The third emperor of the Sui Dynasty

Chapter 828 Is it OK to Produce Millions of Years (Ask for tickets at the end of the month)

One sunny afternoon... a group of falcons hovered above the Chaka Salt Lake, their sharp eyes stared at the vast and calm lake, as if they were looking for food in the salt lake, they spread their wings and swept across the mountains and rivers. Nothing can hinder them, just because they are the overlords in the sky, as long as the fat prey appears, it will become their meal.

But today, on this thousands of miles of grassland, suddenly a gigantic eagle came from the south and drove them all out of nowhere.

At this time, desolate sounds suddenly came from far away in the south, like the sound of thousands of drums on a battlefield, moving people's hearts.

This desolate sound brought up a black shadow like a wave, and saw a large black steel forest emerging from the south where the sky and the earth meet, like the water of the Yangtze River pouring down from the sky. As the black shadow approached, only Seeing countless flags fluttering in the wind, the most dazzling one is undoubtedly the military flag with the word "Sui".

This is the Xuanjia Army led by Yang Tong himself. His return to the West Sea was not a whim, but a deliberate decision.

Right now, Tubo is split, Tuyuhun is destroyed, and the overall situation on the plateau has been settled. It is of little significance for Yang Tong to stay in Jiangyuan County. Jiangyuan is now guarded by Pei Xingyan, Wang Xiongdan, and Zhou Shaoze, and the governance is also civil and military. Li Shimo, the new county is under construction in an orderly manner. With these people, it is not to say that it is as stable as Mount Tai, but with the strength of the First Army and the sharpness of the honeycomb crossbow, it is very difficult for both Niang Shangnang and Li Shimin to fight; And soon, Wang Fubao will also return to Jiangyuan with the soldiers of the Ninth Army. At that time, the two armies will meet, even if they enter Wenshan and Tongchang.

As the emperor, Yang Tong's mission now is to control the overall situation, not to compete for the first in everything, let alone compete with the generals.When no one is around, there is no choice but to fight on your own. Now that the talents are at their peak, there is no need to fight everything in person.

The key is that after hearing that he was almost buried by mud and rock torrents, those big men in the court sent eagle letters one after another, urging him to return to the court.

Everyone said so, Yang Tong decided to follow the example of kindness and go back to make a decoration for a while. At worst, he should transfer his energy from charging into the battle to governing the government.

Since he decided to be the mascot of the Great Sui Dynasty, he had to give full play to his light and heat, so he came to Chaka Salt Lake, ready to cordially visit the skilled craftsmen who made great achievements, to show the greatness of the emperor.

As early as a few days ago, Li Keshi, the governor of Xihai County, sent him an eagle letter, saying that the craftsmen followed Yang Tong's steps to make high-quality fine salt.

Salt is related to the national economy and the people's livelihood, and is an indispensable necessity for everyone. The substantial extension of human life span begins with eating salt.However, the immature salt-making technology has led to a serious shortage of production. Of course, the salt containing toxins is also sold at a high price, so the profit of salt has always been huge profits, and the salt merchants are even richer. Why did Dugu become a big business? The richest man in Sui Dynasty?

The reason is that the Dugu family controls the Hedong Salt Pond. The quality of the Hedong Salt Pond is good, and it does not require manual processing. It will be formed naturally, which can save a lot of labor costs.It has been developed on a large scale since the Han Dynasty and exported to the whole country. It is the most important source of edible salt in Yongliang!

Before Yang Tong, the Great Sui Dynasty did not implement official salt and iron camps. The Dugu clan was the main force to usurp Zhou and establish the Sui Dynasty. Although the Dugu family did not directly control the salt pond, they firmly controlled the most profitable refined salt in their own hands.All wealthy families in Daxing City and Luoyang City eat Dugu's refined salt, as do high-end restaurants and brothels. In addition to refined salt, they also control the coarse salt business in the north. It's hard for Dugu's not to be rich.Since Yang Dong regained Bingzhou, Hedong Salt has been nationalized. However, the biggest problem with Hedong Lake Salt is that the amount of insoluble minerals is too high. In the original production method, they are not easy to precipitate and will crystallize in the salt, seriously affecting the taste. Said that it also caused harm to human health, and because the cost of producing salt in Hedong was too high, so in the 20s, the production of salt in Hedong, which lost its competitiveness, stopped production and replaced it with high-quality salt from other places. Among them, West sea salt is the most important source of table salt to replace east salt.

