Chapter 83: How to Establish Oneself in the World

"This..."

"Young Master..."

"Brother Liu..."

Everyone at the scene, every single one of them, was stunned.

If one were to say that a few days ago, this pile of salt was still a glittering mass that dazzled the eyes, then today, this refined salt with its uniform color and consistent grains truly exceeded their imagination. Shen Xing even lunged forward, grabbed a handful of the refined salt, rubbed it against his face, and shouted, "It's like cotton, it's like cotton!"

The crowd burst into laughter.

Liu Zheng also laughed and said, "Edible refined salt can at least make people live a few years longer!"

The crowd clicked their tongues in wonder, yet there was not one who did not believe it. Because they had witnessed the production process with their own eyes, and they had been eating those many inedible impurities for years. Heaven knows how much of their lives that had cost them!

Liu Zheng looked at Zheng Yue Ru with a smile: "How is it?"

Zheng Yue Ru had been so shocked she couldn't speak. At this moment, what else could she say? She smiled bitterly: "Brother Liu, this salt, this salt, how should it be priced?"

The crowd laughed out loud.

A few days ago, Zheng Yue Ru was still hesitating about whether this would lead to beheading, but today she was already starting to consider how to price it. While the nature of a merchant certainly played a part, it was more that Zheng Yue Ru also understood what kind of changes would come to Yinzhou, and even to the landscape of the world, if this Yintan were truly all salt. This was no longer a simple question of whether it was a crime or not.

And this question of hers was also well-asked.

How to price it?

Since ancient times, salt had always been controlled by the imperial court and was a major source of the court's revenue; whatever price the officials set, that was the price. It had never been cheap. What they didn't know was that salt, this thing, was truly too abundant on Earth... even if they ate it freely and mined it freely, it was estimated it would take hundreds of millions of years to finish mining it.

So-called control was merely the result of the enormous profits involved.

Therefore...

Crude salt was already at such a high price, so what about this refined salt?

"Eldest Miss Zheng can go discuss that; as for me, I am only responsible for production!"

Liu Zheng deliberately made a bow, the crowd snickered, and Zheng Yue Ru was made to blush deeply by Liu Zheng. She glared at him fiercely before turning to leave—she had also been watching Liu Zheng work on this salt-making process for six full days and nights without rest.

Another ten days passed.

In these ten days, the ten core members had also basically mastered the mining of lake salt. And the project of enclosing land to build a city was also progressing steadily. This was destined to be a massive project. In the blueprints drawn by Liu Zheng, the entire Yintan project was mainly divided into three parts. First was the collection workshop, second was the sun-drying workshop, and third was the salt-washing workshop. This was the lake salt portion. As for the well mineral salt, that side was more complex.

The production of well mineral salt is mainly divided into two links: brine extraction and salt making; different mineral types adopt different extraction methods. Methods for extracting natural brine include Extraction by Lifting, Gas Lift, Oil Extraction, Deep Well Submersible Pump, and Self-Flowing Extraction. In rock salt mining areas, drilling and water-soluble mining methods are mostly used, with some adopting Single Well Convection and others using Double Well Hydraulic Fracturing.

Initial brine extraction involved collecting brine from shallow surface depths, with wells ranging from several tens to a hundred meters deep. Using a wooden frame and installing a fixed pulley to draw the brine, there were two tall well derricks above the well, equipped with pulleys. The two ends of the descending rope were tied with buckets, and four people worked together to pull, one up and one down, to draw the brine. When lowered, the bucket at the other end filled with brine would be lifted up. Once the bucket was lifted, the brine was poured into a container next to the derrick, and then, using the drop in elevation, it was channeled through bamboo pipes into brine vats set beside the stoves. On the large salt-boiling stoves, five cooking pots were lined up, and the brine was boiled in these pots to become salt.

This meant that the largest part of the well mineral salt mining process was the drilling technique.

And what Liu Zheng adopted was the Zhuo Tong Well drilling technique, which was relatively advanced in ancient times.

Excavating small-diameter wells. The mouth of a Zhuo Tong Well was only nine inches in diameter, with the deepest exceeding a hundred zhang. In this process, Liu Zheng used a "circular blade" well-drilling tool. The invention of this new type of percussion drill bit made mechanical well-drilling possible, which meant using a drill rod with a circular blade bit to repeatedly lift and drop, pounding and crushing the rock at the bottom of the well to gradually deepen the salt well. This circular blade was designed in a spherical shape, which was also the basis for the subsequent evolution of various drill bit shapes.

To realize this drill bit, Liu Zheng directly moved both the Fine Iron Workshop and the Weaponry Workshop of the Shen Gong Workshop over.

When the circular blade drilled to a certain depth, the drill bit had to be lifted to scoop out rock debris and mud. The method was to put a simple lifting device, the Fan Mud Tube, into the well, which would automatically load the rock debris and mud to be lifted out of the well mouth. After the well embryo was formed, large Big Nan Bamboo was used, with the nodes removed and hollowed out, and connected via "Mu Mu Connection" to be lowered into the well to create an artificial well wall. This could prevent groundwater from the strata from seeping into the well and avoid the collapse or caving in of the salt well; this was also called "planting bamboo in the ground." A bamboo tube smaller than the diameter of the salt well was used as a brine-drawing container, with cowhide used as a piston placed at the bottom of the tube. Utilizing the tension of the water at the bottom of the well and the downward pressure of the water inside the tube, the brine was drawn out of the well mouth. A large wooden frame was erected at the well mouth, and a windlass was set up nearby. One end of a rope was tied to the windlass, driving the pulley on the wooden frame to extract the brine.

Well mineral salt is more complex, but the quality of well mineral salt is indeed the highest among the several types of salt!

One must know that in later generations, eighty percent of edible salt was well mineral salt.

