Formation process of Ningchang salt spring

The formation process of Ningchang salt spring is as follows:

Salt Spring, formerly known as "Bailu Fountain", was named after the legend that it was discovered by a white deer. Legend has it that a long time ago, a hunter chased a white deer covered in snow in the forest at the southern foot of Daba Mountain, and chased it back and forth to the hunting temple in Ningchang Town on the west bank of Daning River in Wuxi County, which is adjacent to Hubei in eastern Sichuan. Just as the hunter was about to shoot with a bow, the white deer suddenly disappeared, but in front of him, a silver halo rose.

There used to be a cave in front, and a clear spring was bubbling out. The hunter was thirsty, so he squatted down to fetch water and drink. Unexpectedly, the spring water was extremely salty and difficult to swallow, so he found this strange "salt spring".

brine spring

According to historical records: "In the seventh year of the Han River Ping (AD 64), this spring was led to Wushan and flourished in iron pot." This shows that as early as 1900 years ago in the Eastern Han Dynasty, salt springs had been developed and utilized. At that time, in addition to frying salt with "iron pot", a plank road with a length of 100 kilometers was built on the cliff on the west bank of Longmen Gorge in Daning River. People grabbed each other with bamboos and laid a pipeline to bring the water from salt springs to dachang town, Wushan County for cooking. After the Eastern Han Dynasty, people installed a stone carving faucet with a treasure bead at the exit of Yanquan. Salt water is injected into the salt pond from both sides of the pearl, and there is an outlet below the salt pond, and then it is guided to the frying furnace with bamboo. According to the legend of the local elders, the peasant uprising army led by Li Zicheng was based in dachang town in the middle reaches of Daning River in the late Ming Dynasty. While attacking the officers and men of the Ming Dynasty, the insurgents drew water and fried salt for military supplies. By the Qing Dynasty, the production of spring fried salt in Ningchang Town had reached a considerable scale. During the Qianlong period (A.D. 1736 to A.D. 1795), it was reported that there were 336 stoves and 65,438 frying pans in the local area, which was known as "smoke and salt in a thousand stoves". The grand occasion of its production and trade is: "Li Chucheng, Zepei Han and Tang Dynasties. Snow surges in thousands of feet, and there is a smell of smoke. Cockroaches are even wet in the village and fried thoroughly in the red stove. Gold goes to Wan Li, but it depends on the boat. " After liberation, Wuxi Salt Factory was built in Ningchang Town. The raw material of this salt factory is spring water from salt springs. Boil the spring water into salt, and the produced spring water salt sells well in eastern Sichuan and western Hubei.

How to fry salt in spring water? This is because in the process of groundwater activity, we encounter rock layers containing a lot of sodium chloride. After sodium chloride is dissolved by groundwater, it becomes a "salt spring" with high salinity, and its concentration is often higher than that of seawater, and the taste of water is extremely salty. These salty waters gush out of the surface through rock cracks or faults, forming a strange "salt spring". Because the salt spring of Martyrs Temple in Ningchang Town, the "crown of ancient temples in eastern Sichuan", has the above hydrogeological conditions, Wuxi Salt Factory can fry salt as white as snow with salt spring water.