The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

According to the tradition since the Western Zhou Dynasty, craftsmen built the country, with the court in front and the market behind. The palace of the capital was located in the middle and slightly north, while the market was uniformly set up in the south, that is, on the north bank of the Wei River under the Xianyang Plateau.

So after Heifu and Bazhong crossed the long Wei Bridge by car, they turned a corner and entered Changyang Street, and came to the gate of the South Market in Xianyang. A low wall closed the market. It is said that the story of "one word is worth a thousand gold" happened here: more than ten years ago, "Lüshi Chunqiu" was hung all over the market wall, allowing people from all over the world to correct mistakes.

After Heifu showed the talisman, the carriage entered the market. Looking out from the carriage, it was actually a long and narrow street, about three miles long from east to west, and the end could not be seen at a glance. On both sides of the road, there were dense markets.

"The market is full in the morning and empty in the evening." The market is open during the day and closed at dusk. It was almost dusk, and there was still half an hour before the end of the market transaction, but the South Market was still very lively. There was an endless stream of people coming to buy and sell things, not only local people from Xianyang, but also merchants from Guandong. The whole market was filled with hawking sounds, people coming and going, noisy, and the market would be blocked from time to time.

I think the busiest mornings and noons are comparable to Jiangling's "fresh clothes in the morning and dark clothes in the evening".

Ba Zhong is a frequent visitor here. He said to Hei Fu: "In the past, the market of the six countries and the market of the Qin people were separate, but now they are all combined."

It seems a bit chaotic, but in fact it is well planned.

According to Ba Zhong, the stores here are arranged according to categories and located in different areas. Along the way, Hei Fu saw closed restaurants, closed dog butchers, and shops selling silk, grain, farm tools, furs, pottery, and lacquerware. There are all kinds of things. Some shops are directly connected to small workshops behind them, lined up along the Wei River, which is also convenient for car and ship cargo transportation.

Heifu also discovered that no matter how big the store was, and how many tens of thousands of dollars of trade they made every day, the merchants in the city were dressed very simply, basically in coarse linen clothes, and it was rare to see people wearing silk or clothes with embroidery.

The status of Qin merchants was low, and they were strictly restricted by the law. They were conscripted first for war and corvée. If they did not register with the government, they would marry a city resident without authorization and even be sentenced. Therefore, merchants were extremely low-key. Even Ba Zhong, who had a family fortune of hundreds of millions and whose mother was praised by the emperor, did not dare to show off his wealth when he went out.

When they were in the city, they were also subject to others.

Ba Zhong pointed to both sides and said, "The shops are arranged in rows, so they are called rows of shops. The merchants who trade in the market are called market people. They are registered in the market, and there are five households in a group. There is a row leader. Every mile, there is a market pavilion, a market flag is erected, and the market clerks supervise the trade."

"Therefore, as long as your cousin does not break the law, there will be no problem."

Ba also has a shop in the South City, and reports the situation here to Ba Zhong at any time, so he knows what happened here.

"I hope so." Hei Fu said, at this time, Sang Mu stopped the carriage, they have arrived!

This is a special area for selling molasses, with honey and malt, and the air is filled with a sweet smell.

The merchants here are no longer doing business, and they are crowded outside the shop where Hei Fu's cousin Yan sells brown sugar, with faces full of gloating.

Hei Fu got off the car and squeezed in to take a look, only to see a team of soldiers sealing up the store. Several Anlu boys who were watching the store stood aside with bitter faces, while Yan followed the city clerk in black clothes and a small crown, constantly begging for mercy...

"Sir, when I rented this store, the contract was complete and there was a government seal. How can you just take it away?"

"The store is originally government land, and merchants can rent and transfer it, but someone reported that your store was forcibly rented and the things sold were different, so I came to inspect it."

"Which boy reported it!?"

Yan understood a little, and turned around to look at the honey and candy vendors who were watching the fun, but he also saw Hei Fu who came incognito in the crowd!

Yan's face was happy at first, thinking that his savior had come, but then Hei Fu shook his head at him.

Heifu's cousin was eventually taken away by the city clerk, and the remaining 500 kilograms of brown sugar were also confiscated.

