The grain barges at the Guazhou Ferry in Yangzhou pushed against the river waves as Shen Xitang’s black-soled boots crushed the charred edges of the *Two Huai Salt Administration Records*. Xiao Heng’s Xiuchun Saber cleaved through the iron lock sealing a salt warehouse; as the river wind hit, the stacks of salt bags burst open. Tucked between the snow-white crystals was not official salt, but twelve Austrian-standard three-pound field artillery breeches. Beside the German text "Chongzhen 14th Year" on the cast-iron pieces, the "cold-forged rifling parameters of the Vienna Arsenal" were inscribed in Huaiyang dialect!
"Lord Thousand-Householder, look at this salt shovel." Her fingertips traced the spiral forging patterns on the refined steel handle. "This 'Seven-Star Brine-Draining Technique' for boiling salt was created during the Jiajing era when Yan Maoqing managed the salt administration. How could it be etched with the Habsburg double-headed eagle?"
A wooden clapper sounded suddenly from the salt fields. Fifty salt workers wrapped in green turbans leaped from the brine pools, the fish-scale patterns on their iron bars matching perfectly with the city-breaching spikes used by Li Rusong during the Wanli era when he pacified Ningxia. Shen Xitang’s silver silk shredded a salt brick, revealing a fragment of a *Tyrol Secret Ledger*—next to an official document stating "falsely reported one million catties of salt tax," there was a notation in Hungarian: "resold to the Transylv…
Chapter 191