Urban Sims

Chapter 774
In early June, the weather is getting hotter.

In the slightly empty and deserted palace.

Inside a side hall for leisure.

Zhou Ming, who was wearing a loose and breathable short jacket and shorts, was sitting on a marble table in the hall, holding a deck of cards in his hand, playing Doudizhu with his playmates.

Zhou Ming's playmates are two women and one man.

The two women are two maids who serve him personally, named Hai Rou and Marcia respectively.

Hairou is 16 years old this year, and she has been in the palace for less than six months. She is handsome, well-developed, and has a relatively mature personality.

Marcia is only 14 years old, but she has been in the palace for eight months, and she has been with Zhou Ming for a long time. As for her appearance, she is even more handsome than Hairou, but she is still in the development stage, and she still has obvious disadvantages in some aspects. Recently, she is going crazy Drinking milk and nourishing milk, in terms of personality, is more lively.

In fact, Zhou Ming knew that Hairou and Marcia were not maids selected from ordinary families at all, but the granddaughters of two important ministers in the court. They sent their daughters into the palace and sent them to Zhou Ming's side. Anyone with a little brain should know why they do this.

Of course, the Lucis family was very unhappy about this, and planned to select two maids from the Lucis family and send them to Zhou Ming's side to serve them personally.

But it was unanimously opposed by the "royalists".

"This is the rule, the Lucis family don't want to break it!"

Indeed, this is a rule, a tacit rule that has lasted for nearly 300 years, and it is also one of the measures to maintain the balance between the "royal faction" and the "noble faction".

That is, the emperor cannot be occupied by a certain faction.

The same applies to the harem, the queen must be a woman from the Lucis family, but the emperor can still marry three concubines, and these concubines must be the daughters of the ministers' families.

Therefore, Zhou Ming, who was often seduced intentionally or unintentionally by the maids Hairou and Marcia, and who was not yet 14 years old, understood why the average life expectancy of the first 16 emperors was less than 50 years old...too much work hurts the body.

There is also the male companion sitting opposite Zhou Ming, named Lei Ji, who is the same age as Zhou Ming, but one month younger.

Reggie is also a member of the royal family, the grandson of the royal patriarch Rupert. The main reason why Reggie was able to move into the palace and become Zhou Ming's companion was for the stability of the empire.

Once something happens to Zhou Ming, Reggie will be his substitute... on the premise that Zhou Ming has no heirs.

This will inevitably bring about a problem: What if the patriarch of the royal family, Rupert, has a different heart, and Reggie's young heart has an idea that he shouldn't have?
Zhou Ming's personal safety was in danger.

But Zhou Ming wasn't worried. A royal patriarch, Rupert, was loyal to the royal family, honest and upright, and he didn't have any fancy things in his stomach.

As for Reggie, after a short time with him, Zhou Ming discovered that this is a more straightforward boy, who can be said to be innocent, innocent and kind.

So Zhou Ming took the initiative to ask Reggie to stay in the palace and become his playmate... Patriarch Rupert nodded in agreement.

In this way, with two maids and a royal cousin, Zhou Ming has three companions... a total of four people.

With four people, in order to pass the extra free time besides cultivation, Zhou Ming invented chess, flying chess, poker, mahjong and other things one after another.

Not only that, Zhou Ming also asked the merchants in the "Business District" to open a chess and card products sales store, selling chess, flying chess, playing cards, mahjong and other products to the outside world, and also arranged for service personnel to teach how to play.

Once it was launched, within half a year, the entire imperial capital was involved in various gambling activities. Mahjong was even more popular among the upper class ladies. Bring more than one million gold tower shield profits.

But gambling is not a good thing. Isn't Zhou Ming harming his own empire by doing so, and letting a large number of citizens fall into the abyss of gambling?
In fact, even if Zhou Ming didn't invent the above chess and card tools, those who are addicted to gambling still have various ways of gambling and play various games... You must know that gambling has been happening since human beings entered the feudal era. It began to appear, and the higher the social productivity, the more prosperous the gambling wind.

