Chapter 46 Chapter 46

If the person who spoke was not Jiang Huai, Wei Xuan would have thought that someone knew about his troubles and used this excuse to get close to him.

But Wei Xuan didn't think Jiang Huai would have such thoughts. However, in this case, it was too coincidental.

Wei Xuan didn't believe in luck before, but Jiang Huai's incident made him feel that luck does exist. Otherwise, when he was thinking about how to sell salt, Jiang Huai had a very attractive kind of salt.

However, when it comes to the difference in salt, Wei Xuan suddenly remembered that the salt he saw just now was snow-white, but his attention was focused on the dishes at the time, so he didn't think much about it. But now when he recalled it, the salt was indeed different.

Wei Xuan immediately told Jiang Huai about selling salt. After all, if he wanted to sell this kind of salt, he would need Jiang Huai's technical support.

However, Wei Xuan did not tell Jiang Huai about his current financial difficulties. He knew very well that Jiang Huai was kind-hearted. If he told him, the other party would probably not weigh the pros and cons and would directly take out the salt-making technology to ensure the logistics of Ding'an Guard. But precisely because of this, he was even more embarrassed to say it out loud. Wouldn't that be deliberately taking advantage of Jiang Huai?

Jiang Huai didn't expect that Wei Xuan also wanted to sell salt. He was surprised but also felt relieved. It would be a lie to say that he was not tempted by the profit from salt. But if he really wanted to sell illegal salt, there would be countless things to do, such as building connections and business routes, which would be quite troublesome.

But if Wei Xuan wanted to sell illegal salt, then he could take advantage of the other party's business. Although the profit would not be as much as if he did it alone, it would save him a lot of trouble.

After all, the profit from salt is too huge. Even if he has Wei Xuan as his backer, he still doesn't have much power. But it's different with Wei Xuan. His power is enough to suppress all covetousness, not to mention that Wei Xuan also has military power.

"Brother Wei, if you want to sell salt, I can transfer my technology to you. I only want 10% profit." Jiang Huai said readily.

A ten percent profit is not much, but Jiang Huai thought about it. He only provided a technology, and Wei Xuan would have to do the rest of the salt mining, purification and sales. Ten percent is not a small amount. After all, he is really making money without doing anything.

And although Wei Xuan did not say it explicitly, Jiang Huai still remembered the situation of Anyuan Prefecture in the original text. On the one hand, they wanted to expand the army, but the court did not support it. The finances of Anyuan Prefecture must have been in some difficulties, otherwise Wei Xuan would not have thought of selling illegal salt.

Wei Xuan didn't expect Jiang Huai to agree so readily, and even only asked for a 10% interest.

If the taste of the salt is really as Jiang Huai said, then his original plan to sell the salt to the locals in Anyuan Prefecture would be shattered, because the quality of the salt is so high that it does not need to be sold at a normal price. It can be sold to wealthy families at a higher price.

There may not be many rich people in this world, but the wealth they possess exceeds that of ordinary people. If you want to make money, you still have to take money from them. They have higher requirements for food, and they will definitely choose to buy good salt if there is good salt.

Before talking to Jiang Huai, Wei Xuan had even considered other ways to make money, but Anyuan Prefecture did not have any special products, and there were only two industries that could make a lot of money in the past. One was salt profit, because Anyuan Prefecture had a salt pond, which could produce more salt. The other was horses. Because it was close to the grassland, there were quite a few horses, but Ding'an Wei itself needed horses, and if good horses were sold to the heartland of Da Zhou, it would be considered aiding the enemy.

…

After getting some snow salt from Jiang Huai, Wei Xuan immediately called his staff. Of course, considering that simply tasting the salt might not be enough to confirm its taste, Wei Xuan also asked the kitchen to prepare a few light dishes without any other seasonings, only the salt he brought back.

She didn't know what to do when cooking, but when she saw the salt Wei Xuan brought back, she was intimidated and started cooking carefully.

The staff arrived soon.

When Meng Yuan saw the dishes brought in by the kitchen, he was a little confused. He remembered Wei Xuan calling him and saying that he had come up with the idea of ​​selling salt, so he wondered what this dish meant.

"Mr. Meng, please try it first." Wei Xuan kept it a secret.

When Meng Yuan saw Wei Xuan's mysterious look, he knew that the reason for selling salt was probably in this dish. Although it was a little early for his usual meal, he was indeed a little hungry. Meng Yuan didn't say anything and just picked up the dish and started eating.

Meng Yuan usually prefers light dishes, and he discovered the problem after eating this one. It seemed to be better than what he had eaten in the Wei Mansion before. It would be fine if a new chef was hired, but the cooking skills were clearly the same chef. How come the taste of the dishes improved a lot in such a short time?

"This dish..." Meng Yuan opened his mouth to ask about the situation, but then he heard Wei Xuan showing off proudly.

"Mr. Meng, have you noticed that the dish tastes better? This is the power of snow salt." Wei Xuan said proudly.

The two of them grabbed Meng Yuan's ears. Before he could guess what kind of salt it was, Wei Xuan put out the snow salt and told him his plan: "Mr. Meng, look at this salt. You have also tasted the taste of dishes made with snow salt. If it were you, how much silver would you be willing to pay for a pound of salt? If you had tasted this snow salt, would you still be willing to eat the original salt after that?"

