The sky outside the county government office is getting dark.
Seeing Liu Chengzong coming out, Cheng Yunxiao, who was waiting outside, greeted him. He asked with a joyful face: "Brother, how are you?"
"Secretary Zhang can give the painting a deposit, but the government has issued a new order. To buy a hundred acres of land, we need to bring in refugees from outside the city to work as tenants. I didn't expect that we still have to find a way to get food."
"It's late to leave the city today. I made an appointment with Zhang Shuban that a government servant will take us to pick up the refugees outside the city tomorrow morning." As he said this, Liu Chengzong saw that Cheng Yun was stamping his feet in the cold and asked, "Have you been waiting for me outside?"
Hearing this, Cheng Yun shook his head one after another and said, "Brother, you don't know. When you entered the Yamen, I ran all over Xicheng North Street."
"After you entered the county government office, we and I discussed that we would have to sleep in the countryside on our way tonight, so we might as well find a place to live in the city. Unexpectedly, thieves have been attracted everywhere outside the city recently, and merchants traveling from north to south are afraid to go out on the road, so they all live in the city.
We have booked all the available rooms in the Xicheng Inn, and even the nunnery has no vacancies."
As he spoke, he pointed to the street corner not far away and said: "There are no official rooms, and we can't book a small room. The shopkeeper of that watchtower house is my father-in-law Gan'er, so he made room for a common shop. Now Brother Cao and the others
I'm having a drink at the liquor store across the street. I don't have to go anywhere else at night, so I just sleep there."
Liquor shops and inns in the Ming Dynasty were generally divided into four types: hotels, direct liquor shops, inns and nunneries.
Needless to say, a hotel is a restaurant that serves wine and sells cooked food; a liquor store is a tavern that only sells loose wine and is similar to a bar. You can sleep in an inn; and an tavern is a liquor store that specializes in special services.
Guanfang, Shaofang and Tongpu all refer to the standard of guest rooms. Because officials in the Ming Dynasty often stayed in upper-class guest rooms when traveling on business, so stores called the best rooms Guanfang.
The shaofang can also be called a shabby room, which is an ordinary room; as for the bunkhouse, it is the lowest guest room, but it only has a bed for people to sleep on.
In fact, it can be understood as deluxe suites, standard rooms and multi-person rooms.
However, in Yan'an Mansion, the price difference between the three types of rooms is not big, because even the official rooms are not very luxurious.
Wealthy businessmen who are truly in need and have money will generally choose to rent a house for a long time in a place where they often do business, decorate it according to their personal preferences, and hire people to clean it.
Because housing prices in the Ming Dynasty were cheap, the cost of renting a house was not high, and there were many legal restrictions on foreigners buying houses, so house buying and selling was not free.
However, the cost of maintaining a house such as furnishings and labor costs is often much greater than the cost of renting a house.
Buying a house is like buying land, neither of which can be done with money. In Ming Dynasty law, these two matters were inheritance and required asking the neighbors.
When selling a house, the homeowner must first ask his parents, peers, and relatives of the younger generation. These people should not ask their neighbors again. They should not ask for them all before it is the outsider's turn to buy.
For people like Liu Chengzong who are used to sleeping in wilderness and barracks, sleeping in a good place is naturally comfortable. It doesn’t matter if the sleeping place is not good. Anyway, it won’t be worse than a hot sandpit. He laughed and said: "Tongpu
Okay, the whole shop is warm... How much money do you give to that door?"
Chengyun said: "A piece of silver is just a small bean. When I went out, my elder brother gave me a lot of silver of poor quality."
Liu Chengzong knew that all the money was taken from Bai Yingzi, but even though the money came easily, he still asked him: "It's quite a lot. How much is the exchange price of silver in Fucheng now?"
Money is a unit of weight, weighing 3.75 grams, ten cents per cent, ten cents per cent, ten cents per tael, and sixteen taels per catty.
The common currency in circulation among the people is copper coins. The official exchange price for one tael of silver is always one thousand to one, but in actual exchange it is difficult to exchange for so many copper coins. The private exchange rate is generally one tael of silver for six to seven hundred copper coins. The exchange rate for gold and silver is about one to eight.
