Without a torch, the group went to the shore in the dark. The child Wang Jian went over and muttered to his father for a while. The old ship owner first opposed it fiercely, but could not resist his son's repeated persuasion and Park Dao, who was staring at the beside Brother Jin, finally reluctantly agreed.

Brother Jin smiled and approached Changsun Hao, and said a few words in his ears, making the elder brother who was wondering why the very arrogant child suddenly turned aside suddenly realized and looked at the direction where Changsun Erlang's stretcher was.

Changsun Hong lay lazily on the stretcher, his limbs were weak, and he was staring at the starry sky in a daze.

Left a man from Lijia Village stayed with the boatman, and the rest, Wang Jian, took advantage of the darkness and no one around, and carried a load on the road. People in the mountains were used to walking on the mountain road. With the bright moonlight in the sky, although they were a little blind in the night, they could walk.

Fushun County is built in the middle of a hill, with mountains everywhere, and roads turn east and west in the valleys, up and down. The well-known Shuzhong Jingyan is produced in the Yanchi area north of this county.

The salt production in Shu is very old, which can be traced back to the Warring States Period. Over the past thousand years, it has developed into an extremely developed and marketed huge industries in various provinces. Among them, the salt industry in the Fushun area is the most prosperous. The salt wells are scattered, the mineral layer is shallow, easy to excavate, good quality, and abundant output. Therefore, the Song Dynasty enclosed land here as a supervisor, and the administrative divisions are independent of the prefectures and are directly under the jurisdiction of the Central Warehouse Department. The imperial court sent a supervisor to directly guard it.

Therefore, in Fushun, the salt administration is the foundation. The government's yamen runners focus mainly on controlling salt, and the investigation should be much stricter than other places. The risk during the day is too great, so entering the salt pond in the dark has become the only choice for the people of Lijia Village.

After walking on the winding mountain trail for more than two hours, about the ugly moment, the scenery on the side of the path changed. Some tall wooden shelves appeared on the hillsides on both sides of the road. The wooden shelves grew tall and four or five feet tall, standing on the ground, with a circle of low walls built below, with a blocked view, and I don’t know what was inside.

The dog has been here once and needs to be familiar with it. Seeing Changsun Hong being attracted by the wooden frame, he began to introduce to Changsun Hong who was the first to come: "These are derricks, but they have been abandoned. After digging a well, they will be discarded and digging down one. The stone wall is a well path, which is about three feet wide and a hundred feet deep. When a person falls, he can't even find his body."

The black shadow of the derrick bathed in the moonlight in the night was like hideous monsters standing high, the mountain wind was howling, and the wild beasts moving at night were roaring, which made people inevitably get goosebumps. Wang Jian shrank and instinctively leaned towards the direction of Gouzi and Changsun Hong.

"Dog, you've been away for so long, who are we going to exchange for salt?" Changsun Hong asked. It was almost midnight, and if you walk on, it was not far from dawn.

"Of course it's the Tinghu." Gouzi whispered: "Only Tinghu are willing to exchange salt for rice. Those officials' armored heads do not care about our food, they all collect copper coins and silver."

"Why is the Tinghu willing to collect rice?" Changsun Hongqi said.

"You're timid." Gouzi sneered: "If you collect money, you have to spend it. If you are found by the head of armor, it will be troublesome. At least you have to take off a layer of skin. So the pavilions are afraid of causing trouble, so they are willing to change the rice directly and hide it at home and eat it slowly."

Changsun Hong said "Oh" and then realized it.

The Sichuan salt administration in the Southern Song Dynasty was the main part of the imperial court's tax revenue. There was a saying that "the world's tax is half the wall". The government attached great importance to it and the system was strict. The pavilion households responsible for digging wells, taking brine and frying salt were not allowed to engage in other industries, specializing in the salt industry, and the ten households were one-piece, supervising each other, supplying enough salt to the court on time, and the court paid the necessary costs. The salt produced by the outside tax amount was not allowed to be sold to others, and could only be sold to the government.

The matter is the responsibility of the head of Jia. The head of Jia is usually a local gangster who is idle and specializes in his duties. The excess salt of the pavilion households is usually taken away by the head of Jia and secretly sold it to the salt merchants to make huge profits. The salt administration officer of the Curang Department also takes a commission.

