Haiyan was established as a county in the 25th year of King Yingzheng of the Qin Dynasty (222 BC). It got its name because "the seashore is widely visited and the salt fields face each other".
Historically, salt production has always been one of the basic industries in Haiyan County. As early as the Qin and Han Dynasties, the salt production industry had been quite developed. For more than two thousand years, it has been one of the famous salt production centers on the southeast coast. However, in
Before Shang Yi crossed, the seawater in Haiyan County had moved inward due to the county's coastline.
The salt content was desalinated, so salt production was stopped at the end of 1981, completely ending thousands of years of salt production. However, in this time and space, Haiyan County is still a major salt-producing county, with an annual salt production of tens of
Wanshi, almost supplies the salt demand of the entire middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
Salt is an indispensable necessity for human survival. At the same time, like food, it is also a material that can be used for circulation and exchange in ancient societies with backward commodity economies. Therefore, Shang Yi has long set his sights on the salt production industry. Since sea salt
With such a rich resource in the county, Shang Yi since
Otherwise, he will not let it go. Since Majiazhai controls two salt villages, after capturing Majiazhai, Shang Yi will naturally control these two salt villages in his own hands, and then control the entire Haiyan.
Jiaxing Prefecture's salt industry has thus become an important source of its own financial revenue.
In the Song Dynasty, there were three salt fields in Haiyan County: Baolang, Haisha and Luli. However, in the Ming Dynasty, the Luli Salt Fields were owned by Pinghu County, leaving only two salt fields in Haiyan County: Baolang and Haisha, which were replaced by Ma
The two salt villages under Jiazhai's control both belonged to the Haisha Salt Farm. Therefore, after settling the matter in Majiazhai, Shang Yi immediately led people to Zhapu West Village in the Haisha Salt Farm to inspect the sea salt production here.
The salt production organization in Haiyan County is divided into three levels: field, group and kitchen. The field is the management agency, which is also commonly known as the salt yamen. Officials are called salt field ambassadors and are under the management of the local promotion department. The group is the place where salt residents gather.
The kitchen households are gathered in a group, and gates are set up to prevent their privacy from leaking out. Therefore, many places along the coast are named after "Tuan". The stove is the kitchen household, and the person who sets up the stove to cook salt is the one who burns the salt.
When Shang Yi came to Zhapuxi Village, he was part of a salt group. The leader of the group happened to be named Yan, and his name was Yan Yiyi. He also participated in the criticism meeting in Majiazhai, and he also took the stage to expose the salt group that the Ma family father and son had occupied Zhapuxi Village and suppressed the narrow-minded people.
I even slapped Ma Heqiang about the Zaohu incident, which made me feel very happy and full of gratitude to Shang Yi. Therefore, when I heard that Shang Yi's boss had arrived, I hurriedly brought people out to greet him.
After the two parties met, they exchanged a few polite words before Shang Yi asked about the salt farm.
Yan Yiyi also gave a very detailed introduction to Shang Yi. It turns out that the Haisha Salt Field is very large, with a total of twelve groups, and there are two groups in Zhapu West Village. The amount of salt produced by the Haisha Salt Field every year is huge, at least in
More than 50,000 citations, sometimes reaching 60,000 to 70,000 citations, and the regiment led by Yan Yiyi
There are more than 500 salt workers, and they can produce 4,000 to 5,000 yin of salt a year. The amount of salt produced by the Haisha Salt Farm is "36,750 yin."
, is 3,060 yin. In other words, the salt ball in Zhapu West Village can produce at least 1,000 yin more every year.
"Yin" refers to the salt-producing unit, and one yin can be divided into three hundred kilograms. Moreover, according to the regulations of the Ming Dynasty, the salt field adopts a payment system based on the color of the salt. In other words, the salt workers do not need to pay the extra salt directly to the government, but
It is to convert salt into rice or silver. According to the rules, one stone per meter is converted into rice. Later, the rice conversion was renamed as silver conversion: first convert the salt into rice, and then convert it into silver according to the price of rice.
There are certain benefits to the salt collectors by paying the salt tax in different colors: salt production is no longer subject to the supervision and control of the government. As long as the salt tax is paid on time, you can do whatever you want at that time. You can develop side businesses and also
You can produce more salt. Because salt is easy to sell, after more salt is produced,
, naturally there will be businessmen coming to buy it, and the purchase price is often a little higher than the government's price. If you catch up with the good market, then the life of Yanding can actually be good. If someone doesn't want to dry salt,
You can also use your income from business or land reclamation to pay the salt tax and silver.
Now one stone of rice in Zhejiang is more than 2,000 taels of silver. Therefore, the salt produced by this salt group every year can be worth 2,000 taels of silver. Therefore, theoretically speaking, a salt man can earn 20, 30, 30, or more in a year.
Two taels of silver, in rural areas, is a very considerable income, which can at least achieve a well-off living standard.
But Shang Yi saw that the houses in Zhapuxi Village were very dilapidated, and Yan Yiyi and other salt workers all had pale faces and shabby clothes. Compared with other villages, they were no different. This was indeed a bit surprising to Shang Yi.
Yi was surprised, so Shang Yi also benefited from asking this question strictly.
After Nazhi Yan benefited from hearing this, he smiled bitterly and said: "You don't know something. Five or six years ago, we in Zhapuxi Village were not like this. At that time, although the life was a bit harder, the government sent more people.
