1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 170 Visiting the Salt Fields
After the goods were shipped, Tao Donglai hurried to the pier with a group of technicians responsible for installing the equipment.After everyone boarded the boat, they hoisted their sails and set sail for the open sea. Li Nai was still wondering where the Haihan people's salt farm was hidden, so he heard Schneider say: "Mr. Li, please look, the bay ahead is our salt farm."

"So close?" Li Nai was slightly taken aback.He originally thought that since he was going there by boat, the secret salt field of the Haihan people would be at least an hour or two away, but he didn't expect to arrive just after leaving the harbor.

Li Nai looked at the bay that Schneider pointed out with some doubts, but he saw a forest of coconut trees on the shore, and he couldn't even see human habitation. Where did the salt field come from?

It wasn't until the boat approached the shore that Li Nai noticed that there was a small estuary where laborers drove a few flat-bottomed wooden boats.Everyone disembarked and transferred to the boat, and the laborers rowed the boat and marched up the small river.

The boat traveled about two miles, and a small pier appeared in front of it. Anxi and others from the management committee of the Salt Field Commune were already standing here waiting.

Tao Donglai made a brief introduction for both parties, and Anxi greeted warmly: "Friends from Guangzhou are welcome to visit our place! Please come with me, we will talk as we walk."

In terms of the current internal establishment of the Traveling Group, most of the units belong to the production department, and only a few departments such as culture, education and health belong to the public institutions that need to rely on financial appropriation.Since the Executive Committee proposed the establishment of an independent settlement system, various production departments are trying to improve production efficiency in order to obtain more benefits.Especially the military industry, chemical industry and other departments that have access to import and export trade are full of enthusiasm.

The salt farm has been designated as a key production guarantee unit since the establishment of the cross-border group. The executive committee believes that the production capacity of the salt farm "has a strategic role" in the development of the entire cross-group group, and has also given enough attention and comprehensive support.As long as the reports typed up by Anxi are basically approved by the executive committee, manpower is needed for manpower, and materials are needed for materials.For products in short supply such as cement, the Executive Committee also provided them to the saltworks as much as possible to ensure the smooth progress of their production and transformation plans, which caused a lot of complaints from the military and police departments who wanted to build concrete forts.

The Salt Field Commune did not disappoint the Executive Committee. Since it was put into operation, the salt output of the Salt Field Commune has been showing a rapid upward trend, not only meeting the local chemical production needs, but also exporting several thousand catties of refined salt.From an economic point of view, the Saltworks Commune has initially possessed the ability to be self-financed.

Of course, in view of the fact that the wholesale salt price of the Ministry of Commerce has been kept at an extremely low level, the actual transaction amount is not large, and the sales profit of the Salt Farm Commune is also very limited.However, the Executive Committee is still very optimistic about this project. There is no other reason, because the sales market for table salt is really too big. As long as the current salt price of 100 taels per ton is maintained, it is enough to dump the salt market in the mainland and even the entire Far East. trend.As long as the sales volume goes up, the seemingly meager profit will also become astronomical.

The management committee of the Saltworks Commune is also very clear about this reason, so when Anxi learned that there were businessmen from Guangzhou visiting the saltworks today and that they were likely to sign an order for the salt industry, they held a preparatory meeting one day in advance.Everyone in the salt farm has been notified that everyone must work harder today. As long as everyone behaves well, the two pigs sent by the farm the day before will be slaughtered for extra meals in the evening—for ordinary people with little education. In other words, material stimulation is obviously more intuitive and effective than spiritual encouragement.

"Our salt field started construction three months ago. At the beginning, it was just a wasteland." Anxi raised his finger and pointed to the inland plains that have become neat salt fields in the distance, and introduced it proudly: "Under the leadership of the Executive Committee, the members of the Salt Field Commune fought against the sky and transformed this wasteland into the salt field with the highest output in the entire South China Sea in a short period of time! Everyone, according to our latest statistics, the current salt output of the commune is The daily output has reached four thousand catties!"

Li Nai could clearly hear the voice of He Qiang swallowing hard next to him. This number is indeed astonishing, no less than what he heard at the farm yesterday that the yield per mu of rice fields there can exceed [-] jin.

One of the missions of Li Nai's visit to Victory Port is how big the Haihan people's salt production capacity is. Li Jifeng, the head of "Furuifeng", believes that if the salt production of Haihan people can really reach a certain scale, then it would be a good choice for "Furuifeng" to open another lucrative private salt business in the future, but if the production is low, then Whether to take this risk is debatable.

