Liu Jin couldn't help but despise Zhu Chongba in his heart. Although Zhu Chongba was able to drive away the Yuan captives in the north and restore the Han Dynasty, he was a man of great talent and strategy, comparable to the Qin Emperor and the Han Dynasty.
But because he came from a humble background, he naturally had the narrow-minded class character of a small farmer. This can be seen just from the salary he set for Ming Dynasty officials.
The salary of officials in the Ming Dynasty can be said to be the lowest among all dynasties, so much so that first-class ministers such as the founding hero Liu Bowen could not support their families with their salary, and almost starved to death. This shows how high the salary of an official in the Ming Dynasty was.
Lower.
But there are two words in the name of official. If the person above is not full, how can the person below have a good life? The person who is an official cannot support his family. How can he be expected to be honest and self-disciplined? Everyone needs to eat, let alone an official.
.
Although this forbidden sea is closely related to the pirates and Japanese pirates along the coast, it is a blind defense. The forbidden sea is simply boiling soup to stop boiling and drinking poison to quench thirst. It cannot play a fundamental role at all.
On the contrary, it will gradually lead to isolation and eventually fall behind the world.
What's more, the official sea ban will make private smuggling intensify. Not only will tax and money not be collected, causing financial difficulties, but it will also make those who have tasted the sweetness of sea trade even more rampant. By the time of the Jiajing Dynasty, coastal smuggling
Japanese pirates are very rampant and cannot be eradicated no matter how hard they are suppressed. One of the important reasons is that many of these so-called Japanese pirates collude with large coastal families and are colluding with each other.
In addition, some helpless poor people at the lowest level were forced to become pirates and Japanese pirates. Naturally, they could not be eradicated no matter how hard they tried.
From this point of view, it is not unreasonable for Liu Jin to despise Zhu Chongba, and he was not entirely wronged. Although the Song Dynasty was weak, the Song Dynasty valued maritime trade, so the finances of the Song Dynasty were very abundant. The officials of the Song Dynasty
The salary package is also very high.
The Southern Song Dynasty was able to settle down in a corner and continue the power of the old Zhao family for more than 100 years. It relied on the prosperity of the Jiangnan region and the huge profits from sea trade.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Southern Ming Dynasty was established, but it was quickly destroyed by the Qing Dynasty. One of the important reasons was that the Ming Dynasty was really poor. It was poor from the founding of the country to its demise. The current Hongzhi Dynasty only lasted one year.
The tax revenue is only over 3 million taels of silver, which is pitifully small.
"Brother Jin, look, I caught a big crab."
While Liu Jin was deep in thought, Zhao Erhu came over happily, holding a crab as big as a plate in his hand.
"I'll go, what a big crab."
When Liu Jin saw it, he couldn't help shouting.
In later generations, Liu Jin also ate crabs a lot, but crabs as big as a plate were still very rare and would never appear on ordinary people's dining tables.
"This crab is not too big. I have seen bigger crabs before, which are as big as a table."
Zhao Erhu said with a grin.
"Huzi, how about this crab for me? Such a big crab, it must be delicious."
Looking at the crab in Zhao Erhu's hand, Liu Jin swallowed his saliva. In later generations, the bigger the crab, the more expensive it was. Liu Jin also liked eating crabs.
"Of course there is no problem. What's so delicious about crabs? No matter how much you eat, you won't be full. The most delicious thing is white noodles. I can eat several large bowls by myself, but it's been a long time since I had a good meal."
Zhao Erhu nodded happily, then touched his belly and said.
In this day and age, seafood is really worthless. There are countless crabs, snails, sea fish, and sea vegetables on the beach, but only poor people will eat these things.
Because you don’t feel hungry after eating these things, you will get hungry easily. Only rice and pasta are the most popular things, but due to limited planting technology, the yield is very low. Even now, the people at the bottom are very hungry
It’s hard to have a full meal.
"Hu Zi, you just need to follow me from now on, and I will ensure that you have enough flour to eat every day. When the time comes, you will marry an aunt, and your wife and children will be on the hot bed every day."
Liu Jin looked at Hu Zi, then patted him on the shoulder and said.
"Can I really eat white noodles all the time?"
"Can I still marry my mother-in-law?"
When Zhao Erhu heard this, he was stunned and swallowed, and then his face turned red when he thought of marrying his aunt.
He is about the same age as Liu Jin. In a qualified family, he would have already married a wife and had a baby. However, Zhao Heishan's family was poor, and the entire Xiahetun was poor, so no girl was willing to marry Zhao Erhu.
His brother Zhao Dahu relied on marriage exchange to marry his wife. The so-called marriage exchange refers to a marriage in which a man offers his sister to be the wife of the woman's brother in exchange for the woman becoming his wife. It is commonly known as sister-in-law exchange.
