According to records, during the reign of Emperor Zhang of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Jianwei County (later Zigong City) area began to produce well salt. Among them, Jiangyang County (later Fushun County) and Nan'an County (later Rong County) were particularly rich production areas.

Salt workers of the past dynasties have drilled many wells in Qianwei, some of which are as deep as 1,000 meters. Even if the average depth is 300 meters, it is equivalent to drilling through more than 400 Mount Everest.

Of course, due to productivity limitations in the early days, wells were not drilled very deep, only one or two hundred meters at most. Moreover, the salt industry had a very detailed division of labor from drilling wells, pumping brine, transporting brine to frying salt, and the processes were complicated and involved high engineering costs and equipment investment.

There are quite a lot of risks, and the risks are not something that ordinary small merchants can bear.

Therefore, as early as the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, in order to control the national economic lifeline and strengthen feudal centralization economically, the salt and iron official policy formulated by Sang Hongyang was implemented. However, the virtuous literature comprehensively criticized the policies formulated during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.

, they believe that the implementation of government-run policies such as salt and iron is "competing with the people for profit" and violates the creed of the ancient sages of "valuing virtue but despising profit, valuing righteousness but despising wealth".

In other words, if you have money, everyone will make it together, and you can’t let the official family make it.

If the weapon of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty is the army, and the weapon of the virtuous literary school is Confucianism, let me tell you about morality, benevolence and righteousness.

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was also helpless. Who allowed him to only respect Confucianism?

In the troubled times of the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the official's control over the private wealthy families had weakened, and they even intentionally compromised, resulting in Yizhou's official lack of control over the salt industry.

Wang Lian had mentioned this to Li Qi before, but Li Qi had not yet paid attention to it.

Now that Li Qi has enough strength and authority, he is ready to go back and rectify the salt industry, intending to further control the salt industry in official hands.

Of course, if Li Qi now said, "I'm going to confiscate all the salt wells in your hands," that would definitely not work, and there would be big trouble.

A great man of the generation once said that without investigation, there is no right to speak, so Li Qi personally went to Qianwei County to inspect the current situation of local salt production.

In today's mining, a building frame is used, and fixed pulleys are installed to absorb brine to improve the efficiency of brine mining; when frying salt, hot brine in a warm pot is used to evaporate water to save fuel. Production technology has made certain progress compared to before. But investment

The amount was huge, and most of the salt merchants who operated wells and stoves pooled capital together and adopted a partnership system.

This is easy to handle!

Li Qi planned to form a partnership with them, and then gradually take control based on his financial strength.

After returning to Chengdu, Li Qi reunited the four major Yizhou families (Li, Ren, Jia, and Wang) to discuss the salt industry plan.

These four major families were originally powerful aristocratic families in Yizhou. Because they supported Li Qi's entry into Sichuan and made the right bet, they have developed smoothly in recent years and their strength has increased to a higher level. They are far beyond what ordinary small aristocratic families can compare with.

As long as these four major families are settled, the others can be ignored.

Li Qi first asked a question: "The price of salt has risen recently, and many people can no longer afford salt. What do you think?"

Ren Dong was once the prefect of Jianwei County, and now he is the "Tai Shang Prefect" of Jianwei County. He has considerable say in the salt industry.

Ren Dong said: "There is no problem with the basic supply. As for salt, it's fine if we have it, but we can't let them eat it."

The other companies nodded one after another, as long as the people can survive, nothing else is as important as making money for themselves.

Li Qidao: "Don't worry, I will never delay everyone's fortune. What I think is, since salt has become a scarce commodity, and with the opening of trade routes, it can bring benefits to everyone, why not make it bigger and stronger?"

Woolen cloth?"

The representative of the Wang family said: "We also want to mine more, but it is not that easy. The investment in drilling a well can be measured in tens of thousands of yuan for a shallow one, and one hundred thousand yuan for a deep one. Some even spend three to four hundred thousand yuan without seeing any results."

Sometimes we can’t get results from drilling, so we have to stop losses in time.”

Li Qidao: "So, there are two factors that hinder the development of the salt industry: one is money; the other is technology, right?"

The Jia family representative nodded and said, "Yes."

Throughout the entire process, the Li family representative did not speak.

Because the elected representative of the Li family is a mascot, and the real representative of the Li family is sitting on the main seat and talking all the time.

Li Qidao: "In order to make full use of our salt well resources and obtain more benefits for everyone, I decided to send Secretary Yan Xiaowei from the official government as a representative to increase investment in capital and technology and make a fortune together with everyone. Who of you agrees and who opposes

?”

Representatives of the Ren, Jia and Wang families looked at each other, as if they felt that this scene seemed familiar.

By the way, that’s how money exchanges started.

Strictly speaking, the gold exchange bank run by Li Qi allows everyone to make money and enjoy the benefits of convenient financing. The only drawback is that the other major families basically have no say in this business.

Li Qi looked at the expressions of these guys and said with a smile: "You can speak freely if you have any ideas. If you have different opinions, you can also put forward them. Could a reasonable person like me still buy and sell by force?"

Ren Dong said: "I agree!"

Ren Dong is now Li Qi's father-in-law. They already wear the same pair of trousers, so there is really no need to hinder his son-in-law.

Besides, after Sun Shangxiang married Li Qi, Ren Dong also had a certain sense of crisis. In addition, Ren Xu gave birth to a daughter, and the sense of crisis was 1; at this time, don't make Ren Xu uncomfortable anymore.

Since someone took the lead in agreeing, the representative of the Li family also silently raised his hand: "I agree!"

Li Qi looked at the Jia and Wang families and said, "It doesn't matter. If you don't want to, the government can cooperate with the Ren and Li families. By the way, I'll see if there are any good salt wells in Jingzhou that can be developed."

.”

When the Jia and Wang families heard this, they became anxious and said quickly:

"I agree!"

"I agree!"

Not to mention the cooperation between Li Qi and Li and Ren, it would have been a half-life blow to them. If Li Qi really found salt well resources similar to those in Jiangyang and Nan'an in Jingzhou, it would cut off the access to Jing, Yang, and Yizhou from Yizhou.

If they open the trade routes of the three states, they will be done for.

After all, Li Qi now has not only money, but also an army.

The aristocratic families were under pressure, and their lives were being controlled step by step by Li Qi.

They are not as lucky as the Jiangdong clan, who can have private soldiers and a large enough political stage.

Their current situation is: if they resist, they will die. If they don't resist, they will gradually lose the initiative in the industry, but they can still make money.

This multiple-choice question doesn't seem difficult to answer.

After leaving Yizhou Prefecture, the representative of the Jia family was a little confused and asked the representative of the Wang family: "Li Yizhou didn't seem to have much money when he first arrived in Yizhou, right? How did he get started?"

Representative of the Wang family: “It seems like it was made with our money.”
Chapter completed!