Since the Lianghuai salt merchants were eradicated by the Red Lady in the first year of Shenwu, the Ming Dynasty's salt industry has completely entered a new era. Later, Zhu Cixi's unified rectification plan further intensified the monopoly of the Lianghuai salt industry.
Nowadays, apart from the well salt in Sichuan, it can be said that Huaibei is the only salt producing area in the Ming Dynasty. The sporadic salt producing areas in other provinces have been forced to close down.
Because the official salt from Lianghuai is not only cheap, but also has uniform packaging, and any loose salt without uniform packaging will be directly designated as private salt.
As for selling illicit salt, once discovered, they would be fined and confiscated, or their homes confiscated and their homes confiscated and exiled. In addition, the profits were not large, so no businessman was willing to take risks and sell illicit salt.
Since no businessmen are willing to smuggle and sell, naturally no one will produce it. This has also led to a great increase in the pressure on the Lianghuai salt production areas. Although the production has been continuously increased, it still cannot meet the growing demand for salt, especially the salt needed by 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, but salt is often out of stock in remote areas.
It can be said that the production of salt has seriously affected the lives of everyone in the Ming Dynasty. This is why Zhu Cihong went straight to Yancheng County as soon as he inspected the Longjiang Shipyard.
Although the output of the Lianghuai Salt Industry has exceeded all periods in the history of the Ming Dynasty, and even doubled compared with the Wanli Period, the demand for salt has increased year by year as the lives of ordinary people have improved.
, also exceeded the highest in history, not even comparable to the Song Dynasty, which was said to have the best people's lives under its rule.
As the core of the Lianghuai salt production area, Yancheng County now has more than 200,000 salt households who make a living by boiling salt. The workshops responsible for processing and packaging salt are also connected one after another, with nearly 100,000 workers.
There is an endless stream of motorcades traveling to and from Yancheng County every day, and the bustle and excitement are simply breathtaking.
The environment is also very harsh. The hundreds of miles of coastline is almost completely shrouded in billowing smoke. Fortunately, the wind is strong at the beach, otherwise I might not be able to stay at all.
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 mud, and cannot be repaired.
Ever since entering Yancheng County, Zhu Cixiang's brows have not relaxed. He did not expect that the forced industrialization and centralization of salt would end up like this.
I wouldn’t know if I didn’t come here, but I would be shocked when I come here. Are there still people in Yancheng County?
The stewards responsible for managing the purchase and processing of salt saw His Majesty's ugly face, so they did not dare to speak and followed behind him cautiously.
Zhu Cixi first came to the refined salt processing workshop, and saw that the workers first poured the yellowed coarse salt from generation to generation into large wooden barrels, melted it with water, stirred it, and then filtered it with gauze, charcoal, straw, etc., and then poured the filtered salt water into the large barrel.
It is cooked in a pot, and finally the refined salt is transported to another workshop for packaging.
The oil-paper bags for packaging are all specially produced, and each bag only contains one pound. There are only three kinds of salt in total. The worst kind is coarse salt, which is cooked by salt households and packaged directly. The wholesale price varies according to the region.
It ranges from twenty to thirty cents.
One type is fine salt, which is salt boiled by salt merchants and then dissolved and filtered. The taste and color are much stronger. The wholesale price ranges from 150 to 200 Bun per bag.
The last type is refined salt, which is salt boiled by salt households and then dissolved and filtered twice. Although the taste and color are slightly less than the table salt of later generations, it is not much different.
The price of this kind of salt is the same as the well salt in Sichuan. The wholesale price varies from one tael to one tael and five yuan per pound depending on the region. This kind of person is also the most profitable.
However, the entire Salt Transportation Department only made more than 5 million taels last year. If you tell me, no one will believe it.
Because among the big salt merchants in Lianghuai in the past, which one did not earn one or two million silver a year?
The current Salt Transportation Department has a complete monopoly on the production, transportation and wholesale of the salt industry in the Ming Dynasty. It stands to reason that it is easy to earn 20 to 30 million per year.
In fact, the combined total of refined salt and fine salt can earn about 20 million taels per year, of which refined salt accounts for more than 70% of the profit. However, most of the money earned from refined salt and fine salt is subsidized to coarse salt.
Because after packaging and transportation of coarse salt, every pound of wholesale will almost lose one or two cents. Although it is only a loss of one or two cents, the sales volume of coarse salt is too great, especially in the past two years, it has been even worse.
Explosive development.
The year before last, the Salt Transportation Division had made a net profit of tens of millions of taels. Last year, although output and sales increased significantly, the net profit was reduced by half.
"Manager Liu, boiling salt is not only time-consuming and laborious but also wastes firewood. Haven't you thought about drying the salt?"
After Zhu Cixiang walked around the processing workshop, he looked at the stewards behind him and said solemnly.
He came here this time to solve the problem of drying salt. Otherwise, boiling salt alone will not be able to meet the demand in the future, and it will not be possible to reduce costs.
"Your Majesty, the method of drying salt has indeed existed since ancient times. It saves time and effort, but the conditions required are too harsh." The steward was stunned, and then quickly replied.
"Oh? Are there any other conditions required for drying salt?"
Zhu Cixiang was also quite surprised. He thought he was an ancient person and never thought that salt could be dried in the sun, so he resorted to the stupid method of boiling salt.
Now it seems that this is not the case at all, but there seems to be some technical problems that cannot be overcome, which is why sun salt has not been popularized on a large scale.
"Your Majesty does not know that the vessels required for drying salt must be dug out of stones. Otherwise, no matter whether they are made of wood or made of bricks, they will not last long and will become useless after being used a few times.
Although a pool dug out of stones can be used for a long time, building one is just as time-consuming and labor-intensive, and it won’t produce much salt. It’s simply not cost-effective to boil the salt, so…”
"Yeah!"
Zhu Cixi suddenly understood and nodded thoughtfully. There are only a few steps required to dry salt. First, introduce seawater into the pool for precipitation, evaporate the water, then filter the brine, and finally pour it into the crystallization pool to dry the crystals.
The first few steps are indeed very simple based on the current technology of the Ming Dynasty.
In the summer, those salt farmers will build cofferdams to expose the seawater inside to the sun, and then ladle it into wooden barrels to settle overnight. The cooked salt is not only rich in weight, but also has a better taste and color.
As for using charcoal gauze to filter brine to remove impurities, the salt merchants in Lianghuai have already mastered it long ago.
The only thing that stuck was the last step of crystallizing the salt water. Indeed, with the current technology of the Ming Dynasty, no matter what was used to create the crystallization pool, it could not withstand the intense daily exposure to the sun and the corrosion of salt water for many years.
Even if you use the best blue bricks and glutinous rice to cut the pool, I'm afraid it will crack after just a few uses. As for making it out of wood, that's even more nonsense.
The cost of using an iron pool will only be greater than a stone.
The best choice is indeed to use stone to build it. But considering the quarrying and stone-cutting techniques of this era, Zhu Cixi also understood why the sun-salted method was not popularized.
To achieve scale, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of stones would be needed. Not to mention excavation, even transporting so many stones to the seaside would be a huge project.
However, once a salt pond worth hundreds of thousands of dollars is dug out, it will definitely be a huge profit. 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 caught.
People covet it.
Naturally, Zhu Cihong would not choose to spend time and effort building a stone pool to dry salt, because he couldn't afford to wait. As for using cement, let alone not having it done now, even if it was done, I'm afraid it wouldn't work.
However, this did not trouble him. In fact, with the technology of the Ming Dynasty, this problem could be perfectly solved and a salt-drying pool could be made that could be used for a long time. However, they did not expect it, or they were not focused on it.
