Pujin Ferry.

When the first ray of sunlight in the morning shone on the ground, Guan Yu cleaned the battlefield with less than two thousand remaining soldiers. At this time, Guan Yu was covered in blood, and his originally red face was covered with blood mud, and he could not see clearly.

This battle lasted a day and a night, and it was extremely difficult.

Dong Zhuo's three thousand Qiang and Hu soldiers only crossed halfway, and was pressed tightly at the ferry by Guan Yu, which made the remaining 1,500 people unable to get ashore at all. Many Qiang and Hu soldiers were squeezed into the water and disappeared into the rolling waves of the Yellow River.

The more than 1,500 Qiang and Hu soldiers who crossed the river fought with great courage. If Guan Yu had not learned Ji Ping's combat method of "killing generals and disrupting the enemy", charged several times, killing nearly ten large and small generals of the enemy, resulting in chaos in the enemy's formation, it would be a matter of whether they could win this battle.

However, after a series of rushing, even though Guan Yu was an enemy of ten thousand people, he was extremely brave and had several wounds on his body, he finally killed all the enemy soldiers before dawn.

Guan Yu ignored the wounds and urgently ordered the soldiers to clean the battlefield while setting up defenses at the Pujin Ferry. As long as he controlled the Pujin Ferry, the future defensive war would be simple.

Just wearing bean paste and chewing steamed buns in his mouth, Guan Yu's body, which was originally hungry and tired, suddenly felt a little more strength.

Seeing the soldiers eating steamed buns, Guan Yu felt an inexplicable feeling in his heart. Before this march, Ji Ping brought a kind of dry food to the army from Dongyuan, called steamed buns.

The snow-white style and soft and sweet taste made the soldiers fall in love with this food after eating it. This time, they fought with the enemy for a day and a night. Many soldiers later chewed steamed buns while killing the enemy, and their strength recovered quickly. Compared with the dry food of the past - fried beans, it is not only a hundred times stronger.

It can be said that those powerful Qiang and Hu soldiers were largely defeated by their inability to the end because they had no time to eat fried beans.

Therefore, the soldiers loved this steamed bun very much, and they were also very grateful and respected to the people who made the steamed buns.

It is said that this steamed bun was invented and made by Ji Ping's mother and wife, but Guan Yu knew that Ji Ping's mother and wife were the original empress dowager and queen!

Whenever he thinks of the noble identities of the Queen Mother and the Queen, and makes such unique food for the soldiers and the people, this turbulent man is full of strength.

With such a lord, what reason does he have not to serve his life to the death!

However, whenever he calmed down, he always thought of his brothers, Liu Bei and Zhang Fei.

After more than ten years of getting along, he is quite uncomfortable with the separation now. Moreover, he is already a general of the Central Army. Liu Bei is also the prefect of Hanoi, but Zhang Fei is still a lower-level lieutenant, which always makes him feel inexplicably guilty.

While thinking, a soldier suddenly came to report: "General Guan, the lord sent someone to send a carriage to the general."

"Carriage?" Guan Yu was stunned, hurriedly got up, tidied up his armor, and said, "Welcome quickly."

No matter what the lord Ji Ping sent him, Guan Yu did not dare to neglect the former emperor of the Han Dynasty. The loyalty and righteousness of the grassroots are really much more loyal than those of the aristocratic families.

Outside the gate, looking at the carriage with curtains and nearly a hundred guards, Guan Yu was shocked. He naturally knew that the style of the carriage often represents identity. Merchants and ordinary people cannot ride carriages. They can only ride carriages, and the carriage in front of him is the carriage of the lord Ji Ping.

Ji Ping naturally would not give him his car. Even if he gave it, Guan Yu would not dare to use it. He was a little puzzled, looked at the ghost guards in front, bowed to the carriage, and said in a solemn voice: "Guan Yu is here, is it the lord here?"

"General Guan." After several personal guards saluted Guan Yu, one of the personal guards smiled: "General Guan, the master did not come, but the master gave you a generous gift from Jie County. General Guan will definitely be happy when he sees it."

"Xie County?" Guan Yu's body trembled. He guessed something vaguely and stared at the carriage.

He lost his father since childhood. When he was a teenager, he killed the evil powerful Xiong family. He had no choice but to abandon his childhood sweetheart's newlywed wife and went into exile for thirteen years. Now he has returned to his hometown again, just a few feet away from Jie County and is timid in his hometown. Has his former wife already married someone else?

He dared to rush around among the troops, but he didn't dare to go back and take a look.

Soon the car curtain was lifted, and a boy jumped out of the car, turned his head and stared at Guan Yu, while helping a woman in the car get out of the car.

The woman was Guan Yu's first wife, Hu. As soon as she got off the car, she turned around and searched in the crowd. She quickly looked at Guan Yu, who was covered in blood and injured in the front. Her mouth moved, but she didn't say a word, but tears fell like rain.

"Father...father?" Guan Ping, who was holding his mother, spoke hesitantly.

Clang!

Looking at Hu's familiar face and the boy who looked like him, Guan Yu's long sword fell to the ground.

...

The morning sun was shimmering with the rippling water. By the vast salt pond, Ji Pingzheng looked at the salt fields everywhere, Lu Zhi, Yuan Ji, Cui Jun, Geng Zhong and a number of family managers followed him.

Yesterday, Dian Wei completely incorporated more than 3,000 private soldiers from various families in Yanchi and defeated the two thousand tribes gathered by the Wei family and Fan family. It was almost dusk, and Ji Ping dismissed the managers of various families in the courtyard.