Therefore, despite facing the almost inexhaustible lake salt, Liu Zheng still had to get this well mineral salt produced.

Time passed, bit by bit.

A full month later, the prototype of Yintan City had already emerged. The general architectural structure had also been completed. Many people heard the news and came one after another to watch. This was what made people so shocked; little did they know that in just a short month or two, a city had appeared out of thin air, and it was built on that Yintan!

This young master of the Liu Family is truly capable of causing a stir!

But with the number of soldiers increasing from the initial one thousand to now five thousand elite troops patrolling day and night near Yintan City, those who had thoughts of coveting it had absolutely no opportunity.

This day, Shen Xing, who was planning to go to Yangzhou to take up his post, suddenly came to visit.

"Young Master, Young Master, that person has appeared again!"

Liu Zheng had not yet fully sorted out the production line for well mineral salt, and having just lain down, he jumped up excitedly: "Where, where?"

Talents are in urgent need...

Shen Xing smiled bitterly and took out a piece of paper: "Young Master, please look!"

Liu Zheng looked carefully, and on that piece of paper, only a few words were written.

"How to establish oneself in the world?"

The handwriting was upright, and the topic was quite grand.

How to establish oneself in the world? This naturally asked about Yinzhou, or rather, the current Yinyang—how to establish itself in the world?

Liu Zheng smiled bitterly: "With such a grand topic, how am I to answer?"

Shen Xing snorted coldly: "Young Master, I think this person is just fishing for fame! Now that our Yinyang is prosperous within its borders, the common people are loyal, and the people of the world admire it, what is there to talk about regarding how to establish oneself in the world?"

Liu Zheng shook his head, his brows locked in a frown.

In reality, these four words from this mysterious person also made Liu Zheng tremble all over, as if a single point had struck the bottom of his heart. He had been working hard to search, but he had always been unable to find the direction. Although Yinzhou was already flourishing and prosperous within its borders at this time, for some reason, this could never give Liu Zheng a true sense of security.

What exactly did he want?

Which way should Yinzhou go?

How to establish oneself in the world?

"How to establish oneself in the world?"

Liu Zheng laughed out loud: "What a 'How to establish oneself in the world', let's go!"

Saying this, he pulled the bewildered Shen Xing, rode back to Liangzhou, and arrived at Fengming Tower. When Zheng Yue Ru saw Liu Zheng, a flash of heartache crossed her face, and she said faintly: "Does Brother Liu even know how to come back and rest?"

Then she immediately ordered the girls of Fengming Tower to arrange for Young Master Liu to bathe and change clothes.

Liu Zheng laughed heartily and shook his head: "Today at Fengming Tower, the topic is set!"

Zheng Yue Ru also took it to look, and gasped: "How to establish oneself in the world? Brother Liu, isn't this topic a bit too grand..."

Liu Zheng said: "If the topic isn't grand, how can it show talent? Put it down! I'll go wash up first!"

Zheng Yue Ru rolled her eyes at him and called a few girls who knew how to massage to follow him. She didn't know if this Brother Liu was truly made of iron; he hadn't slept for six days, yet he still had to rush back to post this topic.

Liu Zheng was soaking in the bathtub when he fell asleep.

What he did not know was this.

As soon as this topic was released, the entire Fengming Tower exploded.

In that corner of Fengming Pavilion, where scholars debated and argued, spit was flying and emotions were running high from the very beginning. The reason was simple: everyone knew that the daily topic at Fengming Tower was posted by the young master of the Liu Family. Usually, they were about how to improve farm tools, how to promote the Public School, how to increase harvests, how to manage...

But today's topic was somewhat grand.

Many people were very excited; Yinzhou was no longer the hopeless land it once was. It was thriving, and they regretted missing the open recruitment on the day the County Marquis Mansion was established. Could this topic from the young master of the Liu Family be another attempt to recruit talent?

Seize the opportunity to show off!

Consequently, for the whole day, Fengming Tower was simply packed with people.

Some were shaking their heads, some were slamming cups in anger, some were slapping tables in applause, and some were red-faced.

Seeing this situation, Shen Xing, knowing the young master was catching up on sleep, had to temporarily postpone taking up his post as the Yangzhou County Magistrate and sat there listening to these scholars argue. Truth be told, in just these two days, Shen Xing had actually picked out a few promising seedlings he could support; he intended to keep them by his side to serve as Counselors and Executives.

Two days later, Liu Zheng woke up and hurriedly asked: "Shen Xing, are there any worth taking?"

Shen Xing smiled and said: "Young Master, there are a few, but I have claimed them."

Liu Zheng laughed and scolded: "You brat, you've already learned how to build your own team."

Shen Xing chuckled: "They are enough for the affairs of one county, but talents capable of governing the world are truly nowhere to be found."

Liu Zheng nodded, took a pot of wine, and continued to sit in his private room, listening to the arguments of those people with great interest.

How to establish oneself in the world?

Naturally, this referred to Yinzhou.

The views of these scholars were mostly the same: some suggested focusing on domestic prosperity to observe the situation of the world; some suggested developing military strength to prepare for the unexpected; some proposed commercial expansion to form a tripartite balance of power in Liangzhou...

Liu Zheng listened, feeling both amused and frustrated.

Who couldn't talk big and spout empty words?

What he needed was someone with foresight who could propose concrete plans, not the kind of people he would grab and ask, only to find they didn't even know what commerce was or what a Chamber of Commerce was.

Great talent, oh great talent...

Where exactly are you?

This topic continued for seven days until, finally, someone came along who made Liu Zheng feel slightly interested.

What he did not expect was this.

This person was actually an extremely beautiful woman.

【Author's Note】

Thank you to the brothers for the tips over the past few days, thank you very much!