Daming: What abandoned baby?That is the grandson of the old Zhu family!

After returning to the Duke's Mansion, Zhu Xiongying did what he said and started to prepare for the salt-making project.

According to historical records, table salt first appeared in the Yellow Emperor's generation. At first, one of the Yellow Emperor's subordinates discovered that seawater contained a lot of salt, and began to try to use seawater to boil salt, and then successfully extracted table salt.Since then, with the passage of time, people's production capacity and various production techniques and production technologies have become more and more mature. After continuous improvement and development, there are more and more salt production methods, which are more and more mature. Gradually larger quantities of better quality salt are produced.

In China's thousands of years of slavery and feudal times, salt had incomparable economic value, even much higher than the current oil.

One of the most important reasons for this is that salt is not like the farmland crops cultivated by ancient farmers, which can be produced and consumed by themselves, but is almost completely controlled by the government.

As early as the period of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, the long-term struggle with the Xiongnu caused serious overdraft of the court, and the court's finances became very tight for a while, so a solution to the court's financial problems was needed.

Under such circumstances, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty implemented a policy of strict control of salt and iron by the government, ordering that only the government has the right to sell edible salt to the outside world. In addition, no one is allowed to sell salt without permission. Salt, toes will be cut off.

However, since then, the common people have complained, and there have been many popular uprisings. Therefore, in the dynasties after the Western Han Dynasty, in order to maintain the stability of the social order of the empire, the central government monopolized the monopoly of edible salt. not so strict.

Of course, in ancient China, there were only a few places where edible salt was mainly produced, and the imperial court controlled it very well.

So in a long period of history, salt has become one of the few daily necessities that ordinary people need to spend money on.

It is precisely under such background and court policies that from the Tang Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, the government’s income from salt was the highest, even accounting for more than half of the court’s overall income.

Naturally, salt merchants became the most profitable and richest group of merchants.

Whether Wuluan is official salt or private salt is very important for the court taxation.

From another perspective, salt has a great impact on the health of the people and even the combat effectiveness of the labor force.Salt can meet the physiological needs of the human body and maintain good health, which is essential for normal people.

So as long as you master the path of salt production, you can say that you have mastered the economic lifeline of the entire Ming Dynasty!
It was the first time that Zhu Xiongying was so high-spirited, and felt that his bright future seemed to be in front of him!
Let's see how I, Zhu Xiongying, can make a big splash and stir up troubles in this trend of the times!
From one day onwards, people in the Duke's Mansion gradually discovered that Zhu Xiongying, the most favored young man on weekdays, began to fiddle with some weird things.

Either they bought some weird folk miscellaneous books and came back, and they had to pester the teacher to teach him the words they didn’t know. Sometimes they took Xu Jinghan and Xu Zhirong to pick up some stones and came back. The three children squatted in the Playing with those picked up stones in the yard.

After all, Xu Jinghan and Xu Zhirong are still two children, and they will not have any impact on their plans, so Zhu Xiongying naturally brought the two together.

"Eldest young master, young master, miss, stop playing with those rocks, if you get your clothes dirty, the madam and the master will scold you!"

The maid and the nanny who took care of the three children on weekdays were as anxious as ants on a hot pot when they saw the three children getting disgraced from playing with those stones every day.

It happened that Zhu Xiongying had changed his obedient and well-behaved temperament in the past, otherwise they would not listen to them when they were playing, and would sneak out of the door with Xu Jinghan and Xu Zhirong every day, picking up some pitted stones and returning.

Even pay a premium for stones from the passing masons!
Looking at the huge amount of white money and buying an ugly stone, the maids and servants in the mansion should not be too distressed!

Could it be that the little prince is committed to becoming the smartest "prodigal son"?

Seeing that he couldn't persuade him no matter what, he had no choice but to tell the Duke's wife.

Mrs. Guogong has a gentle temperament, and she has always indulged the three children too much. She thinks that it is natural for children to be playful, so don't worry too much about it.

So, Zhu Xiongying took Xu Jinghan and Xu Zhirong's three little dolls to pick up some stones and come back every day. It didn't take long for them to pile up into hills in the yard.

However, Zhu Xiongying still felt that there was no way to figure out the reason by relying on these alone, and more and better quality stones were needed.

On this day, Zhu Xiongying called the three of them and hid behind a rockery behind the yard to discuss.

"I think we don't have enough stones, we have to look outside the Duke's Mansion!"

The stones that Zhu Xiongying and the other three picked up in their daily life were randomly picked up nearby, some were discarded casually by passing businessmen, or the waste left over from the mansion's usual use for building new pavilions.

All in all, it's still too little.

Moreover, these salt rocks are of poor quality and have little research value.

If you want more and larger amounts of salt rocks, you can only go to a salt vendor and ask where there is enough salt mine.

Because during the Ming Dynasty, many people did not understand the extraction method of mineral salt, and the salt mines were also regarded as poisonous salt mountains, so many salt mines were not included in the management scope of the government, so if Zhu Xiongying wanted to use those ores Naturally, there is no need to go through the government to do research, so the problem of first-hand materials can be easily solved.

Xu Zhirong was a little scared: "But Dafu told the three of us not to leave the house casually, it's too dangerous outside, what should we do if we meet outsiders?"

"That's right, father usually controls us the most strictly when we go out of the mansion, and he ordered us not to run out casually!" Xu Jinghan was also a little scared.

Although Xu Da usually dotes on the three little guys, he is very principled in some issues. If the three make mistakes, they will be punished. This is not something that the three can escape by acting like a baby.

"But……"

Xu Jinghan was right. It was absolutely impossible for Xu Da to let their three young children go out.

If you ask servants to accompany you, all the servants in the Duke’s Mansion will listen to Xu Da and Mrs. Guogong’s wife. If you find a servant by yourself, it will definitely reach Xu Da’s ears when the time comes. Doesn't it mean that his plan is exposed?

This method does not seem to work, it must be done secretly.