Once the pavilion is found to sell salt, the mild ones will be sold thousands of miles away, and the severe ones will beheaded and the house will be confiscated. The punishment is very severe. However, the government exploited the pavilion with only a dozen cents per pound of salt. It will barely kill the life of the pavilion, but it is not enough to live in life and cannot do other business, so it is not allowed to farm. Therefore, the pavilion will take risks and secretly hide salt and sell it to a small-scale private salt dealer like Lijia Village in exchange for some daily necessities.

While he was talking, Changsun Jin, who was walking in front, appeared out of the haystack on the roadside, and made a gesture to Changsun Hao, who was leading the leader, with a look of grass on his face.

Changsun Hao immediately led the man to turn, turned to the side of the road, and embarked on a very inconspicuous path.

The path is winding and winding forward, turning in the darkness, and penetrates into the woods.

After creeping into the woods, I walked among the trees for a while, and my eyes suddenly became clear. Under the moonlight, a group of people squatting on the ground guarding a group of baskets stood up.

The people from Lijia Village walked over and stood there ten steps apart. The two brothers Changsun Hao and Changsun Jin stepped forward, and each other stood up and stood face to face with the two.

"I thought you were not here one day late." The man also had a tall figure. Although he was shorter than the Changsun brothers, he was considered a tall among Sichuan people. Under the dark skin exposed by the sun, his strong muscles were almost torn to pieces. At a glance, he knew that he was a rough man who was accustomed to working hard: "If you don't come tonight, we will move the things back. Recently, the yamen has been checked strictly and the wind is tight."

"Something happened on the road, someone got sick, delayed his trip." Changsun Hao apologized with his fists and sued him: "Boss Liu, I'm sorry."

The man named Liu Boss waved his hand and smiled happily: "What are you holding a humble person? As long as you are not your Changsun brother, you are caught by a police officer, you can say anything."

The three of them talked, and from time to time, a hearty smile broke out. In the crowd in Lijia Village behind, Changsun Hong pointed to the strong man and asked the dog: "Is this the one who wants to sell salt to our pavilion household?"

Gouzi was very yearning for such a scene of meeting with a man from a martial arts world. He replied in an envious tone: "That's right, the man's surname is Liu, and he doesn't know what his name is. He is the head of a group of pavilions. It seems that he knew Baozheng before and was an old acquaintance, so he dared to sell salt to us. Last year, he came here, and it was also his appearance."

Changsun Hong nodded and looked at the group of people behind Lao Lao Liu. After seeing it, he realized that the people in Lijia Village were considered extremely miserable and poor, otherwise how could he be willing to risk beheading the head and sell salt? After looking at the other side, he realized that there was no hardest, only more bitter.

The people on the opposite side were all pale and thin, with rib-like bodies. They looked wrinkled on their faces and aging before they were old. The messy hair was casually tied with branches. They were wearing linen jackets with patches and patches. They had a pair of linens around their lower body, and they didn't even have pants. They were all barefoot and were not wearing shoes. They looked like a group of hungry ghosts who hadn't eaten for several days. They stared at the rice in the load here and their eyes shone.

Changsun Hong secretly smacked his tongue and couldn't help but ask Wang Jian beside him: "Why are the pavilions on your side so down and out? They look worse than our rural farmers."

Wang Jian was a young man, but he was sensible. He sniffed when he heard the sound and said sadly: "Although the farmers in your country are suffering, they are free. They can't farm and open land to death. The people here are not allowed to starve. Once they become pavilions, they can only fry salt. Nothing else is allowed. People can't live by eating salt, so that's it."

After hearing this, Gouzi also echoed: "I also heard that people had starved to death last year, otherwise how could Boss Liu take the risk of selling salt? This is a beheaded if he is caught."

While speaking, the two children thought they were not born here and were secretly grateful. Changsun Hong also shook his head repeatedly and sighed. The Song Dynasty was richest in the world and earned tens of millions of yuan per year, but the people under his rule were in such a great pain. Compared with the two, it is a pity.

The price has been negotiated between the Changsun brothers and Liu Boss at this moment. The two parties had traded last year and both knew the details and bartered them. Soon, the baskets on both sides were exchanged.

At the side of the Tinghu, when the load of rice was over, someone couldn't help it. He reached out to the basket to grab the rice and stuffed it into his mouth. His mouth was covered with grains of rice. Boss Liu scolded him a few times before stopping. The people in Lijia Village were stunned. Can raw rice be eaten?

In order to avoid the long night and dreams, we hurriedly parted with each other and left separately before dawn.
Chapter completed!