Min Yuanqi smiled and said, "This person surnamed Zhu is really interesting, meeting is a test."

Min Yuanqi said quietly: "Min's ambition is to make hundreds of people under his command eat and wear well, but it makes the young master laugh."

Zhu Wanchun said with great interest: "I know that Lord Min brought more than 6,000 kilograms of salt, which is worth fifty taels of silver. As for Lord Min's current subordinates, there are at least 300 people. If it becomes a formal household, there will be more than 100 households in the banner army, with a minimum of 50,000 households and a minimum of 50,000 households in one hundred, and a drop in the bucket. I don't know what Lord Min's plan is next, so I'm willing to listen to it later?"

Min Yuanqi fought with Yang Shida at the dock, but he wanted to save ten taels of silver. Zhu Wanchun didn't believe that the person in front of him was the one who fought for ten taels of silver. If Min Yuanqi's ambition was like this, no matter how good he performed, it was not worth taking seriously. After the banquet in front of him, there was no more.

"Go to the capital, the situation will be in chaos." Min Yuanqi thought for a while and said in a deep voice: "We can't go to the battlefield like the camp soldiers, but we must at least have the ability to protect ourselves. The flag army needs to train and build weapons, and the first thing is to get food. The salt is a few hundred silver a year, and the average person is less than one tael of people, which is too little. So I will not give Yang Shida's portion, and I have to find a way to earn more."

"What's the solution?"

"I want to dry salt!"

"Salt drying method?" Zhu Wanchun thought tiltedly. At this time, the reserve and playboy on his face had disappeared, and the shrewdness inside was exposed. After thinking about it, Zhu Wanchun said: "In fact, there were people on the beach trying before and after Jiajing. They still needed to collect tides and get braised, which was also time-consuming and labor-intensive. All they saved was manpower and firewood. However, after someone tried it, the government banned it..."

Zhu Wanchun hit the table with his fingers, which was quite thoughtful. Obviously, based on his experience, he was not enough to make any decision.

Min Yuanqi smiled slightly and then said, "The salt drying method was in Fujian at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, but Taizu still used the salt decoction method. The reason is very simple. Whether it is the bamboo leaks in Zhejiang or Guangzhou, or the iron plates in Yangzhou in our two Huai, they all require a lot of manpower and firewood. The government is easy to control, and large-scale private salt is not easy to appear in the local area, which will not shake the foundation of the country. Zhu Shaodong knew that Zhang Shicheng, who had fought with Taizu for many years in the early days, was commonly known as Zhang Wang, and his origin was a salt owl like Yang Shida. Therefore, it is not that the salt drying method was not possible, but the changes in the times. In this situation, people like Yang Shida can be salt owls, and the laws of the country have been abandoned. I think that if you use the salt drying method in my two Huaihuai, there should be no one coming to cause trouble."

From the early Ming Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, salt was spread from official control to private salt. In fact, just like all industries in the Ming Dynasty, from strict management to indulgence, to the Chongzhen period, miscellaneous commercial taxes and maritime trade could not be collected. Only land acres were occupied and concealed a lot, but land tax was the easiest resource to the Ming Dynasty's court, and the court could only continue to exploit the land from top to bottom.

Speaking of salt, there are six types: sea salt, well salt, pond salt, nitr salt, rock salt and river salt. The most important salt production in the Ming Dynasty was of course sea salt. Although well salt has the best quality, its output cannot be compared with sea salt.

The important salt fields are distributed in Changlu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong. Of course, the most important one is Lianghuai.

At the beginning of the country, the salt industry was officially operated. Although Fujian had already had a salt drying method, it did save firewood and firewood. It also required the tide of the yard to make braised, and it was not easy to control. Therefore, at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, it was determined that the method of boiling salt was mainly used to decoct salt, that is, boiling salt.

The salt farm in Lianghuai uses large cast iron plates, with a large plate of more than 100 kilograms and a small plate weighing dozens of kilograms. This kind of iron plate is strictly controlled by the government, and ordinary iron craftsmen are not allowed to make privately. Only salt stove households can collect it, and then multiple households cooperate to fry salt together.

When frying salt, utensils, firewood, and family cooperation are required. According to the experience at that time, the whole family can fry two pots all night, one pot of 30 kilograms, and get 60 kilograms of salt a day and one night.

Fujian's salt drying method can get 200 kilograms of salt a day and a night, and there is no need for firewood, so the gap is really big.

However, Lianghuai, Changlu and Zhejiang are not as sun-dried as Fujian, with high temperatures, easy to get halogen and crystallization. In addition, the strict controls of the country at the beginning of the country and the restrictions on technology circulation, etc., the salt drying method has not been popularized.

In fact, by the Wanli period, the salt drying method had a further breakthrough, that is, the Fujianese invented the Chengkan salt drying method.

In the "Fujian General History" of the Republic of China, it is said: "In the Wanli period, there were tiles built in the hut, and now all huts are gone." The hut is also called "Qiu Pan", "paved with tiles".

Volume 1 of "Food and Salt" Regarding the specific production method of Chengkan salt drying method, Wanli's "Fujian Yunsizhi" has detailed records: "Where the seashore tide is horizontal, choose the high dew, use greasy mud to build the surroundings into rounds and empty them, which is called leaks; still pick the soil and leaks, and pour them with tide water on it, and dig a hole next to the leaks, so that the water can be produced from it. Then build a high hill plate, and use tiles to spread the turbines flat, and sprinkle the turbines in the courtyard. After the day is exposed to the grains, the salt will be completed."

In this way, seawater naturally crystallizes into salt by sun exposure in Chengkan. The biggest advantage of Chengkan salt drying method is that it further saves the process of preparing brine, saving considerable time and labor.

