All Heavens and Worlds Modified History System

Chapter 285: The soldiers and horses have not moved, but the food and grass go first

"Chief, five days from now will be the day for distributing salt."

A salt trader reported to Chen Ran, "Among the four counties of Puzhou, Juancheng and Puyang counties are Wang Xianzhi's territory. Our salt is sold to Linpu County and Lei Ze County."

Chen Ran, who was squatting on the ground busy fiddling with something, asked without even looking up, "How many offline people are there?"

"There are six groups in Linpu County and five groups in Lei Ze County."

People like Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao were big salt smugglers, and usually controlled the private salt business in an entire state.

They are actually similar to general contractors, mainly responsible for obtaining goods and providing sources of supply.

The ones who actually go door to door, to towns and villages, selling by the bushel or by the pound are the downstream employees in various places.

The most important requirement for being a general contractor is to be able to provide enough goods.

"Go and inform your subordinates that the price of salt will be increased this time, by twenty cents per bucket."

The salt collector who came to report was embarrassed and said, "Chief, our salt price is higher than Wang Xianzhi's. If we raise the price, I'm afraid everyone will run to Wang Xianzhi to get salt."

"Explain it to them clearly." Chen Ran finally stood up. "The salt this time is of high quality and is definitely worth the price. Let them bring enough goods."

Chen Ran’s confidence comes from technology.

The ancients were not stupid. They certainly knew that rock salt, or mineral salt, could not be eaten directly.

Maybe we don’t know that there are too many impurities in it, but at least we know that eating mineral salt directly can kill people.

In the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty, people ate salt from salt ponds.

Guanzhong Hedong and other places are provided with salt by the Hedong Salt Lake.

The salt in these salt ponds is extracted through the method of cultivating fields and drying them in the sun, and its quality is already very good.

In Sichuan and Shu, well salt is the main source of production.

Needless to say, people in the coastal areas all eat sea salt.

The only difference is that here in the Central Plains, there is no other place to rely on, and no matter where the salt is transported from, the transportation cost is very high.

The cost here mainly comes from the checkpoint fees set up privately by various military towns.

Not only do you have to pay for crossing the road, you also have to pay for crossing the river.

Basically, if you walk any distance of thirty to fifty miles, you have to pay a toll.

Such high costs will naturally fall on the people in the end.

The local salt dealers innovated the technology to carry out preliminary purification of local rock salt.

Although there are still a lot of impurities, it is at least edible.

After all, the price of imported salt is too high.

The people, who had long been impoverished, could not afford to eat it at all, and could only eat rock salt, which they knew was poisonous but could still afford.

The hardships of life for ancient people are hard to imagine for people in the modern world.

This was during the powerful Tang Dynasty. In the Qing Dynasty, people were so poor that the whole family couldn't even afford a pair of pants!

"It's just filtering. We learned that in school."

"Where are the people?" Chen Ran called for the people to start working. "Put all the rock salt into the stone mill and grind it all."

Rock salt is similar to stone. If you want to purify and filter it, the first thing you need to do is crush it.

Rock salt of different sizes, packed in burlap bags, is thrown into the millstone and ground into powder as the millstone turns.

"Put all this salt powder in the pool."

Chen Ran transformed the pond in the Shangjiawubao garden into a pool.

He poured the salt powder into the water and personally stirred it in the pool with a wooden stick to allow the salt powder to fully dissolve in the water.

As hundreds of bags of rock salt were ground and sent into the pool, feeling that the saturation was almost reached, Chen Ran called on the salt workers to scoop out the solution and transfer it to the filtration pool nearby.

This is a large pool newly built by the bricklayer. It is ten feet square and its base is three feet above the ground.

The pool is covered with thick linen, and the solution is poured in and passed through the linen, leaving larger particles of impurities on the linen.

Basically, you have to change the linen cloth every time you scoop out ten buckets of solution.

Looking at the linen stained with impurities, Chen Ran shook his head repeatedly, "This is simply not treating people as human beings."

In the modern world, anyone who dares to sell this stuff as salt will probably be beaten to death.

But in the late Tang Dynasty, the extremely poor people had no choice but to eat this thing even though they knew it was poisonous.

Because there is no choice.

The base of the filtration pool is three feet high, with a diversion hole on one side into which a wooden tube is inserted. The filtered salt liquid falls through the wooden tube into a large wooden basin placed on the ground.

When the basin is full, Chen Ran will ask the salt collector to take it away and filter it again in the corner of the yard.

This time it was charcoal wrapped in sackcloth, and wood ash.

The charcoal is used to absorb impurities, while the wood ash is used to precipitate chemicals such as magnesium and calcium.

Honestly speaking, this method can only be said to have greatly reduced impurities and harmful substances, but it is still far from meeting the salt standards in the modern world.

But Chen Ran had no other choice as his conditions were limited.

After multiple filtrations, the salt water has become slightly clearer.

Then it is poured into the last pool for drying.

After the water evaporates, what you get is salt crystals.

The salt workers were all ecstatic when they saw the white salt in the drying pool.

"Isn't this the same salt as in the Hedong Salt Pond?"

"More than that! It should be better than Hedong salt!"

"As long as we can make the same as Hedong salt, we will make a fortune~~~" Although the salt in the Hedong Salt Lake is almost endless, the problem is that the freight and tolls for transporting it are too high.

