Selling salt!
The salt here was a method of making salt and not just pure salt.
It was not that Liu Xuan had not thought of selling the purified salt directly to the aristocratic families in exchange for weapons, but after comprehensive consideration, he found that this method would not work.
Firstly, salt and iron were monopolized in ancient times, and salt was a strategic resource controlled by the imperial court.
Although Liu Xuan had some fame now, he was only a small county governor in the entire Great Han Dynasty. He did not dare to openly sell illegal salt.
Secondly, it was because the steps to purify salt into table salt were not complicated and could be easily learned by others.
Rather than letting others learn it for nothing, it was better to sell this salt-refining method at a high price before others knew about it. That way, he could still make a huge profit.
The third point was that Liu Xuan really couldn't bear it.
After hearing the news of the high price of salt that day, Liu Xuan could not help but have a question: Since the price of salt was so expensive, how did the commoners who could not even afford to eat replenish their salt?
In order to know the answer, Liu Xuan personally visited a few villages and asked the villagers.
The final conclusion was:
The so-called salt cloth was a coarse cloth soaked in boiling salt water.
Because it had been soaked in salt water, there was a hint of salt in it.
When the commoners cooked, they would soak the salt cloth into the food, or even eat a mouthful of food and then put the salt cloth in their mouths. Only then could they taste the salt.
A piece of salt cloth could be used for several months.
When Liu Xuan saw the so-called salt cloth from the mouth of a commoner, he was shocked.
The salt cloth was about the size of a palm and was dark brown in color. There were yellow and black patches on it, indicating that it had been used for a long time.
Just looking at it made Liu Xuan feel disgusted.
When he thought about how the commoners used this kind of salt cloth as seasoning, Liu Xuan found it very difficult to accept.
Hence, he decided to do it.
After the production of the salt workshops in the county increased, Liu Xuan increased the monthly salary of the workers and soldiers.
Other than the food that they had promised, there was also an additional stalk of salt.
A stalk was a unit of weight.
Twenty-four stalks are one liang, sixteen liang is one catty, thirty catty is one average, and four average is one stone.
After more than a month, almost all the people in Dai County had some salt stored in their homes. Therefore, things like salt cloth had gradually been abandoned by the people.
However!
This was only limited to Dai County.
Outside of Dai County, the people in the other counties and provinces still used salt cloth to replenish their salt.
This was the real reason why Liu Xuan couldn't bear it.
He really couldn't bear for the people to continue using salt cloth to replenish their salt.
The above three points were the reasons why Liu Xuan decided to sell the salt production method to the aristocratic families.
In the end.
Liu Xuan used the salt-making method to exchange for a total of four thousand halberds.
The reason why they only exchanged a few weapons was that he had taken the initiative to suggest it.
Originally, when the world's wealthy families learned that Liu Xuan wanted to exchange salt for weapons, the most generous Yuan family directly said that they were willing to exchange ten thousand halberds.
Liu Xuan was extremely tempted.
However, after much consideration, Liu Xuan still refused and suggested that he only needed 4,000 halberds.
He didn't dare to ask for more. He was afraid that the people from the aristocratic families would find out about the number of soldiers he had trained, which would cause some unnecessary trouble.
However, the value of 4,000 halberds was definitely not as good as the salt production method.
Therefore, Liu Xuan proposed to use craftsmen and iron ores to replace the six thousand halberds.
In the end.
After a round of bargaining, Liu Xuan got what he wanted from the Yuan family. He got 100 old craftsmen and 10,000 kilograms of iron ore.
The value of a craftsman was unquestionable.
As for the iron ore…
Indeed.
There was indeed an iron mine in Dai County, but it was located in the forest in the southwest.
However, that forest was currently occupied by a group of bandits.
Moreover, according to Liu Xuan's understanding, it was not that the imperial court had not thought of mining that iron ore in the past. However, that iron ore was not an open pit mine. Only a small portion of it was exposed to the outside. It was very troublesome to mine it. Coupled with the inconvenience of transportation, the imperial court's mining was finally left unsettled.
In any case, Dai County would definitely not be able to produce iron ore by itself in a short period of time, one or two years.
Therefore…
If Liu Xuan wanted to forge his own iron weapons, he could only go to the aristocratic families to exchange for them.
With the addition of the 100 old craftsmen, the shortage of craftsmen in Dai County was alleviated, but the problem was still very serious.
Moreover, this era was different from the modern era.
Craftsmen relied on their skills to make a living. They rarely taught their skills to others. Even if there were, there were only a few.
In order to solve this problem, Liu Xuan even issued a new decree to encourage craftsmen to take in a large number of disciples. The County Governor's Office had subsidies for taking in disciples. If they took in a disciple, they would be rewarded with ten stones of grain and one tael of refined salt. If they trained a disciple to finish his apprenticeship, the master would be rewarded with five hundred stones of grain and one stone of refined salt.
For a time, the entire Dai County was in a craze for disciples.
Many craftsmen took their disciples away.
In a short period of time, before the apprentices of these craftsmen had graduated, the effect of Liu Xuan's decree was not obvious.
However, he could predict it.
One day in the future.
When this batch of craftsmen finished their studies, the number of craftsmen in Dai County would definitely increase exponentially.
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