■ Liu Yudong
During the Republic of China period, dozens of salt trumpets were active in Hedong Salt Pond, the most famous of which was the Wang Hengsheng Salt From Dai County.
There is a family surnamed Wang in Huaiquan Village, Nanfan Town, DaiXian County, who is loyal and loyal, and is a family of cultivators and heirlooms. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the Wang family built a school in the courtyard and invited local well-educated people to teach, so that the children of their own clan received a good education, and many of their descendants were honored as prison students and martial students, and there were not a few who served outside.
During the light years of the Qing Dynasty, Wang Jian was raised to high school and served as the director of the Hedong Salt Class. He learned that the Hedong salt pond was a "scraping gold board", and resolutely decided to sell hundreds of acres of cultivated land, raise thousands of taels of silver, buy the management rights of dozens of acres of salt ponds in hedong salt ponds, and set up the "Wang Hengsheng" salt number. Because he understood management and was good at management, he soon became a salt merchant on the rich side, and trained his son's guests to be talented and official to the rank of Dao. During the Guangxu dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, Wang Jian was given the title of "Tongfeng Dafu" by the emperor with the title of "Tongfeng Dafu".
In 1912, Wang Jiabin passed away, and his "Wang Hengsheng" salt trumpet was taken over by his stepson Wang Kai. The shrewd and capable Wang Kai is well run and the business is booming. In particular, from 1929 to 1932, in the face of a great drought and the War in the Central Plains, the price of salt soared, and Wang Kai openly selected the salt pond "merchants" in Hedong Salt Pond to win the bid, and was solely responsible for the marketing of the salt produced in hedong Salt Pond, with an annual income of more than 200,000 taels in the ocean, which was more than double the tax income of the whole county of DaiXian County. In order to expand production, Wang Kai and his huge capital purchased more than 8,000 mu of cultivated land in Zhiyang Town, Henan (now Xinhua District, Pingdingshan City, Henan Province), and opened more than 20 shops of various types such as Qianzhuang, Pawnshop, Beijing Goods Shop, Grocery Store, Silk Satin Shop, and Pastry Shop; opened a number of shops in neighboring Quwo County; and purchased more than 2,000 mu of cultivated land in the local Nanfan Town area. At the same time, for many years, the construction of large-scale construction, in accordance with the traditional concept of balance, coordination, moderation and practicality, has been built by more than 10 quadrangle courtyards, observation decks, flower and fruit gardens, yards, theaters, pavilions, cave-style warehouses and other ancillary facilities, which has been named "Dafu Mansion" by the local people.
In the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, in order to support Feng Yuxiang's resistance against Japan, Wang Kai funded him 5,000 yuan of ocean and a large amount of grain, and also donated his own drama class with more than 30 actors to the Northwest Army free of charge.
In 1943, Wang Kai died of overwork at the age of 54 due to resistance to Japanese rule. The "Wang Hengsheng" salt trumpet was inherited by his son Wang Tixu, who graduated from Chaoyang University.
After the liberation of Yuncheng, the state nationalized the right to operate the Hedong salt pond, and Wang Tixu responded positively and transferred the five salt works of the "Wang Hengsheng" salt number, including Wubu, Liuzeng, Fan Lin, Houhuozhou and Ding Guangrong, to the Yuncheng Salinization Bureau as a whole.
In 1947, after the liberation of Daixian County, the "Dafu Mansion" in Huaiquan was occupied by the democratic government of Daixian County for more than a year due to the large number of houses in the courtyard and complete facilities, and became the political and economic center of the county.
In the 1990s, the pure stone carved shadow wall in the "Doctor's Mansion" in Huaiquan was treasured by the county museum. To this day, there are still many courtyard houses in the "Dafu Mansion" in Huaiquan, which are inhabited by the descendants of the Wang family.
In 2013, the Yuncheng Hedong Salt Culture Research Association was established, and many seminars and exhibitions were held to introduce the production scale, business ideas and social contributions of the well-known "Wang Hengsheng" salt in Hedong Salt Pond, and widely publicized it.