According to the tradition since the Western Zhou Dynasty, craftsmen run the country and the market is in the front and in the back. The palace city of the capital is located in the center and north, and the market is uniformly located in the south, that is, on the north bank of the Wei River under the Xianyang Plateau.
So Heifu and Ba Zhong took a car and crossed the long Wei Bridge, turned a corner, entered Changyang Street, and came to the gate of Xianyang Nanshi. A short wall closed the shop. It is said that "a word of gold is worth a thousand pieces of gold." The story happened here: more than ten years ago, "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals" were hung on city walls, allowing people from all over the world to correct their mistakes.
After Heifu showed the talisman, the carriage entered the shop. Looking from the car, he saw that this place was actually a long and narrow street, about three miles long from east to west, with no end as far as the eye could see. Both sides of the road were densely packed with shops.
"The market is full in the morning and empty in the evening." The market is open during the day and closes at dusk. It is almost evening, and there is still half an hour before the end of market transactions, but Nan Market is still bustling with people. There is an endless stream of people coming to buy and sell things. There are locals from Xianyang and merchants from Guandong. The whole market is filled with the sound of hawking, people are coming and going, making a lot of noise, and the market road is blocked from time to time.
I think the busiest times in the morning and noon are comparable to Jiangling's "dress in the morning and clothes in the evening".
Ba Zhong was a frequent visitor here. He said to Heifu: "In the past, the city of the Six Kingdoms and the city of the Qin people were separate, but now they are all combined."
It may seem a bit chaotic, but it is actually planned in an orderly manner.
According to Bazhong, the stores here are arranged according to categories and are located in different areas. Along the way, Heifu saw closed restaurants, dog butchers closing stalls, and shops selling silk baskets, grain, farm tools, furs, pottery, and lacquerware. The shops are equipped with everything. Behind some shops, there are also small workshops directly connected, which are lined up along the Weishui River, which is also convenient for vehicles and ships to transport goods.
Heifu also discovered that no matter how big the store was and doing tens of thousands of dollars of trade every day, the merchants in the city were all very simple in their clothing, basically coarse linen and linen, and it was rare to see people with embroidery on their silks and clothes.
The status of merchants in the Qin State was low and they were severely restricted by the law. They were given priority in war corvee recruitment. If you did not register with the government, you would marry someone from the city without permission, and you would even be sentenced. Therefore, merchants were extremely low-key, even if they were Ba He is loyal, has a family fortune of hundreds of millions, and his mother has been praised by the emperor, so he does not dare to show off his wealth when he is away from home.
Even in the city, they have to be controlled by others.
Ba Zhong pointed to both sides and said: "Markets are arranged in rows, so they are called columns. The merchants who trade in the market are called city residents and are registered in the city. They are grouped into groups of five households and have column leaders every other On the first mile, there is also a market pavilion with a city flag set up, and the city officials supervise the trade."
"So, as long as your cousin doesn't break the law, you should be fine."
Ba Shi also has a store in Nanshi and reports the situation here to Ba Zhong at any time, so he knows what is happening here.
"I hope so." Heifu said. At this time, Sangmu stopped the carriage and they were here!
There is an area dedicated to selling molasses. There is honey and candy, and there is a sweet smell in the air.
The merchants here are no longer doing business, and they are all crowded outside the shop where Heifu's cousin Yan sells brown sugar, with faces full of gloating.
Heifu got out of the car and squeezed in to take a look, only to see a group of soldiers sealing up the store. A few Anlu boys who were looking after the store stood aside with sad faces, while Yan followed the city manager in black clothes and small crowns. Beside, keep begging for mercy...
"Sir, when I rented this shop, the contract was complete and it had the official seal. How can I just accept it?"
"The market is government land. Merchants can rent or transfer it. However, someone reported that your store was rented by force and the items sold were different. I came here to inspect it."
"Who reported it!?"
Yan understood a little. He turned around to look at the honey and confection vendors watching the excitement, but he also saw Heifu coming incognito from the crowd!
Yan looked happy at first, feeling that the savior had arrived, but then Hei Fu shook his head at him.
Heifu's cousin was finally taken away by the city officials, and the remaining 500 kilograms of brown sugar were also seized.
