Li Yuan's excitement is of course for a reason, who doesn't know that salt is a good thing?

Since the reign of the dynasty, this thing has been one of the important civilian goods monopolized by the state. Almost every dynasty will implement a salt monopoly system, and the monopoly of salt, iron, grain, and tea will create huge profits every year, bringing huge income to the imperial court.

The Southern Tang Dynasty, which was partial to Jianghuai, was naturally no exception, and the sale of illicit salt was absolutely prohibited, and only the imperial court carried out the monopoly.

But even so, the sale of private salt is still repeatedly banned, just like Li Yuan's personal experience in Chuzhou last year, even if those illegal salt dealers risk cutting off their heads, they are still selling illegal salt, because the profits are really considerable, and many royal families and *** will also protect it and even participate in it personally.

It is true that this place with a rich population and developed trade has an extremely important geographical location and strategic value, but more importantly, whether or not you can obtain this precious salt-producing land, and even affect the luck and future of a country.

In the historical records of later generations, since Li Jing lost the fourteen states of Jiangbei, the Southern Tang Dynasty could only pay a huge price every year to buy salt from the Zhou State to maintain the living needs of the court and the people, the economy and trade collapsed, the national finance can be said to be a great injury, and it also greatly shook the confidence of the army and the people in the imperial court, there was no land, no money, no population and no salt, which was also one of the important reasons for the demise of the Southern Tang Dynasty.

When Zou Laohan heard that there was a salt well in Lizhou, Li Yuan was extremely shocked, at least in the real history he knew, Chu was the land of salt in Hunan, and it was fifty or sixty years after the fall of the Qing Dynasty.

In the past dynasties, the "regular food of Huai salt" relied on water transportation to import it against the current, which was extremely difficult. The total distribution center of Huai salt is in the 12 Wei of Yangzhou, the eastern capital of the Southern Tang Dynasty, from the 12 Wei to the Huainan Salt Field about 2,000 miles.

The salt ship goes out of the river from the Twelve Wei, passes through the Xiaguan Wharf of Jinling, the national capital, and then goes west against the Yangtze River, enters Yuezhou through Ezhou for about 2,100 miles, and then transfers to all parts of the country, and the average waterway mileage is also seven or eight hundred miles.

The history of eating Huai salt in Chu has continued until the middle and late Qing Dynasty, when the Manchu court considered that Xiangxi and southern Hunan are all mountainous, the roads are rugged, and the flood of private salt is uncontrollable. The Guangdong salt sales area is in the mountainous area of southern Hunan in the north of Nanling, including more than ten counties such as Chenxian, Yizhang, Yongxing, Zixing, Guiyang, Leiyang, Jiahe and Lanshan.

There are two main roads for Guangdong salt to enter Hunan Province, one is to unload salt from Pingshi Beijiang Wharf in Lechang, Guangdong, rely on people to pick mules and transport over the Nanling Mountains to Yizhang, and walk 90 miles of bluestone road to Chenzhou and then enter Leishui; The other unloads salt from Lianshui Xingzi Wharf in Lianzhou, Guangdong, and is also carried ashore by people carrying mules over Nanling to Linwu Beijiang Shuidong Wharf, or to Guiyang Chungling River Sherendu Wharf to Hengyang and enter the Xiangjiang River in the north.

The Sichuan salt sales area is mainly in the mountainous areas of Xiangxi and other places to buy Sichuan salt nearby, and later Lizhou was also included in the Sichuan salt sales area.

But in terms of sales, Huai salt still accounts for eighty percent, and Guangdong salt and Sichuan salt each account for about one percent.

In a word, without Huai salt, it is difficult to continue in Chu and the world.

Speaking of salt prices, the Southern Tang Dynasty is in the Baoda period, due to the lack of war in the south of the Yangtze River, the rich population, and the large number of laborers, the price of grain and rice is low, but the price of salt has always remained high, even if it produces salt.

Taking Jinling as an example, the price of grain in Jinling in the ten years of Baoda is only 200 wen yuan per stone of brown rice, and the price of an ordinary cloth is only 450 wen, which can be regarded as cheap and beneficial to the people. This is why most of the people in the Southern Tang Dynasty, as long as the whole family works hard, as long as there are one or two times a month, they can ensure that the whole family is fed and clothed.

But still in Jinling, the price of salt is around 300 wen per bucket, that is to say, the price of salt per stone is about three times. Don't underestimate the price of salt in this stone, there are not many edible things in these years, people can only think about seasoning, the taste is often heavier, although both the north and the south like to eat pickled food, which leads to a huge consumption of salt.

The population of Jinling, the capital of the country, Jiangning Prefecture alone, does not count the elite class, and ordinary people have to consume nearly 500,000 stones of coarse salt a year

。 In other words, in Jinling alone, ordinary people spend 1.5 million yuan of income on salt consumption every year.

