Chapter 918: Salt Field Reform in Xianfeng County
Just as the immigrants in Shanghe Village, Xinhua County, were introducing the situation of the eight northern counties of the Han tribe to the local people, in mid-March, after the contact between Xue Qingyao and Dashu, the second batch of immigrants sent to Qiongzhou Island also landed smoothly.
These immigrants actively played a role in the local area, teaching the local people to grow various crops of the Han tribe while promoting various living habits of the Han tribe to them, gradually assimilating the local people into one.
The villages in the six counties of Qiongzhou were also steadily promoting the transformation of paddy fields. The first batch would give priority to the transformation of places close to rivers or where there were canals dug in the local area.
Such places are easier to transform, and rice can be planted locally first. Other places that are difficult to transform can be put in the second batch, and the same applies to planting in the third quarter of this year after the transformation is completed.
Although this may disrupt the local farming rhythm, these are all necessary for the corresponding reforms. It is not too late to make unified arrangements next year after the transformation of various places is completed.
It is worth mentioning that the four county governors sent by Luo Chong to Qiongzhou Island as officials at the beginning of the year finally landed on Qiongzhou Island with the second batch of immigrants.
Niu Wei was revisiting the old place. He grew up on this island since he was a child and was very familiar with it. This time he was assigned to Xianfeng County as a county governor, and he had already made some plans in his mind.
Xianfeng County was not a big county. It had a small population and not much fertile farmland. Most of the people were engaged in the production of salt drying and salt production, creating a large amount of sea salt for foreign trade for the Xin tribe every year.
But now it is different. Niu Wei has received orders from above. Xianfeng County must develop in two ways. The existing agricultural land must continue to be developed, and the salt fields used to produce sea salt need to be transformed and the staff must be streamlined, and the laid-off people must also be put into agricultural production.
Along with Niu Wei, there was also a contractor from the Han tribe sent by Luo Chong. This man took the drawings given by Luo Chong and was responsible for the transformation of the salt fields.
The work of drying sea salt can be roughly divided into three steps. The first is to collect seawater and introduce it into the salt field. During this process, it is best to filter the seawater first to avoid introducing unnecessary impurities.
Then there is brine making. Yes, seawater salting also requires brine making. The general process of brine making is to increase the salt concentration of seawater so that it can gradually reach the level of salt production.
To be more specific, the primary seawater introduced is dried. When the primary seawater is evaporated to a certain extent, the salinity of the seawater will increase and become primary brine. Then these saltier seawaters are introduced into the second-level brine concentration pool for further drying. After the seawater evaporates and the salinity increases again, the pool will continue to be transferred.
This process will go through three to four times, and finally the primary seawater introduced will be turned into concentrated brine with saturated salinity. As long as the water evaporates a little more, salt will crystallize out.
Finally, the concentrated brine is introduced into the salt drying field for drying until all the seawater evaporates and sea salt is dried out.
This is the general process of seawater salting.
However, in the Xin tribe period, most of the salt fields in Xianfeng County were naturally formed salt fields, and some were semi-natural salt fields. After being slightly transformed by local people, they finally became salt fields.
Most of the natural salt fields before were stone mountains on the coast. After being washed by sea water all year round, some stepped stone shoals were formed. When the tide was high, the sea water would automatically flow over the highest steps. After the tide receded, some sea water would remain in the depressions on the steps.
These seawaters evaporated through natural sunlight and turned into brine with a certain salinity. Then they flowed down the steps and merged in the lower steps, gradually forming saturated brine with a higher concentration.
At this time, the local people would use various tools that could hold water, such as bamboo tubes, animal skins, and earthenware jars, to lift the saturated brine at the bottom to the highest step by manpower for the final crystallization process.
Because the tides of the seawater are fixed at fixed times, if the saturated brine at the bottom is not raised to a higher place, then before the saturated brine begins to precipitate and crystallize, the seawater will rise again, and the saturated brine will be re-integrated into the sea, and all previous efforts will be in vain.
So this has caused an important problem in the sea salt industry in Xianfeng County. First of all, there are not many salt fields, because they are basically formed naturally, so the output is directly limited.
