Chapter 826 Sea Salt Wins Snow
The workers rushed into the salt pond excitedly, and first opened the valve next to the pond, allowing the bitter brine that would no longer crystallize and separate out sea salt to flow into the sea along the salt ditch. What was left at the bottom of the pond was a bit of sticky bitter brine mixed with a small amount of salt. grains of salt.
The top of a long wooden stick is a wooden board that is pushed up horizontally. Push it hard on the bottom of the pool like pushing snow, and the crystallized sea salt will be pushed up...
The sea salt piled together contains bitter brine, which makes it sticky and unsightly. However, as the bitter brine gradually flows out and the remaining moisture evaporates under the sunlight, the originally black piles of salt become Be dazzlingly white.
When the sun shines, sea salt beats snow!
As the bittern in the crystallization pond slowly drains away, the remaining salt grains at the bottom of the pond gradually dry out, becoming as white as the bitter frost in autumn or the thin snow in winter. The workers ignored the shock in their hearts and used big bamboo brooms to sweep up the remaining layer of sea salt at the bottom of the pond and put it into piles of snow-white salt, and then used dustpans to load it onto a wheelbarrow that was different from the past. . Truck after truck of sea salt was transported to the open space with a cement floor behind the crystallization pond, and it was easily piled into a hill.
A salt mountain that is as white as snow!
When the last cart of sea salt was pushed out of the salt pond and piled onto the salt mountain, the workers opened the gate above the crystallization pond. The brine that had been sedimented, filtered and sun-dried for several days flowed into the pond again. After a day or two, another salt bath was produced. Pool sea salt.
When all the processes were completed, all the workers wiped away their sweat, and the noble merchants opened their mouths and stared blankly at the salt mountain reflecting the white light in the sun!
This... is salt? !
Everyone can hardly believe their eyes...
Boiling sea salt has been practiced since ancient times.
Farmers either make salt for themselves or make salt for aristocratic families. The whole family works hard to cut firewood in the mountains and carry seawater from the sea. Each pot can only hold up to thirty kilograms of seawater, making it smoky and scorching. After drying it, I could only get a pound...
Local farmers are better off. After exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes, and the fact that their own families have to eat a pound of food, they can’t have much left over after all their hard work every month. Moreover, seawater is highly corrosive, and the iron quality of the iron pot is not good. If the iron pot is boiled too many times, the bottom of the pot will be burned through accidentally, which is another expensive expense.
As for the laborers who worked for the wealthy families, they were even more miserable. The salt they worked so hard to produce was not their own. Their eyes were damaged by the fireworks, and their hands and feet were sore from the sea water. In the end, they could only exchange The whole family will not be full if we return a little food...
But look at the scene in front of you again. Some pools were dug on the beach, and they were dried in the sun. People went down to use rakes and sweeps with brooms to get such a salt mountain. Isn’t it probably tens of thousands of kilograms of sea salt?
When the workers thought about their past hard work, they really wanted to cry. Suddenly they thought that in the future, there would be such a good way to easily obtain sea salt. Although the salt was not theirs, they could still make a living and have enough to eat every time. But they were all ecstatic.
As for the gentry and merchants, they were all dumbfounded and dumbfounded. They had mixed feelings in their hearts. It could be said that they were filled with sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy flavors. They didn’t know what it was like...
Naturally, he was happy. With such an easy method of making salt, the output would only be greater than what Fang Jun had originally promised. This investment would naturally make a lot of money.
But there are many people who are regretful and unwilling!
The output of sea salt is indeed quite large, and this transaction is worth it. Even if you borrow a large amount of money from the "bank" and have to pay a large amount of interest every month and every year, you are still making a lot of money.
But the problem is such an extremely simple method of drying salt, why had I never thought of it before? The history of boiling salt from the sea for many nobles and merchants can be traced back to their ancestors hundreds of years ago. If they had known about this method of drying salt back then, what a staggering amount of wealth they would have accumulated over the years. ?
What makes everyone most indignant is that just by building a few pools on the beach, filling them with seawater and waiting for the sun to dry the seawater, such a fool can make salt, and this damn Fang Jun actually does it. Hold tens of millions of dollars of wealth into your arms?
The robbery of the palace is not as fast as this...
Fang Jun looked at the mountains of sea salt as white as snow, feeling proud and proud!
