Chapter 19- Choking on Mortal Air

They gathered in the common room to sort through what they had put together. Tian passed around his little timeline, which got grim nods of appreciation from Brother Wang and Sister Su. They came with their own stacks of notes. Sister Su took the floor first.

“We underestimated the importance of salt.”

“We did?” Tian blinked. He had thought “Mortal Food Preservation” was an absolute top tier importance rating already.

“Yes. It turns out that it is necessary for life.” That got amazed looks from around the room. Sister Su pulled yet more notes. “Salt deficiency leads to seizures and other health problems. It can be found in meat, dairy and shellfish, but we will get to that in a moment. It is not found in meaningful quantities in cultivated plants.”

She tapped a neat table on a fresh sheet of paper. “Here- this is a rough statistical survey of the classes of people in the broad sky kingdom. Note it only tracks households and not individuals, so the numbers are approximate. The key information, however, is quite obvious. The overwhelming majority of the subjects of the Broad Sky Kingdom are peasants.”

“Is this right? Ninety percent?” Hong fell back in her chair and slowly rubbed her temple. “I thought it was just around the Mountain.”

“The peasant census is actually the most accurate part of the survey as they also make up the majority of the tax base. While there have been instances of nobles and tax collectors attempting to manipulate the numbers, such short term deviations quickly vanish when the census is examined over a longer period. Peasants engaged in agriculture make up ninety percent of the population of the Broad Sky Kingdom, and a majority of them are engaged in rice farming.”

“And rice doesn’t have salt in it naturally.” Tian nodded.

“Yes. Historically, the kingdom has built cities based on proximity to salt, or the ability to transport sizable amounts of salt. The body doesn’t require large quantities to maintain health, but since the days of the ancients, the importance of salt has been known. Apparently.” Sister Su snorted.

Tian dug out one of his medical textbooks and dug through it. Salt was listed as a vital nutrient. It was way, way down at the bottom of the list. It seemed the author could hardly imagine cultivators who couldn’t get their hands on enough salt. It looked like he was including it for the sake of thoroughness.

“The Redstone Wastes are on the southern border of the Broad Sky Kingdom, and I’m sure it hasn’t been flooding the salt market since the Kingdom’s founding. So how did the Kingdom meet its salt needs historically?” Hong leaned forward, curious.

“There are several places where brine wells can be found. Cities were founded near them. In a feat of quite brilliant mortal ingenuity, they use the flammable gases that rise from the wells to boil iron pans full of brine. This is more labor intensive than you might imagine, and it is apparently a poor, miserable life for the hereditary salt making households. Desertion is common. The reason Brother Wang thought there was no domestic salt production is that those salt producing locations have been reduced to a bare minimum level of production. But Brother Wang will explain more about that.”

“Isn’t that production method exactly what Black Iron Gorge is supposed to be doing?” Tian asked.

“Indeed.”

“So… how is Black Iron Gorge out competing local producers? And why did local producers reduce production down to almost nothing?” Tian asked.

“This is where I come in.” Brother Wang smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. “Roughly a thousand years ago there was a great debate in court. There were two schools of scholars. The first proposed that the state impose a monopoly on the manufacturing, transport and sale of salt. This would both guarantee supply and act an indirect tax, funding the government while minimizing resentment. The other school argued that this was a too-expansive role for the government to play, and it was better handled by merchants who could then be taxed more harshly than the peasants. Merchants being, theoretically, the lowest social class.”

“The merchant side won.” Hong said.

“Yes. The King decided to make the existing practice official policy – peasants would have hereditary rights to produce salt, and had to sell it to approved merchants at a fixed price. Then the merchants sold the salt to the public at a fixed price, and were taxed at a fixed rate. Profits were modest, but extremely stable.”

“Alright…” Tian wasn’t sure where this was going.

“So what happens if you dump thousands of tons of salt produced outside the kingdom into the mix, at prices lower than what the merchants have to pay when they buy it from Kingdom peasants?”

“Peasants die first.” Hong nodded. “Then the salt merchants buy up the salt producing land to choke off even the possibility of competition.”

“Pretty much. Then the big merchants, or the ones with the best supply of Black Iron Gorge salt, start acquiring the smaller salt merchants. Either that, or they force them into other industries. In any case, control of the salt industry is now in the hands of just three or four cartels. The Kingdom hasn’t allowed production, transportation and sale to be combined into one company yet, but the difference in practice is almost nothing.” Brother Wang’s face looked mild, but there was malice in his eyes.

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