Unexpectedly, when it was dark, soldiers suddenly came to report that before Xu Huang arrived at Fengling Ferry, Dong Zhuo had already entered Hebei County from Fengling Ferry, and Xu Huang was relying on the Zhongtiao Mountain to defend.

Ji Ping hurriedly ordered Dian Wei to take the Tiger Camp to support overnight, and sent people to rush to Anyi City, and ordered Lu Zhi to bring two thousand soldiers to Yanchi to guard it first.

At dawn, Lu Zhi led his army to Yanchi, and sent out a thousand troops to Hebei County to support Xu Huang, and the remaining 1,000 people stayed in Yanchi.

After dawn, Ji Ping brought his men out to explore the salt pond.

Salt and grain are the foundation for his development and growth in Hedong. It takes time to produce grain in farmland, but the salt pool is the fastest and most direct, so his current first idea is to operate the salt pool first.

The salt pond is extremely wide, but the salt fields around the salt pond are even wider. It looks like it is snowy and white everywhere, but the distribution of the salt fields is different in size. This is the result of the division of each family and the salt is dried separately.

Cui Jun, the Si Yan General, and an old salt worker, told Ji Ping carefully about the situation in the salt pond.

Cui Jun already knew a lot about Yanchi, which made Ji Ping admire him. I guess Cui Jun must have spent a lot of effort to understand the situation of Yanchi last night. This Yan Yan General is indeed very competent.

After walking for a while, after listening to the two of them, Ji Ping got a general understanding of the situation.

Today, in Hedong Salt Pond, there are three main methods for making salt.

The first method is the oldest method of fishing and harvesting, which directly lets the salt workers go down to the salt pond to harvest. Because the water in the salt pond evaporates over time, large pieces of crystalline stone salt accumulate at the bottom of the water, which can be eaten as long as it is harvested. This method is relatively simple, but it is only suitable for use in shallow water areas. The salt pond has a high buoyancy, so it is difficult to harvest in deep water areas.

The second method is decoction, which is to evaporate the water in the salt pond to a certain extent and become brine, and then pour the brine into a pot to boil, and the water is dried to obtain salt.

However, whether it is the fishing method or the decoction method, the scale and yield are too small, and the water in the Hedong Salt Pond has a bitter taste. The salt produced by these two methods is also of poor quality and has a bitter taste. Therefore, Hedong Salt was also called bitter salt during the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

The bitter salt produced by these two methods is generally sold to poor people or foreigners.

Ji Ping stopped at a salt worker harvesting site and tasted the salt he picked. He frowned. The salt was indeed very bitter.

However, in addition to these two methods, there is a third method, which is the method of urging the bed, building salt fields around the salt pond and building salt beds, which is similar to shallow ponds several feet deep. By digging a ditch, the water from the salt pond is introduced into the salt bed, and the salt is blown by wind and sunlight, and steamed by water.

This method was used during the Warring States Period, but at that time it was just evaporated, and the salt produced was still bitter. Later, after hundreds of years of watering, the salt workers slowly summarized some experiences and improved many processes to greatly reduce the bitterness of the salt produced.

The watering and drying method of the ken ridge is also the main salt-making method used by major families. It has a large scale and high yield, which can enable Hedong salt to be transported far away to Henoi, Guanzhong, Bingzhou, Luoyang and Jizhou.

The salt ridges in front of you can be seen everywhere, with canals, roads and mouths beside the salt ridges. Many salt workers are still working.

Ji Ping walked along the way to a salt ridge, bent down and pinched a few thick white particles, put them in his mouth and tasted them. It was more bitter than salt. He frowned and said, "What is this? It doesn't look like salt."

Cui Jun hurriedly said, "Lord, this thing is not salt, it is Glauber's salt. In addition to salt, there are also many debris in the salt pond in Hedong. Therefore, the water in the salt pond in Hedong also dissolves many debris in Glauber's salt, so the water in the pond is bitter and salty."

Ji Ping said curiously: "How does this Glauber's salt separate from the salt pond?"

He knew that there were many other debris in the salt pond. If it were later generations, it would naturally be easy to separate through various chemical means. But how did they separate in this era?

"This is to rely on the power of the heaven and the time." Cui Jun pointed to a salt ridge on one side and explained to Ji Ping: "Salt workers mostly divide the salt ridge into four ridges. The first ridge is the largest, and introduces the water from the salt pond, and the water is consumed to become brine. In the severe winter, Glauber's salt will be paroxysmal at the bottom of the pond."

Ji Ping nodded. This should be the use of temperature changes. At low temperatures, the solubility of Glauber's salt decreases and is first precipitated.

Cui Jun pointed to another salt ridge with many white flocs on the water surface: "After the Glauber's salt is completely eliminated, the brine will be brought into the second ridge. By early summer, the white floc will be generated on the surface of the brine. The salt workers call it "fuzzy". At this time, the brine is called Yang water, and Yang water is still very bitter."

Looking at the white flocs on the water surface, it should be that other impurities were precipitated through temperature differences, but Ji Ping did not understand what substance these white flocs were. He took some and tasted them, but they were even bitterer than Glauber's salt.

Cui Jun pointed to the third salt ridge that was approaching: "After the white floe is formed, the yang water can be introduced into the third ridge. There are nitrate plates made of Graham salt compacted at the bottom of the third ridge. After passing through this ridge, the white floe in the yang water can be easily settled, but the nitrate plates accumulate thicker and thicker, and in the end only brine is left, and this water is called *." (To be continued)

...
Chapter completed!