Daming Town Haiwang

Chapter 319, Changlu Salt Field

On the wide beach of Tanggu, Tianjin, Liu Jin is riding a tall horse, accompanied by Tong Yuan and several stewards of the Changlu Salt Field, inspecting the salt field under construction here
At this time, on the vast tidal flats along the coast, a large number of people braved the severe cold and worked tirelessly. These people wore thin clothes and their bodies were emaciated, and they could be identified as impoverished people in the nearby coastal areas.

In later generations, areas close to the sea meant developed areas and high-income areas, but in this era, areas close to the sea are just the opposite. Being close to the sea means that there is no fertile land and no green mountains and green waters, which means poverty.

Liu Jin has a deep understanding of this. Xiahetun, where he was born, is very poor. There have always been girls who marry out, but girls who don't get married in. It is a well-known poor place in all directions.

"When working in the water in winter, you must prepare hot water to soak your feet, as well as hot tea and ginger soup. In addition, everyone must have a guaranteed daily meal, and there must be meat for three meals."

Liu Jin looked at the people working in the severe cold, thought for a while and gave instructions to the manager of the Changlu Salt Field beside him.

"Yes, we have prepared hot water and ginger soup, that is, on the food, if there is meat for three meals, it can only be cheap fish. There is not so much pork in the market."

Beside Liu Jin, Li Jiye, the chief manager of Changlu Saltworks, is also an old man from Xishan Coal Industry, he nodded and said.

"Fish is just fish, Tong Yuan, turn around and let Tianjin port deliver it every day."

Liu Jin nodded. The nutritional value of fish meat is actually no worse than that of other meats, but the taste of this fish meat is not so satisfying.

Eating fish is commonplace for the people in the Beijing-Tianjin area. The fishing industry here in Tianjin Port has gradually flourished. The sea fish caught every day is piled up like a mountain, which not only meets the huge demand in the Beijing-Tianjin area, but even Yu has now begun to sell to Shandong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang.

The marine fishing industry in these areas has not yet started, the market demand for meat is huge, the price can be sold at a higher level, and the market will always shift to areas with higher profits.

"Okay, teacher~"

Tong Yuan took out a charcoal pen and a notebook to record what Liu Jin ordered.

"How about this, give us another ten cents a day's wages. We work in the water in the winter. If we don't handle it well, it will cause the root of the disease. We can't treat them badly."

"Our salt farm occupies their coastal area, which will affect their livelihood. The staff recruitment of this salt farm should take care of the people around them as much as possible, so that everyone can enjoy certain benefits with our salt farm."

After thinking about it, Liu Jin instructed Li Jiye again.

"Young master, the most difficult thing for our saltworks now is to recruit workers. To hire them to build the saltworks, the wages should be higher, and many, many people are willing to come, even though it is winter."

"However, the recruitment of long-term employees in our saltworks has not been going well, and no one is willing to come to work in our saltworks."

When Li Jiye heard this, he couldn't help but vomit bitterly.

During this period of time, he has been recruiting workers in the Tanggu area. It is easy to recruit people to build salt fields, but it is even more difficult to recruit regular workers for the salt fields. No one is willing to come.

"Why is this?"

When Liu Jin heard this, he immediately asked, "Li Jiye is an old man from Xishan, and he is already familiar with the management of Xishan. Saltworks recruit workers, and the salary must be very good, but they can't recruit people."

"The salaries for recruiting workers in the salt field are all based on the salaries of the Xishan Coal Industry. As long as you work hard, you can earn two or three taels of silver a month. There is no problem."

"But everyone is very worried about changing their household registration after entering the saltworks. They are afraid that changing to a stove household will affect their future generations. Therefore, despite the high wages, no one is willing to come."

Li Jiye explained the reason.

"Changed to a kitchen household?"

"We are just recruiting workers, what does it have to do with household registration, not to mention that we are not the imperial court, how can we change people's household registration casually?"

When Liu Jin heard it, he was at a loss. It was just a simple recruitment. You do things for me, and I will give you wages and food. There is no household registration involved.

"I also told the neighbors around me, but everyone didn't believe it, because everyone thought that salt was always a matter for the imperial court to exploit. Don't look at what we are doing well now, maybe it will be taken back one day to work for the salt field Don’t people suddenly become kitchen households?”

"Everyone is very clear about the situation of the kitchen households. Compared with the military households, the kitchen households are even poorer, and no one dares to do anything at all."

Li Jiye said helplessly.

Hearing Li Jiye's words, Liu Jin fell silent immediately, and immediately felt deeply that this household registration system is an extremely important shackle restricting the development of capitalism.

