Shaiyanjiyi
01 · Historical Records
According to the 'Treatise on Food and Commodities' in the History of the Ming, the production of Huai salt changed in the Ming dynasty from boiling the sea to make salt to pan-solar evaporation, initially using brick ponds and later switching to mud ponds, a method that has continued to the present day.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Huai salt refers to the sea salt produced by the salterns along both the north and south banks of the Huai River, anciently called 'the two Huai salts.' The Huai salt making craft is the skill and process of using the traditional mud-flat solar method to raise salt concentration step by step to produce sea salt. This craft is distributed along the coastal region from Lianyungang City in the north of Jiangsu Province to Nantong City in the south. The products of the Huai salt making craft are mainly salt, mirabilite, and old brine; Huai salt is characterized by large grains, fragrant taste, white color, and dry texture. The craft centers on four major process steps: pond preparation, brine making, crystallization, and salt harvesting. First comes pond preparation, making the pond bottom, embankments, boards, and gates firm, level, and impermeable. Then comes brine making: seawater is introduced and, using sunlight, naturally evaporates to gradually concentrate into saturated brine. Next is crystallization: the saturated brine is put into crystallization ponds, where sodium chloride crystals naturally precipitate out as salt. Finally comes salt harvesting: the salt is gathered with a scraper and then carried in baskets to the beach head and piled into stacks. The craft's character resides in the Huai salt workers' accumulated 'fifty-six-character formula': 'plastic-sheet covering, year-round crystallization, building salt-pond boards, long and lively salt raking, clear-brine blooming, brine串联 (series-linking) replenishment, brine depth of thirty, civilizing the environment, cutting head and tail, grasping the middle stage, thin-brine washing, separating fine salt, dedicated production and transport, half-year storage.' Lianyungang is one of China's four great salt-producing regions. As the folk saying goes: 'Huai salt has been the finest under heaven since ancient times.' Huai salt, with its large grains, fragrant taste, white color, and dry texture, has a singular and superb making craft. The experience and insight of the technical lead on the flats are the key to stable and high yields. Especially in the brine-making skills of channeling the water and reading the brine bloom, everything depends on the lead pond-keeper's experience, which modern technology to this day cannot replace. The Huai salt making craft has been transmitted through the generations of salt workers by word and example, via trade and master–apprentice instruction. The Huai salt solar-evaporation craft uses solar energy and seawater to make salt and belongs to a green, environmentally friendly industry. With its complete and systematic production process, clear flow, and smooth technique, it is the crystallization of the wisdom of the Huaibei salt workers over long production practice; it remains widely used today, occupies an important place in China's maritime culture, and has considerable scientific, technological, economic, and socio-cultural value.
Documented Process Record
The craft centers on four major process steps: pond preparation, brine making, crystallization, and salt harvesting.
Repairing the salt flats
The first stage levels the pond floor, banks, boards and sluice so brine cannot leak through.
Reading the flow and the brine bloom
Brine is concentrated by sunlight alone; the foreman reads the water's movement and the bloom on its surface.
Collecting salt and stacking the kilns
Crystallised salt is scraped, carried to the flat head and stacked into kilns to mature for half a year.
The fifty-six character rule
The flat workers compress their know-how into short mnemonic lines, passed on by rote between generations.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The local area uses mud-pond pan-solar evaporation to make salt, employing the bagua-pond layout and the opposing-pond layout, which are typical representatives of sea-salt solar-evaporation craft.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Shaiyanjiyi · Shaiyanjiyi · Shaiyanjiyi · Shaiyanjiyi · Shaiyanjiyi.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Huai salt's place in maritime culture comes from its unique craft structure. The four steps of pond preparation, brine making, crystallization, and salt harvesting constitute a complete chain rarely seen in China; in brine making, channeling the water and reading the brine bloom can only be judged by the lead pond-keeper from experience, which modern technology to this day cannot replace. Salt solar-evaporation borrows only solar energy and seawater, constituting a green, environmentally friendly craft whose process has long been followed with little overturning. The fifty-six-character formula compresses the technical requirements into short phrases, and generation after generation of salt workers have carried it down through oral instruction and master–apprentice transmission; it is the crystallization of the wisdom of the Huaibei salt workers in long production practice.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Shi Qigang 03-1422
- Zhuo Mayangzong 03-1423
- Tan Zheng 05-2854
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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