Zha Yanbao robbed the salt pans of Erweibao, it seems that this has become a thorn in the hearts of all Weizhuang households!

When Su Ming's father was alive, the strength of Erweibao far surpassed that of Qiyanbao, and after Erweibao was attacked by pirates, its strength was no longer as good as that of Qiyanbao, how could the people who were bullied by the other party not be angry.

Some people may ask that this salt pan is to dig some pits in a salty area by the sea, bring in seawater, and wait for the sun to dry to extract salt.

In fact, in the early Ming Dynasty, after the coastal areas of Zhejiang began to dig salt pans to dry salt, this salt-making technology began to grow rapidly.

In the Jiajing period, the official salt has basically begun to be filtered, so there are very few black salt and gray salt in the past, and all the salt is only with a faint color. For example, the green salt produced by the Jinshanwei Salt Factory has a faint blue color, and generally only the wealthy people in the city can afford to eat it.

Of course, all salt making technologies will not be disclosed at will in this era, there are still many low-quality salts, and the green salt of Jinshanwei Salt Institute can be so good, and it is not easy to make.

First of all, you have to look for a place with a high degree of saltiness, smooth wind and waves all year round, and plenty of sunshine.

If the wind is too strong in this place, it is easier for the salt pan to enter the sand, and even if the sand inside is filtered at the end, the salt that comes out will be gray.

The second new salt pan was not easy to build. In this era, there was no cement, all relied on sand and gravel to isolate, and the seawater of the new salt pan was easy to penetrate, which caused the salt pan to be salty enough, and the longer the sun was dried, the more dust entered, and the worse the color and taste of the salt boiled out.

Therefore, the older the salt pans, the easier it is to produce salt, and the salt production stations will not easily build new salt pans unless they are forced to do so.

"If Zha Yanbao dares to occupy our salt pans, it must be the acquiescence of Lord Qianhu, and now that my father is gone, we have to be careful in everything.

Where's the salt pot there! How is there so much less? "The more pots you have, the more diligent people are, and when the concentration of seawater in the salt pans is very high, more dust will enter, and the quality of the green salt will decrease.

"The salinity of the salt water is not enough, we are already six boils, no matter how fast it is no longer meaningful, last year we also opened up more than 20 acres of new salt fields, but the salt quality is very poor, it can't become salt at all, and now we are still raising the salt fields." Su Qingping said to Su Ming.

The salt pans are not enough, so they can only be boiled more. Six boils is jargon, which means that after the remaining one-third of the seawater in the salt pan is boiled, it is filled with salt water and continued to boil, and the salt particles in the pot can exceed one pound of salt after being added six times in a row. Generally, the more you boil, the higher the quality of the salt, but the lower the amount of salt produced, and it takes a lot of experience to boil the seawater in the salt pan to the seawater.

The two brothers came to the south side of the boiling salt area, where the filtration was placed. The top of the six-layer filter cloth is coarse gauze, then coarse cloth, fine cloth, fine woven cloth, and the last two layers of silk cloth.

From the perspective of Su Ming's later generations, this method of making salt is already good, but it is not perfect, and there are still many places that can be improved.

After just thinking about it for a while, Su Ming had an idea in his heart, as long as he could make the salt output of the salt field increase rapidly, and it was easy to improve the quality of salt.

After taking a turn in the courtyard, Su Ming saw the familiar manor again, and only felt that it was particularly dilapidated, as far as the houses where the workers lived, there were basically no leaks and rain, as for why not build this place better, one reason is that they have to run when the pirates come, and the other reason is that Weibao really has no money, and it is better to buy more food for everyone to eat a few more dry meals.

Out of the manor, Su Ming wandered around the salt fields and saw the thirteenth brother leading people to patrol the seaside. In addition to the task of salt production, the salt factory also has to be responsible for vigilance, and the first time that the pirates are discovered, the workers return to the second castle to avoid the attack as soon as possible, and the second castle chooses countermeasures according to the number of pirates.

If the number of pirates is small, they may send someone from Erweibao to drive the pirates away, preventing them from destroying the salt pans and houses to avoid losses. If there are many enemies, they need to take all the people of Wei Zhuang to Erwei Castle, and while quickly informing Jinshanwei Town, they will defend and wait for reinforcements.

"Starling, it's really you!" Su Zhe saw from a distance that the person next to Su Qingping looked like Su Ming, he rode over, and one flew and landed beside Su Ming.

Su Zhe is only 16 years old this year, the youngest of their brothers, but his parents and brother died at the hands of pirates, Su Zhe has taken Su Ming as an example since he was a child, he also studied, but he has never been admitted to Tongsheng.

"Thirteenth brother, you are much stronger than before, are you still studying?" Su Ming saw the thirteenth brother and asked with a smile.

"If you can't pass the exam, you won't study! Now I follow my eldest brother and fifth brother to practice martial arts, and kill pirates in the future! ”

When it comes to the pirate salt factory, everyone can't help but hate itchy, but in the past few years, the pirates in Shanghai have become stronger and stronger, and the number has become larger and larger. What no one knows is that the Japanese and Europe have now entered a period of rapid development, especially the development of science and technology in Europe, which has rapidly affected the growth of maritime power.

The powerful Daming Water Division has begun to go downhill, and if it does not adapt to the times and discover the trend, it will definitely lose its advantages step by step and catch up with others.

