Chapter 63 Yantian Village

[Recite the URL three times silently. Do you remember it? If not, I will ask again in the next chapter. It would be best if you could share it on Facebook for me]

Two hills slanting into the sea form a small sheltered bay, with the gentle coastline of the bay kissing the silvery white beach. In the distance, under the setting sun, several small fishing boats were collecting their fishing nets and heading towards the shore. Several cheerful children were jumping on the beach, chasing the waves, and waving their hands at the fishing boats.

Yantian Village is located on the seashore on the west side of the central part of Taiwan Island. As the name suggests, this place is used to dry salt.

As the households moved here, the originally barren beach gradually became lively.

As the chief officer of the salt field, Li Chun has never rested for half a day since he was recruited by Qin Hao. He is either busy or on the way to be busy. He used to make blue bricks and build water wheels, and now he is here to be in charge of drying salt.

However, for him, even though it is so hard, he does not feel uncomfortable. Instead, he has a full sense of accomplishment and enjoys this.

With such a satisfied mood, Li Chun worked even harder. On the first day of his arrival, he asked the salt households who had just registered in Yantian Village to start building salt ponds, brine ponds, and crystallization ponds to use seawater to dry salt, and he didn't want to delay for a moment.

With such hard work, all the preparatory work for drying salt was ready in just three or four days.

That night, taking advantage of the moonlight, all the salt households began to light bonfires to cook. The women gutted the various large and small fish caught by their husbands at sea, rinsed them with clean water, and put them directly into boiling water, and then added some kelp and oysters for seasoning.

High-end ingredients often only require the simplest cooking methods!

Soon the whole coast was filled with fragrance, refreshing.

The children sat around the big iron pot, sniffing the aroma of the pot, waiting for such a delicious bowl to go down.

"Adults, dinner is ready." The soldiers walked into the wooden house with two bowls of fish soup and rice, reminding Li Chun and Li Yi.

"Put it down first." Li Yi glanced at the sky-blue bowl on the wooden table and replied lightly.

In the past half month, he and Li Chun basically didn't eat on time. They were either busy until late at night and no one heated up the food, or they didn't sleep all night, and the next day's breakfast was the previous day's dinner, and they fooled around.

However, the salt pond has been built in the past few days, and the first pond of salt will be produced tomorrow, so it's not as busy as before.

This time I was a little free, I felt hungry, picked up the bowl on the table, picked up the chopsticks and started to eat voraciously. Li Chun, who was calculating on the side, also lifted half of his body on the table, smelled the bubbling fish soup, and unconsciously picked up the bowl and chopsticks to eat with Li Yi.

"This fish soup is really fresh." Li Yi held the bowl and drank the fish soup, exclaiming.

"It's really good." Li Chun echoed.

These sea fish are all freshly caught, killed and cooked, and retain the most freshness. There is no need to add salt to a pot of soup, and it can be so tasty. This is the life of salt farmers in the future. They boil salt continuously, but they probably won't eat salt for their whole life. Seafood has sufficient salt crystals, which is unique.

"It would be great if the general could drink it." Li Yi muttered softly, and he also wanted to tell Li Chun.

"It's probably in the next few days." Li Chun had received a letter from Zhuge Xuan before, saying that Qin Hao had returned. Li Chun estimated that it would take a few days for the general to come back to Yantian Village to take a look. This is a treasure house in the future.

After dinner, the two worked for another half an hour, made preparations for tomorrow's affairs, and then went back to their rooms to rest.

That night, everything was stable, and there was no beast attack incident before.

When I first came, because the salt pond was built first, I didn't take care of the house, and I lived in tents at night. Many wandering beasts rushed to the camp and made a lot of noise. Fortunately, there were no casualties. The worst thing was that I was pushed by a wild boar and lay in bed for a few days.

Early in the morning of the second day, before the sun jumped out of the sea, Li Chun got dressed and got up. As soon as he opened the wooden door, the salty and humid sea breath hit him.

At this time, there were already many busy figures in the salt ponds on the coastline. The salt farmers picked out all kinds of seaweed and fish that were washed to the coast by the sea water last night to prevent them from stirring the salt water when drying the salt, so that the salt could not crystallize well.

Soon after, the round sun passed over the sea, shining on the earth with red clouds. The sunlight gradually became dazzling, and the air was also a bit dry. The sea water began to recede, revealing the salt ponds surrounded by blue bricks on the beach.

Now is the most leisurely time for the salt farmers. They don’t have to do anything. They just need to wait until the sun slowly evaporates the sea water and precipitates crystals.

As time passed, the sun became scorching overhead. Li Chun, Li Yi and others who were waiting on the beach were sweating profusely.

But the seawater in the salt pond was only a thin layer, and the imagined sea salt did not appear. After waiting for so long, there was no result, and the salt farmers around became anxious.

This method of drying salt was unheard of by the salt farmers, and they didn't know whether it was true or false.

However, they did not doubt that the adults were wrong, but secretly worried whether they had not followed the requirements set by Master Li Chun.

In fact, it was not Li Chun's method that was to blame, nor the salt farmers, but this place was not the best place to dry salt. The best place to dry salt on Taiwan Island is on the southwest coast, where the terrain is flat, the sun is sufficient and there is little rain, which is very suitable for drying salt. As long as a salt pond is built, salt can be dried.

But this is the central and northern part of Taiwan Island, with more rain and not so good conditions, so Li Chun asked the salt farmers to build several brine pools and crystallization pools to further promote the evaporation of seawater.

Li Chun comforted the salt farmers and told them not to worry, and then ordered them to introduce the seawater that was initially evaporated in the salt pool into the brine pool.

After receiving the order, the salt farmers immediately installed a pumping truck, pulled two strong buffaloes, and slowly pumped the salt water into the brine pool on the shore.

After the brine pools were filled, Li Chun told them to make lunch and not to wait here. It is not a one-day job to dry salt. If God favors, you can see sea salt in two days. If not, it will rain several times in the middle, and the efforts of the previous few days will be in vain, and you have to start all over again.

Fortunately, these days are good days, and everything went smoothly. The salt water in the brine pool was introduced into the crystallization pool after half of the drying, and the final steaming and drying began.

In fact, there is a way to speed up the precipitation of sea salt, which is to pour the initial evaporated brine into an iron pot and boil it over high heat, so that salt can be obtained in one day.

This is a common way of boiling salt in Daming now. A salt farmer once proposed it to Li Chun, but he refused it. First, this is not efficient and requires a lot of firewood. Second, this way of boiling salt is not good for the human body. During the evaporation of seawater, a large amount of harmful substances will be emitted. The person boiling salt will have ulcers on his hands and feet at the least, and even die at the worst.

If Qin Hao knew about it, Li Chun would be scolded, and the gain would not outweigh the loss.

A few days of work can be said to be fast or slow, and it will pass in the blink of an eye.

"There is salt, there is salt, it really came out." When the salt farmers guarding the salt fields saw the sea salt precipitated in the crystallization pool, they immediately greeted and shouted excitedly, followed by bursts of cheers.

[Do you remember that I asked you to recite it three times at the beginning of the chapter? Sharing on Facebook may have a surprise]