A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 174: Salt Smuggler
The sun cleared up after the snow.

It is a good time to make preserved food.
Early in the morning, Li Yi took Liu Heizi, Luo Er, Luo San, Luo Wu and a group of people to go shopping.

Feng Liulang's family bought pigs, Wang Xiangzhang's family bought sheep, and the two brothers Dafu and Dagui went to Chang'an to buy fish, and Wang Quji bought chickens and ducks.

I also swept away all the people who were selling rabbits, pheasants, voles, bamboo rats, weasels, roe deer, muntjacs and wild boars.

When making preserved food, besides the season and weather being important, another key factor is to use a lot of salt.

Although the system of collecting salt tax from mountains and seas by officials, which had been in place since the Spring and Autumn Period by Guan Zhong, was abolished starting from Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, the salt ban was lifted in the third year of Emperor Kaihuang's reign, and there was no salt tax, allowing officials and civilians to produce and sell salt,

It was not until the reign of Emperor Ruizong of Tang, Li Dan, that the no-tax system was abolished.

The salt ban was rarely lifted for 128 years.
During the prosperous Kaihuang era, salt was sold at an unusually low price, ten cents for a dou of salt, less than half the price of rice.

It was not until the seventh year of Daye when the country was in turmoil and salt production and sales were hindered that the price of salt began to rise. In Chang'an, the price of the worst salt, the Manyen salt from Jiechi, was more than 30 wen per catty, which was dozens of times more than before.

One liter of salt weighs more than 2,000 grams. One liter in the Tang Dynasty was 0.6 liters in later generations, which is still about 1,300 grams. One dou is 13 kilograms, which is about 22 jin in the Tang Dynasty.

Originally, one dou cost ten wen, and one jin cost less than half a wen. Now, one jin costs more than thirty wen, which is more than sixty times the price.

In fact, the salt that costs more than 30 cents per pound is Mansheng salt, which is the salt scooped directly from the salt pond when the south wind blows. It has many impurities and tastes bitter.

The salt dried in the Jiechi now costs about 100 coins per pound, which means it has increased by 200 times.

"Using salt to cure bacon? That's too extravagant!"

After hearing Li Yi's plan, Luo San couldn't help but keep talking about it.

In the past, during the Kaihuang period, when the Jiechi salt was good at ten coins per dou, ordinary people could only pickle one or two pieces of meat for the New Year, and only wealthy landlords would pickle more meat.

Nowadays, salt costs more than 100 yuan per pound. Who would be willing to use it to pickle meat?

"Ten pounds of meat requires one pound of salt. Pork costs one hundred and fifty coins per pound, and salt costs one hundred coins per pound. It's too expensive."

In the past, salt contained more impurities, so more salt had to be used. Otherwise, the meat would go bad and become infested with insects after the spring humidity returned. Adding more salt would help preserve it.

"Do we need so much salt?" Li Yi remembered that when making homemade bacon, only three taels of salt were used for ten kilograms of meat, and sometimes only two taels were used for pickled fish.

If you add three and a half taels of salt, it will be very salty. Anyway, you have a refrigerator. Generally, you can marinate it, dry it in the sun, smoke it, wash it, put it in the refrigerator, vacuum pack it and freeze it, and it won't go bad.

"If you put too little, it won't work. It will stink and be prone to insects. Ten pounds of meat needs at least one pound of salt."

Meat is expensive, salt is expensive too,

Ordinary people really can't afford to pickle bacon.

However, Li Yi was quite greedy for this. The cured food was salty and fragrant, especially the cured pork feet, which were very delicious when stewed. And if the ham was made well, it could be stored for several years.

The most important thing is that there are no refrigerators these days, so it is sometimes inconvenient to eat meat, especially in summer. It is more convenient to have some preserved meat.

"Actually, there's a way to preserve meat without salting it. Fry it in oil, put it in a jar, and seal it with oil. It can last a year without going bad."

The meat is fried without moisture and is sealed with oil, so even without adding salt, it can last for a year or two without going bad.

"You can make some jar meat, but it's not as delicious as bacon." Li Yi still likes bacon.

You can also make some air-dried meat.

Bacon has a better smoky flavor, and the same goes for smoked chicken and smoked duck.

As for the high price of salt,
Pork can be pickled at 150 coins per pound, so why would you be reluctant to spend the salt that costs 100 coins per pound?

"Salt less, just enough to eat. Aren't we planning to raise pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks next year? When we want to eat them, we can kill them and eat them fresh. It won't save a lot of salt.

