Luoyang has become very prosperous in recent years, but its prosperity is slightly different from the prosperity of Chang'an. Chang'an's prosperity is a kind of prosperity caused by the middle and lower class people. The middle-class people like to go shopping and eating in Xi'anmen Street most, and even the lower-class people like to go shopping.
People will also take their families to visit Xi'anmen Street during holidays, crowd in the crowd to enjoy the flower boat parade, and spend dozens of pennies to buy some snacks on the street, so that the whole family can be full.
The prosperity of Luoyang is just the opposite. It is a high-end prosperity. All kinds of silks and satins from the south of the Yangtze River are always in short supply. There is never a shortage of sales for precious jewelry. The powerful and wealthy families compete with each other, and the carriages they ride in are more luxurious than the others.
At the night banquet of a wealthy family, the long skirts worn by the ladies are longer than the last, and the jewelry is more expensive than the last. The six-piece long skirt known as "the skirt drags the water of the Xiangjiang River with six pieces" has become shabby, while the eight-piece long skirt has become the standard.
It is not uncommon to find matching dresses, or even twelve long skirts.
In a powerful family, not only the owner is extravagant, but also the maids and maids are dressed in gold and silver, and they have to ride carriages to get in and out.
A trend of extravagance and lust is getting stronger and stronger in Luoyang's upper class society.
Contrary to the high-end prosperity, the middle and lower-class people in Luoyang are in poverty. A Luoshui River divides Luoyang into two worlds. The wealthy people in the north of Luoshui have moved to the south, but ordinary people who originally lived in the south cannot afford the high prices.
The cost of living and taxes forced them to move to the north of Luoyang.
The south of Luoyang is bounded by Changxiamen Street. To the west of Changxiamen Street are the places where dignitaries, senior officials, relatives and big businessmen live. There are many mansions of twenty or thirty acres, and huge houses of one hundred acres are not uncommon.
, the elder brother of Zhu Si's favorite concubine Chen Wenli, the Minister of Rites, and the mansion of Liangjun Wang Chen Wengui occupied half of Quanshan Square, covering an area of 300 acres, with hundreds of wives and concubines, and thousands of maids and servants.
The buildings east of Changxiamen Street are where the middle-class people of Luoyang live and live, but the middle-class people in Luoyang live extremely hard. A bucket of salt costs 650 cash, a bucket of rice costs 300 cash, and a piece of coarse cloth costs 60 cash.
Meat is even more expensive, and the shelf tax costs one guan per beam. A family must pay at least four or five guan in tax every year.
Of course, this is using the new money issued by the Zhu Si Dynasty. One penny of Chang'an's old money can be exchanged for two pence of Luoyang's new money. If converted, it does not seem to be outrageously expensive. But the problem is that the wages of Luoyang people are not as high as those of Chang'an people.
twice of.
The average monthly income of the lower-class families in Chang'an is three guan of old money. If a family of three works harder, they can earn five guan of money a month. If they are a little more frugal, they can save two or three guan of money every month.
On the other hand, the average family in Chang'an has an income of 5 to 8 guan, and their life is relatively affluent. The whole family can go to a street tavern for a drink every now and then, or go to a restaurant on Xi'anmen Street for a meal once a month.
However, the monthly income of the middle-class people in Luoyang is about 3 guan, but it is new money. They spend 30% on rice and noodles every month, which is only enough to survive two meals a day.
.
These are still middle-class people. People at the bottom cannot imagine how miserable their lives are when they earn a thousand yuan or even a few hundred yuan a month and have to support a family.
There are large swaths of low thatched huts and shacks scattered in various villages north of Luoshui. It’s not that they have always been in such a dilapidated condition, but because many families cannot afford to pay the space tax, they have to demolish their houses and build thatched huts and shacks.
Poor families in Luoyang dream of selling their children to rich families as maids and servants, or if their daughters are a little more delicate, they will be sent to dance studios to learn skills, and when they grow up, they will become musicians and dancers, becoming the playthings of the rich.
The capital city of the Zhu Si Dynasty has long been reduced to a society that laughs at poverty but not at prostitution.
But if it were just the extravagance of the rich and powerful, the people of Luoyang would not be so poor. After all, there are the entire Central Plains, Jianghuai, and Jingzhou that can support the capital. The key is that Zhu Si has to support an army of 400,000, and his annual military salary alone is 1,500
Wan Guan, as well as food, soldiers, armor and various consumption, and tens of thousands of war horses to raise, the entire New Qin Dynasty was overwhelmed by heavy military expenditures.
In the evening of this day, the light was dim in a tavern in Bailinfang, Luoyang. This is the most common tavern in the east area of Changxiamen Street in Luoyang City. There are five or six shabby tables in the lobby. I don’t know how many years have passed, and there are pavements on them.
Covered with a thick layer of greasy food, it was dinner time, but there were only two small businessmen sitting at one table. They seemed to be discussing business and ordered two plates of side dishes and a bottle of wine.
The shopkeeper sat lazily behind the counter, glancing at the private room in the back room from time to time. The tavern also separated two small rooms as private rooms, with tattered curtains hanging on the doors. One of them was empty, and the other was inside.
Sitting there was a man who looked like a businessman. He was an old customer of the tavern. The shopkeeper knew that his surname was Zhuang and he was from Xiangzhou. He was said to do some small business.
The shopkeeper knows that these days, businessmen are bragging about how big their business is and how rich their capital is, but when they drink and pay, they slip away faster than the other. But if you want to do some small business, then it must be a business
Not small, most of them are illegal and illegal things.
But this person is his old customer, so even if the shopkeeper knew what the other person was doing, he would turn a blind eye, not to mention that he actually didn't know.
