1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1925
Luo Shengdong’s explanation about the production technology of Haihan’s salt-making method, let alone Koreans, even few Haihan officials present could really understand it.These technical things are not usually accessible to them, and they feel fresh when they first listen to them, but when Luo Shengdong talks about deeper content, they are as dizzy as the North Koreans.Of course, they don't have the urgency to learn advanced technology like the North Koreans. Even if they don't understand it, they won't have any strange emotions. Seeing the dumbfounded appearance of foreign dignitaries, they even faintly think about the technology possessed by their own country. Take pride in your advantages.

Of course Luo Shengdong also knew that Li Min and others might not be able to understand his explanation, but this was his best way to explain the process of the Haihan Salt Production Method in an easy-to-understand way. If the other party really wanted to learn this skill, then At least they have to stay in the saltworks for three to five months.However, with Li Luo's status and status, even if he wanted to learn, it was impossible for him to come here as an apprentice in person.According to Luo Shengdong's understanding, the main purpose of Li Min's investigation should be to witness the production capacity of the Haihan Salt Field with his own eyes. After all, I heard that North Korea is planning to build a large-scale salt field with Haihan's technical support. Come to inspect the goods first before you can rest assured.

While explaining the technology, Luo Shengdong did not forget the instructions he had received from other officials earlier, and took this opportunity to tout the executive committee's foresight in the development of the salt industry.However, limited to the level of information he knows, he still doesn’t know the important role played by the salt industry in Haihan’s industrialization development, so he can only talk about the year-by-year increase in the production scale of the salt farm and the market for Haihan salt in the South China Sea. share.

In fact, if you just want to show the North Koreans the scale of production, it might be more intuitive to drive them around Yinggehai Bay in a horse-drawn carriage. In addition to being visible, the itinerary must also arrange tangible links, so as to leave a deep enough impression on the visitors.

"These are coarse salt produced in the salt field, which will be refined by other methods later, and are the table salt we sell on the market." Luo Shengdong bent down and grabbed a handful of dried coarse salt from the salt field next to him, showing Show it to Li Lu: "In fact, in the past, some salt farms directly sold this kind of salt as private salt, but we use it as fodder salt for livestock at most."

What Luo Shengdong said about "some salt fields" naturally refers to other countries besides Haihan.For the producer, purifying coarse salt means prolonging the process, and the production cycle and cost will be affected, so the crude salt produced is often sold directly to the market.Anyway, there will always be some people who can't afford or are reluctant to buy expensive and higher-quality official salt, but choose this kind of crude private salt that tastes not so good but is relatively cheap.In the past, saltworks on Hainan Island also had similar operations.

However, now Haihan has increased the production scale of the salt industry to a level far exceeding the consumption needs of the local people. The substantial increase in production capacity has brought about a reduction in costs. The price of refined salt is no longer high. For the production of the chemical industry, the quantity of coarse salt that can be supplied to the market is limited, and the price is actually almost the same as that of refined salt. In this way, not many people will choose lower-quality coarse salt for their own consumption.

When Li Yan visited the Datongjiang Base, he had inspected the labor camps of his country. He remembered that the salt he saw in the camp kitchen was almost this kind of coarse, slightly yellowed coarse salt.Luo Shengdong said that this kind of salt can only be used as feed salt for livestock. Although he knew that the other party said it unintentionally, Li Lu still felt a little sour when he heard such words.

After watching the production process of rough machining, Luo Shengdong took a group of people back to the carriage, and drove to the next production site in charge of finishing.

Captain Xue and his party, who were waiting on the side of the road, finally waited for the official convoy to dispatch again. As before, they stood still and waited for the official convoy to enter the main road for a while before following from afar.But what happened next was almost a copy of the previous scene. The official convoy turned into the branch road again after traveling a short distance, and the two carriages that followed did not dare to stop in order to avoid attracting attention, so they could only continue Drive forward for a certain distance and then pull over to the side of the road.

