I am one year older than Chongzhen

Chapter 224 came into being
The common people in the interior of the Ming Dynasty ate very little because salt was too expensive.

The reason why salt is expensive is not only because of the high salt tax, but also because too much bureaucratic capital is making money for the salt administration.

The average price of salt in the Chongzhen Dynasty was as high as [-] to [-] Wen a catty, and it was cheaper along the coast, while the price in the interior was relatively high.

According to the local sun-dried salt, the cost of one catty is enough.

Of course, Huang Yi also has to collect salt tax, the price of conscience is five yuan a catty, and the government-run salt shop in the base area sells green salt to the common people at a price of ten yuan a catty.

Of course, the salt tax announced by the Ming Dynasty official was only about six renminbi silver, and one salt yin was two hundred Ming Dynasty market catties, which was less than five renminbi per catty.

But that's official, just like the materials in the plan, not everyone has the ability to get it.

In fact, the taxation of the Ming Dynasty was really not high, even with the addition of the three salaries criticized by later generations, Liao's salary, Lian's salary, and Suppression's salary, it was not too high.

The bad thing is the increase in distribution at all levels. In the end, the tax that the common people need to bear is even several times that of the regular tax.

In the final analysis, it is because of too much corruption, it is simply fishing in a dry lake, high-ranking officials are arrogant and extravagant, and ordinary people have no means of living.

The wealthy people in the south of the Yangtze River have borne excessive taxes, so they have no affection for the imperial court, but more resentment.

In fact, the court can only get a quarter of the taxes they handed in. It is really not that the court does not care about the lives of the people, but that corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry suck the bones.

Who is to blame?How did this happen?
This has nothing to do with the fact that Emperor Chongzhen, the head of the empire, could not recognize and employ people.

This is also related to the fact that the Donglin Party controls the situation in the south of the Yangtze River. It keeps saying that the court cannot compete with the people for profit, but it is actually to protect the Donglin Party's own interests.

Huang Yi knows the history of the late Ming Dynasty too well, and he knows that it is difficult to transform an old world, but it is relatively easy to break an old world.

Therefore, I chose to open up base areas outside the mouth, starting from teaching the people in the base areas to read and write, and gradually cultivated soldiers who dared to revolution, and civil officers who could mingle with the grassroots.

How can we do without taxes if we need money and food to support soldiers and civil officials?
Taxation alone is definitely not enough, and state-owned enterprises have to be supported to make money.

Of course, it is too early to talk about state-owned enterprises at this time, and they can only be regarded as public-owned enterprises in the base area.

The self-operated salt store in the base area is such a public enterprise. The wholesale quantity of salt starts at [-] catties, which is the same as the imperial court's salt import.

Li Weida got the green salt at this price, which was cheaper than buying it with Yanyin, and his profit could be doubled, so he bought more and more.

Among the goods his family purchased from the customs, there was one thing that other merchants could not understand at all.

For hundreds of thousands of years, I have never seen anyone trafficking a large amount of moso bamboo out of the mouth.

well!No way, bamboo is really not produced outside the customs.

Steel production is too low, unless some steel bars are used for important load-bearing beams, and the rest of the concrete parts are replaced by baked, anti-corrosion and insecticidal bamboo strips.

Because cement is produced in the base area and concrete is poured, the construction of small and medium-sized reservoirs is more effective.

Even though it's the middle of winter, and all kinds of outdoor projects have been shut down, the base area is still working hard, and tens of thousands of strong men and women are busy.

There is no way. There are no excavators or crushers these days. It takes too much labor to mine stones, crush them and transport them to the cement plant stockyard.

During the slack season, farmers had time, so the team leader, small team leader, and squadron leader organized young and middle-aged men to dig mountains and quarry near the base city.

This is not the initiation of labor, the base areas do not send labor, the organization of large-scale production campaigns adopts the employment system, and wages are paid according to the amount of work completed.

Of course, the revolution must manifest itself in many ways.

The base area has already launched a wheel revolution and started research, oh no, it is not research, but to manufacture steel bearings, steering shafts and other parts based on the drawings drawn by Huang Yi.

At the end of last year, the base implemented the weights and measures standards that Huang Yi forcibly promoted. Of course, this is a copy of the millimeters, centimeters, and decimeters of later generations...

One of the auxiliary tools in the handle of Huang Yi's engineering shovel was used as a standard, a steel measuring tape with a length of one meter.

Even if there is a uniform size and accurate drawings, it is impossible to succeed at the first time. It is difficult to make the bearing part, and it must be a master craftsman with superb craftsmanship.

The requirements for materials are also very high, and they are all made of steel as the master said.

The iron and steel produced in the base area used air temperature technology to burn coke, and the furnace temperature increased by nearly 300 degrees, reaching more than [-] degrees and exceeding the melting point of steel.

So enough to melt pig and wrought iron into a fully liquid state, no longer the semi-crystals most common in the seventeenth century.

Therefore, the quality of steel has been greatly improved.

In addition, there is heavy hammer forging to remove impurities and increase the density of steel. The quality of steel produced by the local steel factory has reached the standard of [-] steelmaking.

Experienced masters such as Lan Jinkui and Qi Dashan added fluorite to molten steel to improve the fluidity of the melt and remove harmful impurities such as sulfur and phosphorus.

Of course this was taught by Huang Yi, but Huang Yi didn't know how much to add, and the final ratio was figured out by the masters.

Huang Yi not only proposed to add fluorite, but also limestone, lime, iron oxide scale, iron ore, sintered ore and so on.

Anyway, Huang Yi has mentioned all the additives that can be recognized in this era as recorded in the relevant materials.

It is also explained that the hardness of steel is increased by decarburization and carbon addition.

With Huang Yi pointing out the basically correct direction, and because of the good treatment and respect, the master craftsmen who work actively are brainstorming.

Of course, the quality of steel produced in the base areas is getting better and better, and there are more and more varieties.

With qualified steel reeds and hammers, the flintlock guns made by Qi Xiaoshan and the others finally reached a firing rate of nearly [-]%, and mass production began.

Of course, this amount is not large, thirty or forty sticks a month, about [-]% increase in production per month.

After producing steel capable of producing qualified reeds, Huang Yi drew a blueprint and asked the master craftsmen to start manufacturing coil spring shock absorbers.

He had an idea in his mind to make a comfortable and light four-wheeled carriage.

According to the underground city, it is not suitable to design hydraulic machinery, because the water in rivers and lakes is either frozen or drifting ice for more than half a year.

But the base area has a unique advantage-animal power is far more than human power.

Therefore, the animal power hundred catty and the thousand catty sledgehammer came into being.

The charged sledgehammer is not Huang Yi's golden finger. Great craftsmen such as Qi Dashan, Lan Jinkui, Liu Han, etc. have seen it or even used it before.

It's just that the animal-powered sledgehammer in the base area is much bigger than what they have seen before.

Lan Jinkui, Liu Han and other master craftsmen felt that the animal-powered hammer was very large and shocking, but it was not worth mentioning in Huang Yi's eyes.

The sledgehammer of [-] catties in the Ming Dynasty required six horses or three oxen to pull and lift it, and it looked more powerful.

In fact, what is this in later generations?It's just a one-ton hammer.

(End of this chapter)