Daming Town Haiwang

Chapter 5, Cooking Salt

Xiahetun is very close to the sea, and it will arrive soon after a few miles.

Before reaching the beach, a gust of sea breeze and the fishy smell of the sea came oncoming. From a distance, one could see smoke rising up one after another, and smell a smell of burning smoke and dust.

"Burning straw?"

"No, there are no fields by the sea, so there are bellflowers to burn."

Liu Jin looked at the thick smoke rising from the sea, and began to check the memory of the original owner in his mind, trying to figure out what happened.

"It turned out to be boiling salt."

Soon, Liu Jin knew what was going on with the white smoke. At the same time, he was about to go to the beach and turned around a low hill, and his vision suddenly widened.

I saw thatched huts built on the hillside near the seaside tidal flats. The thatched huts were filled with firewood, and a hearth was built with stones next to each thatched hut. Every hearth was busy here.

"That's right. It's near the sea. There has been a tradition of cooking salt since ancient times. If I remember correctly, the drying of salt started from Wudi in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. It should be called Haifeng now."

Soon, Liu Jin came to the place where the villagers of Xiahe Village boiled salt, and remembered some of the historical novels he had read before. The history of boiling salt with seawater is very long, dating back to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The tradition of boiling salt was gradually eliminated until the appearance of drying salt method.

Liu Jin looked carefully at the salt cooking place. The whole salt cooking place was backed by a hill by the sea, and hundreds of salt cooking stoves were built along the hill. At this time, half of the stoves were busy. .

Some people picked up the brine from the brine pools on the beach, and some people chopped firewood while lighting the fire; some of the cooking stoves were already cooked, and the villagers happily shoveled the salt out of the pot and packed it in jars.

"Brother Jin~"

A rough voice came.

Liu Jin followed the voice and looked over, only to see a long, hulking, one-meter-nine-meter-high man, who looked like a foolish man, carrying two buckets of brine, walking like flying from the seaside tidal flat.

From the memory in my mind, I know that this person's name is Zhao Erhu, and his nickname is Gouzi. He has a very good relationship with Liu Jin since he was a child, and there is no gap between them because Liu Jin is a scholar.

"Two Tigers~"

Liu Jin said with a smile.

"Brother Jin, next time Tang Huo bullies you again, just tell me and I will beat him to death."

Zhao Erhu put down the brine, came to Liu Jin's side with a smile, and said very angrily.

"Dog, don't work hard, why are you barking?"

Not far away, Zhao Heishan, Zhao Erhu's father, couldn't help cursing at Zhao Erhu when he heard it.

"You can talk about Mr. Tang's affairs. Don't know how to die when the time comes, and you don't know the heights of heaven and earth."

Obviously, Zhao Heishan, an honest farmer, was very afraid of Tang Huhu. He didn't even dare to say a word in this crowded place.

"Uncle Black Mountain~"

Liu Jin smiled and greeted Zhao Heishan. This Zhao Heishan was a very nice person, and he often helped Liu Jin's family. Now he said Zhao Erhu because there were too many people here, and he was afraid that people would report behind his back.

"Brother Jin, are you okay?"

Zhao Heishan still respects Liu Jin very much. After all, Liu Jin is also a scholar, the only one in Xiahetun who can read and write, and he is already a scholar at a young age. Time to fly to the sky.

"it's okay no problem."

Liu Jin smiled and shook his head, then walked over and looked carefully.

"Is this pot about to be cooked?"

Liu Jin saw that the water in the pot of Zhao Heishan's family was almost boiled dry, and white with yellowish crystals had formed around the pot.

"Isn't it? It's been cooking for almost three hours."

Speaking of this, Zhao Heishan couldn't help laughing and said, this Zhao Heishan is tall and tall, but he is an honest farmer. He is very timid and very afraid of getting into trouble, but he is very warm-hearted. If you have anything to ask him There is nothing wrong with helping, except for borrowing money and food.

It's not that Zhao Heishan is stingy, but because Zhao Heishan's family is really poor, this Zhao Heishan is very capable of giving birth, starting from Zhao Dahu, he gave birth to nine children in a row, and luckily, none of the nine children died young.

To support nine children, the life of Zhao Heishan's family can be imagined. More importantly, Zhao Heishan's family only has 2 acres of land, which is not enough to support a family.

So Zhao Heishan's family had to plant land for Mr. Tang's family in addition to their own fields, and then they had to cook salt to earn some money to make ends meet.

"This pot probably contains 5 catties of salt."

Liu Jin looked at the full pot, there was only some water in the middle, and the pot was covered with salt.

"Is this kosher salt?"

Liu Jin carefully looked at the salt in the pot, which was very different from the salt eaten by later generations.

