Han Zuo Gaomen

Chapter 98
From the Qiantang River Ferry to Wukang Longxi Manor, although they traveled together all the way, Shen Zhezi and Yu Tan did not have many opportunities to communicate.

It's not that Yu Tan deliberately left him cold and distant, but that this old man spends all day sorting out and reading records about the method of drying salt in the car, even if he stays overnight and eats on the way, he is in a hurry.Occasionally, he discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the current salt making method and drying salt method with the salt cooker in his subordinate family, which shows that he attaches great importance to this new technique in his heart.

Shen Zhezi revealed two methods of drying salt through the old man, one is drying salt on a salt plate, and the other is drying salt in a salt field.

The former type is suitable for small households. As long as the salt mud is scraped, brine poured, and brine poured carefully in places near the sea, one family can make several salt plates. As long as there is sunshine, there will be continuous energy. Produces salt.Moreover, the salt obtained in this way is not low in quality and can be eaten directly.

The latter type is suitable for large-scale production. The pools are built directly on the beach to store water. As the seawater evaporates, the seawater is introduced into different brine ponds in sequence, and the brine with extremely high concentration is dried out, poured into the crystallization pond, and finally the salt is dried out. .But this kind of large-scale operation, because of the lack of a boiling link, the salt obtained in the end has a lot of impurities, which can only be regarded as coarse salt.If you want to purify, you need to carry out secondary processing.

Compared with the boiled salt method, the main convenience of the sun-dried salt method is to save a lot of fuel consumption, save labor and effort, and save costs, but the output can be greatly improved.As for the disadvantage, it is limited by the weather. Once the rain continues, there will be no output all day long, resulting in a salt shortage.But in just a few summer months, the output can exceed a year's hard work in the old method.

No matter how you compare it, compared to the boiling salt method, the drying salt method is an improvement.

Compared with using this technology blockade as a tool for his own profit, Shen Zhezi feels that it is more profitable to push it to the coastal areas.Salt production is also an industry that consumes a lot of manpower. The Shen family is currently in a labor shortage. Even if they have the technology, they cannot invest a lot of manpower in large-scale production.

And if the technology is promoted, the benefits are obvious, and it is of great significance to the Shen family's management of Kuaiji.

People are all chasing profit and throwing themselves into the sea, which is more conducive to the development of Zhoushan by the Shen family.Secondly, it can alleviate the contradictions in the inland development of Kuaiji, and reduce the local people's resistance to the introduction of overseas Chinese to the south for reclamation.

The third is to be able to increase a large amount of taxes. Salt plates and salt fields are new means of production. Unlike land, each family bases their own fertilizers. The county government can quickly register and register, and grasp a larger source of taxation. The effect is sure It is far better than pushing hard to break the ground.

Each of these meanings is much greater than the Shen family's monopoly on salt harvesting.Shen Zhezi was not a kind person, and if he wanted to support the Northern Expedition, it was impossible to last for too long with the tax revenue from the court, and he didn't trust those northern and southern masters at all.Only by mastering huge financial resources can one gain greater initiative.

Therefore, after the implementation of the sun-salt method, the management of Kuaiji must be raised to a new height, even if it does everything, it must hold the heart of the three Wus in its own hands.

Yu Tan's emphasis on the sun-dried salt method exceeded Shen Zhezi's expectations, which shows that he is eager to make contributions.

The more people he came into contact with, the more Shen Zhezi discovered that when people talk about the Eastern Jin Dynasty, they must call it Xuanxu Wuwei, which is actually quite generalized.At least in the early years of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the mountains and rivers were turbulent and the country was not stable. People nowadays still have a lot of heart to do things. Whether it is for the family or the country, regardless of their respective structures, there is indeed no shortage of attempts.

The freedom of being born and the difficulty of entering the world, almost every time people feel anxious and confronted in their hearts.

It should have been in the Yonghe period when Wang Xizhi's Lanting Collection really became a complete fantasy and inaction became the dominant public opinion.Most of the elderly Nandu died, and the children of each family were stuck in the status quo and had no talents.But even in that period, there were still Qiao Guohuan's sudden emergence, and they repeatedly used troops against the north.

This is a complicated world, and any single label seems unfair.

For example, Yu Tan, an old man in his sixties, still has to run around to take up the post. His purpose and integrity need not be discussed in detail. As long as his behavior can bring good influence to the world, it is worthy of recognition.

It is the knowledge and characteristic that a superior person should have.Although Shen Zhezi has not yet taken the position, he has long regarded himself as a reserve soldier, and feels that he should be able to accommodate different talents within his structure.

When he arrived in Wukang, Yu Tan personally went to the Shen family's old house to pay a visit to the elders of the clan. He has become the governor of this place, and he must show kindness to the Shen family, the local tyrant of Wu Xing, no matter what.What's more, he already has a tacit understanding with Shen Chong, and they are allies with each other, and they are no longer tit for tat.

The Shen family also had a friendly attitude towards Yu Tan, and gave a large sum of money to settle down. In fact, the settlement fee that the Yu family had provided to Shen Chong in Kuaiji not long ago was transferred back to Yu Tan, and the transportation cost was saved by depositing and withdrawing in another place.

At the same time, the more than a thousand official households that the Shen family set aside from the Wuxing County Mansion were all returned.This is Shen Zhezi's intention. In this way, it can urge the Yu family in Kuaiji to return the official and military households quickly, and secondly, it can highlight the Yan family.