Cheng Yun patted his waist cheerfully and said with a smile: "Today one tael of silver is worth 992 yuan of Tongbao. The one penny of broken silver given to the disciple is enough for him to buy three kilograms of braised sheep's trotters at the market and eat it to his heart's content." When he said this, Cheng Yun looked quite proud and raised his eyebrows: "I have learned this over the years. If I usually give three cents of silver, it will be enough for the disciples to run errands and report that buying land is a major matter related to the clan's livelihood. An extra seven cents will be enough."
The reason is to prevent him from doing bad things."
"But don't give too much, otherwise it will make people greedy, which is not beautiful. It is enough to give them a good meal."
The price of silver is high in the northwest. Tax collectors do not charge copper coins but only silver, and farmers do not produce silver. Therefore, merchants who travel from the northwest to the southeast have a side business of exchanging silver, allowing them to make a lot of money.
Nowadays, the world is in chaos and trade is difficult. Logically speaking, the price of silver should have fallen slightly. However, wealthy households with a little wealth have the need for hedging. Silver and gold, which are high in value, light in weight, and easy to carry, have become undesirable to others.
The prices of the treasures sold are actually higher than before.
The value of one penny of silver is not an exaggeration, but it is still quite a lot. Ordinary families, which accounted for the largest proportion in the Ming Dynasty, usually have an annual income of only eight taels to forty taels for a family of three.
This is like a person with an annual family income of 40,000 paying an entry fee of 100, which is not cheap.
However, in this era, due to the limited circulation of goods in northern Shaanxi, the value of money in people's hearts is far less important than in later generations.
Liu Chengzong had no money in his eyes. He neither praised the shipping company for its work nor scolded the shipping company for its extravagant spending. He just shook his head and sighed: "You can actually buy sheep's hooves at this club in the city."
Fushi City is backed by Qingliang Mountain, and has Dongchuan and Xichuan rivers passing through it. The environment is much better than that of the northern counties. The drought has little impact on this place. Even if the south and north are in chaos, the city still has food and clothing.
Worry-free.
But these things are usually not known to the people who live in the countryside. For ordinary people in the village, a trip to Fucheng is something that the elderly will talk about for a lifetime.
As they spoke, the two walked to the watchtower. From a distance, they saw Cao Yao and Lu Bin leaning on the counter in a straight wine shop, pouring wine for themselves. The wine was warm, sweet wine. This kind of wine is found in the countryside outside Fucheng.
People usually use the surplus grain to brew some wine from various aunts during the Chinese New Year, which is very delicious.
Wine is not expensive either, a bottle only costs 30 yuan.
Lu Bin was very excited when he returned to Fucheng for the first time. Now he was having a lot of wine, so he was very happy.
Cao Yao went too far. Perhaps he was tired from carrying the knife all the time, so he simply took off the leather belt around his waist and placed it on the counter together with Liu Chengzong's waist knife. This frightened the poor man who was standing at the counter to drink in the shop and ran outside.
The two of them occupied a huge counter, and the shopkeeper didn't dare to get angry or say anything.
The shopkeeper didn't dare to speak, but the newly born Wenjiu waiter did. He just complained a few words and was slapped in the face by the shopkeeper and sent outside. The shopkeeper himself nodded and bowed to apologize to Cao Yao.
This rough-faced man with a scar looks like an idiot. Why bother with him?
When Liu Chengzong walked into the Zhijiu Shop, he caught up with the waiter who was warming the wine and was walking out wearing a long scarf. He pointed at a few beggars who were waiting at the door and begged for wine and food, and started to drive them away. When the waiter was angry about being beaten, he happened to be looking for beggars.
So irritating.
However, when Liu Chengzong turned around, he found that one of the beggars was wearing very familiar clothes.
That's a mandarin duck war coat.
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Note:
The silver exchange price refers to the silver exchange price in Sanyuan County, Xi'an Prefecture in the second year of Chongzhen.
"On the 24th of leap April, I exchanged 74,208 cents of silver and 69,271 coins." - "Zhongtong Rilu"