Salt is a great treasure of the country. Salt has always been an important item for human beings to survive and reproduce.
In the early years of Taizu of the Wei Dynasty, the Salt Transfer Department of the Huaidu and Huaidu capitals was located in Hailing, and later in Yangzhou.
The Lianghuai Salt Division has three branches: Hailing, Tongzhou (Nantong), and Huai'an, and two salt approval laboratories in Hailing, Baoba, and Huai'an.
The production of Huaihuai salt industry in the two dynasties was concentrated in the ten farms in Huaizhong under the jurisdiction of the Hailing branch.
There are 717 kitchens, 4,279 brine ponds, 5,316 pavilions in the ten farms in Huaizhong, and about 183,296 liters of salt are produced.
There are more than 352,000 salts produced in the Huaihe River every year. It can be seen that the salt production of the Hailing Salt Field exceeds half of the salt production of the two Huaihe Rivers, which is very important.
You Xiao immediately gave 100,000 yuan to the Xu family. Although this was the remaining salt in the kitchen owner's hands, one can imagine the huge capital involved.
The Hailing branch has ten farms including Fu'an, Anfeng, Liangduo, Kuancha, Jiaoxie, Dongtai, Heduo, Dingxi, Caoyan and Xiaohai.
Among them, Tuochachang is also known as Nansha. Due to the impact of sea water in ancient times, sand gradually gathered into land during the Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties.
In the early Tang Dynasty, it was set up as a Jianyan Tea Pavilion, and people began to move here.
The reason why the tea tree got its name is because it is said that in the Tang Dynasty, there were two palm trees and one tea tree growing on the beach.
Fishermen went to the sea to catch fish, and the sea and sky were the same color. They often lost their way, so they used the two tea trees as markers to go back and forth. Then they set up stalls to barter goods, built sheds to live in, and dug wells to form a market, which was named tea. It has been used since the Tang and Song Dynasties.
At this time, a chubby old man in silk satin led a group of stove leaders and Baojia chiefs to stand at the entrance of the tea field, waiting for the distinguished guests to arrive.
One of the stove leaders came to the old man's side and said, "Director Dou, why did the Xu family come to visit this time?"
The old man shook his head and said: "After all, we won't be exempt from the beach money this year, just wait and see!"
Not long after, they saw a group of people walking towards them in the distance. One of them was sitting on a shoulder cart being carried by two servants.
When the group of people came closer, Director Dou was startled when he saw the person coming: "It's Chang Yue Gong, hurry up, come up with me to pick him up!"
That's right, the person who came to the Xu family to discuss tea tea this time was Xu Dai himself. He was determined to get the position of judge of the Shandong Salt Division. The tea tea place was the largest among the ten places in Huaizhong, and it was not very far from Hailing, so He wanted to use his identity as the second talker of the Xu family to sing the first drama well.
"Chang Yue Gong!" Director Dou and the prominent figures in the tea farm all bowed and saluted.
Xu Dai had something to ask for. Hearing this, he immediately got off the carriage and helped the old farm leader up, saying, "Mingsheng, why are you here in person?"
Mingsheng is Director Dou's nickname. As he gets older, no one has used his nickname for a long time.
When he heard this name, Director Dou burst into tears. He remembered that his father took him to the Xu family in Hailing when he was a child. At that time, Duke Wen Jian of the Xu family was still there, and he was the Xu Dai he knew at that time.
Xu Dai was born in a family of poetry and calligraphy when he was young. He rarely had the opportunity to meet outsiders and could only study hard in the study all day long. Director Dou's father wanted his son to make friends with the second young master of the Xu family, so he temporarily stayed at the Xu family. In the past few days, I gave Dou Chang some scattered silver every day and asked him to take Xu Dai to the market to buy food.
Decades have passed, and the memories of his childhood are still vivid in his mind. Xu Dai looked at the sparse and gray hair pulled up by Director Dou and sighed: "Decades have passed, and Brother Dou is old!"
Elder Douchang burst into tears: "Chang Yue Gong also has wrinkles at the corners of his eyes!"
Xu Dai subconsciously touched the corners of his eyes and smiled bitterly: "Can you not grow old? You have to worry about all the messy things in the clan. Old Dou, how have you been living these years?"
Director Dou wiped away the tears from his eyes and said with a smile, "Thanks to the Xu family, life is pretty good!"
The two old men helped each other into the pavilion. As soon as they sat down, someone offered them tea.
Director Dou introduced Xu Dai: "Chang Yue Gong, here are all the kitchen leaders and security chiefs of the farm. I heard that the Xu family has something to call upon. No, they are all here."
Xu Dai looked at the people outside the pavilion and showed a rare smile. Everyone said, "This second master of the Xu family in Hailing is quite kind."
But Xu Dai then asked: "Old Dou, how has the situation of the tea farm been in recent years?"
When Lao Dou heard this, he sighed and said: "Our tea farm has more than 3,800 cooks, 170 pavilions, 600 kitchens, and 170 brine pools. Although it is not as good as Dongtai among the ten farms in Huaizhong, it still has It’s also much larger than venues like Lusi’s!”
"However, the situation of Zao Ding running away from home has become more and more serious in recent years. Even if the court sets up a security guard, it is still of little use!"
There were many reasons for Zao Ding's escape, and the situation was very complicated. Xu Dai had also heard about it, but at this time, he did not want to continue talking about this issue, which would not be conducive to the serious business later.
So he patted Lao Dou on the shoulder and said: "If you don't talk about him, I think you people are not short of money when it comes to dressing up!"
Lao Dou thought he had a close relationship with Xu Dai, so he smiled and said: "That's not just for our Xu family to enjoy the food. Which one of these people has not rented the Xu family's beach field? The Xu family has known about our difficulties for so many years, and has also We are not given a rent increase, so everyone is very grateful!"
Hearing this, Xu Dai smiled and nodded.
At this time, Lao Dou said: "Young Master Changyue has had a hard time coming all the way. I have prepared wine and food in my humble house. Please give me a favor!"
Xu Dai tapped Lao Dou with his finger and said with a smile: "You are still so polite!"
So he no longer sat on the chariot, and walked out of the pavilion with Lao Dou and chatted.
Not far from them is a place where salt is made.
There are three ways to make salt in the tea farm.
First, as mentioned before, put the reeds into the brine pond, wait for the reeds to be covered with brine, and then exposed to the sun to precipitate salt crystals.
The second is to make salt from plant ashes. In fact, you put burned plant ashes such as reeds into the brine pond. After the plant ashes enter the brine pond to absorb water, they form salt.
The third is the boiling method. Many people think that boiling salt is just a matter of scooping out the sea water and then putting it into a pot to boil.
In fact, this is not the case. The salinity of seawater is actually very low. It needs to be exposed to the sun to form brine and then boiled to obtain salt.
The cost of using wood for cooking is too high, so reeds and other materials are mostly used as fuel.
Xu Dai has assisted his eldest brother in running the Xu family for many years, and naturally has a deep understanding of the salt farm.
Thinking that the salt farm needs reeds everywhere, and that his Xu family is the largest beach land owner, Xu Dai became more confident in persuading everyone in the salt farm.
At this moment, suddenly there were about a dozen guys dressed as businessmen in the distance, pushing and shouting one person towards the crowd.
Director Dou frowned when he saw this, and wanted to ask someone to drive away the trouble.
But these people were already very close. When one of the farmers saw Director Dou, one of them even trotted a few steps, knelt down and said with a flattering smile: "Chief Director, you guys caught an escaped chef! I'm about to look for you to grow old." Well, please be humble!"