The edible salt bought in supermarkets in later generations is all snow-white, snow-white, and in the shape of tiny particles, but the salt in the pot is white and yellowish, and it looks like rock sugar, except that there is no rock sugar. so white.

"There should be no 5 catties, and 4 catties should be indispensable."

Hearing Liu Jin's words, Zhao Heishan said with a smile.

"Four catties is not bad."

Liu Jin smiled and nodded.

"No way, to cook this pot of salt, the firewood alone costs a few cents, and the 4 catties of salt can only be sold for about 20 cents, and Mr. Tang will take away a few cents. After all, it can only earn seven or eight. arts."

Hearing Liu Jin's words, Zhao Heishan shook his head helplessly. Although this pot can boil 4 catties of salt, in fact, he made very little money.

"How many words?"

When Liu Jin heard this, he couldn't help being surprised.

This 4 catties of salt only sells for 20 renminbi, which is only 5 renminbi after calculation, but Liu Jin knows that this salt was the same as iron in ancient times, and it was an official monopoly. The price has always been relatively expensive, definitely not cheap Goods should not only be sold for 5 Wen a catty.

I remember that I read a historical novel, and the author carefully checked the price levels of various commodities in the Ming Dynasty. During the Jiajing period, Zhu Tingli’s "Salt Government Records" recorded that in the early years of Jiaqing, every catty of salt in Huguang, Jiangxi, and Nanjing was sold The silver was divided into three and four cents. In the seventh year of Jiajing, every catty of salt sold for one cent and five cents of silver.

It fluctuates a lot, and it varies from place to place in different periods. In just eight years, the difference is so great. But even at the cheapest time, a catty of salt can be sold for [-] cent and [-] cents.

In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, one tael of silver was equal to sixteen qian, which was almost 1000 Wen. This was a relatively normal price, and it could be exchanged for 1500 Wen at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

明初铸大钱“大中通宝”，4文就可以换1钱银子。以后的皇帝铸造的铜钱按官方规定是7文折银1分，70文才折银1钱，而民间盗铸的劣钱甚至要三四十文至六七十文才能兑换一分银子。

This time belongs to the middle of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty was founded more than 100 years ago. This cent of silver is almost equivalent to 30 Wen. It sells for hundreds of coins a catty.

Now the salt cooked by Zhao Heishan and others can only be sold for 5 Wen, which is too far from the market price, which is why Liu Jin was surprised.

"It's not bad to have a few papers, at least you can have something to eat."

Zhao Heishan kept busy while talking, shoveled out the salt in the pot and put it in a jar for storage, then poured in the brine that Zhao Erhu picked up just now, and continued to boil the salt. It takes about 3 hours to cook a pot of salt. Almost two pots can be cooked from morning till night.

"Then why do we still pump water for Master Tang?"

Liu Jin looked at Zhao Heishan, who was so tired that he couldn't straighten his back, and couldn't help asking.

"We are not stove households. Logically speaking, we cannot boil salt, but we rely on mountains and water to drink water. If we don't cook salt, we will starve to death. The pumping water is not all for Mr. Tang. He needs to communicate with the county master. While building a good relationship, let the higher-ups turn a blind eye to the matter of our boiling salt."

Zhao Heishan looked at Liu Jin, feeling a little surprised, but after thinking about it, he was a scholar, so he was relieved, and patiently explained to Liu Jin.

"It's the damn household service system again!"

When Liu Jin heard it, he immediately understood.

Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, divided household registration into many types, such as military households, artisan households, and kitchen households, etc., and strictly prohibited changing household registrations. , from generation to generation.

Zhu Yuanzhang attempted to use such a system to maintain the entire Ming Empire for thousands of years, stipulating the identity of all people, and this identity will continue from generation to generation without any changes.

If you want to cook salt, you must have the identity of a stove household, but a stove household is not an enviable status. Don’t think that the life of a stove household is easy just because the salt is sold at a high price. In fact, because a stove household can only cook salt for Life is more difficult than that of ordinary people.

Under the monopoly system of salt and iron, all the salt from the kitchen households can only be sold to the government. This price is naturally extremely low. The government can easily earn a huge difference in the price by reselling the salt, so this It also gave birth to the emergence of private salt dealers.

The villagers in Xiahetun cannot cook salt because they are not stove households, but any system is implemented by people. As long as the parents and officials don’t take care of it, they can naturally cook salt. People, so they are responsible for contacting the county lord, and the money is enough, so naturally no one cares about it.

Of course, there is no doubt that Tang Huo must be full from it. Judging from this pumping, almost one-third of it was taken away by him. How much of it went into his pocket is probably only him. I know it myself.

　If there are mistakes, please give me more advice~~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)