Yang Tong planned to develop a large amount of West Sea salt because he finally knew that there was a shortage of salt used by the people. The high price of salt made the people of the Sui Dynasty miserable, but here the salt crystals are like sand, and the only cost is simple processing and transportation. If the salt of the West Sea is bought, the price of salt will definitely drop, and countless people will definitely benefit from it.

Another potential meaning is to use the infinite value of West Sea Salt to break the inherent concept that the Central Plains is the richest and the rest are barbaric, and let people realize that there are places richer than the Central Plains everywhere, and slowly develop the habit of looking outward, while It's not about guarding the Central Plains for generations.

In the distance, Yang Tong had already seen the vast camp. At this time, Li Keshi not only had craftsmen and 5000 garrisons in Xihai, but also more than [-] county soldiers stationed in Xiping, Wuwei, and Zhangye. Chaka Salt Lake, assisted Li Keshi to manage and supervise tens of thousands of slaves in Tubo and Tuyuhun.

At this time, a group of cavalry left the camp and rushed towards Yang Tong's team. The leader of the official was Li Keshi, the prefect of Xihai County. "Master Li Ke, my humble minister, pay homage to the Holy Majesty."

Yang Tong dismounted from his horse, helped Li Keshi up, and said with a smile, "I have been waiting for the good news from Li Taishou. Li Taishou has produced fine salt in such a short period of time. It can be said that it is beneficial for the present and meritorious for the future."

"The real credit goes to the Holy Majesty who improved the way of making salt. This humble minister is just following the gourd, and should not be praised by the Holy Majesty." Li Keshi said with shame.

"I'm just talking about it. Prefect Li turned the theory into a real thing. That's really amazing."

"Thank you for your praise."

Yang Tong laughed, and asked again: "Let's go and have a look."

"Your Majesty, please come with me." Li Keshi saw that Yang Tong was full of interest and was not a waste, and led the way ahead.

A group of people traveled about ten miles and came to the salt-making area.

What appeared in front of everyone were square ponds. These ponds were not deep, but very spacious. At this time, the ponds were filled with brine, which looked like paddy fields from a distance.

These pools are dug low one by one from top to bottom, with a drop of about ten inches. There are water gates between the upper and lower pools to allow water to flow downward.

"Prefect Li, what are these pools for?" Yang Qinfang couldn't help asking.

Master Li Ke introduced: "Returning to Your Highness, after we use the method of the Holy One to filter out the sundries, the rest is salt brine. According to the previous practice, the water is boiled dry in a large iron pot, and the water that sinks to the bottom of the pot is Salt grains, but this cooking method not only consumes a lot of firewood, but also has a small output. So we repaired these ponds according to the method of making sea salt by the Holy One, poured the brine that filtered out the impurities into the high ponds, and dried them in the sun , The strong wind blows away part of the water to increase the concentration of the brine. On the third day, the gate is released and the brine is placed in the second layer of pools. The rest at the bottom of the high pool is salt like silt, and then the water is released one by one. , after five layers of ponds have been deposited, the remaining brine is almost useless. As for the wet salt deposited on the bottom of the pond, it takes only a few days to harden into a plate. When you shovel it into a pot and stir fry it, it will become salt like snowflakes. If you don’t rush , or it can be dried naturally.”

Yang Qinfang walked to a high place, pointed curiously at the pool on the first floor beside her, and asked, "Can this pool produce salt?"

Li Keshi looked at it for a while, and said respectfully: "The concentration of the brine is nearly [-]%. According to our salt production process, the salt will be produced in a short time."

"How do you know it's nearly ten?" Yang Qinfang turned into a reporter.

Xuanjia generals such as Yin Mingyue and Li Zhi were also quite surprised. There was nothing to detect here. How could it be possible to judge the purity of the brine with the naked eye?
"Although human eyes can't see it, lotus seeds can." Li Keshi said with a smile: "When lotus seeds float obliquely in brine, they will be [-]% to [-]% brine, and if they float flat, it will be [-]%. The depth of the brine represents the different purity of the brine. If it sinks to the bottom of the pool, it means that the brine does not have much salt and can be discarded.”

