If Schneider, an expert in financial speculation, was present at this time, he would definitely add another point of view from the perspective of economics: for the means of production currently in the hands of the public, salt is undoubtedly a material with small input, high output, and convenient circulation and exchange. If you can produce salt in large quantities, in addition to its own industrial development, it can also be used in a large amount for foreign trade. It can be seen from the Li people who carry all kinds of mountain goods to trade salt outside the bases these days, and salt is definitely a very popular commodity in this era.

The central government of the Ming Dynasty implemented the "Gang Salt System" for the sale of salt, and the merchants who held the salt were divided into ten classes according to the region, each of which was 200,000 yuan, and each of them was equivalent to 300 catties of salt. After the merchant pays taxes, silver and transportation fees to the relevant government departments according to the national rate, he can obtain a certain amount of salt after registering and making a register, so that he can operate and sell salt. Businessmen who do not spend money to buy salt from the government are not qualified to make money from this industry.

Absolute monopoly will inevitably breed, this is the objective law of sociology, and the salt industry, as a state monopoly industry, will naturally not be an exception. It is recorded in the "Salt Politics of the History of the Ming Dynasty" that the salt industry capital was once very concentrated in the Wanli period, and the scale of hot money concentrated in Yangzhou alone every year was amazing, as high as more than 30 million taels of silver, and its interest was close to the annual income of the Ming Dynasty. And this is just the official salt market, because there is no cost of buying salt, private salt is more profitable, and there are not a few people who devote themselves to this road to make money.

During the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, the salt-making technology of sea salt has begun to waste pot stoves, build salt pans, and change the complex process of frying, boiling and boiling to drying. Of course, the so-called drying salt does not mean that the salt can be produced by digging a few pools on the beach, and in practice, it is necessary to continuously adjust the concentration of the brine through several processes such as the guò steaming pond, the drying brine pond, and the crystallization pond, and finally the salt can be obtained. However, the salt production methods of this era were far less efficient than those of later generations, and the ancients could not accurately measure the concentration of brine by scientific means.

As long as the salt works can gradually expand their production capacity, with scientific management and salt production methods, it is not a problem to leave the salt works far behind in terms of production costs. When the output is large enough, it can organize large-scale dumping on the mainland at low prices, and wantonly plunder the part of the interests that originally belonged to the salt merchants. Of course, for the time being, the output of salt will definitely be limited for a considerable period of time, and first of all, it will have to meet the needs of the people's own development. （.）

The task of the few people who are inspecting this place is to find out the actual situation of this place, whether it is worth redevelopment, and to assess the security of this "enclave" from a military point of view, after all, this place is already outside the current main defensive circle.

The members of the group have found a lot of waterwheels and ditches that irrigate seawater, and there are many stone salt troughs like inkstones on the plain, Gu Kai roughly counted, as far as he could see along the way, there are at least hundreds, large and small, if the density in the entire area is like this, I am afraid that there are thousands of memorabilia. It's just that these places have obviously been abandoned for many years, and most of the salt troughs are overgrown with weeds.

After going two or three miles inland, the members finally discovered several houses at the foot of the mountain in the distance. When I walked slowly, I found that this place was probably abandoned at the same time as those salt pans, and several adobe houses with yellow mud walls even had no roofs, leaving only the ruins to let later generations know that there were ancestors living here. Qiao Zhiya found several broken tools in a room, including rakes, wooden shovels, broken water tanks, etc.

In the end, Gu Kai found conclusive evidence, he called several people together, pointed to a remnant wall with traces of smoke and fire, and said: "There was a fire here, and after the fire, the residents here did not rebuild their homes, but chose to leave, but I think they may not have left here voluntarily. ”

"What do you mean......" Tom seemed to understand something.

Gu Kai nodded and said, "Pirate." A long time ago, a wave of pirates ransacked the saltworks and set fire to the houses here, and maybe killed many people here. Since then the place has been in ruins, and no one has come here to make salt for fear of pirates. ”

"Quite a reasonable assumption. The ancestors must have spent a great deal of effort to open up this place as a salt farm, and there is no reason to give up this place lightly. Gu Kai's inference coincided with Wang Tom's own guess, and his fingers lightly swiped over the remnant wall, as if he could still feel the scene at that time: "Regarding this point, we can bring up the captured officer to ask after we go back, it is said that three generations of his family have been serving as soldiers in Yazhou, so I wonder what we can ask." ”

It doesn't matter how much Luo Shengdong can know, at most it is just an after-the-fact confirmation. It is now important to have a comprehensive assessment of the value and risks of the development in the area for decision-making by the Executive Committee.

