Hearing Chu Qiguang's inquiry, the clerk said: "Isn't that right? I heard that the demons from the northwest are coming again. All roadside towns will block official roads, water transportation, food prices, and medicine prices. It’s starting to rise.”
During this period, Chu Qiguang followed Qiao Zhi to learn about the situation in the world, and he also knew that in the past two hundred years, monsters had been raging on the grasslands in the northwest of the Han Dynasty.
The monster clan is a race bred from the Dao-level monsters. The monsters in the clan are born with spiritual intelligence and can cultivate.
Today, the most powerful demon tribe on the northwest grasslands is the wolf demon tribe. This wolf demon tribe is divided into more than a dozen tribes. One of them calls itself the Yongri tribe and believes that it is a tribe of gods who descended from the sun to the world.
After the Yongri tribe unified the wolf demon tribe, they swept across the entire northwest grassland. They changed their name to Tiancheng and their country to Daqian, becoming one of the seven major demon tribes in the world.
In the past twenty years, this wolf demon tribe has often led its troops south to plunder the territory of the Han Dynasty. Lingzhou, where Qingyang County is located, is one of the major states in the north of the Han Dynasty and has always been the target of the wolf demons.
"The wolves are going south again?" Chu Qiguang thought to himself, "Let's go back and ask Qiao Zhi to see what he knows."
"But it's rare to come here once. Let's go to the county town to have a look and collect information."
The Taoist temple in Qingyang County is not in the county seat, but in the suburbs. So after Chu Qiguang left the Taoist temple medicine shop, he went to the city gate of the county seat.
Most of the soldiers I saw when entering the city were thin and wore shabby military uniforms. The original bright colors had faded away and were instead covered with greasy stains. They stood or squatted, but none of them stood guard properly.
Chu Qiguang secretly shook his head. Even if there were martial arts and Taoism in this world, and the role of masters was highly valued in battles, the mental outlook of these soldiers was too poor, which revealed the problems of the Han Dynasty at the moment.
After crossing the city gate, the first thing you see is South Street. Both sides of the bluestone-paved street are filled with garbage, feces and other things. As soon as Chu Qiguang came in, he squinted his eyes due to the smell.
However, he had no expectations for such hygienic conditions in the feudal era, so he covered his nose and rushed over at a faster speed.
…
Just as Chu Qiguang passed through the city gate, two pairs of eyes stared at him in an alley next to the street. They were two brown-yellow dogs. One of them sniffed in the direction of Chu Qiguang. He sniffed his nose and said with a look of disgust: "Such a strong cat smell."
Another native dog also sniffed his nose and asked doubtfully: "Why didn't I smell it?"
"You are not moral enough. Humph, this man loves being with cats so much. He is not a serious person at first glance. He will definitely not end well."
"Look, it's the Taoist priests from Qingyang Temple who have entered the city."
"Why are you still looking at me, waiting to be made into a pot of dog meat? Just slip away."
The two local dogs disappeared deep into the alley with their tails between their legs.
…
Chu Qiguang walked all the way to the busiest West Street in the county. Along the way, there were various vegetable farmers, peddlers, fortune tellers, fortune tellers, and snack sellers. On both sides of the street were some one- and two-story brick and tile houses with grain stores inside. Shops, banks, drug stores, clothing and shoe stores, restaurants, teahouses, dental shops and other types of shops.
The streets here are much cleaner and more comfortable without feces and garbage on both sides.
Of course, Chu Qiguang knows that this is not because the people here are hard-working and clean, but because this street is relatively close to the county government, so the people in the city come several times a day to clean the streets and collect feces.
Collecting excrement sounds like a menial job, but it is actually very profitable, because collecting excrement can earn a sum of money, and collecting excrement and selling it as compost can earn another sum of money.
Chu Qiguang has already had the idea of this business in his mind, but unfortunately, people in this world have already known the importance of fertilizer. The feces in the city have long been taken care of by various feces tyrants, and it is not Chu Qiguang's turn.
Step in.
"Newly baked pancakes! Two cents each!"
"Newly arrived Wuzhou silk! Red cloth among the clouds! Would you like to see it, sir?"
"Sir, this is the frost paper sent from Qi County. It is as clean as jade, thin and smooth..."
Chu Qiguang was walking on the street, listening to the sounds of hawking and business, and suddenly had the illusion that he was back in modern times, visiting a famous ancient town.
However, many people walking on this bustling street were wearing silk clothes and cotton gowns. There were only a few short coats like Chu Qiguang's, and the clerks in the store almost ignored him.
‘This is also the CBD of Qingyang County.’
'I need to buy a set of clothes to prepare.'
It is said that a man relies on his clothes and a horse relies on his saddle. Especially in this ancient feudal society, it is very useful for a person to dress well, at least it will provide a lot of convenience in receiving people and things.
So Chu Qiguang first went to the silver shop and exchanged one tael of silver for a sling of 600 copper coins. This was because the copper coins in this shop were of good quality and had a higher copper content. Copper coins with a lower copper content would cost 1,000 or even 600 copper coins.
2000 Wen can be exchanged for one tael of silver.
As for the reason for exchanging silver, it is naturally more convenient to use copper coins to buy food and drink on a daily basis.
Then he spent 4 copper coins to buy two pancakes from the vendor to pad his stomach, and then spent another 1 or 2 coins to buy a blue silk round-necked long-sleeved gown.
This kind of long gown was originally stipulated by the imperial court and could only be worn by scholars with a good reputation.
After all, at the beginning of the Han Dynasty, there were detailed requirements for the clothing of civil servants, generals, merchants, farmers, craftsmen and other people from different professions, including the color, style, and even the width and length of sleeves.
to divide people into different levels.
However, nowadays, the descendants of all the great official families and wealthy businessmen and wealthy families can wear whatever they want, and the government cannot control it, so they gradually don't care about it, and even the common people have become more and more free in their clothes.
"These ancient clothes are really expensive. If you buy a few more pieces, they will be as good as Ergou's house."
A piece of clothing cost only one or two yuan, which made Chu Qiguang couldn't help but shake his head.
He changed his clothes and wandered around, but when he went shopping, he was not very interested in restaurants, teahouses, or wooden houses, and he didn't even look at them.
On the contrary, there are those who sell grain, medicine, coal, blacksmiths, and all kinds of groceries from the north and the south, such as coarse salt, fine salt, brown sugar, white sugar, dry goods, and dried fruits.
…
Chu Qiguang walked around from the morning until the afternoon before leaving the county town. His mind was filled with data such as the prices of various commodities, the flow of people on the street, the volume of freight at the city gate, the origin of the goods, etc.
At this time, the Han Dynasty became more vivid, vivid and three-dimensional in his mind than Ergou's memory and Qiao Zhi's narrative.
'There are more handicraft products than I imagined, including grain, cotton, sugar, tobacco, coal, silk, cotton, paper, oil, wood, copperware, porcelain...not only local products in Lingzhou, but also products from Donghai Prefecture in the south.
, products from Quanzhou, Yuezhou and other places south of the Yangtze River.'
'This shows that commercial capital is active and industrial and commercial towns have emerged, so the rural gentry from all over the country must have participated in it.'
'However, the currency used in transactions is still mainly silver, and the official currency is far from enough. This shows that the imperial court still does not really realize the importance of industry, commerce and finance, and may only regard it as a source of wealth.'
Looking at the city gate where people were coming and going, Chu Qiguang took a deep breath, feeling quite high-spirited.
‘The government’s supervision is unfavorable, land annexation is serious, and commercial capital is rising... There is a lot of potential in the future, but the only pity is that... the country may be destroyed.’——
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