nervous when Yang Du is on duty?" Yu Qian asked.

Yang Neng shook his head: "Master Yu continue to watch." In addition to the salt pans, there are also two spice and essential oil mills. But I directly protect the salt pan, even if the production in the essential oil mill is no less than the income of the salt pan, I also care about this salt pan, not only me, but no one in the entire Guangdong capital does not care. Including Xiaobai. ”

Do you care? Yantian is still afraid of being destroyed by people, so it won't affect much.

But the ship continued to sail, and the speed was not too fast. About five knots in the later generations, the pure wind slowed down. An hour is eighteen kilometers. That's a distance of thirty-six miles.

But two hours have passed, and there are still salt pans in front of me, and the scale is larger than what I first saw.

If the original salt pans were 100 acres of continuous land, then the current one is 1,000 acres of continuous land. In the distance, where the water does not stick, you can see the snow-white salt piled up into a small mountain, and someone is putting salt into a bag.

"The 'frying salt method' is a method of attracting sea tides and pouring ash to obtain brine. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, there was a book about the salt drying method, but the output was not large. This large-scale salt drying seems to have taken advantage of the geographical advantage, and this place was originally barren and uninhabited. And the manpower consumed by this method is much lower than that of the decoction salt method, but I don't know how much manpower Guangdong has invested? ”

"Here, we're only halfway there. 114,000 people. The salt pans are one hundred and forty-seven miles long, and the shortest one is about a mile to the land, and the deepest is not here, according to the report, but a natural flat beachhead, ten miles deep. The name on the file of the Guangdong Dusi is, Qiongdao Baili Yantian. ”

More than 100,000 people are engaged in salt here, with an average of nearly 1,000 people per mile, and an average of one person is in charge of 10 acres of salt pans.

"What about the yield?" Yu Qian couldn't help but ask when he saw the mountain of salt pans.

"All the salt in the entire Daming Dynasty is not as good as the annual output here." Yang Neng was proud, although the current output has not yet gone up, he believes that next year will definitely exceed the salt production of the entire Daming.

Hu Hu said very strictly: "Lord Yang, the salt output of Jingtai in the first year of the Ming Dynasty was 600 million catties, that is, 6 million quintals. With the population of the Ming Dynasty, as well as the loss on the road to transporting salt, plus a lot of salt sold to the surrounding states, the average Ming Dynasty is less than five catties of salt per person per year, and six million quintals is not a small number. ”

"Xiaobai, tell Lord Sù Hu, your design yield for this salt pan. And the total output that came to you last month, after the first construction of the salt pan, in the three months. ”

Yang Neng didn't say it himself, but called Bai Minghe.

Bai Minghe sighed softly: "Lord Yang, thank you for letting me come out." I'm afraid of trouble, will so much salt not affect the salt tax and salt industry in Daming, originally my design was only 20,000 acres, Lord Yang, you directly doubled tenfold, the reason is that there are beachheads like the kind I asked for everywhere. ”

"Ha, there are no 200,000 acres, only seventeen and a half." Yang Neng laughed.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the original design output of 20,000 mu can reach about 150,000 to 1,800,000 quintals a year. This is the result of careful care, that is, there are at least two people per acre of salt pan. But Lord Yang changed my construction and increased the salt pan tenfold, but it was ten acres per person, so naturally the yield was not carefully cared for. ”

Everyone can see that what Bai Minghe said is the truth, and increasing the output of 1.5 million quintals is definitely a good thing.

"So, what's the production for three months?" Yu Qian asked again.

The white crane let out a long breath: "The average is one acre, two quintals, and three." There is a rainy season throughout the year, so it depends on the time. According to the extensive management of Lord Yang per mu, one mu can reach five to six quintals per year, far less than the eight to nine quintals I planned. However, it occupies a large area, affecting many problems such as transportation and vigilance here. ”

"Five loads a year, then it's ......" Hu Hu calculated by himself. Really scared.

