The vast silt tidal flats of northern Jiangsu forcibly deposited by the old Yellow River — the empire's inexhaustible sea-salt factory, the material bedrock of the ancient salt-and-iron monopoly.

The vast silt tidal flats of northern Jiangsu forcibly deposited by the old Yellow River — the empire's inexhaustible sea-salt factory, the material bedrock of the ancient salt-and-iron monopoly.