stubborn thief

Chapter 47
It was getting dark outside the county office.

Seeing Liu Chengzong coming out and waiting for Cheng Yun Xiaopao to welcome him, he asked with joy on his face, "Brother, how are you?"

"Zhang Shuban can give the painting deposit, but the government has issued a new order. To buy a hundred acres of land, you have to bring homeless people from outside the city to go back to work as tenants. I didn't expect that I would still have to find a way to get food."

"It's too late to go out of the city today, so I made an agreement with Zhang Shuban that tomorrow morning the yamen will take us outside the city to pick up refugees." Liu Chengzong, seeing Cheng Yun stomping his feet in the cold, asked, "You've been waiting for me outside?"

Hearing this, Cheng Yun shook his head one after another, and said, "Brother, you don't know, I ran all over Xicheng North Street when you entered the yamen."

"After you entered the county office, a few of us discussed that if you were on the road tonight, you would inevitably sleep in the countryside. Why don't you find a place to live in the city? I know that thieves have been recruited all over the city recently. We have booked all the rooms that can be accommodated in the Xicheng Inn, and there are no vacancies even in the nunnery.”

As he said that, he turned his finger and pointed at the street corner not far away: "The official rooms are gone, and there is no room to book. The shopkeeper of the Wangta Building is my father-in-law's son, so I vacated the whole shop. I'm drinking at the straight liquor store opposite, so I don't have to go elsewhere at night, just sleep there."

Ming Dynasty liquor stores are generally divided into four categories: hotels, direct liquor stores, inns and nunneries.

Needless to say, the hotel is a restaurant that eats wine and sells cooked food; the straight liquor store is a tavern that only sells loose wine like a bar, the inn sleeps, and the Andian is a liquor store that focuses on special services.

Guanfang, Shaofang and Tongpu all refer to the standard of guest rooms. Because officials in the Ming Dynasty often stayed in first-class rooms on business trips, the shopkeepers called the highest-class rooms as official rooms.

The small room can also be called the shabby room, which is both an ordinary room; as for the Tongpu, it is the lowest-class guest room, but it has a bed board for people to sleep in.

In fact, it can be understood as deluxe suites, standard rooms and multi-person rooms.

However, in Yan'an Prefecture, the price difference between the three types of rooms is not large, because even the official rooms are not very luxurious.

Rich businessmen who really need and have money generally choose to rent houses for a long time in places where they often do business, arrange furnishings and hire people to clean them according to their personal preferences.

Because house prices were cheap in the Ming Dynasty, the cost of renting a house was not high, and there were many restrictions on the purchase of houses by foreigners in the law, and house sales were not free.

On the contrary, the cost of maintaining a house such as furnishing and labor costs is often much larger than the cost of renting a house.

Buying a house is like buying land. It is not something you can do with money. In Ming Dynasty law, these two things belong to inheritance, and you need to ask your neighbors.

When a homeowner sells a house, he must first ask his parents, peers, and relatives of the younger generation. These people don't ask their neighbors, and don't ask them all. Only then can it be the turn of outsiders to buy.

For someone like Liu Chengzong who is used to sleeping in the wilderness and barracks, a good place to sleep is naturally comfortable, and it doesn't matter if the place to sleep is bad, anyway, it will not be worse than a hot sandpit, so he laughed and said, "Tongpu. Okay, let's warm up the shop... How much money do you give that door?"

Cheng Yun said: "A penny of silver is just a small bean. When I went out, my elder brother gave me a lot of silver in poor condition."

Liu Chengzong knew that all the money was taken from Bai Yingzi, but even though the money was easy to come by, he still pondered: "A lot, what is the price of the money in Fucheng now?"

Money is a unit of weight, weighing 16 grams, ten cents a cent, ten cents a cent, ten cents a tael, and [-] taels a catty.

The currency usually circulated among the people is copper coins. The official exchange price of one tael of silver is always one to one thousand, but it is difficult to exchange so many copper coins in actual exchange. The private exchange is generally one tael of silver for six or seven hundred copper coins.