A pound of salt costs a hundred coins, a hundred pounds of salt costs ten thousand coins, and ten thousand coins can buy three cows."

Liu Heizi said, "It's freezing cold now. One thousand coins can buy one of those disaster victims as a slave. Ten thousand coins can buy two or three families as slaves."

Such a comparison,

Li Yi felt that his plan to hold a large-scale preserved food event seemed quite sinful.

But on second thought, he is not a saint.

The world is so big and there are so many poor people. He can take care of everything. It is already remarkable that he can take care of himself first, then take care of his neighbors and improve the treatment of his tenants and workers.

It can't be that just because there are people in this world who can't get enough food, Li Yi can't eat meat, right?
Luo Er, who had been selling tofu his entire life and was used to careful calculations in small business, also said, "Doesn't A Lang have a salt field in Jiechi, east of the Yellow River? I heard it can produce two to three thousand stones of salt a year? Why not pickle it next year? Then our own salt will be cheaper."

Li Yi laughed heartily.

"That salt field can produce two to three thousand stones of salt a year through cultivation, brine irrigation, and salt drying. But when the south wind blows every year, we can just pick up the salt directly from the salt pond. It's a no-cost business."

Luo Eryi became excited when he heard this, "Alang, then we have to make arrangements early. After the New Year, we have to send people to look after the salt fields, build salt sheds and salt warehouses, recruit salt workers and salt craftsmen. When the south wind blows, we will quickly collect the raw salt. Even if the salt is of poor quality, isn't it worth more than 30 coins per catty when it is transported to Chang'an?"

It's just the labor cost of fishing and the shipping fee, this business is very profitable."

"The salty south wind has to wait until the season comes. Besides, do you really think anyone can go and collect and dry salt?"

Although the salt ban was abolished in the third year of Kaihuang, a no-salt tax system was implemented, allowing officials and civilians to collect and sell salt.

There is still a set of unspoken rules.
The unspoken rule is that this business has already been divided up by someone,
For example, Jiechi has two large pools and three small pools. The large salt pool has a total of 513 salt fields. Everyone knows that these salt fields are cash cows and treasure pots, so they have been fiercely contested for many years and have changed hands frequently.

Only those who occupy the salt fields can harvest the raw salt in the salt ponds.

It can be said,
The five salt ponds in Jiechi produced nearly one million dan of salt a year, but in fact, all of it was divided up by the nobles and powerful people. Even the market for selling Jiechi salt had already been divided up.
Each has its own territory,

Others don't want to get involved easily.

Now is also a change of dynasty,

Li Yi benefited from Li Shimin's influence. Li Yuan rewarded the King of Qin with thirteen salt fields, and Li Shimin gave one to Li Yi.

Don't look at the time when a dou of salt only cost ten coins during the Kaihuang era.
But the cost of salt is low. A salt field of about one acre can easily produce thousands of stones of salt a year. The method of clearing the fields and drying the salt is not like boiling the sea salt. It does not require firewood or a stove to boil the salt. It directly draws brine to irrigate and dry it. During the five-month salt harvesting season, a batch of salt can be harvested in five or six days if the weather is good.

The main cost of salt is actually transportation.

If the products are sold in surrounding areas such as Hedong, Henan, Guanzhong, etc., the transportation cost will be low and the profit will be high.

Of course, there are also some people who further process the salt they produce into better quality refined salt or fine salt, which they sell at a higher price.

Li Yi got a piece of salt field.
Indeed, I have the qualifications to make some salt.

Of course, he also had the qualifications to sell salt.

However, although they can mine and dry salt, where to sell the salt is a problem. Others have fixed salt sales spheres. If Li Yi does not have some strong connections, it will be very difficult for him to sell salt in other people's territories.

Now some people have started to contact Li Yi,
Some people want to buy Li Yi's salt fields directly, while others want to purchase the salt from Li Yi's salt fields.
Knowing that the salt fields were a cash cow, Li Yi certainly didn't want to sell them.

But the sales of salt are indeed a problem. If it is sold to salt merchants, the bulk of the profits may go to others.

He thought that if there was no place to sell it, he might consider purifying and processing the salt to make medium to high-end refined salt.
Maybe I'll find a way,

Or maybe he could just take advantage of Li Shimin's opportunity. He still had twelve salt fields, so he could sell them together.

Li Yi felt that sometimes the novels were indeed unreliable.