They can now get high-quality salt by themselves, which is no less than the Hedong salt, and they can also save on shipping and tolls, so all the profits are retained.

"I'll add twenty coins per bucket." Picking up a piece of salt and crushing it in his hands, Chen Ran smiled and said, "Not too expensive, right?"

The salt collectors were overjoyed and said, "An extra two hundred coins is not expensive!"

It is impossible to increase the price by 200 wen. If the price is increased by 200 wen per dou, it will almost catch up with the price of official salt.

The most important thing is that no matter how good the food is, it is useless if the price is so high that ordinary people cannot afford it.

For this kind of thing, small profits but quick turnover is the way to go.

After all, the cost is too low. Puyang has rock salt mines and we have as much raw material as you need.

As for labor costs, labor is the least valuable thing these days.

"Tell the gangs below," Chen Ran instructed the salt workers, "to take some to Wang Xianzhi's territory and sell them."

A dou weighs ten jin, and the price increase is only twenty wen, which means only two wen is added to each jin of salt.

But in terms of quality, there is a world of difference.

The people of Puyang are naturally willing to spend a few cents more to buy better salt.

Chen Ran's plan was to first take over Wang Xianzhi's business and then expand it to the surrounding areas to earn a large amount of wealth and materials.

With money and food in hand, you can recruit soldiers and buy horses.

After receiving the treasure, Chen Ran immediately asked the salt workers, "When Pang Xun was defeated and killed a few years ago, his troops were scattered. Are there any here in Puzhou?"

The so-called Pang Xun Rebellion refers to a rebellion among soldiers stationed in Guilin several years ago.

The Tang Dynasty's troops guarding the border were usually limited in time.

During the Xiantong period, the imperial court recruited soldiers in the Xu and Si areas to fight against the Nanzhao Kingdom which was attacking Jiaozhi.

Among them, eight hundred people were assigned to garrison Guilin.

It was originally agreed that they would guard the border for three years, but they have been doing so for five years and there is still no one to replace them.

In the smoke-filled and humid south, life is difficult and full of crises.

Coupled with the fact that they had been away from home for many years and missed their hometown, these Guilin border guards launched a rebellion.

They fought their way back to their hometown from Guilin and defeated countless imperial troops. At its largest, the army even expanded to 200,000.

Although the imperial court eventually mobilized a large army, killed the leader Pang Xun, and suppressed this large-scale rebellion.

However, the weakness of the Tang Dynasty was exposed by this rebellion and was exposed to the whole world.

The imperial court lost all its authority and control over the Liangjiang and Lianghuai regions, leaving only its influence over Guanzhong.

Ambitious people from all over the country also stepped onto the stage.

These have nothing to do with Chen Ran. What he wants to do is to gather the remnants of the army that were scattered after Pang Xun's defeat a few years ago.

Although they were called remnants, they were actually soldiers who had fought against the imperial army and even won many victories.

Although they were eventually defeated by the Shatuo people, their fighting ability was unquestionable.

When Pang Xun's army was at its peak, he even defeated the Wei Bo army.

"Boss," the salt miners said with a smile, "Many of us who smuggle salt are former deserters. Some have gathered in the mountains and become bandits, and some have become wild men hiding in the deep mountains and forests."

"Don't mention the bandits." Chen Ran said immediately, "Those who have hidden in the deep mountains and old forests, who can find a way to contact them and recruit them to work for me?"

Chen Ran said that he was in need of people who had experience in battle and would rather hide in the mountains and forests than be bandits.

The saltmen were a little confused. "Chief, are you serious?"

"I never lie to men."

"But there are a lot of them, and it's not easy to support them."

The status of warriors in the late Tang Dynasty was extremely high. If you thought you would be treated like the imperial guards of the Song Dynasty or the military households of the Ming Dynasty, you were dreaming, because they would just draw their swords and chop you.

You can recruit them if you want. After all, for the soldiers, it doesn’t matter who they work for.

However, the treatment cannot be any worse.

The clothes on your body, the food in your mouth, the monthly salary and the rewards during the festivals, none of them can be lacking.

If there were less, the soldiers would make a commotion and the Jiedushi would have his head chopped off.

That’s not all. The soldiers’ armor, weapons, and even horses had to be purchased by the general.

The fubing system collapsed because there was no land to be divided, that is, there was no way to supply land under land annexation, and the only option was to use the recruitment system.

Under the conscription system, everything from head to toe and even the soldiers' families had to be prepared.

If you wanted to raise an army at the end of the Tang Dynasty, you first had to have enough money, food and military supplies.

"No problem." Chen Ran dared to recruit people, so he could certainly afford it. "Just go find someone."

As for the source of funds to support people, after the mid-Tang Dynasty, half of the court's tax revenue came from selling salt. Chen Ran decided to take a big bite of this big piece of fat meat.

High-quality salt appeared in Puzhou, and it was supplied in large quantities.

Not only did it greatly affect the sales of official salt from the imperial court, it also forced the private salt dealers in Puzhou into a state of no way out.

All the distribution agents came under Chen Ran's name, sold salt from him, and continued to live and do business.

But Wang Xianzhi, who was also the general contractor, was dumbfounded.

He could never have imagined that the young man he met at the ferry would cause such a big fuss!
PS: Thank you to book friend saynol for the 100-point reward support, I am very grateful!

Thanks to book friend 20190101105336553 for the 200-point reward support, I am very grateful!

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(End of this chapter)