Some, but everyone also
We could make do with it and still have some extra money after a year. But three years ago, the Ma family occupied our village and took over the salt class. Everything changed. The salt we produced could only be purchased by the Ma family.
To deal with it, at the beginning, they gave me one or two ounces of salt.
Five cents of silver was later reduced to one tael, but this year only eight cents were given, and I heard that the Ma family only planned to give five cents of silver next year, so this life could no longer go on. While the guys were drying out the salt, they just
You can cultivate your own land and grow some food, and you can still have enough food.
But after the Ma family knew about it, they insisted that the land belonged to their family and they had to pay rent. To be honest with you, people have started to run away since this year. Dozens of them have escaped. If you hadn't defeated the Ma family, the new year would have started.
Even more people will run away after that.”
After listening to this, Shang Yi nodded, thought for a while, and then said: "What about other places? What about the situation of Yantuan that has not been occupied by the Ma family? Isn't it much better than you?"
Yan Yiyi said: "To be honest with you, although it is better, it is not much better. There are a total of twelve regiments in the Haisha Salt Farm, and nine of them have been hired by other big companies to take salt classes, but they are given more than
The Ma family is a little better, but it only costs between one or two to one, two, and five yuan. There are also three others who are hired by Liu Peijing, the ambassador of the salt field, and the situation is similar to other groups."
Shang Yi knows that the price of rice in Zhejiang is now around 20,000 yuan, so the purchase price of each imported salt is not enough to pay the salt tax. In fact, Yanzhao is also the target of oppression. It seems that although salt production is profitable, it is not enough.
Those salt merchants and salt officials have become rich, but the real working people are still living in dire straits.
Shang Yi thought for a moment and said, "Take me to your salt factory and see how you make salt."
Yan Yiyi agreed and led Shang Yi to the salt factory. This factory occupies a large area with at least four to five hundred people working inside. The most eye-catching thing is the dozens of large pots on one side.
, look at the firewood burning below, the steam is rising, and you can also hear the "gulu" and "gulu" sounds of boiling water rolling.
Some pots were filled, and others were holding large pots and stirring vigorously in the pots. Shang Yi visually inspected that the diameter of each large pot should be about 1.4 to 1.5 meters, and the height should be about 30 centimeters.
In front of a large pot, although the water in the pot has not been completely boiled out, white fine salt can already be seen in the pot.
Yan Yiyi explained to him that each pot would take about three hours to turn into salt, and one pot could produce seven to ten kilograms of salt.
Shang Yi nodded and saw on the other side, a row of large pools were dug. I don't know what the purpose of the pool was. Women were watering it with buckets. Yan Yiyi explained to him that this was watering brine with sea water.
Sand brine.
It turns out that boiling salt does not mean boiling seawater directly, because the salt content in pure seawater is too small. Therefore, we must first make brine with high salt content, that is, where the tide can reach the seaside, it is covered with fine sand.
About two to three inches, harrow it loosely so that the sand can fully absorb the tide. After it is dried by the wind and sun, it will become brine sand.
.Then sprinkle the brine sand evenly in the brine pool, and then pour it with seawater. This seawater will fully absorb the salt in the brine sand, and the salt content will be greatly increased. Sometimes in order to increase the salt concentration,
The brine will be poured repeatedly. Then the brine is poured into the pot and stir-fried to make salt or salt.
If you need to make refined salt, you need to filter the brine five or six times. Generally speaking, the best materials for filtering are silk and cotton. Only when the impurities in the water are removed can you start to boil refined salt. Shang Yi
The pot you just saw is made of refined salt.
However, what Shang Yi saw was the boiling salt production method. Although this production method was the mainstream salt production method in ancient China, Shang Yi also knew that the sun-drying salt method was born at this time and became popular in the south.
The salt method in brine sand, brine manufacturing, filtration process and salt boiling method are basically similar, but the difference lies in
For the salt production process, the brine is poured into a special salt tank and exposed to the sun. Generally, the brine is poured into the salt tank before the sun rises. After a day of exposure, the salt can be scraped with a board at dusk and collected in a bamboo basket.
In the sunniest and hottest seasons, a salt tank plus two or three applications of brine can evaporate it to dryness.
The production of boiled salt method is backward, with low output, low labor productivity and high cost. In particular, it consumes a lot of firewood, and was gradually replaced by the sun-salt method. Therefore, Shang Yi also asked: "Yan Tuantou, have you ever used the sun-salt method?"
?”
Yan Yiyi said: "Reporting to your lord, of course I have used it before. Sun-drying salt is easier than boiling salt, but you have to wait until midsummer, when the weather is hot and there is no rain. It is winter now, and a tank of brine can only be produced in three to five days."
We can’t get any salt, so we can only boil salt. When summer comes and after the rainy season, we will have three or four months of salt drying time.”
Shang Yi nodded. The salt-drying method is indeed mainly popular in Guangdong and Hainan, while it is less commonly used in the north. It seems to be related to the weather. However, both boiling salt and drying salt are labor-intensive industries.
Imagine that even the relatively easy method of boiling salt requires working under the hot summer sun. It is really a very hard job. And until modern times, the basic process of making salt has not been improved as it is today. It is indeed
Working people receive the fruits of their hard work.