Everyone was stunned, and said one after another: "I have learned a lot."

Yang Tong laughed, and said to the craftsmen waiting for orders: "Since the brine is nearly [-]% full, let's use this pool of brine to open everyone's horizons."

"Here."

The craftsmen shouted in unison, and several excited craftsmen rushed to the high-rise salt pond, opened the gate beside the pond, and poured the brine into the next layer of salt pond. As the brine drained, a thick layer remained at the bottom of the pond, like Silt-like salt.

Someone used a long wooden rake to push hard at the bottom of the pool like snow, and the mud-like salt was pushed up... Then they were shoveled onto carts one by one with a shovel, and the carts were transported to a flat sunken area. Yanping, the flat is covered with wooden boards, and the boards are covered with drying rolls made of bamboo strips. When a cart of wet salt is poured on the drying rolls, the craftsmen start to use a wooden rake like "nine nails palladium" to remove the wet salt. Flatten.

As the wet brine dries up and is dried by the sun, the snow-white salt grains slowly reveal their true colors.

Just like the generals of the Xuanjia Army who led the inspection work in future generations, they all stared blankly at the salt mountain reflecting the white light in front of them!
You can hardly believe your eyes...

"Salt, is that all?"

"Yes, that's it." Master Li understood everyone's feelings. Wasn't he so shocked when he saw it for the first time?He said with a smile: "Chaka Salt Lake is surrounded by flat rivers and strong winds. Even if there is no sunlight, the moisture in the wet salt is easily blown dry. However, to avoid moisture, it is still necessary to dry it once. The fuel for this process is local. The coal produced is not only sufficient for firewood, but also consumes no fuel, and it is very convenient to collect."

Yang Tong said with a smile: "I know that the crystalline salt in the West Sea is different from the natural salt rock in the East River. It is a high-quality edible salt formed naturally. As long as the impurities in the salt are simply removed, it will become the best table salt."

"Idle is idle. I want to make hundreds of catties of salt and bring it back to give to civil and military officials." Suddenly, Yang Tong said happily.

The salt made by the emperor himself is not just as simple as salt. If it is distributed to various prefectures, everyone will not be grateful.

"Your Majesty wants to make salt?" Some people who didn't know what was going on looked at Yang Tong suspiciously. Your Majesty wouldn't even know how to do this, could he?

"I came up with this new salt-making method. Don't underestimate people." Yang Tong looked at Master Li and said with a smile, "Where is the raw material workshop? Take me there..."

"Here." Master Li answered dumbfoundedly, and led everyone to a huge workshop.

. . . . . . . . . .

This huge workshop has already begun to take shape. In each warehouse, there are piles of square salt bricks dug from the salt lake. From a distance, they look like blue ice.There are many pots and pans in the operating room, and a large pot is placed on top of each large stove, and the fire inside is raging.

Yang Qinfang bent down to find a clean place, chopped a small piece with a knife, and licked it with her small tongue. She only felt a bitter, astringent and salty taste, and quickly took off the water bag to rinse her mouth, saying: "This salt is bitter and astringent. Can His Majesty really turn this thing into edible salt?"

"The biggest difference between natural salt block and fine salt is that there are many impurities. Just remove the impurities in this salt brick. You can watch it." Seeing that there are all tools here, Yang Tong threw the salt bricks into a large stone trough. Hit it with a sledgehammer.

Yang Qinfang, an active person, became Yang Tong's free labor. Under Yang Tong's command, she shoveled the crushed salt into a dustpan and poured it into a large pool filled with clean water, and it quickly melted and disappeared. It disappeared, and the clear water gradually became cloudy.

"Keep pouring in!" Yang Tong looked at the salt in the water tank that had melted, and the lotus seeds used as buoys were still at the bottom, and began to knock on the salt brick again, signaling Yang Qinfang to continue pouring coarse salt until the lotus seeds floated up. Kosher salt no longer melts.

"If you want to make fine salt, the first step is to filter out the silt in the salt block. Although the salt block here is very clean and pure, we cannot ignore this most fundamental problem." Yang Tong said to several women eager to try. Said: "Time is limited, everyone should not be idle, get busy, the three of you, Mingyue, Yaoyao, and Li Youwei, scoop the brine into the barrel, and Fang Xiuzhu, Zheng Liwan, the two of you helped to the filter."

