Hualin naturally had his reasons for choosing boiled salt instead of the lower-cost sun-dried salt. The first was objective conditions. Sun-dried salt requires fine weather and hot sunshine, both of which are not available in Yishan. When he first arrived there After visiting Shuanghe County, I discovered that Shuanghe County is warmer than Jiming Village. This warmth is not due to the power of the real immortal like Qingzhou City, but purely due to geographical reasons - Shuanghe County is not governed by the Immortal Family for a short period of time. It was only a short two hundred years, and within these two hundred years it was considered a territory of little value. It existed purely as the first cordon to prevent the barbarians. No fairy family would invest any resources here, let alone Forget about changing the climate for it.
And Yishan is colder than Jiming Village.
The poor people in Jiming Village can still rely on firewood to avoid the cold at night, but the Yishan people have to rely on the warmth of the fire pond or the body temperature of the livestock at night. This also leads to the fact that even if the two sides live in the same thatched hut, the indoor layout is very different. same. In homes outside the mountains such as Jiming Village, there is often a square table that doubles as an altar in the center of the house. This is the most valuable piece of furniture in ordinary homes after the bed (if they can afford to get out of bed) to worship their ancestors and other people. The god displays the incense burner and a few valuable furnishings that the owner is proud of. The stove pit is usually located in an outbuilding outside the house. It is a lowly place that no one with any status is willing to set foot in. In the houses in Yishan, there is a fire pit in the center of the house where fires are kept burning all day long. Their ancestors and gods are either displayed beside the fire pit, or are considered to be suspended on the fire pit, absorbing the aroma of tributes. Women bake cakes and cook by the firepit, while men worship gods and sharpen knives by the firepit. In the evening, masters and slaves gather around the firepit and rely on the blessing of the God of Fire to spend the cold night in Yishan.
Only when they went out to rob slaves at night, they would leave their cherished firepit, put on thick cloaks made of coarse wool, and pass gourds full of wine to each other, relying on these to survive the cold night. Outside the mountains, a teetotal young man would be considered a good candidate for night guard duty, whereas in the mountains he might freeze to death on the first night.
Because of these differences, Hualin chose boiling salt, but the benefits of boiling salt did not end there.
The terrain in the Yishan Mountains is relatively flat, and there is actually a lot of land that can be cultivated. However, the agriculture of the Yi people is almost non-existent. They hardly know what watering and fertilizing are. When they want to cultivate a piece of land, they will set fire to the mountain. , then sow the seeds, then return home, leave the rest to their beloved Guru, and then wait for the harvest season to harvest (if there is one). This extensive business model resulted in a small population and insufficient land. Considering the border areas they had abandoned due to attacks on each other, the land was even less available.
Years of wars, while fattening slave traders and warlords like Paigang Chieftain, also destroyed the possible prosperity of the entire Yishan Mountains. Many of the weak forces close to Paigang Chieftain's territory had to move to more desolate, remote and dangerous areas to avoid Paigang Chieftain's plunder, and the land they originally cultivated was not a place where Paigang Chieftain could safely send slaves to cultivate. Knowing that at any time they might return with a vengeance and take away the slaves he had sent to farm the land. He must wait until he has completely eliminated all surrounding forces before he can send slaves to farm these lands. He must also send capable warriors and priests to protect them from plunder by expeditions sent by other chieftains who occasionally pass by. Over time, these It is entirely possible that the warriors who were too far away from Gala Cave would betray Chieftain Paigang and secretly accumulate strength for their own descendants instead of handing over all their gains to Chieftain Paigang honestly.
Therefore, sending people to cultivate these lands is really a chore with extremely high costs and risks for Chieftain Paigang, but the harvest is pitiful. It is no wonder that he would rather spend a lot of money to invest in his priest's daughter or other capable warriors, but Large swathes of land were left uncultivated. There are a few capable warriors who can be sent out to plunder, and then by controlling the slave trade, the profits are firmly in their own hands. Why worry about agriculture?
The decline of agriculture forced them to rely on constant wars and plunder to reduce their population pressure.
What Hualin has to do now is to reverse the cycle.
The grass and trees needed to boil salt are a huge expense in other places, but it is not a problem at all in Yishan. Not to mention those steep mountain peaks, thanks to their poor field management, they can harvest enough for a whole year in their own fields. amount! After burning these weeds and trees that compete with crops for water, they become fertilizers that are beneficial to crops and can be used to increase crop nutrition and improve the land.
The large amount of manpower required to boil salt made the Yi people aware of their lack of manpower. In the past, all they needed were strong warriors who could plunder for the chieftain, so they could kill one or two at will just to "establish their authority" , three or more slaves who they think are of little value, not only for suppression, but also because their harvests are limited and the number of slaves they plunder often exceeds the number of people they can feed. The result of killing a few slaves is nothing more than starvation. Fewer young slaves will die, and they will not suffer from labor shortage. Now, they are overwhelmed by all the hard work assigned by their new masters, so that elderly slaves who were considered "old dogs" (meaning ready to be killed at any time) can now get a A little less status - they were thought to be good enough for personal use when boiling salt.
Hualin gave them a bamboo pot soaked in brine to cook salt. This kind of bamboo pot is not as easy to use as an iron pot. Even after treatment, it will still burn. It must be boiled over a slow fire under the strict supervision of the stove keeper. When it comes to boiling brine, if they still adhere to the sloppy style of the past, they will only get a pile of burnt bamboos and no salt after cooking for a year. In this case, the old slaves who have no physical strength but are patient also have value. reflect.
Of course, the most valuable of all products is boiled salt. Salt is the king of flavors, because others are just tastes, but salt is related to everyone’s life. Not only do people rely on it for strength, but livestock also rely on it. Salt is needed to make you fat, food needs salt to have flavor, and your heart needs salt to beat. By placing salt blocks in the barn, the owner does not have to hunt down his pigs and sheep all over the mountains with bows and arrows. The pigs and sheep that voluntarily return to the pen will leave behind the best thing in the fertile field, manure, in the barn. With salt, Galadong can get more benefits from agriculture, animal husbandry and trade than what Paigang Tusi can plunder.
Chief Paigang blinked, he was still a little doubtful about this.
