The ruthless emperor in the late Ming Dynasty forced Chongzhen to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 309

Since the Lianghuai salt merchants were eradicated by the red lady in the first year of Shenwu, the salt industry of Ming Dynasty has completely entered a new era. Later, after Zhu Cihong's unified rectification plan, the monopoly position of the Lianghuai salt industry was further intensified.

Now, apart from the well salt in Sichuan, it can be said that there is only Huaibei in the entire Daming salt production area, and the sporadic salt production areas in other provinces have been forced to close down.

Because the official salt in Lianghuai is not only cheap, but also has uniform packaging, and any loose salt without uniform packaging will be directly classified as private salt.

As for the sale of illicit salt, once it is discovered, the fines can be confiscated, and the family can be confiscated and exiled. In addition, the profit is not large, so no businessman is willing to take risks and sell illicit salt.

And no businessman is willing to smuggle and sell, so naturally no one will produce, which also leads to a great increase in the pressure on the Lianghuai salt production areas. Although the production continues to increase, it still cannot meet the growing demand for salt, especially the needs of ordinary people. Coarse salt is always in short supply.

The refined salt needed by the rich is slightly better due to the small demand and the supplement of well salt from Sichuan. However, in remote areas, the supply of table salt is often out of stock.

It can be said that the production of salt has seriously affected the lives of everyone in Daming, which is why Zhu Cihong went straight to Yancheng County after inspecting the Longjiang Shipyard.

Although the output of the Lianghuai salt industry has surpassed all periods in the history of the Ming Dynasty, and even doubled the output of the Wanli period, due to the improvement of ordinary people's lives, the demand for salt is increasing year by year , It also surpassed the highest in history, even the Song Dynasty, which claimed to have the best life for the people under its rule, could not match it.

As the core of the Lianghuai salt production area, Yancheng County now has more than 20 salt households who make a living by cooking salt. There are also workshops responsible for processing and packaging salt, with nearly [-] workers.

And the convoys to and from Yancheng County are endless every day, and the bustling and bustling level is simply jaw-dropping.

The environment is also very harsh. The hundreds of miles of coastline are almost completely covered by billowing green smoke. Fortunately, the wind is strong at the seaside, otherwise I'm afraid they won't be able to stay there.

And because a large amount of firewood has to be transported from other places every day, all the official roads to Yancheng County are full of potholes and muddy, which cannot be repaired.

Since entering Yancheng County, Zhu Cihong's brows have not been relaxed. He did not expect to force the industrialization and centralization of salt, and it would become like this.

I don’t know if I don’t come, I’m startled when I come, is there still people in Yancheng County?
Seeing His Majesty's ugly face, all the stewards in charge of the purchase and processing of salt dared not speak, and followed behind cautiously.

Zhu Cihong first came to the refined salt processing workshop, and saw that the workers first poured the coarse salt that had turned yellow from generation to generation into a large wooden barrel to melt and stir with water, and then filtered it with gauze, charcoal, straw, etc., and then poured the filtered salt water into large wooden barrels. Boil in a pot, and finally the boiled refined salt is transported to another workshop for packaging.

The packaged oil paper bags are all specially produced, and each bag only holds one catty. There are only three types of table salt. The worst kind of coarse salt is directly packaged after being boiled by salt households. The wholesale price varies according to the region. It ranges from twenty to thirty wen.

One is fine salt, which is boiled salt from salt households, and then dissolved and filtered. The taste and color are much stronger. The wholesale price ranges from 150 to 200 yuan per bag.

The last one is refined salt, which is boiled salt from salt households, and then dissolved and filtered twice. Although the taste and color are slightly inferior to those of later generations of table salt, they are not much worse.

The price of this kind of salt is the same as well salt in Sichuan. The wholesale price varies from one tael to one tael per catty depending on the region, and this kind of people are also the most profitable.

However, the entire Salt Transportation Division only made a mere 500 million taels last year, so no one would believe it if they told it.

