Mountains and Rivers Have Salt

In "Salt in Mountains and Rivers", a family epic that spans 1,300 years and 5,000 miles, salt is the foundation of a country, the lifeblood of finance and taxation, military supplies for frontiers, and the blood and belief of the Zhang family passed down from generation to generation. The story begins during the Tianbao period of Tang Dynasty. Beside Jiechi in Hedong Province, Zhang Shoucheng, a villager, rushed to Lingwu with 5,000 salt quotations during the war of the Anshi Rebellion, in exchange for Zhang's first cornerstone in the salt and iron monopoly system. When the Yan Yan Law fell like an iron curtain, he did not resist forcefully. Instead, he united with the four surnamed Qi households to form a blood alliance and used the power of the clan to carve out a way to survive in the cracks between officials and businessmen. Hundreds of years later, there was a wave of immigrants from Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty. Zhang Xian, a descendant of the Zhang family, was ordered to move westward to Hexi with his military household. He established a settlement on the deserted beach, built canals, and discovered salt ponds. Faced with the covetousness of the Mongolian cavalry, he used salt as a blade, turned enemies into friends, took root in the high platform, and made the "Zhang Yi Zhenyi" an unshakable flag on the salt road of the Silk Road. During the Kangxi and Qianlong years of the Qing Dynasty, Zhang Yongchang founded the "Yongxinghe" salt brand and contracted tens of thousands of acres of salt fields, pushing the family to its peak. His daughter Zhang Yulan disguised herself as a man and took charge of a business, wrote "Salt Pond Minutes" and became a legend in the Hexi business community. The war of rebellion during the Tongzhi period burned all of this. Zhang Jizu joined Zuo Zongtang's Western Expedition and used the Salt Road intelligence to make meritorious service, but he could only watch as his thousand-year-old ancestral property was taken over by the government...