In the Romance of Sui and Tang Dynasties, Cheng Yaojin was a man who couldn't make a living and sold contraband salt. After being caught, he simply followed You Junda to rob the imperial treasury.

But,
From the third year of Kaihuang in the Sui Dynasty to Li Longji's father, there was no salt ban for 128 years. At that time, there was no distinction between official salt and private salt.

It was not until Li Longji and his son that the salt ban was reintroduced. At the beginning, the salt tax was not high, but it was gradually increased.

The salt tax continued to increase, and the price of salt soared, which made private salt profitable. This is why there were so many private salt dealers in the late Tang Dynasty.
Most of the heroes of the late Tang Dynasty came from the private salt trade, all because of the huge profits.

Huang Chao, Wang Xianzhi, Yang Xingmi, Wang Jian, no matter whether you were a failed scholar or a thief, those who had some ability all went to smuggle salt.

But nowadays there are no private salt dealers.

There is no difference between selling salt and selling grain and tofu. They are just ordinary goods, and you can make a little money to make a living.

Cheng Yaojin had also inquired about it. He did not have a blind mother, nor was he poor. He was only in his early thirties. The man from Dong'e, Jizhou, who produced donkey-hide gelatin, came from a powerful family for generations.
During the Daye period, bandits were rampant. Cheng Yaojin organized an armed force of hundreds of people, just like Li Yi had organized a security group before.
But he was not just pretending. The young and brave Cheng Yaojin led this armed force to suppress bandits and defend his hometown. Later, he joined Li Mi, was highly valued, and was awarded the title of General of the Cavalry of the Inner Army.

However, this time when Li Mi came to Chang'an to surrender, Cheng Yaojin did not come, and neither did Pei Xingyan, Qin Qiong, Luo Shixin, Shan Xiongxin, and Xu Shiji, the fierce generals of Wagang.
Only Wang Bodang came.

Cheng Yaojin would never have been a salt smuggler, never in his lifetime. This is like Xu Shiji, the great sage, who was not a master of the art of war. Xu Shiji's family was a prominent Gaoping clan, and he later settled in Caozhou, becoming the richest man in the area. He was not a strategist, but a fierce general.

Old Xu once said, "When I was twelve or thirteen, I was a rogue thief, killing anyone I met. When I was fourteen or fifteen, I was a difficult thief, killing anyone I disliked. When I was seventeen or eighteen, I was a good thief, killing people in battle. When I was twenty, I became a great general, using my troops to save people from death."

From being a rogue thief who killed anyone he saw, to later being a general who killed thieves he saw, he was no longer an experienced strategist holding a whisk, but an unparalleled warrior.

Senior Brother Wei Zheng went to Liyang to recruit Xu Shiji, a fierce man, but he didn't know what the situation was like. He went east, but there was chaos everywhere.

There is also Wang Shichong in the middle.
He specifically recommended Xiao Shisan to go along, hoping that the journey would be smooth.

Although he remembered that Xu Shiji had surrendered to the Tang Dynasty in history, he was not clear about the specific details.

When I think of the chaos in Kanto,
Especially since Shannan was being destroyed by the man-eating demon king Zhu Can,
He felt that in Guanzhong, he could eat pork at 150 coins per catty and salt at 100 coins per catty. Although it was a bit expensive, at least it was still available.

It's much better than those people in Kanto.

Yao Junsu of Puzhou City resisted Li Yuan from last autumn until this winter. The siege lasted for more than a year and people in the city were eating each other.

The people in Luoyang City were even more unfortunate. After several years of fighting, there was a long-term shortage of food, salt, firewood, and various supplies. It was unknown how many people starved to death.

The people in the south of Huaixi Mountain were even more unfortunate, as they encountered the man-eating devil Zhu Can and his man-eating bandit army.

After thinking it through, Li Yi decided to buy more fish, meat, chicken and duck to make preserved food.

After the bacon is made, it is easy to transport. If it is shipped to Kanto, especially Luoyang, it will definitely be very popular, right?
After all, it is meat and salt, so it is easy to preserve.

Even if it is not transported to the enemy area, it should be profitable to transport it to the border areas of Longyou and Lingwu.

Then there would be no worries about selling his own salt. He could engage in aquaculture as a sideline business on the estate, and slaughter animals in winter and salt them to make preserved meat.
Then sell it to the border, which is easy to transport and has no problem selling it, and the price will definitely be good.

(End of this chapter)