Looking at the armed riders guarding the intersection, Captain Xue realized that there would be no chance of doing anything at the moment, so he could only choose to be honest.

"This action is still too hasty!" Captain Xue could only sigh helplessly in his heart.In fact, he received an order from Fuguang on the same day Li Luo arrived in Sanya, asking him to find an opportunity to deal with the son of Joseon who was visiting Haihan.Moreover, in order to get to Sanya as soon as possible, the ship on which the messenger was on board also crossed the stormy sea abruptly, and took great risks to catch up with Li Mo's fleet, which was taking shelter from the wind and rain all the way around the road.

This kind of dangerous operation is actually to buy more time for Captain Xue in Sanya, so that he can start after the preparations are complete.But I didn't expect that within a few days of Li Min's arrival in Sanya, the official announced that he would arrange for him to go around the island for inspection. Captain Xue had no choice but to temporarily pull a group of people out to sea to follow him, hoping to find a chance to do something on the way, but so far it seems that there is no chance. It's not easy. The security measures Haihan provided for the North Koreans far exceeded his expectations. Not to mention doing it, he had to be careful about tracking and monitoring, and he didn't dare to make mistakes at will.

Captain Xue actually didn't quite understand why the higher-ups ordered to deal with the son of Joseon. The only reason he could think of was to destroy the relationship between North Korea and Haihan.But even if he can succeed, it doesn't seem to be of any direct benefit to his camp, and North Korea probably doesn't have the guts to turn against Hai Han.However, Captain Xue and others who took great risks to complete this task are very likely to lose their lives for this.

Of course, Captain Xue is not afraid of death, he has come to Haihan as a dead man to lurk, as long as the right opportunity arises, he is not afraid to use his life to attack Haihan, the sworn enemy.But if the direct target becomes another country, and the interests of the Haihan country can only be affected indirectly, then he has to examine whether his sacrifice is worth it.

As for the group of people he gathered temporarily, they actually came from several different forces. Some of them participated in this operation purely to earn a living.These people are all desperadoes, and they have a certain amount of experience in fighting. Some of them have even been on the battlefield, but after all, they are temporary partners, and there is no tacit understanding at all.Although Captain Xue can barely command these people at the moment, he is not sure how long this loose organization can last. If any one of them makes a mistake, it may lead to the annihilation of the entire army.

If the King of Joseon's itinerary is full of this level of security, then basically there will be no chance to get close, and there is no need to think about assassination.Although what Captain Xue received was not a killing order, failing to complete the task would also affect his status and trust in the organization, so even though he didn't understand the intention of his boss's order so thoroughly, he had to face Haihan again now. Despite the strict security measures, he is still trying to find possible loopholes in the other party.

It is not a good experience for a group of people to curl up in a carriage. Although it is not crowded, it takes a lot of discipline to sit for a long time without talking casually and making noise.Unfortunately, Captain Xue's group of temporary subordinates happened to not have such characteristics, and some people had already started complaining during the waiting period.

"Since it's just stalking and stalking, why do you need to send out so many people, so that all the brothers will suffer here!"

"Are you stupid? If there is a chance to do something, will you be more confident if you have more people or less people?"

"If you are not blind, you can see that the opposite side is full of guns. What's the point of having more or less on our side? As long as they pull the trigger, you can't even rush to a distance of ten feet!"

"What's the point of taking all the money you've worked so hard for? When it's time to do it, just take out the knife and cut it off!"

"Shut up!" Captain Xue turned his head and stopped the arguing companions: "The enemy is still arguing! Think about what to do next!"

What to do, in fact, Captain Xue himself has no idea. Although he has some experience in organizing special operations, it is the first time in history that he wants to attack a person of Li Mo's level.There was no rough action plan beforehand, and the current team didn't have a tacit understanding. Even if there was an opportunity to do something, he was not sure whether his group would be able to seize the opportunity.

At this time, under the leadership of Luo Shengdong, Li Lu and his party were visiting the local refined salt production process. The coarse salt was dissolved, precipitated, filtered, evaporated, and processed repeatedly, and then it would become the refined salt sold on the market.

