In short, this calligraphy exhibition, which was conducted in a relatively low-key manner, finally became very popular among the public in just two or three days after a few hot spots appeared.
Ordinary people can't help but believe it...
After all, Chen Fu'an, who represented the "evil forces" in Kuaiji, was carried out after the calligraphy exhibition.
The key is that I heard that Chen Fuan was stimulated by some unknown source and turned into a fool. After this news came out, he spent so many years gathering a group of retail merchants, and he occupied half of the Jiangdong Salt Industry in just a blink of an eye.
Collapse - this matter is quite big for both ordinary people and aristocratic families.
According to rumors, the person who pushed Chen Fu'an to such a dead end and eventually caused him to suffer a mental breakdown and become completely demented was the organizer behind this calligraphy exhibition, a young foreign businessman named Zhantang.
You only need to think about the significance of Chen Fuan's downfall to the daily lives of ordinary people to understand why they admire this young man named Zhantang so much.
The aristocratic families in Jiangdong, especially the Zhang family in Wujun, led the salt industry. Most of the salt industry under their family's rule used green salt and even fine refined salt as their main products - to put it simply, they were all trading in high-grade salt.
A few years ago, an event that could almost be called the Salt Industry Revolution of the Eastern Han Dynasty broke out in Xiangyang. Ordinary people may not know much about this matter, but this salt industry revolution had a profound impact on the wealthy families who controlled the lifeblood of Jiangdong's salt industry.
It's definitely a pretty serious impact.
They only knew that it seemed that Cao Cao's lackey named Yi Xiaotian invented a new method of making salt, which caused the price of refined salt in the entire north with Xiangyang as the border to collapse instantly.
The refined salt industry, considered the backbone of many gentry families' industries, was wiped out overnight.
High-quality, or in other words, high-quality refined salt that only the royal family could afford in the past has instantly fallen to the same price as coarse salt.
At that time, it seemed that many noble families in the north staged large-scale resistance to this matter.
But the result is quite obvious... without the support of the common people, even the nobles will only weaken rapidly in a short period of time.
Except for a few large northern noble families, many noble families who had made huge profits from the refined salt business were unable to recover. When they realized that they wanted to resist, their strength had actually been weakened to the point where they could not form a strong resistance.
Already.
Cao Cao just rounded up a few capable officials and sent them to relatively turbulent areas. Within two months, this time was similar to an uprising, but because the subjects were different - this may be the only time in history that the gentry
An uprising jointly launched by the Yellow Turban Rebellion, rather than an uprising initiated by farmers and other lower-class people like the previous Yellow Turban Rebellion - the result can only be said... The gentry people did indeed pull their crotches. No, not even two months later, this uprising was
It was suppressed.
Those remaining trembling nobles who did not know why were eventually forced to run the new refined salt industry managed by Cao Cao's Shangshutai.
Of course... the people who will benefit from this whole round of salt industry events are naturally Cao Cao and the ordinary people in the north.
Based on this incident, after the northern nobles saw clearly Cao Cao's attitude towards killing donkeys, they seemed to begin to vaguely figure out how to confront Cao Cao and gain vitality strategies - it was precisely because they felt this
Point, after Yi Xiaotian gave the plan for building the Tongque Tower in Yecheng later, Cao Cao ran away without stopping.
Xu Du? In the future, Xu Du will only be a place where Cao Cao will be ruthless, and Yecheng will be his real home base.
But these are all things for later.
——
The same thing will have different impacts on Jingnan, Shu, and Jiangdong.
The biggest difference is that those nobles in the north who once made a living from the salt industry and survived after this change all received the refined salt production method specially provided by Youjian Villa.
The salt mines were still in the hands of the gentry, but under the control of the Shangshutai, and the price of refined salt could no longer rise.
But Jingnan, Shu and Jiangdong do not have this opportunity to get a glimpse of the secrets.
If they want to make refined salt, they can still only dig salt wells and dig salt mines according to the old methods. The quality of salt they can get depends on God.
If a family can occupy a refined salt well for generations, as long as they are not stupid, they will one day become a behemoth.
But... the changes in the salt industry in the north caused this advantage to disappear overnight.
——
Fortunately, the Jingnan Shu region was not supported by the salt industry. The price collapse did not cause too many people heavy losses. Liu Zhang and Liu Bei, who had smelled the news, took a sip of broth. The price of salt in the north dropped. They
So he sent people to smuggle low-priced salt from the north, and then sold it from various places at a higher price that was slightly lower than the price of green salt in the past - a good name for the benefit of the people.
In fact, even though the price they sold was less than 30% of the highest price of refined salt that year, it was still a huge profit.
——
The situation in Jiangdong is completely different.
The importance of the salt industry to Jiangdong is even greater than that of the north. If the salt industry were abandoned, half of the Jiangdong families would suffer a heavy blow.
But the problem is...
Mineral salt is different from sea salt.
The art of draining brine and frying salt was invented a long time ago.
On the seaside, salt flats are opened and seawater is used for watering. After being exposed to the sun, the salt will adhere to the sand. Finally, the salt is extracted, and then rinsed with seawater. The resulting brine is then fried.
Get the best quality sea salt available today.
Such a complicated step is quite a test for labor and the cost of various materials.
Therefore, the price of salt in the north has historically fluctuated, but the price of sea salt has always been so "strong".
But... I don’t know who was behind this, but it was probably around the same time as the previous salt industry revolution in Xiangyang - a batch of smuggled high-quality refined salt (mineral salt) flowed into Jiangdong so quietly.
The social turmoil caused by that incident was almost as great as the gentry uprising in the north. To some extent, because it was the common people who initiated the uprising, the intensity of the turmoil was far greater than that in the north.
The common people... tasted the mineral salt from the north for free. With a little comparison, ordinary people with normal and sensitive tastes could taste the difference between sea salt and mineral salt at that time.
Sea salt is so unpalatable, but the key point is that it’s expensive. How can I stand it?
Of course, this aristocratic family has nothing to do about the problem of unpalatable sea salt - the technology is not enough. The advantage of sea salt is that it is inexhaustible, but the shortcomings are also very clear to people in later generations. Various substances in sea water
Chemical substances, if they cannot be properly purified, will not only taste unpalatable, but eating too much of them will make people sick.
Such a huge problem gradually became the source of complaints among the people, and even alarmed Soochow's senior officials for a while.