The exchange rate of gold and silver is about one to eight.

Cheng Yun happily patted his waist, and said with a smile: "Today, one tael of silver is exchanged for Tong Bao's nine hundred and ninety-two renminbi, and the one piece of broken silver given to Menzi is enough for him to buy three catties of braised sheep's feet in the street market to have a good time."

When he said this, Cheng Yun was quite proud and raised his eyebrows: "I have learned it all these years. If I usually give three cents of silver, it is enough to let the doorman run errands to report. Buying farmland is a major event related to the clan's livelihood. It's to prevent him from doing bad things."

"But you can't give too much, otherwise you will make a man greedy, but it will not be beautiful, and it will be enough for him to have a good meal."

The price of silver in the northwest is high, tax collectors do not accept copper coins but only silver, and farmers do not produce silver. Therefore, as long as the merchants travel from the northwest to the southeast, they have a side business of exchanging silver, making them a lot of money.

Nowadays, the world is chaotic and the business road is difficult to walk. According to the reason, the price of silver should have dropped slightly. However, wealthy households with a little wealth have a demand for hedging. The price of the baby that is sold out is higher than before.

The value of a penny of silver is not an exaggeration, but it is still quite a lot. The annual income of an ordinary family with the largest part in the Ming Dynasty is usually between 40 taels and [-] taels.

This is like a person with an annual family income of [-] who pays [-] entry fees to do things, which is not cheap.

However, in this era, limited by the limited circulation of commodities in northern Shaanxi, the value of money in people's hearts is far less important than later generations.

Liu Chengzong didn't have money in his eyes. He neither praised the carrier for his work, nor scolded the carrier for being extravagant. He just shook his head and sighed: "You can still buy sheep's hoofs here in the city."

Fushi City is backed by Qingliang Mountain, and two rivers, Dongchuan and Xichuan, pass through it. The environment is much better than that of the northern counties. The drought has little impact on this place. Hassle-free.

But these things are usually not known by the people living in remote villages. For ordinary people in the village, a trip to Fucheng is something that the elderly will talk about for a lifetime.

As the two talked, they walked to the watchtower and saw Cao Yao and Lu Bin in the Zhijiu shop leaning on the counter and pouring their own wine. The wine was warm sweet and thick wine. This kind of wine is in the countryside outside the city. The common people usually use the surplus grain to brew a little from their mothers and aunts during the Chinese New Year, which is very delicious.

The wine is not expensive, only thirty dollars a pot.

Lu Bin, who had returned to Fucheng for the first time, was already very excited.

Cao Yao went too far. Maybe he was tired from carrying the knife all the time, so he simply untied the leather belt around his waist and placed it on the counter together with Liu Chengzong's waist knife, so frightened that the poor men who were drinking at the counter in the shop ran outside. The two of them occupied the huge counter, and the one who called the shopkeeper did not dare to be angry or speak.

The shopkeeper didn't dare to speak, but the new-born calf Wenjiu dared to speak up. After complaining a few words, the shopkeeper slapped him and sent him outside. The shopkeeper nodded and apologized to Cao Yao.

This five-year-old man with a thick face and a scar on his face looks like a fool, why bother him?
When Liu Chengzong walked into the straight liquor store, he was catching up with Wenjiu Xiaoer wearing a long scarf and walking out. He pointed at a few beggars who were begging at the door and shouted and hurled them away. When Xiaoer was angry that he was beaten, he was just looking for beggars. So pissed.

However, Liu Chengzong, who turned around, found that there was a man in the beggar who was wearing very familiar clothes.

It was a mandarin duck battle jacket.
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Note:
The exchange rate of silver coins refers to the exchange rate of silver coins in Sanyuan County, Xi'an Prefecture in the second year of Chongzhen.

"On the 24th day of the leap month, 74 cents of silver will be exchanged for 270 pennies" - "Zhongtong Daily Record"

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)