When did salt come under official control in ancient times, and how much wealth could it create?

The earliest official control of salt can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the princes competed for hegemony and wanted to have the ability to unify the world, and the economy naturally ranked first. At that time, Guan Zhong, the prime minister of Qi State, in order to quickly achieve the goal of enriching the country and strengthening the army, began to implement the policy of official mountains and seas.

The impact of this policy on future generations is very large, because the production and purchase of salt are all managed and purchased by **. Salt is a necessity of life, so a huge tax can be collected from it. It was also the implementation of this system that made the Qi State rich and powerful from then on, and even reached the ability to dominate the princes.

It is recorded in the book Guanzi that the price of salt in Qi at that time could be on an equal footing with ****. In this way, China's salt administration with a history of more than 2,000 years was opened, but this policy implemented by Guan Zhong led to the greed of some unscrupulous businessmen. They hoarded salt, and then ****, which also had some adverse effects on the society of the time.

In the early years of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the imperial court implemented the salt and iron official camp. Since then, only the official can sell salt, and salt has been monopolized by the government, and since then the feudal dynasties have used this system, and it has been continuously refined. At the extreme, half of a country's tax revenue comes from table salt.

From the development of salt, it can be seen that the reason why the ancient government controlled salt was because salt brought great wealth. In ancient times, salt was worth more than it is now, when people were engaged in manual labor, and they needed salt to replenish their body's energy. However, the production cost in ancient times was high, most of the ancient salt was produced in the Hedong region and the coastal area, and there was a high cost of transporting salt to all parts of the country, which also led to the rubbing of salt.

In the early years of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the imperial court implemented the policy of "salt and iron official camp", and since then, the salt industry has been monopolized by the government, and half of a country's tax revenue comes from the salt industry.

Salt is a strategic substance, and the price of salt is much lower now than in ancient times, but salt is a necessity of life, and people cannot do without it, and if salt is affected, it will cause panic like the last Fukushima nuclear leak.

The taxes on salt were very heavy, and the main reason for this was to collect money for the war. And some of the salaries paid to workers and soldiers were replaced by salt.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the "Guanshan Hai" policy proposed by Guan Zhong of Qi State controlled salt. The value of salt in ancient times was comparable to that of the time.

In ancient times, materials were scarce, and the seasoning used in cooking food was "salt", so salt has always been known as the "king of flavors".

As early as the Spring and Autumn Period, Guan Zhong implemented the "Guanshan and Hai Policy", and the trade of salt was controlled by the government, so that the Qi State also reaped huge wealth and was able to dominate the princes.

Because salt is an important daily necessities and necessities, it has been officially controlled since the Spring and Autumn period. **Salt monopoly can bring more benefits to the national economy, and also prevent some people from maliciously raising salt** and causing turmoil in the country.

Because salt is an important strategic material and daily necessities, the earliest official control of salt transactions can be traced back to the "official mountain and sea policy" of the Qi State during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

Salt was a very important commodity in ancient times. Because every household needs to use salt, the consumption is very wide and can only be controlled by the government.

As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, salt was directly managed by the state, and it was necessary for the daily life of the common people, so the sale of salt could bring a huge fortune.

The salt obtained by the ancients can be divided into sea salt, refined salt, ground salt, etc. Well salt is used to extract underground brine from shaft dugs, while pond salt is mainly used in brackish lakes distributed in inland areas. In contrast, China's acquisition of sea salt may be earlier and on a larger scale.

Especially in Shandong, archaeologists have found a large number of salt artifacts from the Shang and Zhou dynasties in the inland near the southern shore of the Bohai Sea. In other words, thousands of years ago, during the Changzhou era, it was an important source of sea salt. So how is sea salt extracted?

What was the situation like in salt production at that time? Today, we follow in the footsteps of archaeologists and learn about ancient salt sites and sea salt refining.

When it comes to the archaeology of the salt industry in Shandong, the fastest can be traced back to the 50s of the 20th century. At that time, cultural heritage practitioners in northern Shandong often found artifacts with strange shapes. The object has a pointed circular floor underneath, and its body is covered with thick rope-shaped patterns shaped like helmets.

In 1956 and 1957, many such artifacts were found in Huimin Point, and the local people called them "pitching heads". At the turn of the new century, archaeologists systematically investigated the relevant discovery sites by peeling back the helmet-shaped frames they had found, and discovered a large number of salt sites. Dig wide.

Nanhe Cliff, Shouguang Shuangwang City and other sites allow us to see the salt production in the Changzhou period again, which can be said to be a great discovery in the history of salt archaeology.

It was here that the name "Akao" was born.

Bai Yan". We can see that he can live in the mountains, not covet his wife's beauty, do not eat meat, and only eat vegetarian food, but he can't do without salt. In addition, it is also possible to know the situation of salt eating during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, in fact, this basically does not need to be demonstrated.

Because eating salt is almost innate. In the Han Dynasty, Ye Yuanyun's poem "Ancient Yan Song".

It is written: The white salt thaw came, and the eyebrows came out of the reed gate. There are many places where the ancients used salt to record salt, such as the emperor and Chiyou.

There are also scholars who believe that the ancient war was a "battle for salt", but because the evidence is too insufficient, he said that the terrain was not strict and could not fight for salt, so we will not argue here.

And who was the first person to eat salt? How did the ancients make salt? What development did salt undergo in ancient times? But you know, this kind of evidence is hard to stand on. Because there is no written record, the accurate written record appears in the "Shangshu Xia Shu Yu Gong", which records "sake."

This is said when offering tribute. Haidai Weiqingzhou. Xi Yidu.

A little, Wei and Zi said. The solid soil is whitewashed, and the waterfront is widely excluded. In actual combat, there is only up and down, and fainting is a serious injury. Zhu Gong salted flax, but the sea was wrong. What do you mean? Between Bohai and Mount Tai is called Qingzhou, Li Zhi.

After it was done, the clear water and water had also been dredged. The soil here is white and fat, and there is a vast area of salt-stained soil by the sea, like salt, and arugula for tribute.

The seafood is varied.

In ancient times, salt was boiled from seawater, and it was boiled out by putting seawater in a vessel and boiling it constantly. The purity of ancient salt is not so high, it has not been processed, and modern salt is added with iodine.

There are still a lot of impurities in ancient salts, and their taste may be bitter or sour, the purity is not very high, and the taste is not very good.

In ancient times, people put water in a pot and boiled it continuously, and the water evaporated and dried to produce salt, and now salt is added with iodine, and there is no iodine in salt in ancient times.

It is very important, because the salt in ancient times was basically governmental, the extraction difficulty was very high, and the yield was very low, and the quality was not good, but everyone needed it very much, so it was very high.

Very important. Because table salt was very rare in ancient times, it was under the unified control of **, so it is very important.

It is particularly important, because this is everyone's necessity, and the difficulty of extraction is very high, so it is also very expensive, and it is basically in the hands of the government.