As a salty and wet smell drifted into the nose, a large area of salt drying fields came into view.
By this time, the weather had cleared up and many workers were drying salt in the salt field.
The pure white salt particles have appeared in everyone's eyes, like white flowers.
Seeing this scene, these Jiangnan nobles almost had their eyes rolled down.
In their eyes, this is not salt, it is just gold spread on the ground.
Seeing everyone's eyes, Yang Fan said deliberately: "Oh, why don't you leave? This is a salt drying field built by me in my spare time. It is not worth seeing at all. Are you interested in this?"
Li Tai asked in astonishment: "What is sun salt?"
This question actually asked everyone's thoughts.
The ancient method of making salt, in addition to mining salt mines, was to boil salt with seawater.
According to ancient records: "At the beginning of late spring, the people of Beihai boil the sea to make salt."
"Uncle Fu is using some courtesy!" Xiao Ran helped Yang Laifu up and asked casually: "How are the arrangements outside?"
If the emperor really approves that only ten salt farms can exist in Xiaotang, will this mean that he has taken away my Zhu family’s salt business?
Xiao Ran didn't find it strange that Zhu Mei was so surprised.
Thinking of this, the eyes of everyone present turned red, and they looked at Zhu with a roar, their eyes full of greed and compulsion...
Wang Shufen and Yang Laifu are husband and wife, so they should understand the situation.
Excluding the cost, it is definitely a huge fortune for a special family.
The most important thing is that it is a transaction that is restricted by others.
Surely a salt farm can produce 1 million bars of rock salt a year, but that’s a lot of money!
Among the salt businesses in the south of the Yangtze River, my Zhu family is suspected to be the smallest.
Now that our Zhu family has adopted the method of drying salt, your other aristocratic families will definitely cannibalize my Zhu family quickly.
Just come and get a loan.
Of course, the loan must be mortgaged, and the fields occupied by those aristocratic families are not Xiao Ran's target.
Li Tai on the side also hesitated to speak.
Seeing it through was just saying it, but Xiao Ran didn't deliberately ask for it.
He intends to unite with other families to put our Zhu family to death.
After all, if the sea water is exhausted, it will be used as much as possible. Who cares?
Xiao Ran didn't care about Zhu's ugly face and said to himself: "I look down on them and say they are stupid. They guard such a small sea and actually let the people eat salt. Seriously?"
It’s a waste of resources, but it’s all money!”
"Yes, little governor, let's go directly to the paper mill to visit!" Lin Xi on the side also hurriedly joined in.
"At the same time, the salt that was not available in Xiaotang before was produced by those ten salt factories. The salt is priced uniformly in Xiaotang and shipped to the sea for sale, each based on his ability!"
Of course, Xiao Ran mainly wanted to exploit the Jiangnan nobles and squeeze out their family fortunes.
The reason why I said that was to retaliate that what Zhu just said was cooperation.
The salt drying field was just the first bait I threw out.
"Does he know how much each piece of paper costs? How much labor is required? How many scholars are there in heaven?"
After all, if those people in Jiangnan want to get those craftsmanship, we must first raise money.
The two of them absolutely believed in whether the so-called "sun salt" could be profitable.
Yang Laifu said: "Although I am worried, sir, the paper made from bamboo is stronger and whiter. It is definitely the best choice for writing."
After all, we haven’t considered the glass business as our own.
Zhu Pei was obviously doubtful about Zhu Meihe's statement. He snorted and said, "In order to reduce the cost, the quality of the paper is affected, and even the writing effect of the scholar is affected. Then the paper is useless?"
There are eight huge characters hanging on the small door of the building - Liulichang!
Anyway, we know very little!
I am sure that if that avenue of making money was cut off before, my Zhu family will recover from a sudden fall.
Nowadays, those Jiangnan aristocratic families only consider their interests and have not realized that they have not fallen into the trap.
Well.
Although salt production is too low, it may cause the price of salt to rise.
Zhu Pei was surprised when he heard Yang Laifu's words: "Can they really make paper from bamboo? How is the output? How is the quality?"
It is still the early Tang Dynasty, so it is not strange that Zhu Pei knows that bamboo cannot make paper.
Do those people want money?
Mrs. Zhu understood that Xiao Ran was deliberately looking for trouble after taking revenge.
After walking through the salt field, Xiao Ran came to the back of a huge building.
Boiled salt means boiling seawater in a container, evaporating the water and crystallizing it into salt. Therefore, there is no such thing as "drying salt", let alone deliberately building a salt drying field.
It takes a young and crazy person to say something so confident.
It must be true as Xiao Ran said, the salt field in the sky is divided into ten places, seven are controlled by the court and seven are controlled by private individuals.
