British hegemon

Chapter 41 "Sorrow" Descends from Heaven

A light drizzle was falling, and tiny water droplets kept dripping from the edges of the salt-boiling sheds in Haiyan Bay, creating small, shallow pits on the hard ground.

Flames were rising from a salt stove in the thatched hut, and peat was burning in the stove, emitting a strong, pungent smell of smoke.

Beside the salt stove, Roger poured half a bag of coarse salt into the boiling water in the deep pot, while the bald man next to him stirred it continuously with a wooden stick.

That half-bag of coarse salt weighed about five pounds. It was salt residue scraped out by a few people, including Miss Tooth and Gambler, in the salt-making workshop, which saved them the step of boiling seawater to make coarse salt.

The slightly brownish-yellow coarse salt particles gradually dissolved after entering the warm water, slowly turning the fresh water drawn from the stream into a pale yellow color.

Roger took the long wooden stick from the bald man and stirred it in the pot for a while. The coarse salt had dissolved into the boiling water, and the floating impurities were visible to the naked eye.

"Igor, bring me my filter." Roger called out to the young stable boy behind him, his eyes fixed on the salt solution in the pot.

The young horseman placed a wooden bucket that had been washed clean in the stream, then covered the mouth of the bucket with a piece of fine linen and tied it with straw rope, leaving a slight indentation in the center of the cloth.

Then he brought out a tattered cloth bundle containing three layers of miscellaneous items. The bottom layer was river sand dug from the stream, the top layer was wild grass resembling cattail fluff, with fine downy hairs as fluffy as cotton, and the top layer was some small pebbles picked up from the stream and washed.

The young stable boy opened the bundle and laid it flat on the fine linen cloth at the mouth of the wooden barrel. "Young Master Roger, can your method really produce fine salt?"

The two people with bald heads and ponytails also curiously gathered around.

Roger ignored the questioning looks from the crowd, picked up a wooden ladle and scooped out brownish-yellow salt water from the pot. He slowly poured it onto the gravel in the bundle on the wooden bucket. After a while, the sound of flowing water came from the bottom of the bucket.

This process was repeated until a pot of brine had flowed into the wooden bucket through the pebbles, charcoal chips, and river sand.

"Bald head, ponytail, hurry up and take the pot to the stream to wash it clean. Don't be lazy, make sure it's clean."

The bald man and the ponytail found a wooden stick, took the deep pot off the salt stove, and carried it towards the stream.

After a while, the two carried the deep pot back to the thatched hut.

Roger carefully inspected whether the deep pot was clean, "put the pot on the salt stove and add some peat."

After saying this, Roger walked to the wooden bucket where he had filtered the salt water, carefully moved the coarse cloth bundle aside, took the fine linen cloth from the bucket opening, and instructed the young stableman to wash the cloth clean in the stream.

Then they lifted the wooden bucket and poured the clean brine back into the salt stove pot.

For the next hour, Roger had the bald man with the ponytail and the others take turns stirring the brine in the pot. Under the intense heat of the peat fire, the water in the iron pot gradually decreased, and a thin layer of fine salt appeared on the inner rim of the pot...

"Wow, this salt is so white." Miss Tooth, who had run off to avoid his errands, also came over and exclaimed in admiration as he watched the fine white salt gradually seeping out of the deep pot.

The young horse herder couldn't resist sticking his finger to the side of the pot, ignoring the heat, scraping off a bit of salt and smacking it into his mouth. A look of utter amazement instantly appeared on his face.

"Young Master Roger, you...you..." The young stable boy was so surprised that he didn't know how to express his emotions. As the future successor of the Milk House Manor's steward, he naturally knew the immense value of this fine salt.

Haiyan Bay has abundant raw materials for salt production and peat fuel, but the cost of burning peat to boil salt is naturally much higher than that of natural sun-drying.

The coarse salt here was not of higher quality than that from England and France to the south. Coupled with the English naval blockade and high transportation costs, the coarse salt from the salt flats could hardly gain an advantage in the sea salt trade.

Especially compared to the "bay salt" produced in the Bay of Bounnaff in the Kingdom of France, the coarse salt here is practically "platinum-priced".

