Spring and Autumn I Am King

Chapter 932: grains of salt

Nanzi stayed in Lu for a long time this time, from Lixia to Xiaoman——Zhao Wushi had asked Fan Chi to expand the eight solar terms popular among the feudal lords into the twenty-four solar terms of later generations, but the time was decided according to the actual situation. must be modified.

Perhaps it was because of Xiaobiesheng's new marriage, or perhaps it was because of his desire for future children. Nanzi was very demanding, and Zhao Wuxi also let loose, and the two did not take some protective measures like in the past.

But when Nanzi left, Zhao Wuxi could still see her hesitation.

"If a concubine gives birth to a son for a gentleman, it's not the surname of Zi, but the surname of Ying..." In this way, wouldn't the Song Dynasty for hundreds of years be destroyed in her hands?

"His father is King Xuan, who is born by God, what is the difference between his son and Ying?" Zhao Wuxi whispered seductively in her ear.

He used the religion created by Nanzi to build momentum in the Song Dynasty for nearly ten years, and it was time to bear the due results.

What he did in Wei State was a strategy of moving flowers and trees, what he did in Sanzhu was a strategy of drawing wages from the bottom of the pot, and what he wanted to implement in Song State was a strategy of stealing beams and replacing pillars... Three-pronged approach, Zhao's three allies, just It's like a color revolution. It's just that the state of Song is related to the situation in the southeast, and it can only be drawn slowly.

Nanzi is not stupid, she naturally knows what this means, there is no room for others to sleep on the side of the couch, Zhao Wuxi, who has the ambition to "pacify the world", must make Song Guo also become Zhao's country, in order to feel at ease. In any case, the general situation in the Central Plains is now very obvious. The Zhao family is the dominant family, and Song Guo is an important member of the future Zhao family. It's better to leave the bloodline of your own children...

Unless... Nanzi deviates from Zhao Wuxi's career, in order to protect the Sheji of his son's surname Song, and becomes an enemy of Zhao Wuxi.

But Zhao Wuxi believed that Nanzi would choose the former without hesitation in the choice between his status and the surname Sheji. He only hoped that the kitten, who was a viper showing its wicked fangs to others, but in front of him, was under his knees, would continue to cooperate obediently and not point her claws at the former owner.

"Have I become too masculine?" He laughed at himself. Times really changed people. He wasn't like this in his previous life.

He watched Nanzi's chariot leave. Although she proposed to stay with Zhao Wuxi for a while longer, and even go to Jin State to "visit", considering that Kong Jiao and her daughter were still traveling together, Zhao Wuxi didn't want to have an affair all the way. The three views of that blank sheet of paper were ruined.

When he returned to Qufu to prepare to return to Jin, it was the beginning of May, the mango seed, which literally means "the wheat with awns will be harvested soon, and the rice with awns can be planted", and the winter wheat will be harvested soon, which can be predicted by Changhong. The catastrophe has yet to come.

"Perhaps the academy's prediction was wrong?" Zhao Wuxi felt lucky. The high-tech weather forecast of later generations was not yet accurate. No matter how powerful Chang Hong was, could he still foresee two natural disasters in a row? But I would rather believe it or not, and Zhao Wuxi also made Lu Guo prepare for it as well.

On the day he was about to leave Qufu, Zhao Wuxi received a piece of news from the east, not bad news, but good news.

Bu Zhu, a business official in charge of salt administration in Langya, Ju country, held a bowl of blue salt in both hands, trotted to catch up with Zhao Wuxi's car, knelt in front of his car, and said with a bow, "Congratulations, Shangqing! Great joy, Langya. Sun-salt was a big success!"

...

It was already nine years ago. Zhao Wuxi used Zigong to persuade Ju State to exchange a seaside land with a small town in Lu State. Since then, the Zhao family has a thirty-mile length of Junan. Even if they mobilized the seaside people to boil a lot of salt like Qi State did, it would be good to be able to produce 10,000 bells per year, but this could only meet the needs of Lu State for three or four months, and there was still a huge shortage of salt in Zhao's territory.

So Zhao Wuxi came up with a whim: to turn seawater into salt, not only can it be boiled, but also the sunlight and sea breeze can be used. Salt is inherently soluble in water, so when the seawater dries, layers of salt will precipitate out? This is the method of drying salt widely used in later generations.

It’s easier to think of than to do it. The Zhao family lacked manpower in Junan, so it was not until in recent years that Langya was completely under control, and there were boatmen established by Xu Cheng to protect the coast and prevent the harassment of pirates.

