In fact, it’s not that the Wang family doesn’t have better ways to purify coarse salt, but it’s just that the quality after purification is far from reaching the quality of Li Changfeng’s refined salt.
Purifying coarse salt according to their backward technology will greatly increase the cost.
Therefore, except for personal consumption and for dignitaries, the official salt supplied by the Wang family to ordinary people is almost directly dried in sea water or salt wells and then roughly processed. This often leads to people being poisoned from eating these coarse salts.
In the past, it was true that no one had sued the Wang family, but because the Wang family was so powerful and Emperor Qianwu was afraid of the Wang family's control of official salt and was worried that they would take the opportunity to cause trouble, in the end they had no choice but to drop the case.
The Wang family also became more and more unscrupulous because of their attitude towards official salt and Emperor Qianwu, and they did not care at all about the quality of official salt.
But this time it's different.
Emperor Qianwu issued an order to Dali Temple and asked them to investigate and collect relevant evidence in a business-like manner.
Dali Temple, which had always been procrastinating in doing things, showed an unusually high efficiency and immediately launched an investigation into the matter.
Faced with the irrefutable facts, Dali Temple immediately concluded that the Wang family's official salt was of low quality and indeed poisonous, and sent a large number of official agents, with the help of Dongchang, to inspect the official salt in all the Wang family's salt shops in the capital.
All the official salt inside was taken as evidence and transported to Li Changfeng's warehouse, where he used it for secondary processing to produce refined salt.
Then Dali Temple issued an announcement saying that this batch of official salt from the Wang family was unqualified after random inspections, and ordered the Wang family to re-supply official salt with qualified quality, and reminded the people to be careful when purchasing Wang family's official salt.
With such news, and Li Changfeng secretly adding fuel to the flames, the matter quickly spread throughout the capital, and people were discussing the matter in the streets and after dinner.
"Have you heard that the Wang family's official salt has another problem?"
"How could you not have heard of such a big news? The Wang family has gone too far. They don't take the life and death of us people seriously at all!"
"Look at how fresh your words are. It's not the first time this kind of thing has happened. When has the Wang family ever taken it seriously?"
"I'm afraid the Wang family won't be able to take it seriously this time. It seems that Your Majesty can't bear it anymore and wants to clean up the Wang family."
"Your Majesty is wise and should have dealt with it long ago!"
…
For a time, the reputation of the Wang family fell to the bottom, and everyone was criticizing it with words and writings.
Some of Emperor Qianwu's actions were appreciated by the people, who all praised him as a wise king.
It is clear at a glance what the people's support is.
Wang Jingzhi, the head of the Wang family, was very angry after hearing the news. He speculated that Emperor Qianwu was up to something, otherwise neither Dali Temple nor other dignitaries would have the guts to target the Wang family.
Soon, the Wang family confirmed this conjecture through courtiers who had secretly colluded with them. The head of the Wang family, Wang Jingzhi, was furious.
"You bastard! How audacious!"
"Emperor Qianwu, Emperor Qianwu, we have always kept our peace. If you dare to touch my Wang family, then don't blame me for being rude!"
"Don't think that just because you are the emperor, you can act arbitrarily. I will let you know how powerful my Wang family is, and I will let you come and apologize to me in person!"
After roaring for a while, Wang Jingzhi regained his composure and immediately began to arrange a counterattack.
On the other side, Li Changfeng came to the warehouse and looked at the large amount of official salt that had just been confiscated from Wang's Salt Shop, with a sneer on his lips.
With these official salts, he will soon be able to produce sufficient refined salt, and the next plan can be implemented.
He first sent people to secretly build refined salt sales channels in major cities across the country. At the same time, he asked the capital city to start refurbishment and preparation for the shops located near the Wang family's shop selling official salt.
At the same time, he also ordered people to mobilize large quantities of refined salt from the refined salt factory in Baishi City and transport it to major towns across the country.
Everything is going on in an orderly manner.
The Zhao family was also involved in the attack on the artillery camp, and since they had assassinated Li Changfeng before, Emperor Qianwu would not let it go.
Under his instruction, Gao Dali sent a large number of experts from Dongchang, with the assistance of Liumenmen, to investigate the Zhao family's other industries outside the capital.
It's called an investigation, but it's actually fabricating various charges, confiscating the Zhao family's properties to fill the national treasury, and it's revenge for the Zhao family's previous actions.
When Zhao Tianquan, the head of the Zhao family, learned about this incident, he became furious and smashed everything he could see in the meeting hall to vent his anger.
"How brave! Does the Dog Emperor want to completely break up with my Zhao family?!"
"Does he not want to be the emperor? If he doesn't want to, we will support an obedient emperor again!"
After the previous assassination attempt on Li Changfeng failed, Li Changfeng took revenge on the Zhao family that night, burning many of their Zhao family's properties in the name of hunting down assassins.
When Emperor Qianwu learned about this the next day, he intensified his efforts and directly ordered people to search all the Zhao family's properties in the capital on trumped-up charges.
This series of actions caused extremely heavy losses to the Zhao family.
That's all.
Now Emperor Qianwu even sent people to search the Zhao family's properties in other places, as if he wanted to put the Zhao family to death.
The Zhao family has been inherited for hundreds of years and has never been bullied like this. Zhao Tianquan was naturally furious and determined to teach Emperor Qianwu a lesson.
Zhao Zhijing, the elder of the Zhao family, stood aside and waited until Zhao Tianquan had vented enough and his anger had reduced a lot before speaking cautiously.
"Master, I have received the news through the palace's internal network. Emperor Qianwu has found out that it was us and the dead men sent by the Wang family who attacked the secret military camp at night. This move may have offended Emperor Qianwu, so he desperately dealt with it. Our Zhao family took action."
In fact, Zhao Zhijing did not agree with the dispatch of dead soldiers.
He felt that Emperor Qianwu hid the secret camp so deeply, it must be very important to Emperor Qianwu, and a rash attack would make him crazy for revenge.
But after all, he is only an elder, and the head of the Zhao family has the final say, so he can only let Zhao Tianquan arrange the matter.
As a result, Emperor Qianwu sent heavy troops to defend the secret camp afterwards, which fully confirmed his suspicion, and revenge came like a storm as he suspected.
"So what if I touch him?" Zhao Tianquan sneered, but he still regained his composure and realized that what he did before was a bit reckless, and slow penetration was the best policy.
Zhao Zhijing knew that Zhao Tianquan had regained his composure, and now he was just being tough and needed a step down.
He coughed dryly and said: "At this time, Emperor Qianwu is still angry. If he openly engages in trouble, he may lead to even more crazy revenge from Emperor Qianwu. Anyway, the loss is only a drop in the bucket for us. It is better to hide our capabilities and bide our time."
The Zhao family has inherited it for hundreds of years, and the loss of this little money is really nothing to them, and it is completely within the acceptable range.
In addition, Emperor Qianwu was indeed a courageous and talented emperor, Zhao Tianquan was already a little shaken.
But he was still a little unwilling: "Are we going to let Emperor Qianwu, the dog emperor, go like this?"