Wei Xuan used to think that the Jiang family’s food was delicious, but at that time he only thought it was because of the cooking skills, and didn’t think about the salt. His rejection was not particularly great, after all, salt can be replaced, and cooking skills cannot be trained in a short time. But now that he knows that salt is also involved, he can no longer tolerate it.

Meng Yuan was silent for a moment and then said, "If this salt only cost a few taels of silver, I would be willing to buy it often."

Although the price is high, you don't need to put too much salt when cooking. A pound of salt can last for a while. Even if wealthy families are reluctant to give this salt to their servants, they will definitely eat it themselves.

In other words, if the price of snow salt is low, some wealthy families may not be so eager to buy it.

Seeing that Meng Yuan was also impressed by the snow salt, Wei Xuan smiled with satisfaction, and at the same time did not forget to tell who made the salt.

"Mr. Jiang?" Meng Yuan had some impression of Jiang Huai and knew that he was quite clever, but he never thought that his cleverness could bring such huge profits. He couldn't help but be amazed.

"Brother Huai will get 20% of the salt profits when the time comes," Wei Xuan continued. "He gave us the salt-making technology. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to sell the salt. We can only sell salt in Anyuan Prefecture. Even if we can make money, it definitely won't be much."

The most important thing is that making money from salt from the people of Anyuan Prefecture is, after all, a bit of exploitation of the people, and it does not bring much benefit to the economy of Anyuan Prefecture. But if you can make money from outside, it will be a way to increase revenue.

…

Ding'an Wei is simply a money-eating beast. Under the pressure of money, Wei Xuan acted extremely quickly. After getting the method of purifying crude salt from Jiang Huai, he quickly arranged everything.

Of course, Jiang Huai still arranged how the workshop for purifying crude salt would operate, but he did not make it public. This was also for his own safety. After the snowflake salt became famous, there would definitely be people who wanted to get the method of making snowflake salt. If Jiang Huai got involved, he would definitely be seen as the one that was easy to attack.

When Jiang Huai learned that Wei Xuan had added another 10% profit to his offer, he refused in vain and started thinking more carefully about how to purify the crude salt better.

Of course, Jiang Huai also thought of another way to make salt. After all, although the salt pond is good, the salt in the salt pond needs to be boiled, and the cost of mining is not low. But if sea salt is dried, that would be a truly profitable salt business. However, Anyuan Prefecture is located inland. Although it is not particularly far from the sea, the coast is ultimately in someone else's territory. If you really go there to build a site for seawater salt drying, you may end up doing something wrong.

Unless Anyuan Prefecture can control that place, it will be troublesome to make salt from sea water.

Wei Xuan was very disappointed when he heard what Jiang Huai said. He did not doubt the authenticity of seawater salt drying. Although it sounded difficult, with the sweater and snowflake salt, seawater salt drying was not impossible. But as Jiang Huai said, Anyuan Prefecture was not near the sea, so it was impossible.

As for occupying territory now, Wei Xuan is not so unscrupulous. After all, he and the emperor are still in a stage of mutual concern. It will be fine if there is no big move. But if he goes to the neighboring territory to cause trouble, it will be equivalent to intensifying the conflict, which will cause trouble later.

Wei Xuan glanced at Xiao Jingzhao and felt that this matter could wait until later.

After the workshop was built, a large amount of snowflake salt was extracted and then carefully packaged. After all, if it was to be sold at a high price, it naturally had to be made to look precious enough. If the snowflake salt was only roughly packaged, even if the color was different from other salts, it would be difficult to look noble.

As the capital of a country, Kyoto naturally became an important sales place for snowflake salt.

However, the salt consumed by the powerful and wealthy families was purchased through their own channels, and the price of snowflake salt was high. The salt dealers were newcomers, and even if they tasted a little and found that the salt tasted good, many families still did not buy the salt.

However, the salt merchants were not in a hurry. After all, they had made expectations before coming. Rich families like good things, but sometimes when a new thing comes out, they will not use it easily.

The salt-selling team quickly sold the salt to some restaurants, or delivered it to some restaurants. Some restaurants were not interested in the salt delivered to their doors, but after tasting it and using it to cook, they immediately realized the specialness of this snowflake salt.

Some people even want to monopolize all the salt, or suppress the snowflake salt. However, the salt dealers are well prepared. If one store doesn't want it, they will go to another. It is impossible for all the restaurants in Kyoto to be of one mind.

So some restaurants had snowflake salt and some didn't. At first, the situation didn't change much, but soon, people who often went to the restaurants discovered the problem. The dishes of the two restaurants, which originally had similar cooking skills, tasted better in one, while the other remained the same. However, this unchanging state became a regression in comparison.

The changes in the restaurant business were extremely obvious. Once people discovered that the food was not tasty, unless they were very old customers, they would rarely choose to give it another chance. Especially since the competition among the major restaurants in Kyoto was so fierce, soon the salt merchants no longer had to look for people everywhere to buy the salt, but the major restaurants had to beg them to buy it.