Because of the existence of the household registration system, the people of the Ming Dynasty could not move around at will, and many people had never even been out of the county they were in in their entire lives.

In addition, the existence of this household registration system has seriously affected the improvement of productivity. The sons born to Zaohu are Zaohu for generations.

Everyone’s worries are not unreasonable. Once you work in the salt field, even if you are not a stove household, other people will think you are a stove household. It will be difficult to marry a wife. Who would want to marry a stove household?
The children born can't study and take the imperial examinations, and generations have to face a stove that cooks salt in a pot.

"It seems that you need to ask His Majesty for an imperial decree, or ask the prince Zhu Houzhao for an decree. Even if you open your mouth to make a promise to everyone, it is useless."

In Liu Jin's mind, he quickly realized that this matter was something that even he could not solve. In fact, everyone was worried, afraid, and afraid that once they entered the salt field to work, they would become kitchen households in the future, and they would be lowly for generations. Stove household.

Even though the salaries offered by the saltworks are very attractive, no one dares to bet on the future of themselves and their descendants.

"I will report this matter to the Son of Heaven, and ask His Majesty for a decree, and then you will use this decree to recruit workers."

After thinking about it, Liu Jin also said to Li Jiye that he was very helpless. There are really many shackles in the development of capitalism in this era.

The previous opening of the sea was strongly opposed by the court officials. Now it is only half of the salt field. Because of the existence of the household registration system, it is difficult to recruit workers. This feudal dynasty has too many, too many restrictions on the germination and development of capitalism.

“It’s no wonder that after Western capitalism has developed to a certain level, it needs to carry out reforms and gain the right to speak. In the final analysis, it is for the production relations to keep up with the development of productive forces.”

"The old horse is really powerful, explaining the mystery with one word."

In his heart, Liu Jin couldn't help expressing his admiration for Marx again.

"Is there any difficulty other than recruiting?"

Liu Jin looked at the vast tidal flats. Thousands of people were busy here, using cement to build dams and transform the tidal flats into square salt fields.

The investment in Changlu Salt Field was huge, even bigger than the investment in Miyun Iron Works. The money handed over to the treasury alone was two million taels of silver, and the total amount of funds raised reached five million taels of silver.

But in fact, only three million taels of silver can be used to invest in the construction of Yantian. Of course, three million taels of silver is definitely a huge number, that is, Liu Jin and Zhu Houzhao are now rich and powerful, otherwise they really can't do it.

Three million taels of silver was spent, and Changlu Saltworks directly bought all the hundreds of kilometers of tidal flats around Tanggu. At the same time, it also placed a large number of orders from more than ten large cement factories in Tianjin and Beijing. , preparing to build a super large salt field here.

The long, open, flat muddy beach here is definitely the most ideal salt pan, but more importantly, the climate here is very suitable for drying salt.

The rainy season here is very short, the temperature rises very quickly in spring, the wind is more rainy, the sunshine is abundant, and the evaporation is strong. In the most ideal place for drying salt, the salt production in this area accounts for a quarter of the country in later generations, and the scale is very large. vast.

Such a good place, Liu Jin naturally wants to occupy it first, not to mention, if the saltworks are not built bigger, they won't earn much money.

"My lord, we have never done this method of drying salt. We have also consulted many old salt households and built some salt fields for experiments. Although some salt has been produced, we have never been able to achieve what you said. salt that is as white as granulated sugar."

Li Jiye thought for a while and said.

Liu Jin has already told him the detailed method of drying salt, and he did what Liu Jin said, and he did produce salt, and the efficiency is indeed very high, but he still has no way to achieve what Liu Jin said. The degree of fine salt comes.

The sun-salt method is actually very simple. It uses light, temperature, and wind to evaporate water in seawater to obtain salt.

The specific operation is to first return the seawater to the evaporation pool, after the wind, water and sun, the water evaporates to a certain extent, and then introduce it into the crystallization pool, continue to be exposed to the wind and sun, and the seawater will slowly evaporate, thus obtaining table salt.

Of course, there is no difference between the salt obtained in this way and the salt obtained by boiling the salt method. The only difference is to see who has higher efficiency and a larger amount of salt.

Similarly, the obtained salt is coarse salt with a lot of impurities in it, the taste is very bad, and the crystals are also yellow, so it must go through some chemical treatment steps to remove the impurities in it to get snow white, Snow-white refined salt.

"I forgot to pass on the most important step to you. This step is very important. We need to add some things to the crystallization pool to produce high-quality salt..."

Hearing Li Jiye's words, Liu Jin patted himself on the head, unexpectedly forgot to explain the matter of getting rid of it, so he hurriedly explained.

　After carefully studying the sun-dried salt method, it seems to be really simple~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)