Summer in the Salt Pond

In the summer of the 42nd year of Emperor Qianlong's reign, the surface of the Yuncheng Salt Pond lost its green color of previous years, revealing layers of dazzling salt crusts, as if the earth had shed its old skin under the scorching sun.

Cao Dehai stood at the entrance of the salt field, watching the guys carrying baskets of salt into the warehouse, but his heart was as dry as the water in the pond. Tomorrow was the day when the Salt Transport Bureau would come to collect the salt tax. Without the half-foot-long salt ticket, no matter how much salt he had, it would be a banned item and he could not leave the checkpoint or Yuncheng.

In the world of Yanchi, salt tickets are passes, keys to wealth, and shackles for the government. Salt tickets are made of jute paper, with the red official seal of "Hedong Salt Transport Office" printed on them. On the back are written the business name, ticket amount, and tax. Although they seem light, they are the life and death line of salt merchants for a year.

According to historical records, Yuncheng Salt Pond produces nearly 5 million dan of salt annually, accounting for about one-tenth of the country's total production. Hedong salt tax accounts for 30% of Shanxi Province's finances (Volume 5 of "Compilation of Historical Materials on Salt Administration in the Qing Dynasty"). The salt from Yanchi is not only a seasoning on the tables of the people, but also the military pay of the government and the lifeblood of the dynasty. Qian Mu wrote in "Introduction to Chinese Cultural History": "Yuncheng Salt Lake has been a common target for all tribes in the Central Plains." More than 4,700 years ago, after Huangdi defeated Chiyou, he moved the capital to the vicinity of Anyi Salt Lake, opened up the development and utilization of salt, and laid the first foundation for the foundation of China. After that, Yao, Shun, and Yu built their capitals here. It was called "Yanyi" in the Spring and Autumn Period, "Yanshi" in the Warring States Period, "Siyancheng" and "Yanjiancheng" in the Han Dynasty, "Phoenix City" in the Yuan Dynasty, and "Yunsicheng" in the Ming Dynasty. This is the only city in China that was established for salt transportation.

Cao Dehai remembered his father's words before his death: "We are not in the salt business, but the salt ticket business. Without salt tickets, no matter how much salt you pick, you are still picking knives."

Salt merchants' reverse guidance

The establishment of salt tickets can be traced back to the "Kaizhong Law" during the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty. Since then, the state has held the wealth of the salt pond in its hands with a piece of salt ticket.

Salt tickets are both a voucher for circulation and a receipt for the court's salt tax, and are the lifeblood of the state's finances. However, during the reign of Emperor Qianlong, with the rise of ticket houses and the prosperity of post roads, the nature of salt tickets quietly changed: they were no longer just vouchers for exchanging for salt, but also became the object of reselling by merchants.

Salt merchants learned a new business: after getting salt tickets, they were not in a hurry to exchange for salt, but resold them to others to make a profit. Reversing, combining, and reselling, salt tickets were traded back and forth in teahouses and taverns, becoming another kind of "financial bill" wandering in the gray area.

The Collection of Historical Materials on Salt Administration in the Qing Dynasty records: "The practice of reversing tickets by ticket merchants has become more and more serious, and silver tickets and salt tickets have been exchanged, and official taxes have been repeatedly lost." Salt tickets were originally a tool for the government to control the salt pond, but they grew branches in the cracks of the market. In the 37th year of Emperor Qianlong's reign, a major case of reversing tickets broke out in the Yuncheng Salt Pond, and even officials from the Salt Transport Department were involved. The memorial wrote: "The case of reverse taxation has implicated dozens of officials and hundreds of merchants, and the salt tax has been cut off, causing a deficit in the treasury." (Volume 32 of "Collection of Archives of Salt Administration in the Qing Dynasty") But the government never stopped calculating. Reverse taxation disrupted the market, but it also became a lubricant for finance. The "handling fees" of reverse taxation transactions and the profit sharing of officials became the hidden source of local salt tax. In the memorial of the 42nd year of Qianlong, the Hedong Salt Transport Commissioner wrote: "Although reverse taxation is a malpractice, the tax silver can still be collected. Harsh prohibitions may cause the salt tax to be cut off, and the use of salt tax may not continue." The state and the market have repeatedly tested each other under the red seal of salt tickets. The state used salt tickets to maintain military pay and officialdom; salt merchants used reverse and combined tickets to turn red tickets into cash. The credit of salt tickets ultimately depended on the authority of the government and the salt police; the power of the market could always penetrate the gaps in authority.

Those porters and ticket houses caught in the cracks of salt tickets may understand this truth best: there is no pure freedom or absolute prohibition in this world.

Cryptocurrency that was incorporated

Some people say that cryptocurrency is decentralized and is the ultimate challenge to the country's right to issue currency. Algorithmic consensus, distributed ledgers, and anonymous wallets seem to have freed wealth from the shackles of the state for the first time, flowing freely like the wind in the salt pond.

However, the history of the salt pond has already written the answer. Back-references are a disease that disrupts the monopoly, but they have become a lubricant in the government's account books; the red seal of the salt ticket is a ban and a permission. Behind the ideal of decentralization, there are always the tentacles and figures of the state.

People think that cryptocurrency is the ultimate challenge to the state's right to issue currency, but as the industry has come to this day, embracing supervision has become the main theme. KYC, AML, exchange compliance, tax transparency, these words are like salt frost in the wind, covering the four words "decentralization" layer by layer.

The country's calculations can always incorporate the ideal of freedom into the system.

In 2025, at the Bitcoin Conference, US Vice President Vance was blunt: "Bitcoin is a tool to fight bad policies, no matter which party's policies." "The Chinese government does not like Bitcoin... Since China is away from Bitcoin, maybe we in the United States should move towards Bitcoin." "We have established a national Bitcoin reserve to make Bitcoin a strategic tool for the US government." "The dollar-pegged stablecoin will not weaken the dollar, but will be a multiplier of the US economic strength."

Just like the salt ticket to the salt pond back then, the state used red seals and knives to control the circulation of salt; today's regulators use compliance licenses and on-chain monitoring to hold the flow of wealth at their digital fingertips. The country may have lost its monopoly on paper tickets, but it has rebuilt an invisible wall with laws, licenses, and on-chain monitoring. The hand of supervision has reached into every wallet address, and the openness and transparency of the on-chain data has become a new weapon of the state.

The hand of the state has never really loosened the reins of wealth.

Game of Thrones

The story of the salt pond is gone, and the salt ticket has become the yellow pages in the history books. But the traces of collusion between the state and the market are still left on those yellowed hemp papers. The circulation of wealth has never been a simple exchange of goods, but a game between the state and the market, a contest of credit, and the scepter of the system.

The credit of salt tickets, in the final analysis, is attached to the majesty of the government; the credit of cryptocurrency, seemingly decentralized, is actually hovering under the shadow of national laws. Without regulatory permission and tax channels, no matter how many nodes a cryptocurrency has, it can only wander between gray and white.

Standing by the Yuncheng Salt Lake, looking at the layers of dried salt frost, I seem to see the background of wealth: half is market desire, and half is institutional shackles. Salt tickets, paper money, Bitcoin, their forms have changed, but the essence of power remains unchanged.