"Starling, I'll go catch fish for you, if you go back late in the evening, I'll grill fish for you!" Su Zhe said to Su Ming, he didn't ask why Su Ming came back, anyway, as long as Su Ming came back, he would be very happy.

"Don't go, Brother Chunrui will come over to change the fifth brother later, the eldest brother said to buy pork tonight, let's go back together!" Su Ming said.

In the coastal areas, fish, shrimp and shellfish are eaten the most, and chicken and pork are rarely eaten, let alone beef.

Daming is not forbidden to eat beef, because at this time the population and transportation is not bad, commercial trade is also relatively developed, the cattle and sheep of the northern grassland often enter the Central Plains, but the price of pigs, cattle and mutton in the south of the Yangtze River is very high.

Su Qingping went to see the salt boiling, Su Ming and Su Zhe were wandering around the salt field, everyone thought that the two of them were chatting here, but Su Ming looked at the salt field of their salt factory from south to north, and already had a rough salt plant plan in his heart, as long as a sharp weapon in his heart came out, he could triple the area of the salt field and increase the output tenfold.

"Who's that? What do we do in the salt pans? Su Ming came to the northern part of the salt pan and saw a few people throwing sand and dirt in the salt pan.

"The cattle of this Tayan Fort... Don't run! Su Zhe saw it and hurriedly chased after him, but those people saw him coming and hurriedly fled.

Su Ming chased after him and saw Su Zhe stop, he already knew what was going on, this was the person from Qiyanbao who came to their salt field to make trouble.

"The people of Zha Yan Fort have been getting more and more excessively lately, they have taken a large part of our salt pans, and now they are coming again, next time I will chase them and see them hit their heads and blossom." Su Zhe said angrily.

"Forget it, you can't beat a few of them if you catch up, I didn't expect that if I didn't come back for more than a year, I would dare to be so strong!" Su Ming looked at the salt pans in the north and said thoughtfully.

If the people of Zha Yanbao muddy this salt pan, then the salt pan had to wait for the precipitation to be clear before taking salt water, and the salt production of Weibao was reduced.

If they continue to make trouble like this, a piece of salt pan and two Weibao will never be usable. After a long time, if Erweibao has not taken salt water, Zha Yanbao can see the opportunity to come to the salt field to get salt water and boil salt, if Er Weibao does not find it several times, slowly this salt field may become Zha Yanbao!

For the two hundred households in Yantian, I have fought for an unknown number of years, and how many lives have been caused. If these salt pans are investigated to see who belonged in the past, it is not clear at all, and it is still up to the fists to speak.

It's just that Su Ming looked at the salt pans occupied by Zha Yanbao, which basically occupied 20% of the salt fields of Erweibao, and there were still people there who guarded it, so it was no wonder that everyone in Erweibao gritted their teeth with hatred for Zha Yanbao.

Zha Yan Fort was able to keep people here to guard, but Zha Yan Fort did not send people, which can only show that the forces of Erwei Fort are unwilling to conflict with Zha Yan Fort, and Su Ming also knew the difficulties of his family at this time.

Turned the entire salt field around, and returned to the yard Cao Chunrui had already brought three small flags, more than 20 people arrived, replacing Su Qingping and more than 20 people, seeing that it was getting dark, the three Su Ming brothers rode back together.

When I got home, the eldest brother had already returned, and the sister-in-law was helping with the fifth sister-in-law holding the child, and Su Ren called the three brothers to the living room together to talk about an important matter.

"After dinner, we're going to change the food.

Tonight is the day of our transaction with the Li family, we can't make a mistake in this transaction, the food in the fort is now in short supply, everyone basically does not have much stock at home, and some households are almost out of food! Su Ren said.

Weizhuang is close to the sea, and it is difficult to grow grain in the ground, so all food is basically bought. And Jinshanwei Town does not pay military salaries, and Erweibao can only find its own way.

Erweibao did not hand over all the boiled green salt to Jinshanwei Town, but would quietly hide some and trade with the Li family in Songjiang City to obtain food and daily necessities from them.

"Let me lead the team tonight! I'm going to bring everything back safely. Su Zhe said.

Selling the salt from the salt factory to others without permission is a crime of killing the head, although it is no secret that the salt factory sells salt privately in Jinshanwei, but Su Ren can't do it himself.

Su Qingping, as the banner owner, had better not come forward, in the past, Su Ren had sent other people to go, but this time there could be no mistakes, they had already taken out all the salt that Erwei Fort could take out, and if it failed, the entire Wei Zhuang would have to drink the northwest wind next.

"I'll go with my thirteenth brother! I haven't seen how this business works! Su Ming said.

Su Ren thought for a while and nodded, he took out a piece of coarse paper and handed it to Su Ming, Su Ming opened it and there was a list of some goods, on which were some ordinary coarse grains such as millet rice, eyebrow peas, and liang rice, nearly 50 stones, and some rice, dried meat, silk, fine cloth, and tools were all used to make salt, with a total value of more than 8 taels of silver, of course, this price is an approximate one.

And tonight, all the green salt they traded was 180 catties, that is, more than one stone, and Wei Zhuang could only save more than one stone of green salt, which was really pitiful.

Seeing that the eldest brother handed over the task of trading to himself, Su Ming knew that the eldest brother wanted to let himself perform in Erweibao, and he would have to live here for a long time in the future, and he would not be able to convince the public if he didn't do something.