"I concede."
The fishing village girls were all crying, because their mothers, sisters, aunts, and maternal aunts were working as salt-drying laborers at the saltworks. The craftsmen came one after another to ask Jiang Xuesui for leave; they wanted to go to the saltworks to confirm the safety of their families. Jiang Xuesui not only granted their leave but also led the guards and attendants to rush to the saltworks with them.
The saltworks was near the sea. All the water carts nearby had been brought here to carry seawater to extinguish the fire. Villagers also spontaneously brought wooden buckets and basins to help with the firefighting. Even white-haired elders and children who had just learned to walk came to contribute. But the fire was fierce. When the sea wind blew, the raging flames spread in all directions.
The Jianan Sea Saltworks produced four million dan of official salt each year, supporting nearly a hundred thousand local people by recruiting salt workers. Even though the number of casualties among the salt workers was small, everyone was sobbing in silence. Most of them used the day's wages to feed their families. Now that the saltworks was like this, a single day's work stoppage meant their families would go hungry for a day.
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