Throughout the whole process, Heifu did not rush to protect his brother, and Yan also got his signal and kept silent about Heifu's name from beginning to end.

This was what Heifu had told him at the beginning, if something happened, don't bring him up!

After the city clerk left, when those selling honey and candied fruit were contentedly closing their stalls, Heifu waved his hand, called the boys who came with him from Anlu, and took them to a deserted place.

"What happened?"

Several young men said indignantly: "Zuo Shuzhang, we had everything going smoothly. We rented the shop that originally sold honey. We also have the deed and the government to prove it..."

After they said it, Heifu knew the whole story. The general situation of this case was: the shop rented by Yan originally sold honey. Because the honey supply was insufficient and the business could not continue, the shop was transferred to him at a fair price.

Yan led everyone to sell here for ten days. At first, no one was interested. Later, the business gradually improved. More than a thousand kilograms of brown sugar have been sold, earning tens of thousands of dollars.

Who knew that the honey seller who rented the shop today suddenly regretted it and told the city clerk that the shop was forced to rent by Yan!

This was obviously a false accusation, but the trouble was that competitors who sold honey and malt sugar nearby testified and reported that Yan's brown sugar was priced differently from ordinary malt sugar. In addition, selling so much sugar at one time must have wasted a lot of grain...

With multiple crimes, the city officials came to seal up the store, took Yan and several plaintiffs away, and planned to file a case for trial.

Ba Zhong and his mother had been doing business for many years, and they were no longer surprised by such things. He smiled and said, "Zhonglang Huling, your cousin is being envied by his peers."

"I didn't expect this." Hei Fu shook his head and laughed instead of being angry.

Officials doing business was not allowed by Qin law, so Hei Fu could only take advantage of the loopholes in the law and register the brown sugar industry under his mother's name, and try not to show up directly to give people an excuse.

Making money is important, but it is not worth it to sacrifice your official career for it.

Heifu originally planned to let Yan offer brown sugar as tribute to the emperor, and then make a name for himself with "Nanjun tribute sugar". Unexpectedly, not only did he fail to offer it, but he was also taught a lesson by the junior official in charge.

"Anyone can offer tribute?"

Then Yan was kicked out.

Heifu was just a councilor at the time, and he had never even seen the emperor. He couldn't just submit a memorial to talk about this matter, so he had to give up for the time being. He gave Yan 100,000 yuan for turnover and asked him to come to the South Market to sell it. After ten days, Yan was left alone. Heifu was on guard in the palace, busy guessing the emperor's intentions, and had no time to care about him.

Therefore, unless someone like Ba Zhong was well-informed and had heard of Nanjun sugarcane and brown sugar, Yan's colleagues and even the city officials did not know Yan's background.

Heifu had confidence in the laws of the Qin State. Yan was well-behaved and made money. Unexpectedly, he was really tricked by someone!

He was not angry, but calmly told the Anlu children that if the law officials followed the rules in the confession they had to make during the trial tomorrow, Yan would definitely be acquitted.

Ba Zhong thought to himself, "Those merchants and the people behind them have really caught the tiger's whiskers this time..."

He and Hei Fu had quelled the Yidao Ba people's rebellion together, and he had some understanding of his behavior. He was usually low-key, but when he needed to be ruthless, he was not soft-hearted at all!

Ba Zhong said to himself, this is a good opportunity to show his goodwill to Hei Fu!

Hei Fu is a close minister of the emperor at a young age, and he has a promising future. Strengthening the relationship with him will benefit the Ba family.

So, after Heifu asked Sangmu to take the Anlu children to find a guest house to settle down, Ba Zhong took the initiative to say: "Zhonglang Huling, this matter seems to be jealousy from colleagues, but there are also people behind the scenes who secretly instigated it! As far as I know, his official title is not small. If the law clerks are allowed to try the case, I am afraid Yan will lose!"

"Officials engage in business, collude with city officials, exclude colleagues, and monopolize the market?" Heifu shook his head. It was a familiar scene. He never thought that there were similar things in the Qin Dynasty.

However, those people really hit a wall this time!

He thought about it for a while and soon came up with an idea...