This is just the ordinary people in Jinling. Since the Tang Dynasty, the standard of salt supplied by soldiers in the army is twice as high as that of ordinary people, counting the forbidden army in Jinling and the nearby Gongwei National Capital of about 100,000 soldiers and horses, these soldiers consume about 50,000 stone of salt every year, which is the consumption of 150,000 guan.

Furthermore, it would be a mistake to think that it is just people who eat salt. The amount of salt eaten by livestock is also extremely large. Especially the war horses in the army, the horses are powerless to run without salt, and like people, if they want to have strength, they must eat salt.

The Southern Tang Dynasty continued the Tang law, which can be seen from the Privy Council's regulations on the supply of horse salt: "Horse salt, one horse and three days of salt, nine liters in one month, five buckets and four liters in six months. The first army of horses and horses was thirty-seven stone and five buckets of salt, one thousand one hundred and twenty-five stones in one month, and six thousand seven hundred and fifty stone in six months."

(Note: 10 liters, 10 liters 1 bucket, 10 buckets 1 stone.) ）

The number of so-called "horses" is equivalent to 12,000 horses. Through maritime trade, more than 50,000 horses were raised in Jinling alone, so just for the salt of military horses, Jinling alone needed more than 20,000 stones, which was also a huge amount of 60,000 yuan. As for the pigs, sheep, cows, horses, and other livestock raised by the people, there is no need to count the salt......

Looking at the world, there are many countries in the troubled times, just the Southern Tang Dynasty, a small court that is partial to the Jianghuai, the people, the army, and the war horses, the value of salt consumed every year is extremely amazing.

All in all, salt, this is a huge cake, of course, this cake belongs to the imperial court from the law, and the imperial court is qualified to obtain this huge benefit. Of course, for the current Li Yuan, under the current opportunity to release the town and defend the party, there is no scruple about daring to touch this cake.

The only premise is that he must have salt in this place, and there must be a stable channel for selling salt, if there is really salt, in addition to meeting his own local needs, he will naturally have to sell it to various places to obtain a huge economic advantage for himself.

Now in Zou Laohan here got a precious information, learned that there is a salt well in Lizhou in Wuping, Li Yuan will of course go to this aspect of reverie, although the Chu King Ma Xifan did not get what he wanted, but Li Yuan at this time is extremely convinced of his intuition.

Because the location of Lizhou is indeed a salt production in later generations, and it is one of the two most famous salt farms in Hunan, but that is a thousand years later, I didn't expect Ma Xifan to have been excavated in the era of five dynasties and ten kingdoms, and this section is indeed recorded in the history books......

(Note: After the founding of the People's Republic of China, through geological survey and exploration, it was found that Hunan is super rich in salt resources, and the proven rock salt reserves and development prospects are as high as 13.6 billion tons.) In June 1969, the Xiangli Salt Mine in northern Hunan broke ground in Yanjing Township, Li County, and in December of the same year, the Xiangheng Salt Mine in southern Hunan began to be built in Chashanao, a suburb of Hengyang City. ）

As for the excavation, production mode and sales channels of salt, Li Yuan also knows a lot in his heart, although he does not know it, but he has an incomparable advantage of others, that is his old father-in-law Zhou Zong.

You must know that since the founding of the Southern Tang Dynasty, Zhou Zong has been ordered to take charge of the national salt and iron power, which is also the fundamental reason why the Zhou family has become the richest man in Huainan.

There is no need to think about whether Zhou Zong will help, not to mention the love of Weng and his son-in-law, with this huge profit alone, Li Yuan also believes that his father-in-law Zhou Zong will not refuse, otherwise how would he make a fortune?

The only problem today is how to make the salt from the salt wells. Unlike Huaiyan, which relies on the sea to obtain salt, the salt composition in the inland salt wells is complex, and it is not clear which types of Li sources they are. However, according to Li Yuan's knowledge reserves, the salt in the salt well is indeed mixed with a large number of impurities, which will be harmful to people, which may be one of the reasons why Ma Xifan gave up back then.

But there are always more ways than difficulties, there will always be various ways to make these salts pure and fine, and a small amount of impurities will not actually have much impact on humans and animals

Sound. You must know that the coarse salt that is marketed all over the world today is also some salt that contains a lot of impurities, many of which are sediments after being directly exposed to the sea, containing sediment impurities and a large number of other components.

The question now seems to be how to determine the salt produced in Lizhou.

……

Zou Laohan personally instructed the use of Huixin grass and tangerine peel, peony, Chuanxiong, and licorice together to steam and boil, Li Yuan of course refused to take his things for nothing, since this thing is so precious as the old man said, it is natural to spend money to buy it. Zou Laohan refused to accept the money, and Li Yuanhao said that he forced him to accept the money for 20 medicines.

In fact, this Huixin grass is actually not that expensive, and if a total of more than a dozen Huixin grasses are sold to pharmacies, it will only be about seven or eight times, but Li Yuan is grateful for the old couple's intention to come from Lizhou to deliver medicine. In addition, Zou Laohan inadvertently revealed such important information to himself, which is difficult to buy even for a daughter.