Each salt field is divided by a salt ditch, about one mile in length and width, covering an area of about half a square kilometer, and is divided into numerous sedimentation ponds, evaporation ponds and crystallization ponds. This place is far away from the estuary of the Yangtze River. It is a corner of Huating Town extending into the sea. It is surrounded by unobstructed plains. In summer, the wind is strong and the sea water is easy to evaporate. However, due to the rainy season in the south of the Yangtze River, the output was affected during this period.
Even so, according to observation records, now is the time of year when the temperature is the highest. On a sunny day, about 0.2 millimeters of seawater can be evaporated every day, and a salt field can evaporate 20,000 tons of seawater. The salt content in seawater is about 3%, which means 300 tons of sea salt can be produced.
There was no reference, and Fang Jun didn't know how much the weight of one pound in the Tang Dynasty differed from that of later generations. He calculated it based on one pound. Thirty pounds are jun, and four jun are stones. Since one stone is one dendrobium, and one hundred and twenty pounds, one piece The salt fields can produce 5,000 hu of sea salt every day...
Naturally, the sun cannot shine like this every day and the sea breeze blows. Excluding cloudy days and rain and low temperatures in winter and slow evaporation, we can still produce 300,000 to 400,000 pieces of sea salt a year.
At first, Fang Jun promised that each salt field would produce 100,000 hu of sea salt per year. Now it seems that Fang Jun's calculations were wrong and the output was much higher than expected.
Did you suffer a loss?
Fang Jun didn't think so.
No matter what era we are in, salt is as important as food as the basis for survival. People without food will starve to death, and people without salt will still not survive! Salt is not only an important condiment, but also an indispensable substance for maintaining normal development of the human body.
Salt regulates the balanced distribution of water in the human body, maintains osmotic pressure inside and outside cells, participates in the formation of gastric acid, promotes the secretion of digestive juices, and increases appetite; at the same time, it also ensures the pH necessary for the action of pepsin and maintains the pH balance in the body. and normal circulation of body fluids.
People cannot do without salt. Eating too little salt can also cause low sodium content in the body, resulting in loss of appetite, weakness in limbs, dizziness, etc. In severe cases, anorexia, nausea, vomiting, accelerated heart rate, weak pulse, and muscle weakness can occur. Symptoms include spasms, blurred vision, and weakened reflexes.
However, since ancient times, in addition to enriching the country's finances, the official operation of salt has not allowed more people to eat salt. Official salt is too expensive, and most of the salt circulated among the people is private salt. In the early Tang Dynasty, official salt management was not implemented, but most people could afford salt, and the price of salt was never high. This shows that whether the people can afford salt has nothing to do with whether it is monopolized by the state. On the contrary, due to the state's monopoly, the price of salt has skyrocketed, which has made the people suffer...
What is the most normal way?
There is no doubt that it is competition!
Competition can improve product quality, reduce product prices, and directly benefit the people!
The more salt is produced, the cheaper the price will naturally be, so that ordinary people can afford salt!
Presumably, what does the loss of some money count?
Not to mention that Fang Jun originally planned to give this benefit to the emperor and the merchants of the Jiangnan gentry in order to divide the alliance of the Jiangnan gentry.
People with a sharp mind can estimate the annual income from a large amount of sea salt from a salt farm.
While feeling excited, he also became more in awe of Fang Jun.
This is not awe in Fang Jun's ability to turn stones into gold, but the wealth Fang Jun created for the emperor. Due to the restrictions on the purchase of salt farm shares, the noble merchants present could only occupy at most 30% of a salt farm, but what about the emperor?
There are five salt pans!
How big a fortune is this?
By dedicating such a huge amount of wealth to the emperor, what status would Fang Jun, who was already highly favored, have in the eyes of the emperor?
The most powerful minister of the Tang Dynasty may not be considered, but the most favored minister of the Tang Dynasty, who else could he be?
Your Majesty is now in the prime of life, and Fang Jun's backing is as solid as a rock; even if the throne is passed down in the future, the relationship between Fang Jun and His Highness the Crown Prince will be unbreakable!
It is almost conceivable that as long as Fang Jun does not commit suicide and rebel, he will be the emperor's most trusted and favored minister in the next few decades...
Who can upset such a stable position?
This is a thigh that can’t be any thicker. The sooner you embrace it, the higher the reward will be. On the other hand, if someone offends him, even if he does not kill you, he will not live a good life for decades... (End of Chapter)