The people had gone around the valley for most of the time along the foot of the mountain, and when they had seen almost what they should see, they returned to the sea in the same way as they came. Johnson set up a beach chair on the deck, lay shirtless and half-reclined, and occasionally raised his binoculars to look at the sea, and when he was bored, he finally waited for the group to come back, and quickly got up and asked how it was.

"From a military point of view, this place will probably be difficult to defend effectively until we are able to blockade and control the entire bay. Wang Tom directly set the tone: "Although it is surrounded by mountains on three sides, the coastline on the seaside is too long, and the inland terrain is flat, so there is basically no danger to defend." Unless we put a lot of effort into building another fortification in that place, we will have to send someone to guard it. ”

"I think it's okay to build a fortress, Base No. 1 has not been completed yet, how can there be manpower to build new fortifications over there. As soon as he heard that he had the strength to work, Gu Kai also retreated.

During this period, every day after dinner, the executive committee organized people to work overtime to build the fortifications outside the No. 1 base, and many people have begun to complain that "the calluses on my hands have grown faster than in the past 30 years of being single." Of course, complaining is complaining, it should be repaired, after all, it is a life-saving thing at a critical moment, but at present, most of the labor force has been transferred to the hydropower station construction site, and with this remaining manpower, it will take at least ten days to complete the fortification of the No. 1 base, let alone open a new construction site.

"If you can't keep it, you can only hide. Jochia had a new idea: "We could build our settlements at the foot of an inland hill far from the sea, or even on a higher hillside, so that the distance from the sea would be close to two kilometers." In this way, if something happens to the seaside, the people working in the salt works can be warned in time and have time to retreat into the mountains. ”

"The outpost at Yulin Point is facing the coastline of the valley over there, and if there are pirates landing in the valley, the base camp will get the news quickly, and there is not much time left for the pirates to make trouble. Wang Tom also admitted that Qiao Zhiya's plan is indeed meritorious, after all, the crossing has the advantage of communication, any warning signal can be clearly communicated to the relevant personnel in a very short time, and the response speed is definitely the fastest among all military forces in this time and space.

"What are the development prospects of the salt farm?" Gu Kai continued to ask Qiao Zhiya. He is the only one in this group who is engaged in chemical industry, and he is the only one who can have a say in whether the valley has development value.

Qiao Zhiya shrugged and said, "At least it's better than the location of the salt field we found before." The executive committee originally planned to build a salt farm in the fishing village, but I also went to see it, and it required a lot of work, leveling the land, digging ditches, and diverting water, which would definitely not be put into production in a short period of time, and the most important thing was that it was too close to the mouth of the Tiandu River, and the concentration of seawater was not ideal, and even if it was reluctantly started, the salt production efficiency would not meet the expected value. And here, I think that as long as it takes half a month to re-dredge the waterway and repair some irrigation equipment, it can be directly put into production. Of course, even after it is put into production, this place will still require a lot of manpower. ”

It's like passing through the shackles on the feet of the crowd, slowing down the pace of the crowd at all times. For example, the land passage from Base 1 to Base 2 has only been opened up in half, and the remaining half has to be stopped indefinitely because of taking care of the hydropower project, which is a nightmare for the crossing people who are used to convenient transportation.

Although there are Han or Li migrant workers who come every day, it is only a drop in the bucket, and the total number is still far from the requirements of the Executive Committee. According to Gu Kai's knowledge, as far as the current projects under construction and to be built are concerned, the labor shortage is still at least about 500 people.

It is said that some radicals have suggested to the Executive Committee that they might as well go out of their nests, collectively become slave traders, attack villages and towns directly along the coastline to the west, and pull the local young and strong people back with boats to serve as coolies in each place, or simply take Yazhou City in one go, and the local sailors and guards have at least 1,000 people, which are all good labor forces, and if they can be captured, they can solve the current labor shortage problem in one fell swoop.

Naturally, this kind of extreme rightism was not recognized by the Executive Committee, but as the form developed, the demand for labor became more urgent day by day, and the Executive Committee had to find a way to solve this problem whether it wanted it or not.