The man in the room is about thirty years old, tall and strong. His name is Zhuang Ming. He does some sheepskin business in Luoyang, but in fact his true identity is Tian Yue's intelligence chief in Luoyang. He is Tian Yue's relative.
He was born in Wei and was deeply trusted by Tian Yue.
He lived up to Tian Yue's expectations and obtained a lot of important information in the past few years.
But there was one piece of information that he was unable to break through, which was the formula for iron fire thunder developed by Zhu Si's army. This was top-notch information that could not be obtained in Chang'an, so they could only find a way with Zhu Si.
At this time, a person walked in from outside the tavern. He was a middle-aged man, dressed in rough clothes, but his head was slightly raised, with a haughty expression.
The shopkeeper only took a glance and understood that this man was probably a minor official, living in embarrassment but also pretentious.
But when the business came, he had to greet him. He quickly winked to the bartender next to him, and the bartender greeted him with a smile on his face, "Welcome to the restaurant for dinner, sir!"
The middle-aged man snorted and walked directly to the dilapidated private room next to him.
The shopkeeper suddenly remembered that this man had been here once, and was looking for the small businessman in the back room.
The middle-aged man walked into the room and saw Zhuang Ming who was drinking. He immediately changed his appearance, forced out an almost flattering smile, nodded and bowed and said, "Brother Zhuang, please wait."
"Sit down!"
Zhuang Ming didn't have a good impression of this person. This person was really a profit-seeking villain. If his position hadn't allowed him to come into contact with Tie Huolei, Zhuang Ming would not have approached him anyway, and he wouldn't have known that he had betrayed him.
The middle-aged man is called Li Ashui. He was originally a petty official in Luoyang County. He was admitted to Zhu Si's court and was appointed as the chief bookkeeper of the seventh-grade craftsman supervisor. He managed various documents and files of the craftsman supervisor. Under Zhu Si's military-first national policy
Under this circumstance, the craftsmen also serve the military and undertake the manufacturing of a large number of military weapons, mainly focusing on auxiliary weapons such as armor, shields, war drums, flags, and spear shafts. Direct offensive weapons still rely on professional weapons supervisors.
.
Although Li Ashui was a seventh-grade official, his salary was only four guan per month. He had to support his family and satisfy his bad habit of occasionally visiting brothels. His life was really tight. Like other officials, he also took advantage of it.
The job facilitates the idea of making money.
But he was just the chief clerk, in charge of a bunch of documents and files, and had nothing to do with valuable physical objects. But since someone introduced Zhuang Ming to him half a year ago, he finally had the opportunity to make extra money.
He sold the blueprints and manufacturing process formulas of shields and armors to Zhuang Ming and got a lot of money. Just two months ago, Zhuang Ming gave him a chance to earn 500 taels of silver and get the formula for Iron Fire Thunder.
.
Li Ashui racked his brains and tried every means to find out the information, and finally found a breakthrough point for him.
Li Asui sat down, poured himself a glass of wine, drank it all in one gulp, ate a few more bites of food, drank two more glasses of wine, and then reluctantly put down his chopsticks.
He took out a cloth bag from his arms and handed it to Zhuang Ming, "This is what you want."
Zhuang Ming glanced at the cloth bag and said calmly: "Tell me the origin."
"If I told you that the imperial court's iron fire thunder research has actually regressed, would you believe it?"
"Keep talking!"
"The year before last! They had successfully developed the porcelain bottle fire thunder, but Emperor Zhu was dissatisfied and ordered the firearms craftsmen to make iron fire thunder within half a year, otherwise they would all be killed. As a result, half a year later, they still had not made it. Emperor Zhu was furious and killed
He killed more than a dozen craftsmen and officials, and then ordered another group of officials and craftsmen to go up. Who knew that after killing those craftsmen and officials, the people behind would not even be able to make porcelain fire thunder."
"Why, is there no written record of the recipe?"
"There is a formula, but it has been tampered with. It is not right at all. The person who tampered with it was also killed. There was no other way. They had to develop it from scratch. It was not until this spring that the paper fire thunder finally succeeded, but it was remade.
Porcelain Fire Thunder will take at least two years."
"Then what is this?"
"This is the recipe for paper fire thunder, as well as the manufacturing method of gunpowder and match rope. Although it is not a porcelain bottle fire thunder, without these basic things, you can't make anything."
Zhuang Ming quickly picked up the cloth bag and opened it to take a closer look. Inside were three rolls of paper, densely filled with various recipes.
"How did you get it?"
"It's not easy. In order to get it, I became drinking buddies with the Director of the Arms Supervisor. One night I got him drunk, so I found the file from his desk drawer and copied it down."
"But this is not your handwriting." Zhuang Ming said coldly.
Li Ashui was a little annoyed and said: "Don't worry about how I got it, just give me the money."
"If you tell the truth, I will give you five hundred taels of silver. If you don't tell the truth, I can only give you half first. When the test is true, I will give you the other half."
Li Ashui had no choice but to say: "Yang Miao, the director of the Military Supervision Bureau, also wanted to sell secrets to make money. I stole this from his study."
Zhuang Ming's eyes lit up. This was a good way. Yang Miao was more effective than Li Ashui.
He took out three ingots of gold from his bag and pushed them to him, "This is thirty taels of gold. After verification, I will give you another twenty taels."
Li Ashui suddenly became anxious, "You just said you would give it all to me."
Zhuang Ming said coldly: "If it's fake, I'll lose my head. What's your money? If you don't want it, forget it."
Li Ashui quickly grabbed thirty taels of gold, cursed a few words, got up and walked away quickly.
Zhuang Ming shook his head. Almost all officials in the Zhu Si Dynasty were corrupt and could not achieve great things.