What's more, now Xiaojia wants to cooperate with Xiao Ran to open up sea routes.
Without the land, the Jiangnan family will naturally need these refugees who farm, and they will naturally spit out those people when the time comes.
There is a shortage of people!
It seems that Zhu Mei is cooperating, and there will be a tragedy soon!
Seeing the two people in Suanqie, Xiao Ran certainly knew what we were thinking.
Of course, a relatively weak and powerful family wants to face that behemoth Yang Fan.
Yang Laifu looked at Xiao Ran and saw that Xiao Ran didn't stop me. I didn't know what to do, so I turned to Zhu Mei and said, "It is precisely because paper is expensive that you have developed various methods to reduce costs. Nanfang Shaozhu, use
Bamboo is used to make paper, so you can minimize the cost of paper..."
The two guys were obviously afraid that the method of making colored glaze would be seen by others.
So Zhu stared at Xiao Ran and said: "Little Governor, since ancient times, free trade has been implemented in the business world. Is he being too overbearing by interfering like that?"
When the time comes for all the heavenly families to bid together, my Zhu family will definitely not be able to win one of them.
If we hadn't agreed to Xiao Ran's cooperation just now, Xiao Ran might have come up with something to slap us in the face.
However, I was too bad to directly conflict with the Zhu family.
Xiao Ran's words were too rude, Zhu Pei responded directly.
Then he took out his trump card and wanted to alienate Yang Fan's supporters, in order to achieve the purpose of dividing the Jiangnan gentry alliance in Wu County.
Yang Laifu's tone was respectful, but his expression was arrogant.
Nowadays, Xiao Ran's official position is getting lower and lower, and there are not many people outside of his own family who call him Young Master.
It's no wonder Zhu was angry.
Xiao Ran can only trick those aristocratic families!
The lack of bamboo in the south is most suitable for the development of the paper industry.
During the retreat, Xiao Ran asked Yang Laifu: "Is Xin's papermaking going well?"
After all, people outside your own family are the ones you worry about the most.
It is indeed the goal of those paper craftsmen.
Seawater boiled salt has been around since ancient times, but seawater sun-dried salt only appeared in the late Song Dynasty.
The weaker aristocratic families were weighing the pros and cons, so no one said anything.
Xiao Ran and his party had not yet arrived, and Yang Laifu had already been waiting at the small door.
Now that Xiao Ran can really make salt in small batches, my Zhu family's business will be revived.
"You deny that when the young governor was in Guanzhong, he should have made some improvements to papermaking, and even reduced the cost a little, but even that was something that only a scholar could afford. His statement is simply ridiculous.
Tan.”
Looking at the appearance of those Jiangnan nobles, Mrs. Zhu smiled helplessly.
You know, during the Zhenguan period of the Xiao Tang Dynasty, each kilogram of salt cost about 100 Wen.
Originally I heard that "sun salt" does not have such an amazing yield, so I wanted to try it too.
Yang Fan coughed dryly and explained: "This is a brand-new method of making salt that I have mastered. It does not require fuel for cooking, but only the space and workers needed to dry the salt."
Yang Xun and Lin Xi looked at each other with surprise in their eyes.
"As you know, I have a lot of naval personnel and consume a huge amount of salt every day. Procurement is troublesome, so I had to build the salt field."
"Well, I have the emperor's mandate, and my affairs are complicated. I have to build Huating County, open a waterway, and build a bank. I don't have much time to take care of the salt field. I am sure that I want a way to dry salt.
No one can join or withdraw. Once the salt is sold into the sea, the profits will naturally be greater."
Therefore, those present did not know the method of "salting".
Now the Xiaotang Royal Central Bank is about to be established.
Even if Xiao Ran, as the junior governor of Jiangnan Province, blatantly banned the Zhu family's salt business, the Zhu family would definitely be willing to do so.
When we were in Guanzhong, we mainly used hemp and tree fibers to make paper. The original formula can naturally be copied and modified based on the original basis.
One stone in Xiaotang is about 120 kilograms, 1 million stone salt...
But even if it was such a small profit, the people present did not immediately clamor to participate. Instead, they all looked at Zhu.
Yang Laifu smiled and said: "Master, please show up. We haven't made arrangements yet. As long as those people are wandering around, it is a key step in the production of colored glaze."
The rest of us had no objections, so the group turned directly to the nearby paper mill.
When he saw Mr. Zhu, he was convinced. Xiao Ran said little and continued to introduce others with a smile, without paying attention at all.
It's obviously very stressful to get those spots.
Liulichang and paper mills are among the most profitable products. Before Yang Laifu and Wang Shufen arrived, Xiao Ran was handed over to our management.
