Chapter 40: How to Destroy Western Xia (1)

  Fantastic stories unfold one after another, collect, recommend, click...

  Wen Fei had expected this situation, so he didn't even lock the carriage, just wrapping it with iron wire. Zhang Shuye followed Wen Fei's instructions and came to the carriage door, cutting off the iron wire with one sword. He suddenly opened the carriage door and saw that the entire carriage was packed full of things.

  To save space, Wen Fei welded a water tank in the rear carriage, which held two tons of wine, or four thousand catties. That's equivalent to more than five thousand Song Dynasty catties. It didn't take up much space, probably no more than two square meters.

  Other spaces were packed with all sorts of goods, dazzling to behold.

  Zhang Shu Ye looked at it curiously and used his sword to poke open a woven bag, and saw that white flower-like fine particles like sand flowed out.

  Others were afraid but also very curious, watching from a distance. Such a big commotion here, don't know how many people were startled. Watching from afar near Zhangjiayuan.

  Zhang San furrowed his brow and gave a few orders. The hands of the big family were indeed well-trained, and they immediately pulled out the knives and swords, driving people far away. Then they pulled up the canvas, isolating everything. Only then did he see the white powder that had flowed out with a rustling sound. He couldn't help but ask: "What is this stuff?"

  "You'll know once you try it!"

  Zhang San Weng had not continued speaking when he saw Zhang Shu Ye really take a pinch of powder and put it in his mouth, and was shocked. He couldn't help but blame himself for being too reckless. How could this mysterious thing be casually put into one's mouth?

  He had not yet finished grumbling in his heart when he heard Zhang Shuoye shouting loudly. Frightened, Zhang Sanweng's heart skipped a beat, but then he heard Zhang Shuoye exclaiming: "This is salt! This is salt! Better than that inferior white salt!"

  As soon as he said this, Zhang Sanweng completely threw away the grievances of just now. Although his nephew was an official and didn't take care of the family business, how could he go wrong with salt? He hurriedly went up, pinched a bit, put it in the palm of his hand to look at it, and saw that this salt was actually finer than sand. He lightly dipped some into his mouth, and as soon as it entered his mouth, it dissolved, leaving only a pure salty flavor without any impurities. He couldn't help but exclaim: "Good salt, good fragrant salt...!"

  How can salt bring out the flavor? For modern people who don't think refined salt is a big deal, this salt is just that flavor and nothing special. But for ancient people, there are no other distracting flavors in this salt, it's really too precious!

  Zhang San had been doing private salt business for a long time, so he was naturally very familiar with salt. He opened a package and took a look, and saw that the salt was as white as snow, fine like sea sand, and there wasn't even a tiny bit of impurity inside. Suddenly, he exclaimed: "How is this possible? How can there be such white salt in the world?"

  Wen Fei felt that there was nothing special about it, such as modern adjectives. For example, white like salt, fine clouds like salt. But the ancient salt is not so fine and white!

  Sea salt, to be exact, is made by boiling seawater in a large pot until the crystals are formed. It inevitably contains some impurities, including magnesium chloride, magnesium sulfate, and potassium iodide, as well as other elements like sodium, bromine, etc. The taste is slightly bitter, and with the addition of dust and dirt during the boiling or transportation process, there are even more impurities in the salt.

  Even if it's refined salt, it's still a mineral salt extracted from natural salt pools, and although the impurities are less than those in sea salt, they won't be zero. But this bag of salt in front of me looks like snow, without even a tiny bit of impurity, not even a single black dot can be seen.

  Ten bags of salt, each weighing one hundred kilograms. That's two thousand catties again. All of these are edible salt, but Wen Fei was stupid enough to use his hands to open the small packets of refined salt and pour them into these unmarked woven bags, then add a layer of plastic film. And that's how these big bags of salt were made.

  This time was urgent, Wen Fei only brought these two kinds of goods. The others were not brought.

  Until he was shocked enough, Zhang Sanweng walked to the driver's side and asked Wen Fei: "Xian Shifu, are these salts not too many?"

  "Whatever you want, I'll give it to you!" In modern times, salt is very cheap and can be found everywhere, even more easily than wine.

  In the Song Dynasty, salt was extremely expensive, with a saying that "a dou of rice can only exchange for a jin of salt", which means one dou of rice could only be exchanged for one jin of salt. As mentioned earlier, this one dou is more than nine jin, almost ten jin of grain.

  When the Great Song Dynasty was founded, salt prices were still low, and a catty of salt sold for only fifteen cents in inland areas. Now, in Kaifeng and other places, salt prices have risen to over two hundred cents, but that's also in inland areas.

  Mule and Horse Assemblage This place is not far from Xixia, which produces salt, so the price is extremely low. Each catty only costs about 7 or 8 cents, but if you buy it to inland areas, each catty will be sold for nearly twenty times more.

  He explained the principle to Wenfei in detail, and Wenfei's face immediately turned sour. It turned out that salt was not selling well in this place at all! At a price of 7 or 8 cents per catty, it would only be equivalent to 2 or 3 RMB, and after smuggling through time and space, the profit would not be worth mentioning if it were not a hundred times higher. This only earned a price that was one-tenth of what he had expected...

  Looking at Wen Fei's expression, Zhang San Weng muttered to himself, it seems that this immortal master is indeed not familiar with the worldly affairs of mortals. Can't even understand these joints!

  "But he said to Wen Fei: 'Master Xian, if you can transport salt to Tokyo, the profit will be several hundred times!' "

  He snorted in disdain, for a few bags of salt, I traveled thousands of miles from Lanzhou to Kaifeng. Not to mention the thousands of miles, mainly because there were no highways in ancient times, not even decent paved roads. I estimate that before we even reached halfway, these second-hand goods would be scrapped.

  However, after hearing Zhang Sanweng mention Dongjing Bianliang (Kaifeng) repeatedly, Wen Fei also became interested. Whenever these Northern Song people talk about Dongjing, it's as if they're talking about a heavenly place. In the future, I'll have to take the opportunity to travel there and take a few photos back home.

  Those rich idle people travel around everywhere, do they have the ability to go to Bianjing, the capital of Northern Song Dynasty? Thinking of this, I suddenly thought that Chen Niwan and his disciples seemed to have gone to Bianliang, when can I find them to go together.

  Those Northern Song people are really something, randomly shouting "Dongjing" all the time. It's annoying that every time I think of Little Japan, and I don't know if it should be called Kaifeng, or Bianliang would sound better!

  "If the immortal master can directly help us transport the salt goods to Ezhou or Tokyo, we are willing to pay a price of one hundred coins per catty!" Zhang Sanweng said with a stir in his heart.

  "No, one hundred and fifty taels!" Zhang Shu Ye suddenly spoke up.