Everyone is poor, so they use this method to marry a wife. However, when Zhao Erhu came here, his second sister was still very young and not old enough to get married. The marriage exchange would have to wait a few more years.
.
"Of course, I have lied to you before, and I will keep you from eating noodles until you vomit."
Liu Jin smiled, patted his chest and said.
Although he has a way to make a fortune, there are many things to do in refining coarse salt, and it is impossible to do everything by himself. Moreover, Liu Jin is also a scholar now, so he has to pay more attention to his identity.
This Zhao Erhu is obviously a good labor force. He is simple-minded, simple-minded, obedient, and obeys his own instructions. It is difficult to find such a good partner.
"I won't eat until I vomit. Noodles are the most delicious thing. No matter how much you eat, you won't get tired of them."
After hearing Liu Jin's words, Zhao Erhu touched his head and said very seriously.
"Haha, you will know later."
"Let's go back. It's time to start our plan to make a fortune."
Liu Jin smiled and said, then turned over and headed back to Xiahetun, preparing to go back home to experiment on how to refine coarse salt into refined salt.
…
In the yard of Liu Jin's house, Liu Jin turned the house upside down and finally found some usable tools.
A small stone mortar and a wooden stick are prepared to crush the coarse salt so that it can be better blended into the water.
There is also a bamboo tube, gauze, charcoal, washed sand, etc. These are tools used to filter insoluble impurities.
There is also an iron pot, some firewood, a shovel and other tools.
"Brother Jin, what's the point of asking me to buy these things?"
At this time, Zhao Erhu walked in with a sack on his back. Seeing these things in front of Liu Jin, he was confused. He had no idea what Liu Jin wanted to do.
"Have you bought everything I asked you to buy?"
Liu Jin inspected these things carefully and said to Zhao Erhu.
"I bought it, I bought it."
Zhao Erhu put the sack in his hand next to Liu Jin and looked at the things around Liu Jin again. He really couldn't figure it out. Can Liu Jin make a fortune by relying on these things?
Liu Jin opened the sack and carefully inspected the things Zhao Erhu bought.
Quicklime, sulfur, alum, indigo, cinnabar, ocher, azurite, soybeans and burned plant ashes, etc. In ancient times without modern chemical industry, it was definitely not an easy task to purify coarse salt.
He wanted to obtain sodium chloride, calcium hydroxide, calcium carbonate and other things that could be used to remove insoluble impurities in coarse salt. Liu Jin almost broke his head before he thought of these things that only existed in ancient times.
But Liu Jin was not good at chemistry, and he didn’t remember the chemical substances contained in various things very clearly, so he simply bought some more things and prepared to continue experiments at home, and he was always able to slowly figure out the answers.
After all, he is someone who has systematically learned modern chemistry knowledge.
"Get a pound of coarse salt and pound it into pieces."
While Liu Jin carefully checked various things, he began to design his own experimental procedures in his mind.
"If I had known that I would have listened carefully to the lectures when I was in class, I would have missed the books when I came to use them."
Thinking, thinking, Liu Jin couldn't help but frowned, his head hurt, and he recalled the chemistry knowledge he had learned before in his mind like toothpaste, but when he looked at the things in front of him, he felt...
I can't help but feel confused and don't know where to start.
Fortunately, the first step to remove insoluble impurities is very simple and does not require too much in-depth thinking. It is nothing more than crushing the coarse salt, dissolving it into water, and then filtering to remove the impurities.
Although Zhao Erhu didn't know what Liu Jin wanted to do here, Liu Jin asked him to pound the coarse salt, and he started to work meticulously.
Take out a pound of coarse salt from the jar, put the coarse salt into a stone mortar, and use a small wooden stick to slowly mash the coarse salt a little at a time, very carefully.
"First make a filtering device."
Liu Jin looked at Zhao Erhu, looked at the tools around him, picked up the bamboo tube and started to work.
Punch through part of the bottom of the bamboo tube, then put it on gauze, then spread the washed fine sand on it, then spread a layer of fine charcoal, and then spread a layer of fine sand, so it becomes a simple filtering device.
"Brother Jin, do you think this is okay?"
Soon, Zhao Erhu had also crushed the coarse salt, brought it to Liu Jin and asked.
"Okay, pour the salt into the water."
Liu Jin picked up the salt in the stone mortar and looked at it carefully. Zhao Erhu was very serious and pounded it very finely.
"Ah, pour it into clean water?"
Hearing Liu Jin's words, Zhao Erhu was stunned and couldn't help shouting: "This salt is difficult to boil. If you pour it into water, it will not be easy to boil it again."
"I know, just pour it when I ask you to, don't worry about so much."
Liu Jin nodded and said, if it doesn't blend into the water, there is no way to filter it. However, in Zhao Erhu's opinion, this behavior is really puzzling. It is a waste of time to pour something into the water after finally cooking it.