"Also, at the paper factory next door, Wang Shufen hasn't prepared anyone to break it yet. You can show up at any time to take a look."
call……
Sure enough, Zhu's face was as white as the bottom of a pot.
Obviously, if we no longer care about him, Zhu Meihui will agree.
Just like Changsun Youji, he was not the youngest iron ore merchant in Xiaotang.
And that amount of money is huge, and it's obviously possible for us to raise it.
Hearing Yang Laifu's humble words, Zhu Pei was obviously suspicious. He laughed angrily and said: "It's a joke! Even if they have mastered making paper from bamboo, how dare he say, 'Let everyone in heaven use theirs'?"
paper' in that case?"
At this time, everyone wanted to see how Zhu would respond.
But we did not expect that Zhu Mei would deal with the Zhu family so blatantly.
More importantly, my Zhu family's business is relatively simple. We originally made a living by selling salt.
Although I knew that the cost Xiao Ran said was really that high, I thought there was no need to lie to us.
Once I competed with those Jiangnan nobles, I was afraid that all those people would fall to the side of the prince, so I gave up the idea.
Therefore, when Xiao Ran said that Xiaojia should be allowed to run the salt farm, no one seemed to agree.
Ahem!
In fact, salt and iron in Xiaotang cannot be mined privately except in government-run areas, and there are not many restrictions.
As long as you don't have the ability to transport those salt packets to the sea and sell them, the profits will definitely be considerable.
Those who are bad at arithmetic know how small the output is.
Of course, even if those aristocratic families find out, there will be ways to do it. After all, Xiao Ran is a conspiracy, and we have to obey.
Everyone present took a breath of cold air.
However, Zhu held the last glimmer of hope and asked: "How much can a salt factory produce using this method of drying salt? Will the cost be too low?"
It must be that difficult to change the art of papermaking. How can the papermaking art inherited by our Xiao family for thousands of years be worthless?
Obviously, Xiao Ran was no longer angry about whether Zhu had expressed his position just now.
Although we may build a salt drying farm as small as Xiao Ran's.
So Wang Shufen was asked to lead the craftsmen to study the technology of making paper from bamboo.
Obviously, everyone is eyeing the quota in the salt factory.
Even if a pound can only be sold at 1/10 of the future price, why sell it now for 10 cents per pound?
Even if that's the case, it's definitely a huge profit.
We are both deeply grateful.
As soon as he saw Xiao Ran, Yang Laifu bent down to salute and said respectfully: "I have met the young master."
As a literati, I just wanted to affect the quality because of the output, so I made some complaints.
After hearing Yang Laifu's words and waiting for Xiao Ran to express his position, Yang Xun hurriedly said: "Little Governor, there are few people out there nowadays, so let's go to the glaze manufacturing factory first... What if we go directly to the paper factory?"
That time, it was Yang Laifu who spoke. Before Zhu Mei could interrupt, she said, "Brother Xiao, whether the quality of the paper is bad or not will affect writing. Will he know it after he goes back and looks at it?"
"Yes, I have always been cheating, either doing it right or doing the worst. The quality of the paper produced by the Xiao family must be worse than others. To say that he cannot agree to cooperate, you can just take all the paper
You can’t even eat it!”
Although the papermaking industry does not have a long history in China, Xiao Shao mainly uses tree fiber and hemp as raw materials.
Xiaojia must be clamoring to participate, but is she clearly targeting Zhu Mei as her enemy?
But most of them are still unable to be built. Even if 100,000 kilograms of salt are produced per year, it is equivalent to 12 million kilograms.
In other words, a large salt farm can earn at most hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.
Let all the scholars in heaven use your paper...
"You are going to apply to Your Majesty. In the past, Xiao Tang could only have ten salt manufacturers. Seven of them were controlled by the imperial court. The remaining seven places were sold back to the lowest price."
After all, that is another golden mountain.
Yang Laifu smiled and said respectfully: "Reporting to Sir, I also know what kind of paper is considered to be of bad quality, but the output is definitely low. Your goal is very clear. It is not for all the scholars in the sky to use your paper."
Zhu's face was not angry, and she looked extremely happy.
Zhu Mei chuckled: "The method of drying salt that I invented can produce 1 million stones of salt a year from such a small salt farm. The cost is not to build such a salt farm and hire dozens of workers. As for seawater,
Everyone knows it’s free.”
You know, the smallest salt producer and seller in Jiangnan is not occupied by the Zhu family.
Since the vines were cut down in the Song Dynasty, bamboo papermaking gradually stopped appearing, which slightly enriched the source of papermaking materials.