Liu Hou's suggestion was to use cement to build a salt farm, inspired by the cement grain drying fields in the countryside in the past. www.biquge.info He had never seen a salt farm, he didn't know what a salt farm was like, and he couldn't imagine how the muddy beach was salted, and wouldn't the salt be stained by the mud at the bottom of the water.

What Liu Hou didn't know was that for thousands of years, people had been drying salt like this. However, he imagined that a beach made of concrete would be better than sea mud, so he made this proposal to the cabinet ministers.

After listening to Liu Hou's suggestion, the cabinet ministers at first said that it was undeniable that the cement beach is much superior to the traditional muddy beach, and the salt pans are much cleaner, and the salt will be much less impurities, reducing the difficulty of subsequent refining.

Moreover, if it is a muddy salt field, the bottom salt is bound to be unwanted, and when the salt is harvested, if you accidentally scrape it deep, it will be troublesome to scrape the mud at the bottom. And the cement bottom salt pan can scrape as much salt as possible without any scruples, and you don't have to worry about scraping to the end.

The cement-bottomed salt pans did have their advantages, and after praising the idea, the ministers began to discuss the feasibility of this proposal. But as they discussed, they soon began to have doubts. Ma Liang and Deng Zhi both think that this kind of salt pan is good, but the cost is too high.

Because the salt pan to be built this time is very large, and the beach stretches for dozens of miles, if such a large area is cast with concrete, a huge amount of cement will be required, which also means that it will cost a lot of money. Although the war is now over, it is debatable whether the investment is worth it and money is needed everywhere.

Ma Liang even cited a series of data to show that if you switch to cement-bottom salt pans, it will take more than ten or even twenty years to recover the cost. Because although the use of cement salt field can increase production and reduce costs, the increased output and reduced costs are not very much, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the huge investment in pouring cement.

Therefore, it will take a long time for this matter to be recovered. And now the whole society is in the stage of large-scale development, many investments will be effective in one or two years, and businesses that can return to their original costs in three or five years abound, so this investment is a bit of a chicken rib.

Of course, it is not that no one supports this decision, such as Bu Qiu and Guo Youzhi, who believe that although the investment is huge, the benefits are long-term. Although it will take more than ten or twenty years to return to the capital, after ten or twenty years, these salt pans can still be used, and at that time, what can be earned is pure profit.

In other words, this is a project that can benefit future generations, just like water conservancy projects, the construction of the Great Wall, the construction of galloping roads, etc., these projects are all meritorious in the present and beneficial to future generations, and cannot be measured by short-term benefits.

Everyone expressed their opinions, Liu Hou was dumbfounded, he didn't expect that the suggestion he made with confidence just now would turn into a chicken rib. Pouring salt pans with cement will make the construction speed very fast, and the site will be smooth and level, and it will be much easier to collect salt at that time.

Liu Hou believes that such a site is very suitable for salt pans, and it is a site that any salt tanner would welcome. However, he had not considered the costs and benefits at all.

Although these salt pans can continue to obtain profits and have been used for thousands of years, although the cement floor is hard, it is not an indestructible cold iron outside the sky, and there will definitely be wear and corrosion after more than ten or twenty years of use.

Besides, the quality of cement is not up to par at all, and the cement floor is often scraped when collecting salt, and after ten or twenty years, maybe the site will become potholes. Moreover, seawater is corrosive, these are just ordinary cement, not corrosion-resistant special cement, and it is hard to say whether it can hold up for a long time.

That is to say, ten or twenty years later, a large amount of money may have to be spent on repairing these concrete floors, so that the time to profit will be postponed indefinitely, and this investment project is indeed debatable.

The focus of everyone's discussion, in the end, mainly focused on the super long payback period, hearing everyone's discussion, Liu Hou's head suddenly flashed in his head, remembering the highway of later generations. Why will the highways of later generations be charged?

That's because in the early days of reform and opening up, the Celestial Empire didn't have so much money to build so many highways, but there is no doubt that the role of highways in promoting social economy is undoubted.

On the one hand, there is a need, and on the other hand, there is no money, so what should I do? At that time, the method offered by the Yamen of the Celestial Dynasty was to borrow chickens to lay eggs, and the slogan was "borrow money to build roads, and pay back the money". Raise money from the community to build the road, then collect tolls, and repay the money slowly, with a repayment period of up to 20 years or more.

Not only highways, but also roads and bridges in many places later adopted this form of fundraising, first building roads and bridges, and then setting up toll booths to collect tolls for decades, and then dismantling the toll booths until the loan was repaid.

This also led to the Celestial Empire being full of toll booths for a period of time, and it was necessary to pay for the road everywhere. This kind of policy once caused a lot of dissatisfaction among the common people, but, undeniably, this method greatly accelerated the development of the transportation network of the Celestial Empire.

Many highways and many new bridges seemed to pop up overnight, making this once poor country suddenly bustling and thriving.

Objectively speaking, this kind of policy of borrowing chickens to lay eggs has indeed played a very positive role in the initial stage of social development, and it is a policy that benefits the country and the people. As for how much FB is generated in the implementation process, how many people make profits from it, how many road and bridge toll stations continue to charge far beyond the loan repayment time, and how many ...... It is not known what it is, but it can only be said that these undesirable phenomena are only a side effect of this policy for the benefit of the people.

Since this method of borrowing chickens and eggs can play a huge role in the Celestial Empire in later generations, can it also work in the current situation?

As soon as he thought of it, Liu Hou immediately expressed the idea of borrowing chickens to lay eggs, and suggested that private capital should be introduced to build cement-bottom salt pans, and then let those investors operate the salt farms they invested in for two or three years, and then nationalize the salt farms after the contract period expired.

However, everyone disagreed with this approach, and they stubbornly believed that the salt works must be controlled by the imperial court from beginning to end, and must not be entrusted to private hands, otherwise once this opening is opened, there will be endless troubles in the future.

After everyone's explanation, Liu Hou also knew that it was risky to do so. If nothing else, it is very tricky to say that it is easy to ask God and difficult to send God. In reality, this kind of thing happens from time to time. Some people may say that there is a contract written in black and white, and there is the coercive power of the imperial court as a guarantee, how can this kind of thing happen?

But don't forget, the Celestial Empire has always been a society governed by individuals, and the people of the Celestial Empire have never had the spirit of the rule of law.

However, among the most trustworthy businessmen, there are often things that regard contracts as child's play. Profiteers and profiteers, no businessmen and no traitors, as a businessman, how can you make money without rape and slippage?

Of course, you can't kill a boatload of people with a bamboo pole, and not all businessmen are profiteers, there are many famous businessmen throughout the ages who are very trustworthy, and the so-called teeth as gold envoys refer to these people.