The Yan family's greed for people is unquestionable, especially the free labor of the county officials and households, which occupies a lot more than the Shen family.After all, in the past few years when there was no prefect, Yan Ping, as the county magistrate, was already the highest official in Wuxing County.It is quite difficult for his family to take the initiative to return this part of Dingkou.

Yu Tan also gave the Shen family a lot of face, and even stayed in the Shen family study for a few days to teach the scriptures to the Shen family's children.At present, this is already a rare gesture of goodwill, which will make Shen Jiaqing's hopes rise further.

After returning to the village, Shen Zhezi found Qian Feng immediately and confessed to Qian Feng that the father and son conspired together.

After Qian Feng heard this, his eyes widened and he exclaimed: "Everyone admires the huge profits in the salt industry. Using sun-dried salt instead of boiled salt will directly destroy the foundation of Yan's family. If Mr. Yu wants to If this method is carried out in the county, it will definitely be incompatible with the Yan family."

Shen Zhezi also nodded with a smile. The salt industry is widely involved and related to people's livelihood. Such a large technological improvement will drive the upgrading of the entire industry and even cause considerable social changes.Under such a general situation, the stronger the original industry, the greater the damage will be suffered. As the leading big salt family in Wuzhong, how could the Yan family be exempted!

Originally, in the salt cooking industry, if you want to gain an advantage, you must first master a large number of salt fields, second, you must master a large population, and third, you must master a large amount of fuel.Only when all three are available can we be called an industry oligarchy.The Yan family has done extremely well in these aspects, so he can become a salt tycoon with a large amount of production resources in his hands. With his huge output, he can even control the price of salt in Sanwu.

However, the sun-dried salt method directly ignores the fuel factor that limits the scale of the salt industry, making the advantages of traditional salt companies disappear, lowering the threshold for industry entry, and facing competitors like wolves.

For the Yan family, in order to maintain the huge reed ponds that supply fuel, the price paid is not small. Suddenly these reed ponds become meaningless, and it is unacceptable both emotionally and in terms of benefits!

Shen Zhezi could already imagine how the Yan family would be distraught after learning about the method of drying salt.In order to maintain their own advantages and status in the salt industry, their first reaction must be to resist the promotion of the solar salt method. Even if they want to transform, they must buy a buffer time.Therefore, there must be a collision with Yu Tan.

Even in later generations, how many industry giants collapsed because they could not keep up with the industrial upgrading brought about by technological innovation!

In particular, the Yan family still hides a large number of people in the reed pond. If this large reed pond suddenly loses its meaning, how will the population in it be hidden?

Qian Feng has always been full of enthusiasm for such conspiracies and calculations. After pondering for a while, he said to Shen Zhezi: "The method of boiling salt has been passed down from ancient times to the present, and people trust it. The new method of drying salt may not be smooth at first. The old Yan family spread rumors, or attached ghosts and gods to obstruct them, and the common people are stupid. Although this method is good, they may not dare to do it. This has to be guarded against."

When Shen Zhezi heard this, he was slightly taken aback. He only thought that the old salt family and those with vested interests would resist the new salt law, and even armed conflicts would occur, but he hadn't considered rumors, which are a big killer of public opinion.

Hearing Qian Feng's reminder, Shen Zhezi suddenly came to his senses.Technology promotion is still secondary, and concept change is the most important.For today's people, boiling salt is a well-established method, but drying salt is unheard of.They may not have the concept of high-temperature sterilization, but if someone spreads rumors that the new salt is harmful, or even life-threatening, then people will naturally believe in the old salt and dare not lightly taste the new salt.

As for the theory of ghosts and gods, it is even more illusory and impossible to refute.Droughts, floods, locust plagues, and comets soaring into the sky, the emperor will punish himself.In this era when the theory of ghosts and gods is prevalent, if it is said that the new salt law collides with ghosts and gods, and ordinary people dare not act rashly, how can they explain it?
Thinking of this, Shen Zhezi realized that he was taking things for granted. He only thought that new technology would definitely promote production, but he ignored people's fear of new things.But once he realized this problem, he immediately had a countermeasure: "My uncle reminded me, I will immediately let Yinfang print the relevant atlas and distribute it to the villagers, saying that this method is good. I also want to remind Mr. Yu, It is best to find out the origin of the sun-dried salt method from ancient books, and then try to promote this method after it has been spread all over the world."

Shen Zhezi is also a master when it comes to public opinion warfare, especially since he had the experience of making his own ancestors into gods years ago, so he must be fully prepared for any loopholes in the plan that he finds.The improvement of the technology in the printing workshop, although it is still not up to the requirements of printing large volumes of scriptures, but some simple graphic leaflets are more than enough.

Qian Feng was also happy to see that Shen Zhezi responded so quickly, and then said: "You can also attack the Yan family first. Once the new salt law spreads, the family may be damaged, so they must set up another business. You can start with a few The estate of the manor is sold to his family, and he works hard and divides his strength."

When Shen Zhezi heard this, he couldn't help laughing, and had a deeper understanding of Qian Feng's conspiracy.

Yan's family wants to hedge risks, and transferring assets to farmland is the first choice.The Shen family was already the largest landlord in Wu Xing, and a lot of land was not cultivated because there was not enough labor to cultivate it. This could just attract the manpower and material resources of the Yan family to invest in it, and it could also disperse the strength of its Jiaxing base camp.When their family is destroyed, they will be annexed!
　Make it a habit. If you don’t say a few words at the end of the chapter, you will always feel that there is something missing. But if you want to say happy holidays, it’s a bit embarrassing. . .Alas, another round of recommendation tickets. . .Thank you very much! ! !
　　


(End of this chapter)