Prince Li You of the Great Tang Dynasty begs the noble families to their deaths!

"Coarse salt improvement involves removing impurities from coarse salt to turn it into white salt."

"Unprocessed salt contains many toxins, and eating it can harm your health."

"I haven't had a chance to do this yet, so I'll demonstrate it for everyone now. Afterwards, we can organize people to do it specifically. The price of the obtained white salt... can easily be set at 500 coins initially!"

"500 coins?"

"So many?"

"Because we're making a completely new product. This isn't like charcoal. Our charcoal quality isn't fundamentally different from Zhou Shengyi's in Gwangju, but white salt and coarse salt... are worlds apart."

Seeing how incredibly accurate the King of Qi's words were, the three men, Yan Yindou and his companions, were all intrigued.

Li You instructed Wang Sanwa to bring over everything needed.

The main ingredient is coarse salt, along with hollow bamboo tubes with both ends treated, dozens of pieces of charcoal, three iron pots, a medicine mortar and pestle, ashes from burning plants, and fine linen.

Under Li You's command, Wang Sanwa first sifted the wood ash several times with fine linen cloth to remove the remaining charcoal particles, which were then discarded to obtain fine ash.

Li You then used a medicine grinder to grind the crushed coarse salt particles into powder.

Then the charcoal was broken into pieces, put into hollow bamboo tubes, and wrapped with a layer of fine linen at the bottom.

Next, put the powdered coarse salt into the pot, add water and stir to dissolve it, and you will get cloudy brine.

The brine was then filtered several times through a bamboo tube filled with charcoal, and the resulting brine became noticeably clearer.

Add water to another pot and pour in the previously dried wood ash.

After stirring, let it sit overnight.

The next morning, a fully dissolved wood ash solution was obtained.

Filter the wood ash solution again through fine linen cloth to remove foam and impurities.

Then, the brine obtained the previous day was mixed with the wood ash solution. After a short while, white precipitate appeared in the liquid, which was the impurity dissolved in the brine.

After removing these white impurities again, you will get pure brine.

Li You instructed Wang Sanwa to pour the brine into the pot, adding fuel and stirring constantly.

The process was very arduous, requiring Li You, Wang Sanwa, Yan Hongxin, and Dou Jun to take turns working on it.

As the brine evaporated little by little, about two hours later, white crystals began to appear in the pot.

"My lord, is this white salt?"

"Indeed, this is white salt!"

After stirring for another half hour, the water completely evaporated, and powdery pure white salt appeared.

Dou Jun stepped forward, pinched a little with his fingers, put it in his mouth and tasted it, and his eyes lit up immediately.

"Good heavens, there's not a trace of astringency!"

"Really? I'd like to try some!"

Yin Hongzhi, Yan Hongxin, and Wang Sanwa all tried it and were immediately captivated by its novel and pure flavor.

After trying it himself, Li You felt that it was not as good as the salt of later generations, and it was still slightly bitter.

Limited by technology and equipment, this was the limit of what Li You could do.

However, judging solely by its pure white appearance and significantly improved taste, it is enough to completely surpass all the salt in the Tang Dynasty.

"My lord, five hundred coins is still too little. I think people would buy it even if it were sold for one thousand coins per catty."

"You scoundrel, you're a real swindler."

"You'er, Dou Jun is right. This white salt is even better than the green salt that was a tribute to the palace."

The group praised Li You's skill, unaware that this method had already appeared in the Han Dynasty.

However, in the Tang Dynasty at that time, this method was only used in some coastal areas with salt production industries, and it was not widely adopted. Therefore, the vast majority of people ate coarse salt.

"When we first start, production will be limited by manpower, so we can set the price high. As production increases, we will adjust the price. Ultimately, this product is all about volume."

"Also, from now on, the salt used by our Huang Chao army must undergo preliminary purification before it can be consumed, understand?"

"clear!"

Li You distributed the first batch of refined white salt to the four people present, keeping some for himself as well.

Li You handed over the task of boiling and selling salt to Dou Jun.

Now that this person has come to the mountain stronghold, he must serve the stronghold.

Huang Chao's army did not tolerate idlers.

Li You's actions were also a way of testing Dou Jun to see if he was trustworthy.

With the addition of white salt, Li You was finally able to enjoy boiled meat with a rich flavor.

Life is finally getting a little easier.

Li You also used sesame oil delivered from the Xiangzhou oil press shop, along with white salt, to make a very simple stir-fried bamboo shoots with meat.

The first dish of the Tang Dynasty: stir-fried bamboo shoots with pork.

The aroma of this simple stir-fried bamboo shoots with pork made Wang Sanwa, who was helping out in the kitchen, drool.

King Qi and his guards each ate three extra bowls of rice with this dish.

……

Li You arranged four or five major events in succession, making the entire mountain stronghold even busier than before.

Of these things, the "private school" located in the center of the camp was the first to be built.

It was a relatively large thatched hut, about twice the height of the thatched huts where the soldiers lived, and seven or eight times larger in area, capable of accommodating 200 people to receive education at the same time.

Education is a subtle and pervasive process that connects the past and the future; it is extremely important, yet it is often easily overlooked.

Li You felt that he hadn't done enough in this matter before, and it was time to make up for this shortcoming.

He ordered his soldiers to carve a plaque with the words "University" on it, and hang it above the entrance of the private school.

In the first lesson of this "university," both the teacher and the students were young men.

The teacher standing on the podium was Yin Shaojue, Li You's cousin, who had now mastered the multiplication table.

The students sitting at the lower end were a special group of "soldiers." They were about the same age as Yin Shaojue and had previously been slaves. After being bought by Huang Chao's army, they gained their freedom.

Yin Shaojue was quite nervous when he first stood on the podium, but he got used to it after a while.

The courses he taught were very simple, consisting of the most basic Chinese characters, such as: water, stone, wood, soldier, up, down, and so on.

At the end of the course, Yin Shaojue slightly increased the difficulty.

He wrote a large character for "dragon" on a piece of paper and showed it to the students.

"This character is pronounced ------ dragon."

"Repeat after me, dragon."

"dragon!"

"This character is difficult to write and recognize, but we can use another character to replace it."

Yin Shaojue then wrote a large "dragon" character on the paper and showed it to the students.

"This character is also pronounced 'long' (龙), isn't it much simpler than the previous one?"

"That's right, this word is indeed simple."

"I can write it after just one glance!"

"Me too!"

Feeling the students' response to his teaching, Yin Shaojue couldn't help but smile.

"Alright, that's all for today. get out of class dismissed!"

The students stood up and bowed to their teachers, and Yin Shaojue also bowed to them in return.

After school, Yin Shaojue ran up to Li You, who was peeking outside the school, and excitedly asked, "Cousin, how was my teaching?"