As homework beforehand, Li Nai has also learned about the operation of general salt farms. For example, Qiongzhou Island is located in Danzhou Bay, which is known as the largest salt farm in Qiongzhou Island. rare.Moreover, the salt farm has been in operation since the Song Dynasty, and all production links can be said to be very mature, and the salt workers are also familiar with generations of family members.However, compared with the salt production efficiency claimed by the Haihan people, the output of the Danzhou Salt Field is more like the result of manipulation by a group of laymen.

It is no secret that there are 29 salt farms in Guangdong and Qiongzhou under the jurisdiction of Guangdong Salt Research Division and Haibei Salt Research Division. Li Nai dares to say that no salt farm can maintain a daily output of [-] kg. above.

Of course, Li Nai also thought that the saltworks of the Haihan people might be much more efficient than the saltworks in Danzhou or other places, and the salt produced could not be fully digested in the local market.Otherwise, they don't need to take the line of Guangzhou, and just sell it locally.But he did not expect that the salt production here is so ridiculously high, [-] catties a day, which makes "Furuifeng"'s previous request to supply at least [-] catties a month sound like a joke——Mo Said A monthly payment of [-] jin, even a monthly payment of [-] jin, Haihan people can afford it!

Li Nai has already started to think in his heart, if the transaction volume is increased from [-] catties to [-] catties per month, then whether the profits that "Fu Ruifeng" can get from the transaction can be used to buy two more Haihan artillery.

Of course, before that, Li Nai still wanted to implement what the Haihan people said as much as possible. Who knows if this person surnamed An is bragging?The salt farm with a monthly output of 10,000+ jin is right in front of you, and Li Nai really wants to see their production methods.

After passing through a row of palm groves, Li Nai saw the true face of this salt plain. There were no stone drying salt tanks that are commonly seen in salt fields, but huge rectangular drying salt ponds neatly laid on the ground. Each of them is four or five feet long and wide.The water storage in these ponds is very shallow, only about two or three inches, and the sea salt in many ponds has already crystallized, spreading the white flowers on the bottom of the ponds.Some laborers are standing in the sun-dried salt pool, using rakes to gather the sun-dried salt together, and then put it into sacks and transport it to the designated place.

Li Nai only took a rough look, and there are at least hundreds of salt ponds like this on the plain.The sea salt precipitated from a pond is collected together, at least twenty or thirty catties. From this point of view, the daily production of four thousand catties mentioned by the Haihan people is not bragging.

Anxi took them on a tour while explaining.In addition to these ponds that are being harvested, there are some places where laborers are using manpower water trucks to pump seawater from the river into the salt pans, and there is a filter pond next to each salt pan, and most of the laborers are working in the filter ponds. The salt mud soaked in seawater is stirred and squeezed, which is a rather time-consuming and laborious process.After being stirred and filtered, the high-salt brine will be put into the brine storage tank next to the filter tank. After passing the inspection, it will be lifted into the sun-dried salt tank for full drying.

Regarding these production processes, the executive committee is not afraid to expose them.This method of producing salt was not pioneered by the people, but the technology being used by the contemporary salt farms. The difference between the salt farm commune is the large-scale industrialized production method, which is still in the feudal system. The old-fashioned saltworks of the production structure could not achieve it.The technological advantages in civil administration and production organization have widened the gap in production efficiency between the Saltworks Commune and its counterparts in this era, and it is absolutely impossible to make up for this gap with a casual visit.

Li Nai is a smart man who has seen the world. When he saw the exquisite irrigation equipment and the flat-bottomed salt ponds made of plaster, he knew that the salt-making method of the Haihan people could not be replicated elsewhere.This is not because the Haihan people used the more advanced sun-dried salt method. In fact, the salt fields in Chaozhou, Huizhou and even Danzhou have long been using the sun-dried salt method to make salt.The reason why it cannot be copied is actually very simple. The salt envoys and savers sent by the Salt Division to the salt field don't care about how to improve production efficiency. What they have to do is to try their best to squeeze the salt households and directly enforce the production tasks. After the apportionment continues, these officials don't care whether the salt households chop firewood to cook salt or build ponds to dry salt.

However, it is obviously impossible to build such a large-scale sun-drying pond in the salt field without official economic investment. This requires a lot of manpower, material and financial resources to realize it, and those poor salt households do not have such capabilities. Organizational skills.And even if a private salt merchant with such financial resources has the intention, he is powerless. After all, the salt farm is set up by the imperial court. Salt merchants can only buy and sell salt, but if they want to build their own salt farm, they will definitely not be able to get approval from the imperial court.

Li Nai has even figured it out that the reason why the Haihan people showed themselves the entire process of salt production so confidently is because they know that this set of things cannot be copied to other regions for implementation.In addition to secretly lamenting that the Haihan people are smart enough, Li Nai also felt a deep sense of powerlessness—why, I, Da Ming, can't do these things that don't seem complicated?

(End of this chapter)