During the whole process, Heifu did not rush to protect him, and Yan also got his look. From the beginning to the end, he kept silent about Heifu's name.
This is what Heifu told him from the beginning. If something happens, don't carry him out!
After the market officials left and those selling honey and glutinous rice closed their stalls with satisfaction, Hei Fu waved to the young men who came from Anlu and took them to a deserted place.
"What happened?"
Several of the disciples said angrily: "Chief Zuo, everything went well for us. We rented the shop where we originally sold honey, and we also have the deed and the official certificate..."
After they talked about it, Heifu knew the whole story. The general situation of this case is: the store that Yan rented originally sold honey. Because the supply of honey was not available, the business could not continue, so he sold the store at a low price.
It was transferred to him.
Yan led everyone to sell here for more than ten days. At first, no one took any interest. Later, the business gradually picked up. He has sold more than a thousand kilograms of brown sugar and earned tens of thousands of dollars.
Who would have thought that today the honey seller who rented out the shop suddenly regretted it and actually told the city manager that Yan had forced him to rent the shop!
This is obviously a false accusation, but the trouble is that competitors selling honey and sweets have testified and reported that the price of Yan's brown sugar is very different from ordinary sweets.
Too much sugar must have wasted a lot of food...
Several crimes were cited at the same time, so the city officials came and sealed the store, took away Yan and several plaintiffs, and planned to file a case for trial.
Ba Zhong had been doing business with his mother for many years, and he had long been accustomed to such things. He smiled and said: "Zhonglang Huling, your cousin is jealous of his colleagues."
"This is indeed unexpected." Heifu shook his head and smiled instead of being angry.
Officials doing business were not allowed by Qin laws, so Heifu could only take advantage of the loopholes in the laws and put the brown sugar industry in his mother's name, and try not to directly come forward to give people excuses.
It is important to make money, but it is not worthwhile to set up an official career for it.
Heifu originally planned to ask Yan to present brown sugar as a tribute to the emperor, and then rely on "Nanjun Tribute Sugar" to become famous. Unexpectedly, not only did the donation fail, but he was also taught a lesson by the young official in charge.
"Anyone can give a tribute?"
Then Yan was kicked out.
Heifu was just a councilor at the time and had never even met the emperor. He couldn't write a special memorial to talk about it, so he had to give it up for now. He gave Yan 100,000 yuan for turnover and asked him to come to Nanshi to sell.
Look. In the next ten days, Yan was in a free-range state. Heifu stayed in the palace as a guard and was busy trying to figure out his intentions, so he couldn't care about him.
Therefore, unless he is a person like Ba Zhong, who has a good eye for everything and has heard about Nanjun's sugar cane and brown sugar, Yan's colleagues and even the city officials do not know Yan's background.
Hei Fu originally had confidence in the laws of the Qin State, he behaved well and made money, but he never thought that he would be tricked by someone!
He was not angry, but calmly told the Anlu disciples that if the court officials followed the rules regarding the confessions to be made during the trial tomorrow, they would definitely be able to get away with this case.
Ba Zhong thought to himself: "Those merchants and the people behind them have caught the tiger's beard this time..."
He and Heifu had quelled the rebellion of the Yidaoba people together, and they had some understanding of his actions. He was usually low-key, but when it was time to be ruthless, he was not lenient at all!
Ba Zhong said to himself again, this is just an opportunity to show his kindness to Hei Fu!
Heifu is already a close minister of the emperor at a young age and has a promising future. Strengthening the relationship with him will be beneficial to Bashi.
So, after Heifu asked Sang Mu to take the Anlu children to find a guest house to settle down, Bazhong took the initiative and said: "Zhong Lang Hu Ling, this seems to be the jealousy of colleagues, but there is also someone secretly instructing him behind the scenes! As far as I know
, His official title is not small, if he is allowed to be tried by legal officials, I am afraid he will lose!"
"Officials engaged in business, colluded with market officials, squeezed out peers, and monopolized the market?" Heifu shook his head. It was such a familiar scene. He never thought that similar things happened in the Qin Dynasty.
But, those people really hit the iron plate this time!
He thought for a while and soon came up with an idea...