The Book of Heaven

Chapter 172 Like a Lice

Seven things to open the door, firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea.

Where there are mountains and water, at least firewood, rice oil, soy sauce and vinegar tea are indispensable, but the "salt" among the seven things is not available anywhere.

Sea salt can still be collected in places close to the sea, but the price of worthless sea salt transported in from the sea is not acceptable to ordinary people.

Especially for those ethnic minorities living west of the Han Empire, salt was an extremely important item in their transactions with the Han Empire.

Therefore, in the long history of China, salt and iron were almost all commodities monopolized by the imperial court, which were called monopoly.A commodity that deserves to be monopolized by the imperial court using the power of the state is enough to prove its profit.

Jiading Mansion was not a very famous place. As a small county in Jiannan Road, it should not be very prosperous.But Jiading Prefecture has a special product, that is salt, well salt.

With salt, the political status of Jiading Mansion in the entire Jiannan Province will naturally be elevated. As an important part of the imperial court's income, Jiannan Province will naturally spare no effort to invest in the establishment of Jiading Mansion, and businessmen who seek profit will flock to Jiading Mansion. These merchants also spend money while making money, and the flow of money naturally drives the economy of the entire Jiading Prefecture.

Therefore, Jiading City and its surrounding areas are actually very rich.

Although the imperial court monopolizes salt as a monopoly, there is a saying since ancient times that "there are policies at the top and countermeasures at the bottom". However, for anything that can earn a lot of money, there will always be countless smart people who work on it, so that their pockets can be used. So it swelled up.

How much salt Jiading Mansion can produce every day, and how the imperial court thousands of miles away can get accurate figures, there is a lot of room for manipulation.

Although the imperial court will send special supervisors, how many supervisors can really control their own hands when the white money is in front of them?Therefore, not only a large amount of private salt flows into the invisible market every day, but even at certain times, some hidden salt wells can be mined openly.

In this way, relying on the salt wells erected in the mountains, the people of Jiading Mansion gradually became rich.

The Qi family was just a salt boiler in the earliest days. Because they were courageous and smart enough, they dared to smuggle out bags of private salt under the noses of the supervisors, and turned them into white money, so they quickly He became a big landlord in Jiading Mansion, and his descendants never forgot the experience of their ancestors, and firmly grasped the way of earning money from private salt. Now the family wealth is not only earlier than ten thousand guan, but there are thousands of acres of fertile land.

After getting rich, the Qi family is naturally unwilling to be just a rich person. They encourage their offspring to study and practice martial arts, always thinking that one day they will be able to achieve literary and martial arts, so as to elevate the status of the Qi family as a whole.

Even though the Qi family is already regarded as the top richest man in Jiading Mansion, everyone knows that private salt is always a business of beheading. If one is not careful, not only the wealth in his hands will become flowers in the mirror and moon in the water, but even the whole family may get married. go in.

Only by becoming a noble family can the safety of the Qi family be truly guaranteed.

The 65-year-old Qi Mingdu is now the head of the Qi family.As a native of Jiading Prefecture, although Qi Mingdu didn't even pass the county school, he sent two of his five sons to the county school, and the remaining three paid a high price for masters to teach them martial arts.

It is obvious that Qi Mingdu is a thoughtful person, he knows that he should develop a family, one article, one weapon, one piece and one relaxation, which is the essence of walking on two legs.

From being in charge of the Qi family at the age of 45 to now, Qi Mingdu feels that he has worked hard without any credit, and he also firmly believes that according to this model of operation, the Qi family will soon become a real big family.

In fact, in Jiading Mansion, there are not many rich people like the Qi family.

The white well salt is like the white silver, which has nourished one family after another. Of course, there will be some families that fail for various reasons and disappear in history. Come out and move on.

Ma Zheng, who has just arrived here, just feels the prosperity of Jiading Mansion, but he doesn't know the reason behind this prosperity.

In order to avoid trouble, Ma Zheng, who was alone, did not choose the restaurants and inns in Jiading City where the rich go in and out, but chose an ordinary restaurant, planning to comfort his stomach first, and then make plans after he settled down.

The flavor of Bashu food has been famous since ancient times. Even though there is no chili seasoning native to South America, the cornel and the pepper sold by the mountain people make Ma Zheng feel the taste of later generations.

There are only five small tables in this small restaurant, and even if there are only five tables, they are not full at this time. It seems that the business is not very good.

Although I have decided to use some extraordinary methods to find more chalcedony for myself and speed up my cultivation, I can't just rush in when I see a big family, grab the collar of the family and ask if there is such a thing as chalcedony hidden in the house Bar.

So many things are "easy to know but difficult to do". If you want to hide such a secret thing as chalcedony, let alone outsiders don't know it, even family members, as long as it is not enough, you may not be able to figure it out.

What should I do?

Satisfied with food and drink, Ma Zheng swept across the street and saw two beggars. One of them had half a steamed bun in his hand, and the other was holding a broken bowl.

There seemed to be a little food in the broken bowl, and then Ma Zheng saw an extremely rare scene, the two beggars exchanged the food in their hands, although the food did not look like food anymore.

"I see, maybe I can."

A flash of light suddenly flashed in his mind, Ma Zheng finally had some idea about how to get chalcedony.

After resting in Jiading Mansion for one night, after the dawn of the next day, Ma Zheng walked onto the street in a leisurely manner, carefully observing everyone around him.

He is looking for a kind of person, a kind of person who does not do production, but only bullies the weak and fears evil, and makes a living by blackmailing others. In layman's terms, he is the kind of bastard at the bottom of society.

This kind of person will never be lacking in any era and anywhere, just like an indispensable part of human society.

Jiading Mansion is actually not that big, which also eased the difficulty of Ma Zheng's work. By almost noon, he had already found three targets. Fortunately, these three guys also fell in love with Ma Zheng. Zheng.

Although Ma Zheng has been in Sichuan for a long time, he is from the northwest border after all, and he is different from the locals in terms of clothing, expressions and language.

And bullying outsiders, especially young people like Ma Zheng, who looks like a helpless young man, is of course the best thing to do.

So when Ma Zheng took out an ingot of gold intentionally or unintentionally, the three pairs of eyes followed Ma Zheng all the time, the color of greed was undoubtedly revealed.

"Come on, come on and take the bait."

Out of the corner of his eye, looking at the three shaky figures, Ma Zheng walked towards a sparsely populated path with unhurried steps.

In fact, bastards are sometimes very shy. In their own eyes, they feel that they are heroes who stand up to the sky, but in the eyes of ordinary people, these bastards are like lice living in the scalp. They only know how to drink human blood. People are irritable, and more importantly, they can't see the light.

No one's alley, perhaps the most suitable for bastards to display their skills.

(End of this chapter)