And the ancients were not fools. How could they use the simple and easy method of drying salt and not use the method of boiling salt, which consumes about 400 kilograms of wood for 1 minute of salt? The sea water is no better than the Anyi Salt Pond. In addition to sodium chloride, there are many impurities in it. The salt directly obtained from the sea water is bitter and unpalatable. If you eat too much, it will be poisonous. Only the poorest people will eat this kind of inferior salt. .

With this kind of low-quality salt, he could not compete with the salt of Qi and Wei. Zhao Wuxi guessed that this was because the impurities in the seawater were not filtered, so he asked Bu Zhu, a salt merchant from the State of Lu, to take hundreds of salt workers to Langya. After groping for a few years, I finally came up with an effective method!

"The Ju people who were expropriated built embankments on the seaside, and excavated some acres of fields. The front fields were shallow and wide. They were called evaporation ponds; the back fields were slightly deeper, called crystallization ponds. Then they were excavated. Ditch, or use the tide to pour seawater into the evaporation pond, the hot sun in spring and summer, and the sea breeze blowing. After a few days, the seawater will evaporate a lot, and the salt will be precipitated... But the color is no different from the fine sand on the beach, so it is called Sand salt."

"But this kind of sand salt can't be sold for a price in the market, so we scrape the sand salt and drench it with a little sea water to make a thicker brine, filter it with a sponge taken out from the sea, and transport it to a new pool for drying. If it is cloudy, cook it with fire. The sea salt produced from this is blue-black in color and large in size. Of course, the taste is not as good as that of Anyi salt, but it is not comparable to the sea salt cooked by Qi, Yan and Wu. difference."

After Bu Zhu's introduction, Zhao Wuxi reached out and picked up a grain of salt and took a sip. Sure enough, in addition to the salty taste, there was also a touch of bitterness, which was naturally incomparable to the edible salt of Baihuahua in the packaging bag of later generations.

"This is the best green salt, the next is black salt, and the next is sand salt."

What Zhao Wuxi cares about is not the taste, "What is the cost?"

Bu Zhu said with joy on his face: "The method of drying salt is simple in manpower and great in nature. For green salt, it is only one-third of Qi's salt and one-half of Anyi's salt! Black salt is only half of it, and sand salt is even better. Cheap!"

In this way, Langya salt already has the quality and price to compete with Qi salt and Wei salt.

Zhao Wuxi asked: "If the construction is fully started, how much can be produced in a year?"

"If there are thousands of people, except for the rainy days, Langya can produce about 50,000 bells of salt a year..."

"Fifty thousand minutes!" Zhao Wuxi stood up from the car happily and paced back and forth.

Qi country can only get 100,000 bells of salt a year for boiling salt. Apart from its own needs and hoarding, less than half of the remaining is sold to the entire north, and no country can share much.

But just on the coast of Langya, it takes 50,000 hours to dry the salt. The efficiency is several times that of boiling salt, but the cost is greatly reduced. So much salt can fully meet the annual salt demand of two million people.

If more salt fields were opened in Juguo, the output would be even more.

Zhao Wuxi thought for a while, then turned around and said, "I remember that Hanoi, Taoqiu, and Weidi all rely on the Wei family's Anyi salt."

His writers flipped through the document and promised, "That's right."

"Send some more people from the State of Lu~lightnovelpub.net~ let Langya increase the number of people, and strive to produce more salt. All the salt obtained will be transported to the State of Lu, and then from the State of Lu through Sishui and Jishui. , Weiqu to Taoqiu, Diqiu, Chaoge, let Zigong hoard Langya salt, and then sell it at a lower price than Anyi salt, he knows how to do it better than me."

As for the headquarters of the Jin State, it is natural to have a plan to operate it.

Zhao Wuxi's eyes were bright. He had already foreseen that from the second half of the year, Wei's Anyi salt, which had always been expensive, would suffer heavy losses and be suppressed in the markets of Taoqiu, Puyang and Chaoge. As far as my family is concerned, it will be even worse...

However, while calculating others, Zhao Wuxi was also calculated by God.

When his car and boat returned to the territory of Jin, it had not rained for nearly a month, and a severe drought was raging throughout Jizhou!

After getting out of the car, facing the bright sun, looking at Shumai whose head was drooping due to lack of water, Zhao Wuxi's face was solemn.

"Chang Hong's prediction was right, the catastrophe is coming!"

PS: There is one more chapter at 1 o'clock (to be continued.) Enable new URL