In conclusion, the sea salt produced on Arun Island is only enough to supply the islanders for their own needs, and they occasionally sell some to fishermen on the surrounding mainland to pickle fish. Therefore, it is unlikely that the scale of this salt production site will continue to expand.

However, if fine salt could be mass-produced, the situation would be very different. A pound of fine salt would cost five times more than coarse salt. Moreover, the fine salt at this point is simply a product that has been carefully selected from coarse salt and ground slightly. Essentially, it is still coarse salt, just with finer particles and fewer impurities.

Even so, fine salt was still a luxury item on the tables of nobles, and whether or not fine salt was used was a direct symbol of the extravagance of a banquet.

The method of purifying crude salt is not complicated, but people in this era have not yet mastered this technology. Perhaps a very small number of people in some places have explored this purification method, but in the information-isolated Middle Ages, such advanced technology would take hundreds of years to spread.

However, Roger did not intend to make a fortune from this stuff at the time. He only made this fine salt to satisfy his taste buds. The coarse salt, which was bitter, astringent, and had a fishy smell, was really hard on his throat.

Of course, strictly speaking, the things he made did not reach the quality of "table salt" in later generations.

But this was just a way to kill time when he was bored, and he didn't want to go through any more trouble.

The water in the deep pot is decreasing, and more and more white fine salt crystals are forming. "Turn the heat down a bit, don't let it burn."

"Ponytail, go and skin and clean the two rabbits we hunted this morning; Missing Tooth, go over there and start a campfire. We'll have roasted rabbit with salt for lunch today."

During his time on the island, Roger, having nothing else to do, spent most of his time hunting, except for interrogating the prisoners in the stone house to learn about the world outside the island.

Holly Island is mostly barren hills and wilderness, with few large wild animals, but it is home to many rabbits.

During the bandit suppression operation, Roger captured three yew longbows and two crossbows. Combined with the crossbow he had taken from the baron's mansion, he now possessed six ranged weapons.

Roger had never practiced archery in either his past or present life, so even though he was tall and strong, he couldn't handle the three longbows that reached his eyebrows. However, the crossbow was much easier to operate. After a little practice, Roger was able to take the two of them, the bald man with the ponytail, up the mountain to hunt.

Five wild rabbits and one pheasant whose name they didn't know—this was the group's catch in the past few days.

Once all the water in the deep pot of the salt stove had boiled away, the woman with the ponytail had already skewered the two skinned and cleaned wild rabbits onto sticks and placed them on the campfire.

Roger grabbed a small handful of fine salt from the pot and, under the men's disapproving looks, evenly rubbed the clean salt grains onto the rabbit meat. Soon, the fragrant aroma of roasted meat filled the air...

..............

When the gloomy-faced steward arrived at the salt flats in his fishing boat, the two roasted rabbits had been reduced to a pile of cleanly licked bones, with only unchewable bones remaining.

Roger, having eaten half a roasted rabbit, sat alone on a slightly cleaner wooden stool, carrying a wine bag, watching the sour-faced butler rush over in the drizzle, leaving a trail of footprints.

"Go back and tell Madam that I'm staying on the island and not going anywhere. Don't send anyone to bother me again." Roger was already getting angry before the bitter-faced man even got close. He just wanted to stay quietly on the deserted island, but his cheap mother kept sending people to persuade him to go back, which was really annoying.

The man with the bitter face had already walked up to her, but he didn't say anything for a long time.

Roger waited for a long time without receiving a response, so he turned around curiously and saw that the man with the bitter face was soaking wet, his eyes were slightly red, and he was bowing his head in pain.

"What's wrong?" Roger's voice softened.

"Young Master Roger~ Master and Young Master Colin~"

Roger's expression turned slightly serious when he heard the other person's voice choked with emotion.

"The master and young master Colin died in battle." The man with the bitter face covered his face with his hands and sobbed softly.

Roger was momentarily stunned, unsure how to react.

"Madam has fainted, please go back quickly~" The man with the bitter face pleaded in a tearful voice...

............