Did You Know❓

A simple salt tax once killed over 20 million people in China 🇨🇳

🧂 For over 2,000 years, the Chinese government maintained a strict monopoly on salt, turning a basic necessity into one of the deadliest economic policies in history.

📜 It started in 119 BCE under Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to fund wars — but evolved into a regime that:

Made salt 10x more expensive than rice

Cut off poor families from preserving food

Caused widespread malnutrition, food poisoning, and starvation

Accounted for up to 80% of imperial revenue

💀 Penalties for illegal salt trading were brutal: execution, often including the smuggler’s entire family.

🚫 Owning “too much” salt without permission? A crime.

💰 Smuggling salt? Deadly, yet many tried — creating a black market more dangerous than modern drug cartels.

👉 The result? 20+ million lives lost to a government-controlled resource.