Struggle in Ancient Times

It was beneficial to give the method to the official here, he could get more rewards from the emperor and the official himself. He heard in the past, someone donated a piece of farm tool, he won a title ‘Good Farmer’ and five hundred of taels.

If you sold the method to the merchant, this salt was important business to the emperor, he could lose his head. It was better to offer them to the emperor, his name could be known by the emperor and the ministers. In this place, to be an official they must have a backing.

The method of making salt here was simple and crude, put the sea water under the sun then broke the hard pieces on the sand. Every time he ate, he could taste the sand.

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On the second day, Liao Tingyu woke up early and asked mother Deng to prepare a small pot for him. Under mother Deng’s horrified eyes, he filled the pot with half of their salt and dissolved with water. He boiled the salt water and use clean handkerchief to filter it several times.

“Oh my good son, what are you doing! Why are you using so much salt? You are digging your mother’s heart.” Mother Deng’s chest was so painful and couldn’t breathe, she watched her son casually emptied out her salt. Why did she give birth to this prodigal son?

She thought of the price, in the town the salt had the same price as the meat. She always treasured it and used very little. But her son, used half of the container, she felt very distressed.

“Mother, just watch it. It will be useful.” Liao Tingyu continued to stir the water.

“What’s the use of it? You put the salt in the water to dissolve it, then you still boil it. It’s not bad to save the salty water, why would you waste them like this?”

And the handkerchief, it was prepared by her to be embroider with good patterns but now, it was so dirty. She didn’t know if she could still save it. Mother Deng was so angry by Liao Tingyu’s behaviour, she couldn’t speak anymore. Luckily, he was her favourite son, otherwise if it was Wen Xiuer, she might throw her good daughter-in-law out.

But her precious son, there was nothing she could do. Mother Deng muttered her calming mantra ‘out of sight! Out of mind!’ to calm her mind.

Liao Tingyu didn’t know about his mother’s distress; he kept boiling the water until it was evaporated and only left small white grain of fine salt. He nodded with satisfaction and asked mother Deng for compliment, “What do you think, mother? This research isn’t bad. You will not have bitter salt anymore, try it.”

Mother Deng looked at the snow-white salt in disbelief, she twisted the fine grain with her calloused hands, “Xiao-erzi, you are amazing. This salt can be so white, look at this smoothness.”

Mother Deng dipped her hand and put the salt in her tongue, it didn’t taste bitter at all. But she looked at the pot, it was a lot of rough salt, there was only little fine salt left after boiling,

“Well, this salt isn’t bitter. My son is really smart but why are you doing this? Our family don’t need such good salt, we aren’t wealthy people. There’s no need to do this, we also need the firewood for winter season. This is too wasteful.”

Although the result was good, but their family didn’t need to be this extravagance. It was too expensive, using firewood and only little fine salt left.

Well, there was nothing he could do, the tools were limited. Liao Tingyu looked helplessly at the firewood he had used. He still needed to have the sample to show-off and convince the official. He couldn’t offer empty words!

“I know, this isn’t for our family. I thought about this last night, I will go to see the official and show this as a favour.” Liao Tingyu stood up and handed the pot to mother Deng, “Mother, you help me to gather this fine salt. I will change my clothes first.”

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Liao Tingyu wore the formal clothes for scholar; wrapped the fine salt in rice paper and rode the ox cart to the Gong-bu branch in the county town.

Mother Deng looked at her half-empty salt container, she signed helplessly. She didn’t know what Liao Tingyu tried to do but she still said, “I hope xiao-erzi can success. This salt wouldn’t last for a month, what should they do?”

Mother Deng looked at her salt sadly. The imperial rules controlled each household’s salt, they could only buy according to the regulation. If they wanted more, they must write the reason and what you did with the salt.

Their family was small and they could only get one small container of salt. Liao Tingyu didn’t know this situation; he knew the salt was strictly controlled but not the detail about each household could get in one year.

If he knew, he would complain. Was it necessary to treat salt like this? Isn’t there so much sea water in the beach?