Lútái

Lutai stands among the reed marshes on the lower Jiyun River, a short distance from the Bohai shore. After the wars that ended the Tang scattered the salt-boiling households of this coast, the Later Tang governor of Youzhou, Zhao Dejun, set up the Lutai salt yard in 925, a station that fed the salt trade of the northern plain for centuries. When the Yuan placed the Changlu Salt Transport Commission over the coast, Lutai was one of the yards under it; the Ming kept the arrangement, with twenty-four yards on the Changlu coast. Salt households boiled brine here and boats carried the product up the rivers toward the capital and the interior.