Daming Town Haiwang

Chapter 7, Refined Salt
Liu Jin couldn't help but despise Zhu Chongba fiercely in his heart, even though Zhu Chongba was able to chase the Yuan captives north and restore the Han Dynasty, it can be said to be a great talent, comparable to Qin Emperor and Han Wu.

But because of his humble background, he naturally carried the narrow class nature of a small peasant, which can be seen just from the salary he set for Ming Dynasty officials.

The salary of officials in the Ming Dynasty can be said to be the lowest in all dynasties, so that first-class ministers like Liu Bowen, the founding hero, could not support their families with their salary. low.

But the official word is two mouthfuls, the one above is not full, how can the one below have a good life, the official can't support his family, how can he be expected to be honest and self-disciplined, everyone needs to eat, let alone the official .

Although this Forbidden Sea is inseparable from the pirates and Japanese pirates along the coast, blindly defending the Forbidden Sea is simply to stop the boiling soup and drink poison to quench thirst, and it will not play a fundamental role at all.

On the contrary, it will gradually lead to a closed country, and eventually slowly lag behind the world.

What's more, the government's ban on the sea will intensify private smuggling. Not only will it not be able to collect tax money, it will cause financial difficulties, and it will also make those who have tasted the sweetness of sea trade more rampant. The Japanese pirates were very rampant, and it seemed impossible to eradicate them no matter how they were suppressed. One of the important reasons was that many of these so-called Japanese pirates were in collusion with the big families along the coast.

Coupled with the fact that some helpless and poor people at the bottom were forced to become pirates and Japanese pirates, it was impossible to suppress them all.

From this point of view, it is not unreasonable for Liu Jin to despise Zhu Chongba. Salary is also very high.

The reason why the Southern Song Dynasty was able to settle down in a corner and continue the old Zhao family's country for more than 100 years was due to the prosperity of the Jiangnan area and the huge profits of sea trade.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Nanming was established, but it was quickly concealed and destroyed. One of the important reasons is that the court of the Ming Dynasty was really poor. It was poor from the founding of the country to its demise. The tax revenue is only more than 300 million taels of silver, which is pitifully small.

"Brother Jin, look quickly, I caught a really big crab."

Just as Liu Jin was thinking, Zhao Erhu happily walked over, holding a crab the size of a plate in his hand.

"I'll go, what a big crab."

When Liu Jin saw it, he couldn't help crying out.

In later generations, Liu Jin also ate crabs a lot, but crabs as big as a plate were still very rare, and they would never appear on ordinary people's dining tables.

"This crab is not too big. I have seen bigger crabs before. It is as big as a table."

Zhao Erhu grinned and said.

"Huzi, what do you want me to do with this crab? Such a big crab must be delicious."

Looking at the crab in Zhao Erhu's hand, Liu Jin swallowed his saliva. The bigger the crab in later generations, the more expensive it is. Liu Jin also likes to eat crabs very much.

"Of course there is no problem. What's delicious about crabs? No matter how much you eat, you won't be full. The best thing is white noodles. I can eat a few big bowls by myself, but I haven't had a good meal for a long time."

Zhao Erhu nodded briskly, then said while stroking his stomach.

In this day and age, seafood is really worthless. Crabs, snails, sea fish, sea vegetables and the like are abundant by the sea, but only poor people eat these things.

Because eating these things does not make you hungry, it is easy to get hungry. Only rice and pasta are the most popular things, but because of limited planting technology, the output is very low. Difficult to eat.

"Huzi, you only need to follow me in the future, and I will ensure that you are full from eating white noodles. Then you will marry a wife and aunt, and your wife and children will be hot on the bed every day."

Liu Jin looked at Huzi, then patted him on the shoulder and said.

"Is it really possible to eat white noodles all the time?"

"Can I still marry my mother-in-law?"

When Zhao Erhu heard this, he was stunned and swallowed his saliva, and then his face turned red when he thought of marrying a mother-in-law.

He was about the same age as Liu Jin, and in a family with conditions, he had already married a wife and had a baby, but Zhao Heishan's family was poor, and so was the whole of Xiahetun. There was no girl willing to marry Zhao Erhu.

His elder brother Zhao Dahu still married his daughter-in-law by exchanging relatives. The so-called exchanging refers to a marriage method in which a man uses his sister to marry the woman's brother in exchange for the woman as his wife.

Everyone is poor, so they use this method to marry a wife, but when it comes to Zhao Erhu, his second sister is still very young, and she is not old enough to marry at all, and it will take a few more years to change the marriage. .

"Of course, when have I lied to you, I will keep you until you vomit after eating noodles."

