I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 170 A Huge Project

"While completing the project, we must also do our best to protect every civilian friend who works for us. They are first and foremost citizens of the Ming Dynasty and compatriots of the Chinese nation. We must treat our compatriots well."

Everyone present kept nodding.

"At the same time, they are also the backbone of each family, they are fathers, husbands, and sons. Every person who dies because of our mismanagement will break a family, so please work hard."

"Yes! Your Highness!" Everyone stood up. Chen Hong noticed that many people had red eyes because of Zhu Houxuan's speech, and their morale became very high.

In fact, at first he did not understand the meticulous care that Zhu Houxun, a great prince of the Ming Dynasty, had for the common people. But later, after listening to his teacher's lectures on the principles of the Chinese nation at night school, he gradually accepted this value.
Zhu Houxuan pressed down his hands and asked everyone to sit down. Then he picked up a thin wooden stick, pointed to the map behind him and said, "Many people still don't know what our project is going to do. I will explain it again today."

Everyone present stared at the map and listened to Zhu Houxuan's explanation.

Zhu Houxuan pointed to the place marked on the map, and said: "Our project is very simple. We will build a huge salt field on the beach not far from us."

Then he pointed to a dotted line on the map and said, "The preliminary design of this huge salt field is 200,000 acres. We have to snatch this 200,000 acres of salt field from the sea. We will build a 62-mile-long dam along this line when the tide goes out." Zhu Houxun's tone suddenly became sonorous.

The silence in the tent was broken. Many people who heard about the plan for the first time looked at the map in doubt and discussed it in a low voice.

Zhu Houxuan quietly watched everyone discussing there. With current technical conditions, the salt field can only be built like this. The first step in salt drying is to absorb the tide, that is, to put seawater into the salt field. If it were in later times, a pump could be used to pump seawater into the salt field, but with current technical conditions, it is difficult.

Zhu Houxun now has a steam engine for pumping water, but the pumping power is just a drop in the bucket compared to the needs of the salt field. To say it is a drop in the bucket is an exaggeration; it should be called a drop in the bucket.

Moreover, seawater is highly corrosive to steam engines, and the cost of using and manufacturing steam engines is also very high, so pumping water is simply not suitable.

The only thing left is to rely on a large amount of manpower to carry sea water, but this is not conducive to reducing costs.

So Zhu Houxuan chose the current plan - taking advantage of the terrain!
The tides in the Bohai Bay are not big. The difference between high tide and low tide is only a little over 2 meters. The difference between mid tide and low tide is only about meters compared to low tide. This is the result obtained by Zhu Houxun after he had people observe here for a month and visited nearby fishermen. This is not much different from later generations.

The advantage of this beach in Nanbao is that the sea water drops by one and a half meters at low tide, but a flat mudflat seven or eight kilometers wide is exposed, which is an excellent terrain for building a salt field.

Zhu Houxuan only needed to build a dam at low tide to enclose the beach, and then build seven or eight sluice gates on the dam. After the dam was built, the beach was leveled and a salt drying field was built.
When the tide is high, the gates are opened to allow seawater to flow into the salt field. After all the salt fields in the salt field are filled with seawater, the gates are closed to prevent seawater from continuing to flow in.

Then we wait for the sun to evaporate the seawater, and then collect the crude salt precipitated from the salt fields. After the crude salt is collected, we open the gates again to let the seawater in and start the next cycle.

In this way, crude salt can be produced at a very low cost.

In fact, the salt drying method was invented very early. There are already quite a few scattered salt drying fields in Huaibei in the Ming Dynasty, but none of them have formed a large scale.

Because the production of salt was controlled by the imperial court, the initial investment to build such a large salt field was huge, and the imperial court had no interest in doing so. Anyway, the output of the salt-boiling method was enough, and the salt farmers were exploited and not rich, so it was naturally impossible for them to build salt fields. Even if they did build salt fields, they would have to worry about the salt fields being taken away.

"The dam we are going to build is eight meters wide at the bottom, two meters wide at the top, and three meters high (I'm too lazy to convert it into feet and chi). It is mainly made of soil, and there will be eight sluices on the dam." Zhu Houxuan continued to explain.

He calculated the amount of earthwork, which was about 4.65 million cubic meters. In addition, the salt fields needed to be leveled, so he directly summoned 100,000 laborers.

"We have mastered the pattern of the tides, and we will have four to five hours of construction time every day."

Zhu Houxuan planned to build an earthen dam first. He also wanted to build a concrete one, but the production cost of cement is still too high now. If the earthen dam is regularly inspected and maintained, it can last for 20 to 30 years. By then, the price of cement will probably drop, and then he can build a concrete one.

Zhu Houxuan introduced every detail of the project in detail and assigned every task of the project to everyone present. Everyone present gradually unified their thoughts and devoted themselves to the work.
Zhou's father and son followed the head of the village and the yamen runners and finally arrived at Nanbao. When they were told where they had arrived, Zhou Laosan couldn't believe it.

But he was still very happy to work at the seaside, because he could get extra food by catching seafood, which saved a lot of food and money.
As soon as their team arrived, they were led away by a young man with a southern accent. The young man spoke very kindly and was dressed very smartly. There were no patches on his dark green clothes, which made Zhou Laosan feel in awe.

He brought a group of people from Zhoujia Village to an open space and told them in an imperative tone where to go to drink water, where to go to the toilet, where to eat, etc. He also told them a bunch of rules and the punishments for not following them.
Zhou Laosan felt a little dizzy after hearing this.
He had performed corvée labor many times, but this was the first time he had seen so many rules. He thought that since it was a royal project, there were many requirements.

But he did notice one thing, the punishments that the young people just mentioned were mostly three types: deducting wages, forfeiting meals and caning, the most serious of which was expulsion.
The caning of Zhou Laosan was not unfamiliar, but the expulsion was a little funny. After being expelled, would he not have to do corvée labor? That was not what everyone dreamed of!

However, Zhou Laosan also noticed the two punishments of deducting wages and forcing them to skip meals, which made him wonder, "Will they really provide meals and wages?"

But lunch started soon. They came to the dining area under the guidance of the young man. They lined up in three teams as required. As a result, everyone got excited as soon as the food was served.
Zhou Laosan looked at the big bowl of rice in shock, with only one thought in his mind: eating dry food? I didn't dare to eat such good food during the spring ploughing.
(End of this chapter)