Stepmother in charge: Making a fortune through farming and raising her children to fight back

Early the next morning.

Yun Zhenzhen got up and prepared to make breakfast. There were still a lot of leftovers from the reunion dinner two days ago. Almost all of them were meat and vegetables with a lot of oil. They were mixed together and stewed with fresh green vegetables. It tasted very good.

There is still a lot of freshly made braised meat left. Just heat it up in the steamer and serve it directly on the table.

She was arranging the morning meals, and Qin Li was helping her. The mother and son worked together very well.

When I was busy, a voice calling "Auntie" suddenly came from outside the door.

"Aunt Yun, the village chief wants to see you. Please go over and take a look. It's near the newly designated land in the back mountain."

Qinjia Village is not only home to Mangshan. After the imperial court awarded thousands of acres of land, many other small hills were also included, forming a series of wastelands. However, the mountains are very clear and there are many places that even the village chief and his men have not visited.

Yun Zhenzhen didn't even have time to eat breakfast and hurriedly followed everyone over there. Many people heard the news and gathered over to watch the fun.

"What are you looking at? You have finished your family affairs. Go back quickly and don't gather here." The village chief sent everyone back, leaving only a few key members.

After Yun Zhenzhen came over, he leaned over and whispered something, then took her into the woods.

At this time, the sun rose and the morning light shone on the earth, as if covered with a layer of golden glow. She followed a few people and pushed aside the bushes to see the beautiful scenery in front of them.

The clear mirror-like water surface was reflecting the morning light from the sky, and layers of white, crystalline solids had formed on the surrounding sand not far away.

Yun Zhenzhen's heart was pounding when she saw this scene. She quickly walked to the shore and touched the lake water with her finger. It was salty!

"Well, am I right?" The village chief stood aside and said calmly, "Thankfully, my child brought his friends to this mountain and discovered the lake, so the news didn't get out. I stopped it. I'm going to notify someone and ask you to come and see it."

Yun Zhenzhen understood the village chief's painstaking efforts. In this era, salt was much more expensive than rice.

Among the five flavors, salt is the most important, so salt is also listed as the first seasoning.

At the same time, salt products are also the things that the court controls most strictly. They cannot keep them privately. If they are discovered by someone with ulterior motives, it may cause trouble.

However, being unable to leave the village at the moment can temporarily alleviate their urgent needs.

"Uncle Village Chief, it seems that the salt problem in our village can be solved." Yun Zhenzhen looked at him with a smile.

"Will this work?" The village chief was a little worried. After discovering the salt lake for the first time, he wanted to discuss it with Yun Zhenzhen. After spending some time together, he seemed to have regarded her as the backbone of the entire Qinjia Village.

"Then can you think of any other solution?" Yun Zhenzhen glanced over and said, "The village is short of salt. No one's food has any salt. In a few days, they will all be exhausted. If this continues, people will die. And we don't know when the snow will melt on the road leading to the city. Are we just going to wait for death?"

"Sigh..." The village chief sighed, then gritted his teeth and said, "Alright, let's just transport this thing down there for our own use. Once it's unsealed, we'll report it immediately. If anyone really wants to blame someone, just blame me, an old man."

"Don't worry about it for now. Let's transport some down the mountain to use. It's such a large area, and the court may not know who has used it." As she said that, Yun Zhenzhen called on everyone to start using tools to transport the brine down the mountain.

After arriving home, Yun Zhenzhen made a simple funnel with a bamboo tube, put a layer of gauze at the bottom, and gradually put sand, gravel and coal on it to filter the salt water and remove most of the impurities.

Then add wood ash water to absorb the calcium and magnesium ions in it. After impurities are formed, filter it again to obtain a relatively coarse brine.

The next step is to put it in the pot and keep it boiling over high heat.

During this process, you can add some soy milk that you didn’t finish drinking last night to further remove the impurities in it. The soy milk and impurities will combine to form foam. After skimming off the foam, clear salt water will remain.

Bring to a boil over high heat until the water is dried up, leaving a layer of crystal clear white salt at the bottom of the pot.

This was the first time that Yun Zhenzhen made salt by hand. The salt of this era tasted bitter and was not very delicious when used in cooking. She reached out and dipped her hand in the freshly made salt. It had a bitter taste, but not so obvious, and was just right for eating.

She asked Qin Li to put all the salt in the pot into the jar, and then started to make the second pot of salt water.

A whole pot of salt water can finally produce about one kilogram of table salt. Boiling a few pots will be enough for the whole village to get through this period.

She would not boil salt in large quantities. You know, in this era, selling private salt is a serious crime. He still wants to run his own shop peacefully. He hasn't lived enough, so he should honestly hand over the salt lake.

The house was bustling with activity, the gate to the yard was tightly closed, and the villagers had no idea what was going on inside.

But they knew very well that the village chief had people carry cans of water down from the mountain, but they had no idea what was inside.

However, some people heard a few words from the children and roughly guessed what was going on.

"I heard that a lake was discovered in the mountains over there. The water inside is salty. I heard that the child accidentally tasted it, but the village chief didn't let them tell anyone."

"It's salty! Did they discover a salt lake? Then we villagers shouldn't have a shortage of salt. Even though it's not as good as what you buy outside, it still gives us a taste of salt."

"Are you crazy? Selling salt illegally is a capital crime. Do you and your family really want to die?"

"I... I didn't intend to sell it. I just thought that the villagers had run out of salt, so we could use it to eat. After a while..."

Listening to the discussions outside, the village chief knew that this matter could not be concealed, and he did not intend to hide it from everyone. He could only walk out with his hands behind his back, and after closing the door, he looked at everyone indifferently.

"I believe everyone has heard some rumors that a salt lake was discovered on the other side of the mountain. Everyone knows that this thing is a good thing. Let's go to the court and get an order to prohibit the private sale of salt." When the village chief said this, his tone became cold and he looked at everyone and spoke word by word.

"If anyone is unfamiliar with the imperial laws, I can explain. As long as a salt lake is discovered anywhere within the Great Wei, even if it's found on private land, it belongs to the imperial court. Anyone who discovers it must report it to the court, otherwise they will be punished severely."

When Zhang Qiang heard this, he was about to refute, but the village chief gave him a cold look and glared back.