The Prodigal Son of Zhenguan

With money in hand, are you still afraid of not having confidence?

Even if the inner court has withdrawn all the maids in Da'an Palace, what does it matter?

The emperor has money, so he can spend money to recruit more.

No one can control his own money.

Li Yuan's life is more comfortable.

His nephew gave him money, his son gave him women, and he was about to move to a new palace.

As for the old ministers, no matter what they said, Li Yuan's response was only one set of rhetoric.

He had abdicated and was the emperor. He had no control over the affairs of the previous dynasty. He only cared about the affairs of Da'an Palace.

Da'an Palace, a place for retirement, what big things could happen?

Pei Ji still went to the palace to find Li Yuan every three or five days.

Because of the dismissal of maids in the inner court, he suffered a great loss in front of Li Shimin, and was also remembered by Li Shimin, and he had a bad feeling in his heart.

So, he could only continue to hold Li Yuan's thighs tightly.

Since Li Fu became the Prince of Jingyang, nothing has happened in the manor since spring until now, especially the dispute with the neighboring manor, the other party dared not make any move.

When Li Fu was a commoner, they dared to bully him. If they dared to make trouble when Li Fu became the Prince of the Tang Dynasty, they would be asking for trouble.

Not to mention the head of a manor, even if they meet their master, the people of the Pei family, they have to pay respect to Li Fu in a proper manner.

When he met Pei Ji in Taiji Palace, no matter how much Lao Deng disliked Li Fu, he did not dare to show anything on his face.

At this critical moment, the Pei family rushed to offend the new nobles in the court. Did they dislike their comfortable life in the court?

At present, their old ministers of Wude are banding together.

The ones that Li Shimin wanted to pick up were all those nobles who were conferred titles during the Wude period, who had no merits but only titles. Naturally, they had no rights in the court and used to live on Li Yuan's rewards.

Now that Li Shimin wanted to cut off these rewards, they were naturally unwilling in their hearts.

However, even if they were unwilling, they had no say in the court.

There were only so many rights, and after Li Shimin became emperor, all the rights that should be distributed to whom had been distributed.

Those nobles who were in name only had to find connections.

The new nobles all stood on the side of the emperor, and they could only go to the old ministers.

Although it was not New Year's Day in Chang'an City, the nobles were more lively than on New Year's Day.

In the village of Jingyang County, Li Fu was inspecting the newly built workshop.

The craftsmen here had already withdrawn, and they had finished all the work before the freezing.

Ma Shisan has returned to the farm from Chang'an City. Among the houses built on the farm, he also owns one. He also brought his family over. When the workshop is not busy, he goes home every day. When the workshop is busy, he lives in the workshop.

"Your Highness, I have asked someone to prepare the ingredients according to the recipe for brewing soy sauce that you gave me. However, if it is fermented, I am afraid that it may not be successful in the cold weather at this time." Ma Shisan said.

Li Fu gave him three recipes for brewing soy sauce in total.

"Isn't there a ground pipe in the fermentation room? In winter, the ground pipe heats up and the room becomes warm." Li Fu said, "In winter, there is not much work to do. Let's see who in the village is willing to go up the mountain to chop firewood and bring some firewood back. It can be regarded as an extra way for them to make money. In the future, they don't need to go to Chang'an City to sell firewood and charcoal."

In the village, whether it is the egg-changing workshop or the workshop that is trying to brew soy sauce, a large amount of salt is needed.

Before, the salt used in the egg-changing workshop was a large amount of coarse salt bought from outside, and then pounded again with a stone mortar at home and sifted out.

Because it is not directly put into the food, but only used as a raw material to pickle the eggs, so the quality is just like that.

But soy sauce is different.

The raw material of soy sauce needs to be finer salt.

Therefore, just buying those large pieces of coarse salt and crushing them will not meet the requirements.

The main salt of the Tang Dynasty was also adapted to local conditions. Sea salt was used near the sea, and well salt and pond salt were used in the inland areas.

There are now 18 pond salt sites in the Tang Dynasty. The Puzhou pond salt in Fenzhou Prefecture has the largest output, which is mainly supplied to Chang'an. The Fenzhou Prefecture Salt Pond is also called the Two Ponds, that is, the Hedong Salt Pond.

This is a national treasure. There is also a saying that the Hedong Salt Pond is a pond of snow in Zhongtiao for thousands of years.

There are many impurities in the first-made salt.

Most of them are naturally crystalline salts fished out from the brine pool of the salt lake. They are blocky, yellow, bitter and astringent, and are called rock salt.

This kind of salt was also the main salt resource that people could use before the salt-making technology to remove impurities was available.Source.

The "refined salt" on the market is also quite precious.

During the Northern Wei Dynasty, water was drawn to dry salt, and brine was evaporated by natural means such as sunlight and wind. This was the earliest application of the sun-drying method in the world.

People's daily diet is inseparable from salt. In the Tang Dynasty's army, pickles and vinegar cloth were used as substitutes for salt. When cooking, they were put into the pot together for seasoning.

Li Fu had tasted that taste, but he couldn't eat it anyway.

The salt in the kitchen at home was also bought back and then secretly processed by himself. Li Fu would use it.

That was only when he cooked for him, the head of the family, that he would use the refined salt that was processed by himself.

The current Tang Dynasty does not collect taxes on salt. As long as the local area sends a certain amount of salt as tribute to Chang'an every year, this relaxed management system has also contributed to the development of current salt-making technology to a certain extent.

Thinking of the matter of salt, Li Fu felt that there was room for action.

Since the Spring and Autumn Period, the government has regulated salt, and it is illegal to make salt privately.

However, private salt is something that cannot be stopped despite repeated bans.

The Tang Dynasty's control over salt profits is mainly concentrated in the hands of the government, and the court implements a monopoly system on the salt industry. Therefore, most of the salt merchants today are "private merchants" of the government. Because salt is a government monopoly, salt tax offices are set up in various places, led by officials such as the Salt and Iron Envoy and the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue.

Due to the government's monopoly on the salt industry, salt tax revenue in various places often accounts for the vast majority of local fiscal revenue, thus becoming a huge fortune, so the court does not collect salt taxes.

However, the benefits of this have enriched a large group of people.

Today, there are two types of people who manage salt in the Tang Dynasty, but these two types of people have one thing in common, that is, they are all aristocratic families behind them.

After all, how can the aristocratic families not hold such a huge profit in their hands?

So to put it bluntly, the aristocratic families have a strong control and dominance over the salt of the entire Tang Dynasty, and the emperor does not know how much they can make from it.