Chastity Layman

  Chapter 1157 Fishing for silver

  The boat enters the bay.

  Qin Lang stood on the deck and looked at this excellent harbor with a coastline of more than 100 miles. He saw that there were already many boats coming in and out near the mouth of the Xiaojinsha River, and it was becoming more and more prosperous.

The mouth of the estuary is the fertile Little Jinsha River delta, all the way to the north five hundred miles straight to San Francisco, all are fertile central plains, protected by two lofty mountains on the east and west sides, and two excellent large harbors on the north and south, so uniquely advantageous Several old men on the same boat couldn't help but marvel at the terrain.

"If it is 500 miles from north to south, and 240 miles from east to west, the great plain is as flat as it is, it is not far behind Qinchuan, which is 800 miles away, and it is much better than the Huainan Plain, which often suffers from floods in the Huaihe River. The Central Shu Plain is closed."

   Several old men in long gowns, now they don't quite believe what Qin Lang said, is this Treasure Island so big? And Qin Lang said that this huge plain is only a small half of Treasure Island. The entire Treasure Island is more than a thousand miles long from north to south, and there are even many islands connected to each other in the south.

"What are those?"

  When the old people entered the bay with the boat, they were already amazed. This bay is even better than Hangzhou Bay. It is almost as good as Bohai Bay. It is like a deep bottle, which makes the bay calm and calm.

  The water is green and the sky is blue.

   Approaching the south coast, they excitedly pointed to the west bank of the estuary.

   "That's Yantian's windmill!"

   "Xinjinshan also has salt fields?"

   "Yes, there are more than 1,000 mu of salt fields. There are 100 mu of salt fields, and there are 18 pieces in total." Qin Lang introduced those tall giants, which were the windmills on the salt fields. "

These windmills have six blades, made of white canvas, which can be adjusted according to the size of the wind and the amount of water needed. Sometimes six blades are fully open, sometimes four, and sometimes only two blades are opened, and the unused blades are used. Can be rolled up.

   There is even a steering wheel on the windmill, which can be adjusted according to the direction of the wind.

  Each windmill is more than three feet high, standing in the salt field like a watchtower.

   "A windmill made of canvas." Several old men became interested again, and asked Qin Lang non-stop.

  There are many kinds of salt, but sea salt is the most convenient to make. Since the pre-Qin period, the Central Plains Dynasty began to officialize the mountains and seas, and boil the sea to make salt. From the initial decoction to drying the salt, it is a long process.

  For example, the Lutai Salt Field in the north is the two major salt fields that are also known as the Yangzhou Salt Field. The north is Tangshan and the south is Baoding. It is not as good as the Lutai Salt Field. The Lutai salt field in Cangzhou has become the most fertile coastal place in the north, not losing to Yangzhou.

The reason why the Lutai Salt Field is so famous is that sea salt was made in the Western Han Dynasty. They all used the decoction method, using the reeds on the seashore as fuel, and boiled saline-alkali soil in a large pot. The reeds are inexhaustible, which provides great convenience for salt production. Later, Cao Cao dug a small Cao River to facilitate the transportation of salt, which made the salt field more prosperous.

However, although the decocting method has a long history, it is relatively backward. The main method is to use the method of scraping the soil and drenching the brine and plant ash. When the weather is fine near the beach, a layer of salt frost will form. Pouring with clear water, the water and the salt of the salty soil are fused to form brine, which is then precipitated, and then collected and fried into salt.

  Store the decocted and salted plant ashes in the pit, and soaked them in seawater in November. In the next spring, when the weather is sunny and warm, take the ashes and dry them in the sun until they appear white, put them away and pour them in brine.

  These methods are relatively backward. Even the Jiechi Salt Field in Hedong used to mainly use the decoction method.

   In recent years, the sun-dried salt method has begun to appear, and this method can be used for sea salt pond salt.

  Choose a beach with flat and wide terrain, more wind and less rain, and plenty of sunshine to make a salt pan and then dry the salt, but the salt drying method has higher demands on the beach and weather.

   And it consumes a lot of manpower.

It is necessary to pump seawater from the sea to the pool first, and then pump the primary brine to the salt pan. The brine in the salt pan also needs to be continuously promoted to ensure that the salt is finer. When it comes to the salt collection season, it is quite costly to push and pick salt. The consumption of manpower is higher, but also saves a lot of fuel.

   "I heard that the Huai Salt Field has started to use human-powered waterwheels. It uses oxen and hard work to pump water all day long. It's very hard. This is the first time I've seen a windmill."

   "Because we have a lot of wind here, it is still very good to use a windmill."

   "This windmill is so big, it costs a lot, right?"