Instead of strict restrictions, it is better to provide reasonable guidance and orderly regulation, so that people can understand the truth that "small gambling is pleasant, but big gambling is harmful to the body".

In the end, we can enrich people's entertainment life, and by the way, make a small profit from it.

"Four twos."

"Wang Zha, I won." As a landlord, Zhou Ming had already dealt all the cards in his hand.

"Oh, Knox, why did you win again? We all lost." Marcia pouted, unwillingly pushing the last Golden Tower Shield in front of Zhou Ming.

"Let's stop playing here today. Tomorrow I will give each of you 20 Golden Pagoda Shields." Zhou Ming swept all the money on the table into a cloth bag, tied the bag, and handed it to Ai, the housekeeper behind him. In the hands of Aunt Rippert.

"Hey! We can only see how lucky we are tomorrow." Reggie shook his head angrily.

"Hairou, did anything important happen in the imperial capital recently?" Zhou Ming asked.

"Uh, no, except for the 'Emperor's Hoe' incident that happened last month, it still has some influence among the people, but nothing else." Hai Rou, who is quite familiar with civil affairs, said.

Emperor hoe incident?

It turned out to be like this. In the "Business District" opened next to the palace, Zhou Ming asked a businessman to open a farm tool shop to sell all kinds of farm tools. Among them was a hoe. Because it was made of alloy materials, it was not only light in weight and not easy to rust. And long service life, extremely reliable.

More importantly, because it is a mass-produced product in a hydraulic factory, the cost of this hoe is half that of an ordinary cast iron hoe.

With such a high price-performance ratio, the sales volume of hoes should be quite high. However, since the business district is located in the core area of ​​the imperial capital and the agricultural population is very small, it has not sold many hoes since it opened for more than three months.

The turning point of the drama is the agricultural area around the imperial capital. There is a place called Serra Town. An old farmer in the town came to the imperial capital to play by chance. , I was taken aback immediately: "The shop opened by His Majesty the Emperor also sells the hoes we use?"

I tried the hoe again, and found that it was light and easy to use, and it was very easy to wield.

When I asked about the price, I was even more surprised. Not only was the price not high, but it was half cheaper.

The old farmer bought two hoes on the spot and carried them home.

When doing farm work in the field, using the new hoe in his hand, the old farmer couldn't help showing off: "This kind of hoe is used by the emperor, it is very easy to use, and the price is only half of it!"

As soon as this live advertisement was published, it spread ten or ten times, and countless farmers rushed into the imperial capital to buy the so-called "emperor's hoe".

In just two months, tens of thousands of "Emperor Brand Hoes" were sold.

Naturally, the influence of the rumors is also growing. In the eyes of the peasants, the aloof emperor seems to be a manual laborer who also needs to cultivate and use a hoe.

This naturally alarmed the officials. The Royal Guards were dispatched on a large scale. Within half a month, tens of thousands of peasants were arrested, and all of them were convicted of "slandering the Holy Majesty". According to the law, they should be sentenced to death. .

Knowing this, Zhou Ming couldn't sit still, so he quickly stopped it.

He personally rushed to the execution ground, asked someone to bring a hoe, and in front of tens of thousands of people, he hoeed off a few grasses on the ground, washing away the "crime of slander" on these farmers.

And announced on the spot: The Royal Farm Tools Store will establish sales outlets nationwide, and the emperor brand hoes will be sold to farmers across the country.

It even provides interest-free loan services, so that farmers in poor economic conditions can use it first and pay later.

As soon as these news are announced.

"Long live! Long live the emperor!"

"Long live the Emperor!"

The farmers knelt down and kowtowed in tears.

Even the ordinary citizens watching on the side knelt down and shouted long live.

All of a sudden, among the middle and lower class people in the empire, Zhou Ming had an excellent reputation for the first time and gained sincere support.

The incident of the emperor's hoe came to an end.

However, in mid-June, after a torrential rain that lasted ten days, Andorhal County, more than 200 miles east of the imperial capital, suddenly received an urgent report:

The catastrophic flood broke out, causing countless deaths and injuries in Andorhal County, and the court urgently needs rescue!

(End of this chapter)