"This is probably nine out of ten rooms." Chongzhen sighed. The people of the Ming Dynasty who presented him to him lived like this.

Rebuilding your home in the ruins, who caused all this? Is it a natural disaster or a bandit, or the Qing Dynasty or the Ming court itself?

Emperor Chongzhen had no answer. At least the only thing this small village presented to him was desolate.

In the chaotic times, even a dog at the entrance of the village dared to hide away and bark constantly when he saw this group of strangers.

Perhaps in this hungry world, in the eyes of this dog, it also knows that the threat of a group of strangers is much greater than that of jackals, tigers and leopards. Maybe it will probably become a pot of dog meat soup.

Everyone entered the village, probably the only dog ​​in the village. When they were looking at the group of people, they screamed and barked.

The villagers were alarmed, so someone walked out of the broken wood-room with a thick bowl in his arms.

The bandits have been settled, and this place is the surrounding area of ​​the capital. At least it can be considered peaceful. Although there are only a few dozen households here, they are still a little timid when they see Emperor Chongzhen and his group of more than a dozen people.

The other party was dressed in luxurious clothes, and it was obvious that it was a family of landlords and wealthy businessmen. These grass-roots people wanted to hide home after a glance.

Zhu Cilang went forward and said, "Have a hard time, the old man will stay."

Zhu Cilang's politeness and politeness made the other party relax their vigilance. In fact, they just saw Zhu Cilang and his group of wealthy people and were inferior and timid, not afraid.

These people also know that they are all poor and useless. Even bandits are not interested in people like them, they have no valuables and are not afraid of encountering bandits.

The other party was a middle-aged and elderly man. He slowly turned around with a thick bowl in his arms. After seeing Zhu Ciyang coming, he still took a step back unconsciously: "Is this young master calling me?"

Zhu Cilang said "Yes": "We are merchants from the capital. This time we want to go back to our hometown in Xiongxian. There are many troubles when passing by. I dare to ask what kind of village this place is called."

A nameless small place like this is not marked on the map. Unless it is in the county government office, you may be able to find the mark on this place. Even Zhu Cixuan and his group don’t know where it is.

The man who looked extremely old said "Oh" and finally completely let go of his vigilance: "This is Niujia Village, the young master just needs to continue traveling west along the official road."

Zhu Cilang looked at the thick bowl in the other person's hand. The food in the bowl was very rich, and a large bowl of brown rice of various colors was piled up.

This is mixed with wild vegetables, sweet potato seedlings, brown rice with various beans, and the old man's chopsticks are inserted diagonally into the bowl. There is also a layer of yellow mayonnaise on it.

For ordinary people, this is considered a top-notch delicacy.

Zhu Cilang has eaten such food, including sweet potatoes, seedlings, and mixed grains. It is also mixed with wild vegetables and all kinds of food that can be eaten.

This kind of brown rice is definitely not delicious and may satisfy your hunger. For these people, it is indeed a paradise to be able to eat such things.

In particular, there is a layer of soybean paste on it. This is a soybean paste made of salt and soybeans. Not only is it delicious, but the most important thing is that it can provide the human body with the necessary salt.

Salt has always been the most important tax in ancient times. And so the ordinary salt is not much that the people can afford.

Official salt is expensive, so the people can only take the risk to buy private salt. Selling private salt is also a serious crime, and buying and selling private salt will also be punished.

However, the price of official salt is not affordable to poor people. Without the supplement of salt, the human body cannot do some heavy physical labor.

Even the wars that broke out in ancient times to compete for salt were numerous.

Now it seems that fighting for salt is very stupid, but people in the future may have the same reaction when they see us fighting for oil today.

In modern times, oil resources are equal to money, and in ancient times, salt had a higher status than oil. It can be said that one tael of salt and one tael of gold. In ancient times, controlling salt was equivalent to controlling the lifeline of the economy. "Guanzi·Aquaman": "A family of ten people eat salt, and a family of hundreds of people eat salt."

Salt is the most basic necessity for people and an indispensable and important material for maintaining normal social and economic life. Because salt is related to people's livelihood, it penetrates into all levels of civilization history and is also valued by experts in different fields.

If you don’t eat salt, you are exhausted and unable to engage in agricultural production, and marching and fighting are even more empty talk.

The battle between Huangdi and Yandi in the Central Plains. This battle is known as the "first battle in China", and it was initially due to the competition for Yanchi, Yuncheng, Shanxi.

Compared with luxury goods such as tea, silk, porcelain, etc., salt trading is the most profitable business. So much so that these salt merchants were all rich, and the salt merchants in the Ming Dynasty were monopolized by those high-ranking officials and royal relatives.

Fortunately, all this ended with the tea caliber salt channel opened by Zhu Cixuan. Zhu Cixuan opened the tea caliber salt channel, causing a large amount of salt in Qinghai to pour into the mainland. It caused a huge blow to those salt merchants, not only that.

Zhu Cilang also strongly encouraged coastal people to dry salt and make salt. The current salt drying technology in coastal areas has been passed down from ancient people.

The production process of sea salt is to introduce seawater into the salt flats through tides. It is constantly blown by sun and wind, then concentrated into saturated brine, and then put into the crystallization pond to crystallize and produce salt.

The salt from sea salt and salt lakes are constantly produced. Once you master the salt, you will master the lifeblood of the economy. But Zhu Cixuan resolutely defeated the price of salt.

It is better to give the people a little less tax than to afford it. Even when the price of official salt is equal to that of private salt, it will cut off the life of those private salt dealers. Private salt will naturally disappear.

However, after the price of official salt is low, some officials will still fill their pockets. They will mix sand and soil into the official salt to increase the weight, which is also the reason why the imperial court has been attacking.

The local Censorate officials are responsible for strictly investigating the issue of salt fraud. Some local officials once adulterated and executed more than 30 people by Chongzhen at once.

Zhu Cilang bowed to the old man: "Old man, I am thirsty when I pass by here. Can I ask for a sip of water?"

The simple and kind people will never refuse a sip of water. Even the old man was a little restrained, afraid that his family would be dirty, which would make Zhu Cixuan and his group disgusted.

"As long as you don't dislike the dirty house of a villain, please follow me."

Zhu Cilang led Chongzhen, and Luo Yangxing and Wang Chengen next to him helped Chongzhen and walked into the dilapidated yard together.

The thatched hut and wood-room looked very messy. What was surprising was that there was an old hen and an egg in the chicken coop.
Chapter completed!