"Well, there is indeed a lot of initial investment. We have two kinds of windmills here. One is the ground windmill. The tall ones you see are all of this kind. They pump the seawater from the seaside purification pool into the big water beach. Then there is another kind, which is to lift the primary brine to the top of the five-six-foot-high branch frame windmill with a bamboo tube, and then run the water tank to evenly roll off the bamboo tips on both sides of the branch frame. This process is better. By evaporating the water and increasing the saltiness of the brine, this is all using wind power to greatly reduce the labor of salt workers and greatly increase production.”

  In the salt fields on the beach, there are windmills standing tall, and the wind direction and wind force are adjusted through canvas wind blades, which greatly reduces manpower and increases production.

   "How much salt can a salt field produce in a year?"

   "A salt field of 100 acres can harvest 500,000 catties of salt in one salt season, the finest fine white salt."

  The eyeballs of the old men almost popped out.

   "Five thousand catties of salt per mu?"

"Well, seawater has been pumped since the end of the year, and after passing through sedimentation tanks, each deep sedimentation tank has been exposed to wind and sun for a long time, and after more than ten repeated precipitations, finally the brine that has reached the concentration is introduced into the final salt field for precipitation. In the pond, waiting for the harvest."

  “Every step is very critical. If there is a slight difference, it will affect the yield and the quality of the salt. After about a year, the harvest will finally begin.”

Each mu of salt field can produce 5,000 jin, which is indeed a very good yield, but the hard work involved can only be experienced by those who have been on the salt field all day. When you hear thunder, no matter it is midnight or any time, you must immediately go to the salt field and cover the salt pond with felt cloth, otherwise it will be seriously affected.

  Spring salt is the best, which is fine salt, while the last crops of salt harvested after autumn are coarse salt with large grains.

It is not easy during the salt harvesting season. It needs to be manually stirred in the salt field to ensure that the salt is finer when it crystallizes. It must be stirred at least a dozen times a day. It was heavy, and it was picked up to the shore over and over again.

  From the busy work of pumping water every spring to the end of the year after autumn, this kind of work that seems to be fishing for silver is easy to make money, but few people know the hard work involved.

Especially in those salt fields in the Central Plains, it is the salt owners who make money, and the workers are the salt workers. The wages are low but the work is tiring. Many of them have been in the salt fields with their shirts and bare feet all the year round. Like charcoal, but the income is average.

   And some small salt farmers are still using the oldest method to cook salt. They are busy all year round, but they don’t actually make much money. The real money is salt merchants and the government.

  Many saltworks directly use slaves to make salt, and they are like cows and horses under the whip of the supervisor every day. They are not much better than the miners in the underground mines. They often die of exhaustion within ten years of work.

  Qin Lang built salt farms in San Francisco and Xinjinshan. First, he wanted to be self-sufficient to meet the needs of the increasing population on Luzon Island. Second, he felt that salt was indeed a very profitable business.

  Using new technology drying yards, although the initial investment cost is high, these windmills are not cheap, but they can reduce manpower and increase production. In the long run, it is actually very cost-effective.

The two salt farms now have a total of nearly 3,000 mu of salt fields, with an annual output of more than 150,000 rock salt, which can fully meet the needs of Luzon Island, and even transport a large amount of salt to Linyi, Jiaozhou and other places for sale .

  The old men were very excited to hear that, and insisted on going to Yantian first.

  When they saw the windmills on the branches in the salt fields, they were even more amazed.

These branch windmills are not as tall as the pumping windmills, but they are larger in size. Each is only half the height of the pumping windmills, less than three feet high, but they are more than ten feet long. The ladder goes up to the middle top to manipulate the direction of the windmill and adjust the wind force.

  Under the blue sky, on the south coast of Xinjinshan Bay, there are neatly arranged ground pumping windmills and branch windmills, and the white canvas wind blades are turning in the wind. Looking from a distance, the water and the sky are the same color.

   "Gold is dug in the mountains, silver is mined in the water, and the land is full of fertile soil. This is really a treasure island!"

  The profit of drying salt is huge, which is known to everyone. The imperial court reformed the salt law and monopolized real salt, so it earned tens of millions a year.

   And those big salt merchants also made a lot of money.

  Whoever can own a large salt farm will naturally earn more. The imperial court's current policy on salt is that the civil merchants will accept merchants and sell it.

  The entire production and sale of salt is a commercial activity of private merchants, and the imperial court is only responsible for collecting taxes and distributing salt. Salt households and salt merchants first brought the produced salt into salt warehouses in various places, and the imperial court purchased the salt at a standard price according to the grade of the salt.

  Then the salt merchants first bought salt from the imperial court. The salt price and salt tax were already included in the salt price. After paying the money, they got the salt, and then they could go to various salt warehouses to extract salt, and then sell it in various places.

  The whole process is relatively simple and not that complicated. What the court has to do is to crack down on private salt, to ensure that all salt produced must first enter the salt warehouse, and prohibit private sales of salt people and salt merchants.

