Chapter 456 Coming to Terms with the Past
When the three counties of Pingzhou were busy building the city gates and walls, Lu Songli asked her father to secretly summon the Qin brothers back.
In fact, the Qin brothers are also busy preparing for the war and have not been home for a long time.
While Lu Desheng issued a secret order, he casually asked his daughter the reason.
Lu Songli said casually, "I need them to come back to focus on the control and defense of Longcheng, especially around the Longcheng Pharmacy." If nothing unexpected happens, this place should be a great place to hit the Xianbei hard.
Control of Longcheng? Why Longcheng? Or near the Longcheng Pharmacy?
At this time, Lu Desheng also felt something was wrong, "Daughter, what is this Longcheng Pharmacy?"
It should be said that his daughter insisted on taking the Xie family's land as compensation. There seemed to be some special reason? But after they arrived in Liaodong County, they didn't see his daughter care about the 100 hectares of land. She only built a pharmacy there and didn't pay much attention to it.
"Nothing, just a salt lake inside." Lv Songli said lightly.
Salt lake? Lv Desheng seemed to understand.
Lv Songli explained, "The bottom of the salt lake is brine, which is different from well salt. Well salt needs to be fished out, while the brine in the salt lake will precipitate salt crystals by itself."
"What is salt crystal?" Lv Desheng asked. He knew well salt, which was one of the ways the court produced salt.
"After we get these salt crystals back, we only need to filter them to turn them into clean table salt." Lv Songli explained simply.
Lv Desheng's eyes lit up, "So simple? Isn't it better than well salt?"
"Yes, well salt will dry up. But the salt lake won't. It's like a living thing. It produces a certain amount of salt crystals every year, and then it will stop."
"Next spring, it will start producing again. Day after day, year after year, as long as the salt lake exists and is not polluted, it will not dry up."
Lv Desheng stood up suddenly, "This is good!" It sounds like this salt lake is really a good place to produce salt.
Lv Songli smiled and drank a sip of tea to moisten her throat.
This salt lake is indeed a good thing. It usually exists in barren land.
Lv Songli guessed that the reason why this place has never been discovered is that there is a branch of an underground river passing through this salt lake.
In spring, the salt crystals of the salt lake have just precipitated, and the snow on the snow-capped mountains gradually melts. The water from the branch of the underground river will flow into the salt lake. When the lake water rises, the precipitated salt crystals will be re-incorporated into the lake.
She felt that this was the truth, and there were similar scenes in later generations.
When they came to Liaodong County last year, spring had already passed, and the Qin family had just arrived at Xiangping Military Settlement, so they did not dare to make any major operations, so she did not investigate the matter.
This year, she asked Xiao Kun, the person in charge of Longcheng Pharmaceutical Workshop, to pay attention to the situation of the salt lake, and it was just as she thought.
This matter is of great importance, and Lu Songli asked Xiao Kun to keep it secret.
Xiao Kun also understood the seriousness of the matter and kept his mouth shut.
Lu Desheng suddenly realized, and he said, last autumn, his daughter insisted on getting a large number of salted fish, where did the salt come from? It turned out that all the salt used came from here.
He thought it was private salt brought back by the Liaodong Chamber of Commerce from outside. If you are not deaf or dumb, you will not be a patriarch, so he turned a blind eye to this matter.
In fact, he still thought wrongly. The salt used for drying salted fish was borrowed by Lu Songli from a salt merchant he was familiar with through Ji Wuyin's relationship, and agreed to return it in the summer of next year with a 10% interest.
Lv Desheng, who was about to sit down, straightened his back and put his hands on his hips, and started laughing, "Girl, have we really screwed Xie Zhan?"
At this time, Lv Desheng had only one thought, that is, Xie Zhan has suffered a great loss.
"Dad, I think Xie Zhan has come to his senses about this matter." At the beginning of this year, people kept trying to get in to spy on the news.
"If he comes to his senses, then he will come to his senses. Anyway, the 100 hectares of land is in our hands." The land is theirs, and the salt lake is also theirs, humph. It's just right for him to come to his senses, so that he will regret it to death.
"I guess he leaked this news to the Xianbei."
Lv Desheng:...
Xie Zhan, this despicable, shameless and vulgar bitch!
"No wonder you want Qin Shizi and others to come back." Lv Desheng said, the salt lake is very important, and Longcheng is so close to the Xianbei grassland.
"At present, the Xianbei think that we don't know that they have learned about the existence of the Longcheng Salt Lake. Let's use this to deploy defenses."
What did the Xianbei go south for? Wasn't it for supplies? Among them, food, salt, and tea are what they crave the most. This time they can use the information gap to secretly control Longcheng.
Lv Desheng waved his hand, "Yes, that's it! Let's wait for him to tire himself out, wait for the rabbit by the tree, and catch the turtle in the jar." Whatever, that's what he meant.
"Let them come one by one without returning."
Lv Songli smiled, "Well, when A Sheng and the others come back, you, the father-in-law, can make a request to him."
"Make it, must make it!"
...
When the large tracts of rice in Pingzhou were about to be harvested, Prince Gong came.
A visitor is a guest, and Prince Gong used to be a good man, and he had a good relationship with Lv Desheng, so Lv Desheng went to pick him up in person.
Lv Desheng picked him up at Wuli Pavilion outside the city. He couldn't sit in the carriage for the last short distance, so he got off to rest.
When Lu Desheng picked up the person, Prince Gong refused to get in the carriage and said he wanted to walk for a while. He had been sitting in the carriage for too long and his old bones were almost broken.
Want to go for a walk? Sure! Lv Desheng walked him back. Anyway, he often went out recently, and his body was in great shape.
Prince Gong looked at the endless fields and the green and yellow rice waves, and smiled, "Your harvest in Pingzhou is good this year."
Lv Desheng smiled, "Not bad, not bad."
After walking four or five miles, Prince Gong's legs hurt again and he couldn't walk anymore, "I'm old, too old."
Lv Desheng stepped forward to support him, and said disdainfully, "You said you are so old and weak, and the emperor still has the heart to send you so far to Pingzhou?"
Lv Desheng asked him, "Do you want to take the carriage?" If not, let's go.
Now Prince Gong didn't mind the bumpy carriage.
After returning, Lv Desheng asked someone to arrange a place for them to stay.
The next day, when Lv Desheng saw Prince Gong again, his spirit had recovered.
He couldn't help but ask, "I wonder what important matter Prince Gong came here for this time?"
Prince Gong paused while drinking tea, then looked at him, cleared his throat and said, "It's like this..." The implication was that your Pingzhou had a good harvest this year, so you should pay more taxes.
This immediately stimulated Lu Desheng's sensitive nerve, and the smile on his face gradually disappeared.