"Hahaha, Bentu is here with ten million loads of salt pans. Next year, there will be more than 10 million loads of salt here. ”

Bai Minghe lowered his head, and he was also calculating this result in his heart.

In fact, in later modern times, it is better to have six grams of salt per day for people who do not participate in physical labor, and there will be a slight difference between the population of the south and the population of the north. And in fact. In fact, it has reached about 10 grams per day, and in many places it has reached 15 to 20 grams.

Naturally, the heavy body lì laborer cannot be calculated according to this number.

At the moment, even civil officials have a lot of labor, because the distance they walk every day is not short. Especially low-level civil officials, they have to run around all day to run errands, and they rely on their legs to get around.

According to Hu Hu, the Ming Dynasty has five catties of salt per person per year. In fact, it is not enough.

One of the biggest complaints of the Ming military is not the lack of food, but the lack of salt. Many generals are scolding. I don't even have salt to eat, and I have the strength to fight. The more inland it is, the more severe the problem becomes.

The rich have fine salt to brush their teeth and clean their bodies. The poor, the poor soldiers, have no way to even guarantee the salt they eat.

This is also a direct reason why Yang Neng is crazy to build a salt field, he once experienced five days without eating a little salty.

Millions of stone salts. In terms of tonnage, this is half a million tons of salt production.

Compared with the modern age of the Ming Dynasty, the current population of the Ming Dynasty is one-fifteenth less, if it is not for the change of the civil fort, plus the ethnic minorities in Yunnan and Guizhou, as well as the population of the Ming Dynasty Duoyan Sanwei Daming is about 80 million to 85 million.

The modern age of the posterity. The annual output of salt in the country is more than 80 million tons.

Of course, there are many industrial uses for salt in later generations, and the industrial salt used in the Ming Dynasty is a little higher than zero.

It is only used to make zuò dyes, and the rest of the place does not use salt, or is so small that its numbers can be ignored.

"Minghe, what do you say about this salt pan?" Yu Qian suddenly asked.

"Ah, naturally, the salt tax is paid according to the law. And, 30% will be handed over to the national treasury, 10% will be tax-free and all will be returned to the Guangdong Metropolitan Division, and 1 million quintals of salt will definitely be enough for Guangdong to eat salt. ”

"A million quintals, and everyone has become salted meat. But it's ......! Hu Hui did not object to this ratio.

Bai Minghe hesitated for a moment, and then continued: "There is also Yicheng, which belongs to these military households. Speaking of which, one person does not get more than ten loads of salt. ”

The white crane did not mean that these military households should take salt and hand it over like poor salt households. It's salt induction.

According to the price handed over, a load of salt is less than one or two pieces of silver, and a load of salt in the Ming Dynasty is fifty-nine kilograms of later generations, and it is exactly one hundred pounds according to the pound of the Ming Dynasty, but a pound of salt has reached three hundred pounds at the retail price, one of which is three hundred pounds of salt, which is three loads of salt, six taels of silver for salt, plus six dollars and four cents of salt tax, that is, six taels of six dollars and four cents of silver.

These six taels and six coins and four cents of silver are converted to only twenty-two cents per catty.

The transportation fee is expensive, how much it may be expensive, and the transportation cost of one cater, even if it is doubled according to the price of salt, then the cost of one pound of salt is fifty yuan. Of course, the actual transportation cost is far from this figure.

Thinking of this, Bai Minghe suddenly asked Xing'an: "Xingdu, Hu Lao just said that Daming has six million loads of salt a year. Shouldn't twelve million taels of silver be sent to the treasury? ”

As soon as Bai Minghe said this, all the representatives of the Ten Great Business Gangs knelt down.

Because the actual salt tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty has never exceeded 2.4 million taels of silver. In the first year of Jingtai, the revenue from the salt tax was only 1,140,000 taels of silver, which was less than one-tenth of it. How to make businessmen not afraid! (To be continued......)