At this time, Fujian had more than 100 salt drying farms, but the technology spread was very slow. Lianghuai has many stoves and populations, and it was not difficult to supply salt for several salts. As for the salt drying method, the salt is too high and the price is cheap, which can make the poor people afford to buy salt, which is not within the scope of the gentry's consideration.

From the perspective of the court, stove owners are easy to control. Lianghuai Salt Industry supplies prosperous places, not comparable to Fujian's seaside ravines. During the Chongzhen period, a big man promoted the salt drying method in Lianghuai, and submitted several memorials to promote the benefits of the salt drying method. However, the court considered that the poor income of the salt curriculum came from Lianghuai for a year, and no one could bear this responsibility once the salt drying class was lost.

In addition, the stove households were invaded by nobles, civil and military officials and gentry and regarded as fish meat. Once they were changed to drying, these interests were really unclear.

Seeing that the other party was still pondering, Min Yuanqi said: "It's not a problem at all. One is sunshine. Fortunately, Huaibei has sufficient sunshine even in winter, but it is still a little worse than the scorching sun in summer. The second is the saltiness of the sea water, but if Fujian can be achieved, we can also achieve it. The third is the Salt Class and the Seizure Department. Although it is full of salt on the ground now, I can do it privately, and I will do it with great fanfare. That's two things."

After Min Yuanqi finished speaking, his eyes were burning at Zhu Wanchun.

Since the young business owner in front of me is very powerful and has someone to do with skills, if the other party is sincere, he should have something to come out at this moment.

If the other party is not responsible, hesitates or makes decisions, it doesn't matter. He originally planned to experiment on a small scale first, but it was not much to afford it.

Once successful, you can invite big salt merchants from Yangzhou to cooperate, and you will not be afraid of no one investing.

Zhu Wanchun really didn't expect that the little military officer of the garrison that he had wanted to win over for a while actually had a lot of thoughts and really had some plans.

"The salt method is to dry salt ten times more than to cook salt." Min Yuanqi said lightly: "I am not a businessman. I have to exchange salt for money and grain. If I exchange money and grain, I can train troops and train soldiers, and I can defend the countryside. My Min family has been in Dahewei for more than 200 years. Huaibei is my hometown. Except for a few traitors, local people are good people. Although I am not close to me, they are old friends. As long as the price of salt is not low, I certainly hope to underwrite the big merchants and save my own efforts."

This completely convinced Zhu Wanchun.

The most concerned about Min Yuanqi is investment in the future. The salt-drying method is to be completed. According to Min Yuanqi's current manpower, the salt produced is at least dozens or hundreds of times more. Originally, 50 taels of salt per month may become 500 taels, 50,000 taels, or even tens of thousands taels. This business, for the salt merchant family with a sales of about 100,000 taels per year, is equivalent to double the existing market. If this business does not follow, Zhu Wanchun feels ashamed of his ancestors and will also be ashamed of his descendants!

The business of salt merchants has been passed down from generation to generation. The number of salt-worn stoves that they have mastered determines how rich the family’s family’s wealth is. As long as there is salt, you will definitely sell it. As long as there is salt, you will make money. These days, it is said that private salt is flooded, but the supply of salt among the people is definitely in short supply, and even the prices are not consistent. Some are convenient, and some places are quite expensive. Until the Republic of China, the salt prices in Sichuan and Yunnan and Guizhou were quite expensive, and ordinary people could not afford salt.

Zhu Wanchun also said in a deep voice: "I don't know what Lord Min plans to use to make a salt drying field, how many places are planned to build, and how much does it cost?"

"A salt pond should not be too big, twenty or thirty acres of land are enough." Min Yuanqi said: "A Kan pond needs ten people. I plan to build a salt pond first, ten Kan ponds. There is no need to use porcelain or tiles for the drying pond, so the same is true for the same. For those who spend, labor laborers and blue bricks, a pond costs twenty or thirty taels of silver, and ten ponds are enough for three hundred taels of silver."

This money is indeed not much. Among the people, 300 taels of silver is the income of fifteen farmers' families a year, which is enough for thirty households to live in a year.

But this silver was not enough to wander around the Qinhuai River for ten days. A famous prostitute gave at least ten or twenty taels of silver from top to bottom for the first time. He bought at least fifty taels of clothes for girls, and gave him a few dozen taels of jewelry. He had a few taels of silver on the table. He had no more than a few taels of silver on the Qinhuai prostitute. The expenses at this level were still considered to be the middle and lower level, and it was not really the first-class expense.

It is a matter of spending a thousand taels of money on a literati and calligraphy, antiques, and it is not uncommon to build a garden, build a pond and pavilion at a time. It is not uncommon to spend thousands of taels and tens of thousands of taels at a time.

As for luxury goods such as ginseng Dongzhu fur, the price is also quite expensive.

In this world, the gap between the rich and the poor has become even bigger as Longwan opens the sea. The poor are like farmers in the north and northwest who eat Guanyin soil and eat tree bark. They can't survive and can only rebel.

The rich are the officials, gentry, sea merchants and salt merchants in Jiangnan, who can spend a lot of money just to win the smile of the beauty.

Min Yuanqi is one of the poor and poor people. He has at least twenty taels of silver, Min Yuanjin and Liang Shifa, Yang Zhijin and Gao Cuncun, Min Yuanzhong and others, plus ordinary flag troops, plunder the property of everyone under the general office... and it will not exceed one hundred taels of silver.

If we include those thin fields and thatched huts under our names, we can make up three hundred taels of taels, but who would have lost his mind and ran to buy those saline-alkali land and broken huts?
Chapter completed!