  The imperial court built salt warehouses at water and land hubs. In addition, there were also special salt warehouses in Changping divisions. The salt inside was the salt reserved by the imperial court every year to stabilize the salt price in the market.

  Once the price of salt sold by salt merchants exceeds the warning line, Changping Salt Store will sell salt at a par price to suppress the price of salt, maintain the stability of salt price, and ensure that the common people eat salt.

  Through these policies, the imperial court guaranteed a huge annual salt tax revenue, and at the same time did not have to invest too much energy and material resources in the salt business.

  The imperial court did not engage in any division of salt areas for sales, nor did it engage in any salt merchant sales qualifications. Anyway, whoever pays can buy salt, and whoever has salt can sell salt. It's as simple as that.

  As much salt is collected in the salt warehouse, as many salt quotations will be opened there, and no excessive salt quotations will be issued.

   What the imperial court needs to invest more every year is to join hands with all parts of the country to crack down on private salt and crack down on the private trading behavior of salt merchants.

The high salt tax led to huge profits from private salt, and the phenomenon of buying and selling private salt was serious. immigration frontier.

  The imperial court does not kill smuggled salt dealers easily, because under the current active border expansion policy, there is a shortage of people everywhere. It is more useful to throw them to the frontier to reclaim wasteland than to kill them.

The Qin family's salt in Luzon Island is self-produced and sold. On Luzon Island, there is no need to turn over the imperial salt warehouse, but the price of selling it to merchants on the island is similar to that in the Central Plains, so the Qin family is actually levying a sum of money. The heavy tax on salt has its own benefits.

  The Qin family transported the salt to Linyi, Chenla and other places, relying on the fine quality of the Qin family salt to seize the high-end market, and also did not need to pay taxes to the court.

  Essentially speaking, the behavior of the Qin family is also regarded as a private salt seller, but because it is not sold in the Central Plains, the court cannot control it.

One stone of salt sells for more than 1,000 yuan, and the annual output of 50 stones per mu of salt field is more than 50 yuan. The annual gross income of more than 3,000 acres of salt fields is 150,000 to 60,000 yuan, even if the costs of windmills, manpower, and transportation are excluded. Well, with the sudden profit from salt, the Qin family can make more than half of it, at least a net profit of 80,000 Guan.

   It is really an apt metaphor to say that fishing for silver in water.

   "We need to build more salt pans. The bays as big as Xinjinshan and San Francisco have such good conditions for drying salt, so we can't waste them."

   No matter how fertile an acre of cultivated land is, the yield per mu is at most four to five shi of grain a year, and the gross income is only 10000 yuan. This is still the money for selling grain, without counting manpower, seeds, tillage tools, etc., and the actual income is even lower.

  The salt field is originally a beach where crops cannot be grown, but now it can produce more than 50 crops per mu. The income of one mu of salt field is 100 mu of cultivated land. Who would not settle such an account?

  Although the income of tens of thousands of coins a year is far less than the income of gold mining on the island now, after all, the daily gold production on the island is hundreds of taels, and the income is millions of coins a year.

   But gold will run out sometimes, and the mining cost is not low. In comparison, the demand for salt will never become obsolete, and the demand is always stable.

These old men are all the loyal and loyal stewards of the Qin family over the years. They have all worked for the Qin family for more than ten years, and they were all the big shopkeepers in various industries of the Qin family. Most of them have retired now. Sit back and enjoy a high pension, but also continue to receive top body dividends.

  Qin Lang called them to Luzon this time, hoping to make use of the residual heat of these old men, and invited them to come to serve as the deacon board members of the Qin Family Treasure Island Chamber of Commerce.

  Under the windmill in Yantian, Qin Lang distributed a piece of paper to each of these old men.

"What's this?"

   After an old man opened it and read it carefully, his face showed shock.

"In order to thank you for your hard work for the Qin family for more than ten years, so this time I invite you to come to serve as the deacons of the Treasure Island Chamber of Commerce. Build your own manor here, these lands will belong to your family forever, and at the same time, you will permanently reduce the land rent by one-third!"

   This is actually the treatment Qin Lang used to give to the retainers of knights in the fiefdom of Wu'an Prefecture.

The big shopkeepers who have been able to work in the Qin family for more than ten years are actually rich in wealth. After all, under the incentive of the top-up stock system, they not only have high salaries but also generous dividends, and their wealth is stronger than that of ordinary businessmen and landlords. many.

   But the reward of 3,000 mu of land that Qin Lang gave them still made these old men very happy. Not only was it 3,000 mu of land, but to them, it also represented that they had been entrusted by Qin Lang.

   Even if they don’t have the title of knight, but permanently reducing one-third of the rent, doesn’t it mean that they will get one-third of the rent?

  (end of this chapter)