If I fail to overcome the tribulation, I can only return to the Ming Dynasty and become a prince.

Chapter 121 Sea Salt and Grain

Based on Tianjin's superior geographical location and congenital conditions, it was actually very easy for Zhu Zhanquan to manage and develop the fiefdom. It was nothing more than developing commerce, developing salt, encouraging land reclamation, and developing iron smelting.

There is no need to elaborate too much on the development of commerce. Since the Grand Canal connected the north and the south in the Yuan Dynasty, Tianjin has naturally become a land and water transportation artery.

If Zhu Zhanjuan wants to develop commerce, he only needs to manage this area well. Even if he only provides supporting services such as catering and accommodation for merchant ships, he can make a lot of money.

Just like during the gold rush, it was not the gold diggers who made the fortune, but the merchants selling gold mining tools. As long as this business route is not cut off, the money will continue to flow into Zhu Zhancheng's pocket.

In addition, you can also carry out sea trade, go north to Korea and Japan, and go south to Ryukyu and Nanyang. It doesn't look like you will be short of money.

As for the development of sun salt, this is slightly worth mentioning.

Tianjin has a long history of salt production. During the Tang Dynasty, the Lutai Salt Field was established and a salt warehouse was opened in Baodi.

After that, successive dynasties set up institutions here to manage salt affairs. During the Liao and Jin Dynasties, the Lutai Salt Field was one of the important salt production areas in the north.

In the third year of Yanyou's reign in the Yuan Dynasty, "Zhigu was renamed Haijin Town" and it became a transshipment center for grain transportation. The Yuan Dynasty also established the Dazhigu Salt Transportation Department to manage the production and marketing of salt.

After the Ming and Qing dynasties, the salt bricks fired at Lutai Field have always been the only tribute salt bricks for the royal family.

The Lutai Salt Field continued to develop later and became the Changlu Salt Field, one of the three largest salt fields in China. The total annual sea salt output accounts for about a quarter of the country's total.

Zhu Di generously gave all the power of Tianjin's salt transportation to Zhu Zhanchen. As long as he was really willing to run it, there would be no problem at all in becoming the richest vassal king in the world.

You must know that salt was exclusively owned by the government in the feudal dynasty. If a merchant wanted to buy salt, he first had to have a salt certificate issued by the government.

During the Ming Dynasty, in order to solve the food problem of the northern army, a policy called the Kaizhong method was implemented. That is, merchants transported the food to the north, delivered it to the army and received a receipt from the army. They could then use the receipt to exchange for salt from the government. Lead to the designated salt farm to supply salt.

At the beginning of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, because it had been using troops against the north, and the salt policy at that time was still running well, the Kaizhong Law was also well implemented. Merchants could obtain salt imports by transporting grain from the south to the northern front line. , it is still very profitable.

This also greatly ensured that the several Northern Expeditions against the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties in the early Ming Dynasty could proceed smoothly. Otherwise, the food transportation alone would be a headache for the Ming court.

After all, in ancient times, if ten kilograms of grain were transported from the south to the north, if there was still one kilogram left, it would be considered as less food on the way.

So for Zhu Zhanqi, who has mastered the salt field, this is like holding a golden mountain!Not to mention, in this feudal era, salt could often replace gold as hard currency.

Even when Zhu Zhanquan first time traveled through time, he thought of using salt instead of silver as the anchor of currency to solve the problem of excessive issuance of banknotes.

Although it is a bit fanciful, it has to be said that it is indeed somewhat feasible.

However, salt production in this era still mostly used the boiling salt method. Although the sun-dried salt method was used to obtain sea salt during the Song Dynasty, due to the poor effect, there were no major technological changes until the Qing Dynasty. All dynasties used scraping of soil. Sea salt is made by pouring brine and boiling salt with brine.

Not only does it need to consume a lot of fuel, it is also time-consuming, labor-intensive and inefficient, and it also needs to consume a lot of iron pots.Against the background of low productivity in the feudal era, this naturally led to the reality that salt production was not increasing and the price of salt was high.

