Inside the commander's tent, the three people looking at the sand table all turned their gazes toward Lu Qiqi.

Lu Qiqi even felt that if burning gazes could kill, she would probably be riddled with holes by now.

Song Yanqing was giving instructions on the battle plan when Lu Qiqi interrupted him. He straightened up and asked softly, "What is it?"

Before the matter of fine salt had even begun, Lu Qiqi didn't intend to reveal it. She shook the bamboo jar in her hand and said, "I discovered a new method of horn magic in the wounded soldiers' camp, so I came to ask you to try it out."

Upon hearing this, General Wu and General Qin turned their gazes toward Song Yanqing.

Horn therapy is a treatment that uses ox horn to draw out the skin. After using horn therapy, a red mark will be left at the drawing site.

The more red marks there are, the more severe the illness.

However, this thing is mostly used on the back.

Qin Shiyu never expected that in just a few months, the Princess of Kangle Township would have already been completely honest with the Crown Prince.

Suddenly, she felt sorry for Lu Qiqi. Such a nice young girl had no official status and was forced to follow the prince.

Isn't this bullying a young girl who has no one to rely on from her family?

Wu Guangping knew about Lu Qiqi's relationship with the concubine in the family, and that pearl became a thorn in the First Madam's side.

Knowing that Lu Qiqi had a close relationship with the young master, she decided that after returning to the manor, she would have Aunt Xiang invite Lu Qiqi to the manor more often, hoping to find out some useful information.

The four people in the tent each had different ideas.

Upon hearing the word "horn method," Song Yanqing's ears suddenly felt hot. He then coughed lightly and said, "Wait on the side."

Lu Qiqi obediently did as she was told, without disturbing the three of them from discussing the war.

However, she still couldn't resist glancing at Wu Guangping a few more times.

There have been many generals in history who fought bravely and were determined to protect the people.

General Feng was one of them.

Rebels and traitors will be condemned and scorned by posterity.

At a time of national crisis, the fact that a traitorous rebel was associated with a high-ranking general is a huge blow to military deployment and morale.

Being betrayed by one's superior or teammate is unbelievable to anyone with emotions and desires, leading to a tragic death at the hands of the other party.

It's unclear how long they discussed it, but after Lu Qiqi finished one cup of tea and the second cup was served and cooled down, they finally ended their discussion.

After the two generals left, Lu Qiqi's drowsiness vanished, and she immediately became energetic.

She handed the bamboo jar in her hand to Song Yanqing.

He opened the bamboo jar, poured some salt onto the lid, and saw salt that he had never seen before that was so fine.

Song Yanqing then rubbed the salt with the pads of three fingers of his right hand, feeling its soft texture, and praised it generously, "Good stuff!"

Lu Qiqi was naturally overjoyed to receive such affirmation.

That same day, she instructed An Yi to tell Steward Fang to produce 100 jin of fine salt in the near future.

One hundred catties of fine salt were produced in a short time.

Lu Qiqi then instructed Manager Fang to take out twenty catties of fine salt to sell in the border town.

In the border town where salt production takes place, they receive good sales feedback and can secure a place in various parts of the Great Jin Dynasty.

This is similar to products from the place of origin; you have to compare prices from different vendors. Those that can't withstand comparison have long since gone out of business.

When An Yi came to report, Lu Qiqi and Song Yanqing were having dinner at a low table.

When she learned that twenty catties of fine salt had been sold out in less than half an hour, she knew that the matter was half successful.

Then she instructed, "This is a good start. From now on, we will limit sales to thirty catties per day."

Then, as if remembering something, she paused for a moment before continuing, "Each person can only buy a maximum of one pound of salt, to prevent anyone from hoarding salt and reselling it, thus benefiting others for nothing."

After An Yi left the tent, Song Yanqing poured Lu Qiqi a cup of tea, who had just put down her chopsticks, and asked, "How do you plan to lure these people into a trap?"

Lu Qiqi held the teacup in her hand and tasted that the tea soup in the cup was made of bamboo leaves. She never expected that Song Yanqing would be so fond of this flavor.

After drinking the tea, she said, "No rush, the fish will bite the bait sooner or later." However, before her entrapment scheme could be fully implemented, it was met with a backlash from the salt merchants.

These salt merchants found a simple and straightforward solution: they simply sent people to buy all the fine salt and study it themselves.

For three consecutive days, Lu Qiqi heard messages from Steward Fang and realized that she was still too inexperienced.

Nowadays, with frequent battles in the border town, the salt merchants in the border town rely on the salt they stockpiled and dried when they were able to leave the pass.

Even though Song Yanqing's salt fields were large enough, they couldn't sustain the situation of only shipping out products without receiving any raw materials. As a result, even if the salt fields had the method to produce fine salt, they couldn't achieve anything if there were no products to ship out!

These salt merchants want a monopoly!

All of this was within Song Yanqing's expectations, but he didn't think it was a big deal. Instead, he instructed Steward Fang to quickly produce several hundred catties of salt and transport it to the new capital.

In the new capital, one was surrounded by imperial relatives and nobles, who enjoyed a life of luxury and had no shortage of salt merchants seeking them out.

......

When Lu Qiqi learned of Song Yanqing's plan, she felt that she couldn't think of a better way, since her understanding of the social hierarchy was less than one-fifth of Song Yanqing's.

This reminded Lu Qiqi of Madam Rong, whom she had once treated.

Suddenly, she made up her mind to go and visit him, which could also be considered a follow-up visit.

The next day, she stood in front of the Rong Mansion's gate, her medicine chest slung across her shoulder.

A servant entered the mansion to report, and soon a maid led her into the mansion.

With Madam Rong not home today, Old Madam Rong's courtyard was much quieter.

Following the maid, they soon arrived at the reception hall of Madam Rong's house.

The maid told her to wait a moment and then withdrew.

Madam Rong was carefully helped out of the room by her personal maid.

"No need to be so careful, it's just a twisted back. The dirt hasn't even reached my neck yet, no need to worry so much."

As Madam Rong spoke, she was helped along by her nanny. The old nanny readily agreed, but did not change her movements at all.

It's obvious that you say your piece, I do mine, and we have nothing to do with each other.

After Madam Rong sat down, Lu Qiqi examined her as usual.

The examination revealed a twisted lower back. When she finally found out the cause, she was surprised to learn that the old lady had accidentally twisted the medicine while doing Kegel exercises.

Now look what happened, I didn't get to exercise and ended up with a bunch of injuries.

For a moment, she was both amused and exasperated.

This time, Lu Qiqi not only gave acupuncture to Madam Rong, but also prescribed several doses of medicine to treat sprains, including bitter medicine to drink and herbal medicine to apply to the back.

During a casual conversation with Madam Rong, Lu Qiqi suddenly realized that being a salt merchant was nothing more than a pretext for various aristocratic families to amass wealth.

Therefore, since the border town had just experienced war, these aristocratic families also wanted to re-establish themselves in the border town.

If they wanted to monopolize the salt production, even the reigning emperor would find it difficult to intervene.

Therefore, Lu Qiqi felt that the power of aristocratic families was no less than that of emperors.

According to Song Yanqing, the late emperor ascended the throne with the support of powerful families.

That's why the royal family was so wary of the powerful families in the past, which is why they are now so vulnerable to such restrictions.