People always have an inexplicable interest in the unknown, and they are busy according to orders.

Fang Xiuzhu and Zheng Liwan carried a filter screen covered with ten layers of linen cloth and put it on an empty pool. Yang Qinfang, Yin Mingyue, Yaoyao, and Li Youwei poured buckets of brine on the linen filter screen, and the linen cloth absorbed impurities such as sediment, The clear water infiltrates into the clean empty pool, repeating this three times, and finally a large pool of clean brine is obtained.

"That's all right?" Yang Qinfang said excitedly, thinking it was a little too simple.

Yang Tong shook his head and said, "As I said just now, sand filtration is only the first step, and there are still a few steps to follow. Although the brine is clean, there are actually quite a lot of impurities. If you don't believe me, try it, it must be bitter and bitter. Astringent and salty."

Everyone dipped their fingers in the brine and tasted it, and it was really similar to salt bricks, really bitter, astringent and salty.

Yang Tong picked up a bag of lime powder and poured it into a tank of clear water, and the water immediately boiled. When the lime water was clear, Yang Tong scooped the lime water into a pool filled with filtered brine.

Under the amazed eyes of everyone, the clear brine unexpectedly became cloudy again, and after it was clarified again, a layer of white sediment was left on the bottom of the pool.

Then everyone helped together and scooped the clear brine into another empty pool with a filter. When Yang Tong added alkali surface again, the clear brine was cloudy again. After clarification, unknown sediments remained on the bottom of the basin again.

"Try it again, everyone." Yang Tong urged.

"Hey, the brine is neither bitter nor astringent!" Everyone didn't understand the reason, but everyone felt it was full of magic.

"The bitter impurities have turned into those sediments." Yang Tong laughed.

"Then what should we do now?" Everyone suddenly became excited.

Yang Tong said: "According to Li Taishou and his team's method, they put them in the pools outside to deposit one pool after another, and use the sun and strong wind to dry and dry them. However, we don't have time to stay here, so we boil them dry directly on high fire." , and the salt came out."

Everyone poured buckets of brine into a cauldron. Under the raging fire, the brine quickly boiled. As the water evaporated, thin salt flowers appeared on the water surface and blisters.

"That's it?" Except Li Keshi, a sensible person, the other natives were all dumbfounded.

"After the water has evaporated, all that's left is salt." Yang Tong laughed and said, "Everyone will continue to make brine, and then everyone will bring a piece of the result home for the family to taste."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." The men and women hurried away excitedly.

About half an hour.

The generals of the Xuanjia Army who were in charge of watching the fire and stir-frying said in surprise: "My lord, the water has dried up to produce salt."

Everyone gathered together to see that the salt really came out. After being stir-fried by several generals, a shovel of pure white table salt as fine as quicksand appeared in front of them.

"It's ok, it's ok, it will turn yellow when it's fried again." Seeing this, Master Li shouted anxiously.

The generals were so frightened that they shoveled them into baskets one after another, and then poured brine into them to start making the second pot of table salt.

At this moment, everyone put down their work and came to watch.

Seeing that the baskets were full of blue-glowing, fine-grained snow-white table salt, Yang Tong scooped out a small plate for everyone to taste.I also pinched a handful and put it in my mouth, a salty taste filled my mouth immediately, without any bitterness.

"That's the smell." Yang Tong was full of nostalgia.

"From then on, the people of the Sui Dynasty no longer have to worry about lack of salt, and I ask the Holy One to name this new salt." Li Keshi joked.

Yang Tong looked at the blue-colored salt grains: "The salt grains are light blue-colored, so it's better to call them green salt."

"The blue sky and white clouds produce green salt, thank you for the name." Master Li said with great joy when he heard the words.

"By the way, how is your output these days?" Yang Tong asked.

Li Keshi hurriedly said: "Returning to the Holy Lord, because the workshop has just started operation, the output is only three to four thousand catties per day, and there are relatively few sun-dried salt pools and sun-dried salt flats. In order to increase production and meet the needs of the people as soon as possible, so at present, steaming is the main method. However, when the number of workshops, salt cooking stoves, salt drying pools, and salt drying flats increase, the output can definitely increase countless times."