And this is also the reason why the Jiangnan salt merchants in the Ming and Qing dynasties were extremely wealthy. After all, people will really die if they don’t eat salt.

For Zhu Zhanquan, if the salt production method can be improved and converted from boiled salt to sun salt, it can not only effectively increase the output of the salt farm, but also improve the efficiency of salt production, and at the same time save the resources consumed in salt production. It can be said that it kills multiple birds with one stone. have to.

And with salt, developing commerce is even easier. After all, salt is really hard to pass, and it is the same no matter what dynasty or generation.

As for reclaiming wasteland to develop agriculture, there is nothing to say. Tianjin is one of the mouths of the ancient Yellow River. Many places are plains and depressions formed by the sedimentation of the Yellow River, which are very suitable for reclamation and farming.

In fact, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the tidal flats in the Tianjin area were reclaimed. During the Wanli period, Bi Ziyan, the censor of Youqiandu, was appointed governor of Tianjin. In order to alleviate the shortage of military supplies on the front line, he planned to transport 80 million shi, 90 stones of beans, 160 million bunches of grass, and 3204 million taels of silver.

It can be seen that the grain production in Tianjin at that time was still considerable. It can be said that Zhu Zhanquan did not need to do anything. As long as he, King Zheng, allowed the people to cultivate wasteland and collected less taxes, agriculture would naturally develop.

Coupled with the magical powers of the True Dragon Clan, they can adjust the local climate and rainfall, and with the guarantee of good weather every year, not only a bumper harvest of food, but at least a stable output can be guaranteed.

At that time, part of this grain can be sold to the third uncle in Nuergandusi, and it can also be supplied to the city of Beijing. If Zhu Zhanquan has obtained potatoes, sweet potatoes and corn at that time, it can greatly alleviate the food shortage in the north. situation.

Moreover, Zhu Zhanquan also planned to adopt the strategy proposed by Huang Wan, the Shaoqing of Guanglu Temple, and Huo Tao, Zhan Shifu of Zhanshifu during the Jiajing period, to divert the Yellow River water from Tianjin to the sea by using the ancient Yellow River channel to divert the Yellow River water into Tianjin to solve the agricultural irrigation problem. At the same time, it can also effectively ensure the safety of canal shipping and further regulate the Yellow River.

Of course, in addition to civil affairs, military strategy was also something Zhu Zhanjuan could not ignore.

Although he had the Qingyu Guards who had already been trained to some extent, Zhu Di assigned the Tianjin Guards to him, and also set up additional Tianjin Left Guards and Right Guards. In total, Zhu Zhanquan had four guards at his disposal.

However, the Tianjin Guards are still stationed in Tianjin, and the left and right guards have only one establishment and no personnel. This will not be able to meet Zhu Zhanchun's future military needs.

According to the results of the previous discussion between Zhu Zhanchun and Zhu Di, the vassal king could take the initiative to send troops to open up territory for the country in the future, and Zhu Zhanchun's main attack direction was North Korea and the Japanese state.

Although the four guards and horses in these two places seem to be a little small, as long as they can reach the level of the Jade Guard, it is still enough.

It's okay to just conquer Korea. The worst thing is to borrow roads from other lords and go overland. But to conquer Japan, we must develop the shipbuilding industry and build sea ships to cross the sea.

And this requires finding a solution from the Longjiang Shipyard next door to the military camp.

　The two clever suggestions of the Ming Dynasty were not adopted, mainly because these two scholars did not consider the problem that sedimentation would block canals and rivers.

　　However, the nine times since the founding of the People's Republic of China that water from the Yellow River was diverted into Tianjin did use the ancient Yellow River channel mentioned by these two wise men. Therefore, this suggestion itself is feasible. However, these two wise men were too smart to come up with a practical solution. plan.

　　Of course, the siltation of the canal has not been restored to navigation until the past two years. Needless to say, the Yellow River itself cannot be controlled. This problem is an unavoidable obstacle, so the Yellow River must be controlled.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)