Chapter Seventy-Seven: The Story of Bacon and Salt

The most intuitive perception of Hami by the people of Tokyo is neither a magical reading glass, nor a mirror that can shine a light on people. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

It's meat!

That's right, the most exported by the Hami country to the Great Song Dynasty is all kinds of meat, as long as the people of Tokyo eat all kinds of delicious meat, the first sentence that comes out of their mouths must be - the Hami people of dog days will really eat.

Meat, a high-calorie, high-protein food, is the nobility of food at all times.

Not only nomadic people, but also farming people are eager to eat it, and relatively affluent Tokyoites are especially fond of meat.

Eating a meal of mutton was not an easy thing for the Emperor of the Great Song Dynasty, the emperor was hungry in the middle of the night, and wanted the cook to make a bowl of mutton soup to eat, but in the end he hesitated for a long time, worried that the courtiers would gossip, so he endured hunger and went to sleep, not to mention the common people.

Lamb is generally equal to a delicacy.

Storytellers on the streets used the legend of the emperor eating lamb wine every day as a gimmick to lure more people to envy the emperor's life.

Rumors can't be said about this thing, the emperor likes to eat mutton, and it is rumored that the emperor not only eats mutton during the day, but also eats at night, and eats eight sheep a day.

Xishuimen has to bring in 100 boats to slaughter fat pigs and 100 boats of live sheep in the middle of the night every day, which continuously satisfies the craving of the Great Song people for meat.

Compared with the demand for meat in short supply in Tokyo City, Tie Xinyuan is about to explode with a meat headache.

The Hami Kingdom controls hundreds of nomadic tribes in the Western Regions, and these poor ghost tribes can no longer exchange goods with the Hami Kingdom except for cattle, sheep, and war horses.

People in the Western Regions generally use cattle and sheep as money.

This tradition has been passed down for many years, you give me a leg of mutton, I give you a pound of salt, you give me two cows, I marry my daughter to your stupid son, and the government wants to collect taxes? It's easy, take out a cow, take a knife and ask the tax collector what piece he wants, now cut it is not verbose, the Khitan people's taxes and fees levied on a herdsman for a year are a cow's leg, you Hami can't take away a whole cow from him, right? King Hami is a good king, it is understandable to give some taxes, and if you take it, get out of here.

Hami only levies autumn tax on farmers and winter tax on herdsmen, and the silkworms in Hami are not growing well, and the land can only be harvested once a year, so there is no spring and summer tax.

After the autumn tax was collected, looking at the barns full of grain, the Hami officials looked at it with a happy smile.

After the frost fell, the winter tax began to be levied, and the Hami officials looked at the animal carcasses all over the world.

After the frost fell, the Hami country began to freeze, and there was no need to worry about the meat spoiling, but there was so much meat that the Hami people who belonged to the half-farming and half-herding people couldn't eat it at all. Once spring begins, it will be a disaster.

Fortunately, Hami's domestic salt is made, and Balikun Lake is a huge salt pond.

In addition to being a condiment in the Western Regions, salt is also an important material to preserve food from spoilage.

Thus, every winter, the city of Hami becomes a large slaughterhouse, air-dried, salt-pickled, smoked, and the smell of meat mixed with spices can permeate the city of Hami for a winter.

This scene was called a miracle by Western scholars who traveled to Hami, and the scene of Macheng being all about meat even appeared in their poems and books, making people all over the world drool and lament the city's wealth.

As a high-end food, the poor ghosts in the west of the Khitan can't afford to eat it, the Xixia people in Xingqing Mansion want to eat it, but the Hami people don't give it, as for the people of the Western Regions, they are very interested in these delicious foods, but unfortunately, the things they can exchange for these delicious meat are still fresh meat......

As a result, the people of the Great Song Dynasty became the only market for the dumping of meat in the Hami Kingdom, and for a whole winter, the camel caravans, convoys, and caravans that transported the meat to the Great Song Dynasty were endless, and the ants moved the meat of the Hami Kingdom to the Great Song Dynasty, and then the butchers of the Great Song Dynasty sent it to the tables of thousands of households.

This year has been especially meaty.

Slaughtered two tribes close to the Khitan, their cattle and sheep naturally all became meat, when the Hami Kingdom was in the Qing Township, they also robbed a lot of Khitan herdsmen with grass and rabbits, plus the army went on an expedition, the domestic meat consumption was seriously low, Huo Xian naturally took advantage of the good time when the winter meat would not be corrupted, and all the meat was transported to the Great Song Dynasty in exchange for the good things needed in the country.

Zhao Wan dragged Tie Xi down from the leg of mutton or beef again and again, this child likes to eat meat, although he doesn't have a few teeth, his favorite thing to do is to lie on the mountain of meat and bite it.

Tie Dan was a front station, and the convoy behind him transporting meat to the Great Song Dynasty could be connected to Qinghai.

At this time of year, as long as the Iron Egg Iron Shopkeeper enters the city of Tokyo, it proves that the annual meat auction is about to begin.

Wang Rouhua walked on the edge of the high Roshan with her hands behind her back, and from time to time asked the attendant to pull out a leg of mutton from the Roshan to sniff if it had deteriorated.

The salted meat is boiled in a pot, cut and put on a plate, it is naturally a supreme delicacy, if it is piled up, it will taste very bad, at least, Zhao Wan has vomited twice, if it weren't for the mask, she wouldn't have the courage to walk into this mountain-tall pile of corpses.