"The common people are now seriously short of salt and good salt. It is related to the salt consumption and health problems of tens of millions of people. Therefore, at present, production should be the main focus, and it doesn't matter whether it is steamed or dried. When people no longer loot green salt, it will become a reality. When it’s an ordinary thing, it’s not too late to hang it in the sun.” Speaking of this, Yang Tong asked again: “Prefect Li, can the annual production be one million?”

"Your Majesty, don't worry." Master Li Ke said very excitedly: "Chaka crystal salt has the characteristics of heavy salt content, less impurities, and fewer processes. It can produce 30 to [-] catties a year. If it is rainy or winter, it can also be used Coal cooking, then the annual output of one million catties should be fine, of course, the level of production is still determined by the number of people."

Speaking of this, Li Keshi said very painfully: "It's a pity that the [-] to [-] ready-made Tibetan slaves were slaughtered by the Holy One. Wouldn't it be good to use them to dig coal?"

"A country can't just look at wealth, but also has an invincible army in a hundred battles, and the awe-inspiring power of the four fortresses!" Yang Tong said with a smile: "The captives are not only the most powerful resistance of Tubo, but also the most powerful resistance of Tubo. The soul and backbone of the army, if they are slaughtered, the bones of Tubo will be broken. In the long run, it is cost-effective, besides, Wang Fubao will bring in a group of slaves, and these people are more useful than prisoners of war."

"Is it all used to produce salt?" Li Keshi was surprised and delighted.

"Yes, the men are digging coal to make way, and the women are doing some light work."

No matter in which era, salt and food are the most important survival resources for human beings.People will starve to death without food, and they will not live long without salt!Salt is not only a condiment, but also an indispensable substance to maintain the human body.But from ancient times to the present, people have never been able to eat good salt. First, the production of good salt is small, and second, because salt merchants hoard maliciously and drive up the price. This situation of short supply makes the people always have to pay high prices to buy inferior salt.

The best way is to incorporate table salt into the Changping system. However, the foundation of government-operated table salt is large output. Only when the output exceeds demand and the price of salt drops, can the common people afford good salt!

Now that the technology to increase production capacity is available, what is lacking is manpower. Compared with the health status of tens of millions of people right in front of us, infrastructure such as official roads are secondary.Therefore, Yang Tong decided to take all the Tubo and Tuyuhun slaves to the West Sea as salt slaves.

"As long as there are brothers and sisters, the annual production of one million is really not a problem." Li Keshi said confidently.

"How much are you hoarding now?"

"There should be two to three thousand catties."

"Prefect Li, I have destroyed two countries." Yang Tong said meaningfully.

"Weichen knows, but where is the time, my lord... You fought like lightning, and within a month, the enemy fell one after another..." Li Keshi almost cried: "But Weichen has only one recipe here. , Everything else has to start from scratch, ranging from workshops, ponds, drying yards, coal, lime, salt bricks, to small pots, barrels, and soda noodles... It is amazing to get two to three thousand catties of green salt in this short time... "

"I don't mean that."

"Hehe!" Master Li Ke said in his heart: That's what you mean.

However, he also understands that because two generations of emperors have been like this, the grandparents and grandsons are so busy doing everything, wishing to accomplish a century-old task in one day.

This is how Yang Guang built Luoyang and the canal.The same is true for Yang Tong's construction of official roads, embankments, canals, and the Great Wall.But the difference is that the grandfather made a fuss about the domestic people, while the grandson took the foreign race as an inappropriate person.

"I understand your difficulties, I know your hard work..." Yang Tong laughed and said, "The production of green salt is limited at the moment, and it's hard to produce it these days!"

Li Keshi breathed a sigh of relief: "Now that green salt has been produced, it will continue to increase production in the future, and although table salt is indispensable, it is only a seasoning thing after all, and its daily consumption is not as large as that of grain. It can be sold in limited quantities in the early stage , by the end of the year, it should be able to popularize the northern land."

"That's a good idea. Let's not talk about it, I will continue to make salt." Yang Tong laughed and started to get busy again.

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Ask for tickets at the end of the month!

(End of this chapter)