In the early days of salt production, salt was boiled directly on a stove with an iron pot over a fire, and there was no method of purification.

This primitive way of cooking salt was time-consuming, fuel-consuming, low-yielding, and expensive. Therefore, from the birth of salt, the royal family has established salt law. In the Zhou Dynasty, the officer in charge of salt is called "salt people".

Ancient records, Yandi (said Shennong's) Su Sha's pioneered the use of seawater to cook salt, known as the "Su Sha as boiled salt".

"Zhou Li - Heavenly Officials - Salt Man" records that the salt man was in charge of salt administration, managing all kinds of salt affairs. The rituals were to use bitter salt and loose salt, the hospitality was to use shaped salt, and the king's meals were to use syrupy salt. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty set up the Salt Law, which enforced the monopoly of government salt and prohibited private production and private ownership.

The origin of salt in China. The word "salt" originally means "to boil brine in a vessel". It is written in the Shuowen (说文), which states that what is born is called brine, and what is boiled is called salt. Legend has it that during the time of the Yellow Emperor, there was a vassal named Chuangsha, who used seawater to boil brine and decocted it into salt, which came in five colors: green, yellow, white, black and purple. The Chinese started to cook salt around the time of Shennong (Yan Di) and Huang Di. Salt in ancient China was boiled with seawater.

There were cultural relics unearthed in Fujian in the 1950s that contained salt-frying utensils, proving that ancient people in the Yangshao period (5,000 to 3,000 B.C.E.) had learned to fry sea salt. According to the above information and physical evidence, in China, the salt originated as far back as 5,000 years ago in the Yanhuang era, the inventor of the long-standing sand is seawater salt cooking fire ancestor, later generations respected as "salt".

Before the Song Dynasty, in the southeast of Anyi County, Xiezhou, east of the river, a temple dedicated to the "salt" was built. Qing Tongzhi years, salt transport Qiao Songnian in Taizhou to build "Salt Temple", the temple is enshrined in the main seat that is boiled for the salt of the sea of the long-established Sha's, the Shang and Zhou transportation of brine salt Jiao Li, the Spring and Autumn period in the implementation of the "salt government officials in the State of Qi" Guanzhong, placed in the status of the accompanying sacrifice.

China is also the invention of salt wells. In the Book of the King of Shu, "Emperor Xuan Di (69 BC to 66 BC) began to put on dozens of salt wells." Since the Han Dynasty, salt ponds were also utilized to obtain salt. Wang Jì (王廙廙廙《洛都赋》："There is a salt pond in the east, which is clean and fresh, and it is made naturally without any effort to cook it." Liu Zhen (刘桢), "Lu Du Fu (鲁都赋)"："And there are salt pools and expansive, frying and scorching Yangchun, scorching and spraying foam, sparing salt from Yin, scavenging without loss, and fetching without diligence."

Reference Baidu Encyclopedia. Table salt