Chapter 64: Second Visit to the Ghost Market
This time when we went to the night market, in addition to Lin Xianyang who volunteered, Su Ze also brought the honest and introverted Lin Deqing with him.
The little carrot head Lin Liangjun was left in the guardhouse. The Demon King protested, and Su Ze immediately told Lin Mojun. Then the voice of the little carrot head crying for his father and mother came from the Baihu Station. It is said that the bear in the guardhouse was The children are much more at ease.
The three of them got on the donkey cart and set off towards the ghost market. This time, instead of making refined salt, Su Ze made coarse salt into salt bricks and sent them to the ghost market for cash.
The large-scale flow of refined salt into the market will definitely arouse suspicion, and this hugely profitable product will definitely be targeted by others in the ghost market.
In contrast, coarse salt is a safe commodity. Su Ze got the stall selling coarse salt in the ghost market from Zhu Qi. Today, he brought Lin Deqing with him to be responsible for selling coarse salt.
Lin Deqing is introverted and dull, but he can get everything done according to his instructions, and he never has any objection to Su Ze's words.
Lin Xianyang has a slightly more outgoing personality. He has been trained by his grandfather over the years and often handles external matters on behalf of the Wei Institute. He is considered a more active person in Changning Wei.
Since Su Ze avenged him, Lin Xianyang respected Su Ze from the bottom of his heart and followed Su Ze's orders to the letter.
It was his brothers who were more useful. Su Ze finally understood why most big people relied on their brothers when they started their business. Only his brothers were the most reliable.
In contrast, although Xiong Wu is strong and smart, he doesn't know what he is hiding. Zhu Qi seems to be submissive, but in fact he is restless and needs to be hammered for a while before he can use it.
Su Ze also asked Lin Mojun. Zhang Haihu was indeed a relatively large Japanese pirate gang in the nearby waters. They occupied an island called Nanpi Island. This island was not a small island without fresh water like Meiyue Island. Rather, it is a large island with fresh water.
According to the Coast Guard, those with fresh water are called living islands, and those without fresh water are called dead islands.
The Dead Island can only be docked temporarily, making long-term living difficult, and there is no way to farm it, so it has no strategic value.
Living islands are different. These islands can be cultivated and have fresh water supply. They are important maritime nodes.
Government troops and Japanese pirates would compete for these living islands, and smuggling merchants also needed such islands to transfer goods. The competition was very fierce.
Therefore, Zhang Haihu must be a relatively powerful Japanese pirate in the nearby waters. Lin Mojun told Su Ze to be careful and not to take it lightly.
Lin Mojun also proposed that the remaining soldiers of the Changning Guards should accompany Su Ze. Su Ze thought about it and agreed. After the three of them set off, more than fifty remaining soldiers of the Changning Guards ambushed outside the ghost market with weapons. If Su Ze and the others encounter an accident, they will go in to rescue people.
Lin Mojun was about to send out regular soldiers, but was stopped by Su Ze. He was looking for business with the Japanese pirates, not to suppress them, so there was no need for such a big battle.
Be careful when sailing the ten thousand year ship. Su Ze also knows the essence of Gou Dao. It is true that he has a system, but this is not a game that cannot be revived. No matter how cautious you are when contacting Japanese pirates, you can't be too cautious.
It's better to have backup. Su Ze once again lamented the benefits of traveling to Changning Guard.
The three of them carried coarse salt to the ghost market. Lin Deqing lined up the salt bricks and sat in the shop to wait for business.
Su Ze took Lin Xianyang and started to buy other things.
The first was charcoal. Sure enough, Su Ze found a stall selling charcoal in Qianshi of the ghost market.
Su Ze looked at the shop's banner, which read "Changping Coal".
Su Ze then remembered that the term coal already existed in this era. For example, Li Shizhen recorded coal in "Compendium of Materia Medica".
"Coal is black gold stone. In ancient times, it was called graphite in calligraphy. Now it is commonly called coal. The sounds of coal and ink are similar. "Shiyiji" says that coke stone is like charcoal, and "Lingbiao Lu" says that there are coke stone caves in Kangzhou. , that’s it.
There are also many places where coal is produced in the mountains in the north and south. In the past, people didn’t use it, so few people know about it. Nowadays, people use it instead of firewood to cook and smelt iron and stone, which is of great benefit to the people." Now the Ming Dynasty has begun to use coal extensively
. Come to make iron.
Wait, Li Shizhen is also a celebrity of this era, right?
Su Ze recalled the historical knowledge of Level 5. Three years ago, Li Shizhen cured the disease of Fushun King Zhu Houkun's son and became famous as a doctor. He was hired by Zhu Yingdi, King of Chu in Wuchang, as the "Fengcizheng" of the palace, and also in charge of the affairs of the good doctor's office. .
In two years, he will be recommended to work in Tai Hospital. This period of time is when he is laying the foundation for "Compendium of Materia Medica".
Do you need liver medicine skills? Su Ze thought about it for a while but gave up on the idea. Now he had too many skills that he wanted more than he could chew.
The shop clerk greeted Su Ze very warmly. He pointed to his coal and said, "Mr. sir, my coal is the best Ganzhou coal."
Su Ze looked at it and saw that these were coal lumps of different sizes. It is coal ore dug directly from the ground without going through the coal washing process.
It's just that the natural abundance of this coal mine is good. The surface of the coal is like black gold, which means it is high-quality coal at first glance.
However, this kind of raw coal mine is rich in various toxic substances. It is fine when used to make iron, but it is prone to accidents when used for heating.
"How do you sell this coal?"
The clerk immediately said: "This coal is also sold by the day. Once the coal is sold, it costs two hundred cents."
"This price is too high. Doesn't our Yanping Prefecture also produce coal? Why are we selling this coal in Ganzhou? Coal?"
The man said patiently:
"My husband, I don't know. The coal smoke produced in Yanping Prefecture is very poisonous and burns quickly. Except for the iron smelting plant, the iron workshop is not used." The iron smelting plant
is The official iron-making iron factory of Ming Dynasty, this is the place where iron ore is smelted into steel.
In fact, during this era, the Ming Dynasty was the world's largest steel producer. There were two "Dajian furnaces" in Yanping Prefecture. Each furnace produced 81,600 kilograms of iron. There were more than 1,000 craftsmen, military households, and civilians in the iron smelting plant. There were five hundred people, and the imperial court also set up a furnace stoker and an iron smelting station to be responsible for the work of the iron smelting plant.
There are government-run and private iron smelting plants, but most of the iron workshops (blacksmith shops) are privately owned.
It turns out that the quality of coal produced by local coal mines is not high, so those blacksmith workshops are more willing to buy Ganzhou coal, which is less toxic.
Su Ze kept in mind that coal washing and desulfurization technology might be developed in the future. However, it seems that coal sales in Fujian are not very profitable at the moment. Let’s wait until later. Coal washing and desulfurization technology might be a big killer in the north.
Su Ze first bought Wudan coal, went back to use it first, and then mixed it with soybeans, rice, pickles and some cabbage seeds, hiding the key steps of refining salt from soy milk.
This was not because Su Ze was deliberately guarding against Lin Xianyang, but because the profits from refined salt were too great, and it was currently Su Ze's most profitable business, so he had to keep it secret.
After all these things were done, Su Zecai and Lin Xianyang went to the aftermarket to look for the joint stall Zhu Qi mentioned.
(End of chapter)