Luo Shengdong grabbed a handful of refined salt and put it in front of Li Wei: "The price of refined salt of this quality has been kept at about two-thirds of the price of the same refined salt in Daming, and it can even be lowered if necessary. Low. However, we have reached an agreement with Daming last year, and we will negotiate with Daming on the issue of salt pricing, so as to prevent Daming from losing too much in terms of salt tax.”

Luo Shengdong’s words did not leave much affection for Daming. Haihan sent a lot of private salt to Daming in the early years, and even drove the official salt farm in Fuguang area to bankruptcy at a low price. The loss in the world can be imagined.After these official salt farms cease production, the demand for salt in these areas will further depend on the supply from Haihan.

Although the two countries initially reached the agreement Luo Shengdong said after negotiations last year, in fact, Ming’s salt production institutions in the southeast coast, especially in Guangdong and Guangxi, have been hard to recover due to the huge impact, and the salt supply on the market Most of them still depend on Haihan, so the essence of this agreement is to let the salt produced by Haihan enter the Daming market through the import channels officially recognized by Daming, and turn it into official salt for sale.In this way, Haihan sold the salt, and the needs of the people were met, and the salt tax of Daming also returned to the previous level in the process, which can be described as happy.

As for those kitchen households who have lost their jobs in the salt industry competition, the government will not care about them. As long as the salt tax promotion department can steadily extract taxes from the salt trade, the salt is produced in its own salt farms It was still the salt field of Haihan State, and the relevant yamen were very knowledgeable and would not go to the bottom of it.

In fact, when Luo Shengdong was a private salt dealer selling salt for Haihan in the early years, he also took a similar path. He sold the salt directly to large salt merchants in various places, and asked them to use the monopoly qualification issued by the salt department to sell the salt. These Haihan salts are all turned into official salts for sale.Officials at all levels, such as the promotion, co-citation, deputy promotion, ambassador Ku, etc. of the Salt Education Department, also made a lot of money from it.

In the past, the imperial court was afraid of Haihan, and could only turn a blind eye to many things, but now that there is a formal agreement, it is justifiable to bring these transactions back under the management of the government, instead of being managed by the local salt department as before. The officials acted at will.But this actually has little impact on the interests of these people, because the salt is still bought from Haihan, and Haihan will naturally follow the previous rules to ensure that their income will not be affected, so that the entire sales channel can continue to run smoothly as before. .

Li Wei is not very clear about the past interest disputes between Haihan and Daming in the salt industry, but he can roughly think of the cause of the problem. After all, the salt industry is one of the lifelines of a country, and the interests involved are too great. Certainly will not easily give up control in this field.However, judging from what Luo Shengdong said, it seems that Haihan still has the upper hand - Daming can only resolve the conflict of interests between the two parties through negotiation, rather than directly banning the inflow of Haihan's salt.

"This kind of sea salt refining technology in your country will also be introduced into the salt farms jointly operated in our country?" Li Wei actually still couldn't understand the production process explained by Luo Shengdong, so he simply asked the question he was concerned about.If refined salt of this quality cannot be produced, the results of the joint operation of the salt farm are clearly not worth looking forward to.

"Of course." Luo Shengdong knew a thing or two about this, and immediately reassured Li Luo with an affirmative tone: "Our country has sent relevant technical personnel to your country. After the salt farm is completed and put into operation, something like this Refined salt will also slowly appear in the homes of people in your country."

"Then it would be the best!" Li Lu replied, but he had some different thoughts in his heart.Of course, wealthy Haihan people can afford this kind of refined salt, but the local people may not have the same consumption ability.But that doesn't matter, the production standard of the salt field can be adjusted according to the actual demand at that time, and it is not necessarily necessary to produce such refined salt in large quantities.

At a certain intersection in the distance, Captain Xue was complaining bitterly: "I don't think there is any need to put salt in cooking in this ghost place, even the breath is salty!"

(End of this chapter)