As far as Niuwei knows, there are only six large and small salt fields in Xianfeng County. The smallest drying area is only a dozen acres, and there is only one largest salt field. The total area of salt ponds of all levels added together can be three or four football fields, which is already large.
Moreover, because manpower is needed to bring up the saturated brine from the salt pond at the bottom, these salt ponds also occupy a large amount of labor, because each time the process of bringing up water is equivalent to a race with the tide, the brine below must be brought up before the high tide, otherwise the work will fail, so it is not enough to have less manpower.
These people are just trapped in the salt fields for nothing, and they are basically not used at ordinary times. When they need to work, they are not enough, which causes a huge waste of labor. Even Niuwei himself knows this.
Niuwei himself once said that apart from anything else, even if it is just to replace some tools for these salt workers, it can increase the output of salt and save a lot of manpower.
For example, a special road is built for bringing up water, and then the bamboo tubes and earthenware jars used by salt workers to draw water are uniformly replaced with wooden barrels and shoulder poles, so that salt workers can carry two buckets of water at a time, and then a large number of convenient tools such as shovels are popularized for use in the transportation of salt and drawing water, which can definitely save two-thirds of the original manpower.
As for the increase in production, Niuwei has no way to do it, because the salt-drying depends on the weather and the season, and the salt pan is so big that it can only hold so much seawater at a time. The time to dry the seawater and precipitate white salt is basically fixed. This is not something that can be solved by bringing up the brine quickly.
You can't speed up the cycle of seawater tide and ebb tide, right? This is definitely not possible.
But when it comes to Luo Chong, these are naturally no problem, because he already has a universal steam engine and a recently made water pump. There is no such thing as carrying water. Isn't it good to pump up the saturated brine directly from the salt pond below?
The work that originally required hundreds of people to carry water up now only requires a few people to look after the steam engine, the water pump, and the water pumping pipeline. At most, ten people can do it, and this is just the saving in manpower.
In terms of production, who says that there are fewer salt pans and the production cannot be increased? If there are
fewer salt pans, won't new ones be built? There is a cycle of tide and ebb tide. If the seawater can't come up, won't it be pumped with a water pump?
Besides, even if the Han tribe didn't have a steam engine, even if they only used windmill pumps or waterwheels to draw water, they could still do these things. These salt fields were in the hands of the Han tribe, saving manpower and increasing production capacity. It was just a piece of cake. It wasn't a problem at all.
Niu Wei came here this time to do this. First of all, he brought the steam engine to the existing salt fields, and then released the labor in the six salt fields. Some of them were allowed to switch to farming directly.
The other part was directly recruited into the public salt fields as workers, and they would get paid to eat in the future.
If someone wanted to open a salt field privately, that was fine, but first they had to pay a heavy tax, and then they had to build a salt field on their own. In the end, the salt produced could only be sold to the tribe at the price set by the tribe. In short, salt was still sold exclusively by the government, and no one was allowed to retail private salt.
Niu Wei was actually very puzzled by this. Since private salt fields were allowed to be opened privately, why were they not allowed to sell them privately? Since private sales were not allowed, why were they allowed to open salt fields privately?
In fact, this was just Luo Chong's layout for the future.
If any project is run by the government alone, corruption, false reporting of production, and lower quality are bound to happen.
Maybe now there is Luo Chong, a leader with a prestige close to that of a god, and the bureaucracy is just starting out, so those people haven't thought about corruption and won't play these tricks, but what about the future? After a few generations, who can guarantee that no one will touch this huge piece of cake?
Therefore, the operation of the salt field must be divided into a part for the private sector, so that the government and the private sector can compete, but the salt produced must be sold to the tribe in a unified manner. When the tribe purchases it in a unified manner, by comparing the production and quality of both parties, it can be discovered at any time whether there are any problems in the public salt field.
Two chapters today. More than 5,000 words, and there will be another chapter before midnight.
I have run out of detailed outlines, so I will reorganize my thoughts and then resume my daily output of 10,000 from tomorrow. (This chapter is 2,700+ the following one is free of charge)
(End of this chapter)
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