Chapter 59: Chapter 59: Salt Factory
Rock salt, sells for two pence per pound!
Processed edible fine salt, seven pence!
For the same ten thousand pounds, rock salt can only sell for eighty-something gold pounds, whereas fine salt sells for more than two hundred ninety gold pounds!
Such a gap, who wouldn’t be tempted?
Lynn needs more gold pounds to buy slaves, increase the labor force; purchase quality iron, forge weapons and armor; buy warhorses, create a steel torrent!
Each of these requires a large amount of gold pounds!
Building a salt factory, producing fine salt, all it comes down to is manpower and fuel.
Manpower, although not much, can still draw out dozens of people.
Fuel, without the discovery of coal mines, Lynn can fully utilize mud kilns to produce charcoal.
Thinking of this.
Lynn began to reorganize and adjust the village’s labor force.
The ten people at the brewing workshop and the ten at the blacksmith shop remain unchanged, Gavin and Wilbur are also responsible for fertilizing and weeding in the wheat fields, as well as watering.
A porter collecting manure for composting, three chefs responsible for cooking, Guy leading two feeders for pigs, cows, and horses, and twelve children who are unable to work...
Aside from Lynn being the lord, Red as a close guard, and Kuisi assisting with management able to mobilize villagers at any time, there are forty-three left.
Lynn left twenty old rock salt miners, and the remaining twenty-three were divided into three groups.
One group of villagers continued to fell trees near the open-pit salt mine, cutting a path towards the Acadia River for water and clearing an area for a small salt factory.
The felled logs can be used locally to build wooden houses for the salt factory, eliminating the need for secondary transportation.
With limited manpower, a small salt factory is sufficient.
But the area for the small salt factory still requires several hundred square meters!
Another group of villagers was digging stones and clay for the salt factory’s salt mine processing room, brine storage pool, stove, and evaporation room, etc.
The last group of villagers was digging earth kilns nearby to burn charcoal with those arm-thick chopped branches!
Under Lynn’s arrangement and Kuisi’s supervision, everything was developing in a well-organized manner.
Thick trees fell constantly, the area near the open-pit salt mine became increasingly wide, progressing toward the Acadia River several hundred meters away.
Pieces of cleaned logs were lifted by villagers and piled at the edge, waiting to build the salt factory.
Villagers responsible for charcoal burning cleared branch debris, carried them to the mud kiln side, ready for charcoal production.
On the banks of Acadia River, five or six villagers were digging clay.
The amount of clay was abundant, not needing to go into the river, it could be dug on the bank.
Villagers responsible for digging stones drove draft horses, transporting carts of stones near the open-pit salt mine, piling them up.
...
In the forest.
Lynn’s sharp eyes were fixed on a quail ahead.
Left hand holding the bow, right hand arranging the arrow on the string, as his chest expanded outward, right arm pulled back.
The hard horn bow instantly became full bow.
Shhh!
As Lynn released his right hand, the flint arrow suddenly shot out.
Squeak squeak!
At a distance of twenty meters, the arrow flew past swiftly and hit accurately.
The quail pinned in the soil scratched its claws continuously, unable to escape a bit.
Gradually, the quail’s movements stopped, ultimately died.
[Hunting Experience +1]
No need for Lynn to speak, Red quickly stepped forward, skillfully withdrew the arrow, picked up the quail, and hung it on his waist.
At his waist, already hanging were two wild rabbits!
With a thought, Lynn glanced at the [Heavenly Artifacts] panel.
[Hunting: Level 0 (50/100)]
The experience had just reached halfway, looks like it’ll take a few days to level up.
Seeing Red picking up the flint arrow and handing it over, Lynn reached out to accept it.
Lynn spoke, "Red, I want you to find ten strong villagers for training, to form a guard team, with you as the captain."
Red’s face showed a trace of surprise, "Guard Captain?"
Lynn nodded, "The village population is growing more, and problems will increase too. I need a guard team to maintain and suppress order within the village."