She was pulled by Wang Rouhua.

After inspecting the goods, Wang Rouhua took Zhao Wan to sit in the wooden house in the freight yard to drink tea and rest.

Looking at the busy iron egg from a distance, Wang Rouhua looked at the pale Zhao Wan and said with hatred: "Yu Chi Zhuozhuo really wants to come and do what you are doing now, and you still look reluctant." ”

Tie Xi was full of the smell of salted meat, if it weren't for the fact that she was biological, Zhao Wan would definitely throw this doll far away.

"She likes? Since she liked it, when the child returned to Hami, she placed her dormitory in a meat heap, so that she could like it enough. ”

"To say stupid things, these meats are the fruits of a year's hard work of the Hami people, and they can bring the Hami people the rich life they look forward to, but how can they become a burden and a disgust in your mouth?

Wan'er, you have lived well since you were a child, and you have been in contact with either celebrities and scholars or qin, chess, calligraphy and painting, and you can't see the difficulty of people's survival.

When you are a girl, you don't have to touch, there's nothing wrong with ignoring these, when you opened a shop to sell pork for your mother, if you were a girl, you wouldn't let you touch these, wouldn't the lively girl become a butcher when dealing with meat all day long? ”

Zhao Wan took off her mask and said helplessly: "The child is now a woman, so she has to come into contact with these things." ”

Wang Rouhua glanced at Zhao Wan and took a sip of tea and asked, "I saw those salted meats just now, did you find any clues?" ”

Zhao Wan wanted to vomit again...... She didn't dare to think about that scene just now.

"Alas, haven't you noticed that the bacon is covered with a thick layer of salt?"

"Salt? Wouldn't it be bad if there was no salt on the salt? ”

"That's true, but there is too much salt, haven't you noticed that your husband is not only selling salted meat, but also salt?

Salt and iron official camp is a national policy. The Great Song Dynasty was not allowed to trade illicit salt, which was a serious crime, and it stands to reason that Hami's salt could not enter the Great Song Dynasty at all. ”

When Zhao Wan heard her mother say this, she immediately reacted: "Brother Yuan is selling salted meat, not salt." ”

Wang Rouhua took her daughter-in-law's hand and patted it gently, although the child was raised by the emperor, his nature was still very smart.

"Queen Mother, you can see the clues, aren't there a few discerning people in the Great Song Dynasty who see through the big loophole of salted meat and salt?

Or is it that the government from the northwest to Tokyo has been soaked in Brother Yuan'er? ”

When Zhao Wan said this, she was very conflicted in her heart, feeling sad for her father on the one hand, and rejoicing at the success of Hami's dirty methods on the other.

Wang Rouhua smiled and patted Zhao Wan's delicate face and said, "Tell your father about this when you enter the palace in the afternoon." ”

Zhao Wan immediately shook her head and said: "This is what Brother Yuan has worked hard to achieve, and the daughter-in-law is now the daughter-in-law of the Tie family, so naturally she can't be interested in the Zhao family anymore." ”

"Even if you go, you can only exchange hearts for hearts by treating people with sincerity, and Hami doesn't need to use such means to make money.

The salt and iron official camp is an important means for the three divisions of the Great Song Dynasty to make the yamen collect the state funds, today you dig a piece, tomorrow you dig another piece, what does the Great Song Dynasty take to maintain. ”

Zhao Wan shook her head resolutely and said: "No, this will affect the sale of salted meat, the salted meat produced in Hami can only be digested by the Great Song Dynasty, in case my father is angry, who will we sell the salted meat of Hami to?" ”

Wang Rouhua said with a smile: "If you say it, it won't affect it, if you don't say it, it will affect it." ”

Zhao Wanhu looked at her mother-in-law suspiciously and whispered: "Someone has seen through it, and they will report it to my father, right?"

If this is the case, the daughter-in-law will go to her father to admit her mistake, and I only hope that my father will not be implicated too widely. ”

Back in the small courtyard of the Tie family, Zhao Wan hurriedly entered the imperial city with her son, and Wang Rouhua looked at Zhao Wan's back with some guilt.

Bacon is not worth much in Hami, but after seven or eight thousand miles, it becomes very expensive.

In order to dilute the cost of salted meat, Tie Dan can only put his idea on Hami's worthless salt.

The salt of the Song people is very expensive, if only the salt is sold, the high price of the Song people may not be able to afford it, if the salt is wrapped in a thick layer of salt, the salt is sold as salt, the cost will be diluted a lot, and then the price of the salt meat will be lowered, so that the people of the Great Song Dynasty will naturally rush to the salted meat, and buying meat is not only to buy meat, but also to buy salt.

As Zhao Wan guessed, this matter could not be done, and the sales of official salt had collapsed for three consecutive years, which greatly affected the salt tax, and the three envoys could no longer sit still.

If the government does not turn a blind eye, the people will naturally not inform the government of this matter that is only good for themselves and not harmful.

Now that the government has inquired below, naturally someone will tell the secret of the salted meat, and there will naturally be a royal historian to write to the emperor, and then the three envoys will come down to check the salted meat.

The nails that Shan Yuanxing has planted in the rich and noble family over the years have finally worked, and the matter of salted meat has been pressed for three years, and now, it is finally impossible to suppress.