Liu Jin smiled, patted his chest and said.

Although he has a way to make a fortune, there are many things to do in refining coarse salt, and it is impossible to do everything by himself, and Liu Jin is now a scholar anyway, so he has to pay attention to his identity to some extent.

This Zhao Erhu is obviously a good labor force, simple-minded, simple-minded, obedient, and obedient to his own words, such a good partner is hard to find.

"I won't vomit after eating it. Noodles are the most delicious thing. No matter how much you eat, you won't get tired of it."

Hearing Liu Jin's words, Zhao Erhu touched his head and said very seriously.

"Haha, you will know later."

"Let's go, go back, it's time to start our plan to make a fortune."

Liu Jin smiled and said, then turned over and headed back in the direction of Xiahetun, ready to go home and experiment on how to refine coarse salt into refined salt.

……

In the courtyard of Liu Jin's house, Liu Jin turned the house upside down, and finally found some usable tools.

A small stone mortar and a wooden stick, ready to be used to crush the coarse salt so that it can be better incorporated into the water.

There is also a bamboo tube, gauze, charcoal, washed sand, etc. These are tools used to filter insoluble impurities.

There is also an iron pot, some firewood, a shovel and other tools.

"Brother Jin, what's the use of asking me to buy these things?"

At this time, Zhao Erhu walked in with a sack on his back, seeing these things in front of Liu Jin, he was at a loss, and had no idea what Liu Jin wanted to do.

"Have you bought everything I told you to buy?"

Liu Jin said to Zhao Erhu while examining these things carefully.

"I got it, I got it."

Zhao Erhu put the sack in his hand beside Liu Jin, and looked at the things around Liu Jin again. He really couldn't figure out whether Liu Jin could get rich with these things?

Liu Jin opened the sack and carefully inspected what Zhao Erhu had bought.

Quicklime, sulfur, alum, indigo, cinnabar, ochre, azurite, soybeans, and burnt plant ash, etc. In ancient times without modern chemical industry, it was definitely not an easy task to purify coarse salt.

Wanting to get sodium chloride, calcium hydroxide, calcium carbonate and other things that can be used to remove insoluble impurities in coarse salt, Liu Jin almost broke his head to think of these things that only existed in ancient times.

But Liu Jin is not good at chemistry, and he can't remember the chemical substances contained in various things very clearly, so he simply bought some more things and prepared to carry out experiments at home, and he can always find out slowly. One way to come out, after all, is also a person who has systematically studied modern chemistry knowledge.

"Get out a catty of coarse salt and crush it."

While carefully checking various things, Liu Jin began to design his own experimental steps in his mind.

"I knew that I would have listened to the class carefully when I was in class, and I would hate less when the book is used."

Thinking, thinking, Liu Jin couldn't help frowning, his head ached, and he recalled the chemistry knowledge he had learned before, bit by bit, like squeezing toothpaste in his mind, but when he looked at the things in front of him, he couldn't help it. I can't help but feel dark, I don't know where to start.

Fortunately, the first step to remove insoluble impurities is very simple and does not require too much in-depth thinking. It is nothing more than crushing coarse salt, dissolving it in water, and then removing impurities through filtration.

Although Zhao Erhu didn't know what Liu Jin wanted to do, but Liu Jin ordered him to crush coarse salt, and he started to work meticulously.

Take out a pound of coarse salt from the jar, put the coarse salt into the stone mortar, and use a small wooden stick to slowly crush the coarse salt little by little, very carefully.

"Make a filtering device first."

Liu Jin looked at Zhao Erhu, looked at the tools around him, picked up the bamboo tube and started to get busy.

Pierce a part of the bottom of the bamboo tube, then put gauze on it, then spread the washed fine sand on it, then spread a layer of fine charcoal, and then spread a layer of fine sand, so it becomes a simple filtering device.

"Brother Jin, do you think this will work?"

Soon, Zhao Erhu had also crushed coarse salt, and brought it to Liu Jin's side to ask.

"Okay, pour the salt into the water."

Liu Jin picked up the salt in the mortar and looked at it carefully. Zhao Erhu was very serious and crushed it very finely.

"Ah, pour it into clear water?"

Hearing Liu Jin's words, Zhao Erhu was stunned for a moment, and couldn't help shouting: "This salt is difficult to boil. If you pour it into clean water, it will be difficult to boil it out again."

"I know, if I tell you to pour it, don't worry about it so much."

Liu Jin nodded and said, if you don't mix it into the water, you can't filter it, but this kind of behavior is really puzzling to Zhao Erhu. It's a waste of time to put something that has been cooked with great difficulty into the water. .

　Please collect, please collect~~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)