Because of those big salt merchants in Lianghuai in the past, which one didn't earn 200 million silver a year?
However, the current Salt Transportation Department has completely monopolized the production, transportation and wholesale of Daming's salt industry. It is reasonable to earn 3000 to [-] million a year easily.

In fact, refined salt and fine salt do add up to earn about 2000 million taels a year, of which refined salt accounts for more than [-]% of the profit, but most of the money earned from refined salt and fine salt is subsidized to coarse salt.

Because after the coarse salt is packaged and transported, it will lose one or two pennies for every kilogram of wholesale. Although it is only a penny or two, the sales volume of coarse salt is too large, especially in the past two years. Explosion.

The year before last, the Salt Transportation Division had made a net profit of tens of millions of taels. Although the output and sales volume had surged last year, the net profit had been cut in half.

"Liu Guanshi, cooking salt is not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also firewood. Haven't you thought about drying the salt?"

After Zhu Cihong walked around the processing workshop, he looked at the stewards behind him and said in a low voice.

He came here this time to solve the problem of drying salt. Otherwise, cooking salt alone would not be able to meet the demand in the future, and the cost would not be able to be reduced.

"Your Majesty, the method of drying salt has indeed existed since ancient times, and it saves time and effort, but the conditions required are too harsh." The steward was taken aback, and then quickly replied.

"Oh? Are there any other requirements for drying salt?"

Zhu Cihong was also quite surprised. He thought he was an ancient person, and he never thought that salt could be dried, so he used the stupid method of boiling salt.

Now it seems that it is not at all, but it seems that there are some technical problems that cannot be overcome, which leads to the lack of large-scale popularization of sun-dried salt.

"Your Majesty does not know that the utensils needed to dry the salt must be dug out of stones, otherwise, no matter whether it is made of wood or bricks, the pool will not last long, and it will not be able to be reused after several times of use.

And the pool dug out of stones can be used for a long time, but building one is also time-consuming and labor-intensive, and there is not much salt in it. It is not as cost-effective as boiling salt, so..."

"yes!"

Zhu Cilang suddenly realized, and nodded thoughtfully. There are only a few steps required to dry the salt. First, seawater is introduced into the pool for precipitation, and the water is evaporated. Then, the brine is filtered, and finally poured into the crystallization pool to dry the crystals.

The first few steps are indeed very simple with the current craftsmanship of the Ming Dynasty.

In summer, those salt households will cofferdam the seawater inside to expose to the sun, and then scoop it into wooden barrels for precipitation overnight.

As for filtering brine with charcoal gauze to remove impurities, the salt merchants in Lianghuai have already mastered it before.

The only thing that got stuck was the final step of crystallizing the salt water. Indeed, with the current technology of the Ming Dynasty, no matter what things were used to build the crystallization pool, they could not withstand the intense daily exposure to the sun and the corrosion of salt water.

Even if the pool is cut with the best blue bricks and glutinous rice, it will crack after a few times. As for building it with wood, it is even more nonsense.

The price of using an iron pool will only be greater than that of a stone.

The best choice is indeed to use stones to build. Thinking of the quarrying and stone chiseling techniques of this era, Zhu Cihong is also relieved why the salt drying method has not been popularized.

To achieve scale, the stones must cost tens of thousands to tens of thousands of yuan. Not to mention excavation, even transporting so many stones to the seaside is a huge project.

However, once a salt pond of tens of 10 yuan is excavated, it will definitely be a huge profit, making a lot of money every day. In the long run, it will definitely be more cost-effective than boiling salt. The reason why no salt merchants choose to do this is probably because they are afraid of being People covet.

Naturally, Zhu Cihong would not choose to spend time and effort building stone ponds to dry salt, because he couldn't afford to wait. As for cement, let alone not getting it out now, even if it was done out, I'm afraid it wouldn't work.

However, this did not bother him. In fact, with the craftsmanship of the Ming Dynasty, this problem could be perfectly solved and a sun-dried salt pond could be used for a long time. It was just that they didn't expect it, or they didn't think about it.

(End of this chapter)