The villagers’ loyalty is only directed towards Lynn; Lynn allows them to live in wooden houses, to eat full meals, and to consume salt.
They support Lynn and follow his commands.
But these villagers are also people, with various different personalities and emotions.
Faced with others who are also villagers, they will have different ideas.
Facing problems, they will adopt different coping strategies.
Therefore, the existence of a guard team becomes extremely important.
The symbol of the lord’s power, the deterrent of military force, and the enforcement and maintenance of order.
Moreover, the open-pit salt mine requires the guard team for protection!
Red hesitated a bit and said, "Master Lynn, I don’t know how to train guards..."
If faced with fierce prey, Red would charge forward without hesitation.
But when it comes to training guards, he truly doesn’t know how.
Lynn spoke, "If you don’t know, you can learn and ask! Letting someone else be the guard captain... I can’t trust that!"
Red’s body shook, and his eyes were full of determination, "Yes, Master."
...
Not far from the open-pit salt mine.
Lynn directly had the kitchen moved to the site.
Each person has a meal consisting of a barley bread and a bowl of barley meat stew.
The previously smoked wild boar meat and wild wolf meat were long gone.
Now, the daily consumption is all fresh meat that George just transported back!
Plus, Lynn specially prepared several dozens of pounds of salt to season the food and replenish the villagers’ daily salt intake!
With such food provisions.
How could they not be dedicated and responsible to Lynn?
How could they not work tirelessly?
Under Lynn’s continuous guidance, a small-scale salt factory covering over three hundred square meters took shape.
One vertical beam after another was deeply inserted into the soil, and horizontal beams were reinforced with iron nails.
Wooden planks laid as the factory roof, covered thickly with moss, straw, and branches, serving as wind and rain barriers.
Two days later, the salt factory building was completed.
[Construction Experience +1]
[Construction Experience +1]
...
Next is the rock salt processing area, brine storage pool, and the stove with evaporation chamber.
In the rock salt processing area, Lynn had a large stone mill crafted.
A whole piece of granite, two meters in diameter, served as the grinding plate, and a massive granite weighing six hundred pounds and measuring one and a half meters long served as the roller.
Two draft horses pulled to crush the excavated rock salt fragments!
Villagers then used a simple sieve for screening and a water trough for washing clean.
Rock salt contains not only salt crystals but also earth and stones, requiring an initial cleaning.
The rock salt processing area only needs to meet the needs to crush, screen, and clean rock salt for preliminary processing.
Building the rock salt processing area is not complicated.
Next is the brine storage pool.
Lynn had an approximately ten-meter-long, twenty-meter-wide, and one-meter-deep pit dug.
Using nearby clay and gravel to build walls to prevent the pool from collapsing.
The brine storage pool’s purpose is to stir and dissolve the crushed and cleaned rock salt fragments.
A filter composed of sand, charcoal, stones, and straw was set up at the pool’s location to filter out insoluble impurities in the brine.
Only in this way can the processed salt be directly edible.
Lastly, there is the stove with evaporation chamber.
Lynn had a pit dug on the ground, reinforced and constructed with stones and clay, shaped into a large pot, and then smoothed with clay.
A furnace mouth was left under the pot for placing charcoal for heating and burning.
After five days of drying and baking, a small and simple salt factory was completed.
[Construction Experience +1]
[Construction Experience +1]
...
Looking at the salt factory before him, Lynn felt a wave of satisfaction.
Compared to this world’s salt making technique, he maximized improvements with the current conditions.
Iron pickax excavation, draft horses pulling stone mill for crushing, two hundred square brine storage static sedimentation pool, charcoal filtration of impurities, and finally boiling evaporation crystallization method...
These five days, Lynn was tirelessly busy, almost without stopping!
If not instructing woodhouse construction.
Then addressing brick issues in brine storage pool construction.
Otherwise, insufficient stress in stove evaporation...
Fortunately, it was finally completed.
But this is only the start of the salt factory.
Lynn still needs to inform the villagers on how to use the salt factory for salt production!