North and South groceries

After entering the third month of the lunar calendar, the weather is getting warmer and warmer every day, and it is time to change into spring clothes again.

Before entering the industrial revolution, fabrics were always in short supply for ordinary people, so when it comes to changing clothes, many families are a little bit worried, especially those girls and boys who are growing up. It has grown a lot, and the old clothes from last year may not be able to wear them.

When Luo Yong was in the 21st century, he often heard people say an old saying that spring covers autumn and freezes. It is not clear whether it makes sense, or it may be just to cover up the embarrassment of having no clothes to wear.

At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, there was no such sentence. Compared with the people of the later dynasties, the people of the Tang Dynasty lived a rough life, were poor and open-minded, and did not have so many ways to cover up.

But this spring, the cloth in Chang'an City is surprisingly cheap.

Since last year, several new-style weaving workshops have been opened in the city. The first machines in those weaving workshops are clanging and clanging all day long, and many female workers have been recruited. They can produce a lot of cloth every day. I don't know how much faster than artificial weaving.

Some of the fabrics woven by these weaving workshops are directly sold as plain fabrics, and some are sold after dyeing their own colors and patterns.The white folded cloth is easy to dye, and it looks better than linen after dyeing, and the price is cheaper than linen. When it was first put on the market, it was very popular.

Because there is more than one new-style cloth shop, there will inevitably be competition among the cloth shops, and price wars are also common. Today this shop is doing promotions, and tomorrow the shop is offering special prices, and the promotional activities are very popular.

Under such circumstances, Luo Erniang and the others' cloth shop must also keep up with the pace of the market. Their cloth shop not only sells groceries in the north and south, but also has a shop in each of the east and west markets. There is also a factory store, which not only accepts orders, but also often sells some defective cloth heads at a discount, which is deeply loved by the neighbors.

The competition between these cloth workshops has developed into a fierce season in this spring, and the cloth price in Chang'an City is also unprecedentedly low.

The same piece of machine-made white folded cloth with fresh color, tender pattern and beautiful pattern is actually only half the price of the old linen.

The people in the market bought it one after another, and some bought a lot of them to keep at home, because they were afraid that such a good thing would never happen again.

There are also people who say that the more and more white daisy flowers are produced in Hexi, the price of cloth in the Central Plains will probably get lower and lower in the future, and it is still a loss to buy it now.

No matter whether you buy more or less, since it is time for the season change and the price of fabrics is so low this year, those who are a little richer will inevitably buy some fabrics and go back to make new clothes.

So in the spring of this year, the city of Chang'an was full of purples and reds. Adults and children walked in the streets wearing new clothes of various colors. impeachment.

Since ancient times, common people have worn plain colors, which is not only a common thing, but also a customary rule.

In the past, ordinary people obeyed this rule better, because it was basically difficult for them to wear bright colors, and they had no money. Even if there were a few rich people occasionally, they were still a minority Serious enough to disrupt class order.

However, the price of cloth has dropped so much now, and the traffic has developed a lot in recent years, and many dyes in the south and southwest have entered the market in Chang'an City, which makes those colors on the market Brightly colored fabrics became more common, and the prices were within the acceptable range of many common people.

After going back and forth in this way, many people are not as honest as they used to be, and then some people who claim to be the upper class of society are very upset when they see this situation, so some people use it for impeachment.

——Luo Yong is also a little wronged.

This matter of dressing is like eating food. In the past, poor people could not afford good food and could only eat bran cakes. If you say that common people’s food is chaff cakes, then they have no objection. It doesn’t mean that everyone is rich. , must be suppressed to prevent them from eating good ones, and they must be allowed to eat bran cakes, so who will do it?

But the current society is a class society, and people are divided into different classes, which is something expressly stipulated, and Luo Yong can't help it.

So after the court that day, Luo Yong had no choice but to find the stewards of the cloth workshops, and told them about the affairs of the court meeting, and asked them to pack up the remaining cloth and sell it in another place. This is sold in Chang'an City, as long as it is not at the feet of the emperor, no one will take care of this kind of thing.

After all, Erniang and the others are still businessmen. Faced with this situation, they naturally dare not confront the court hard, so they had to pack up their stocks. Those who went to Luoyang went to Luoyang, those who went to Jiangnan went to Jiangnan, and those who went to the north. It is time to carve up the markets around the world.

These days, people rarely buy cloth once or twice a year because of their economic ability. Buying cloth is a big deal for them. For such a big deal, they naturally have to find a trustworthy merchant, so this Market competition at the beginning is particularly important.

Luo Erniang also took advantage of some convenience. On the one hand, they were in the area of ​​Guannei Road, Hedong Road in the north. The Luo family had always had a good reputation, and it was easy to open up markets in these places.

On the other hand, in Jiangnan and other places in Luoyang, there are not only many sister restaurants, but also a new North-South groceries in Luoyang. It is not difficult for her to go to these places to do business.

In the end, Luo Erniang went to Jiangnan. The market in Jiangnan is very vast. The Grand Canal runs through Jiangnan and Jiangbei, so there is a lot of room for development. Besides the current market, she also attaches great importance to future maritime trade.

Erniang is also going away now, she explained the things in the workshop here, hired a boat, packed the stock, and left Chang'an City, Siniang and the others went to deliver it, and she said wait Come back this autumn and eat oranges with them.

Before leaving, Erniang placed another order at the machine shop, ordered several sets of new textile machines, and planned to ship them to the south of the Yangtze River in the future to open a textile factory there.

According to what she said, she will come back this autumn to transport the machinery. By then, the railway tracks from Luoyang to Bianliang should be connected. If so, it will be very convenient to travel.

So in the past few days, a large amount of cloth in Chang'an City was transported to other places. As a result, there was less cloth in the city, and the price of cloth naturally gradually increased.

However, some people were still dissatisfied, saying that Luo Yong should at least issue an official document prohibiting the common people from wearing colorful clothes.

There are a lot of people pointing out Jiangshan, but Luo Yongquan pretended not to hear it. If the official document is really published, then he will be blamed for it. In the future, when the common people talk about it, who forbids them to wear clothes of various colors? , Needless to say, he is the county magistrate Luo.

This Guoluo just refuses to recite it, no matter which gods come over to put pressure on him, it won't work, so in the past few days, he was so angry that he jumped and called him a coffin board.

In a few days, another incident occurred in Chang'an City. The reason was that when the cloth was cheap, some people who had been watching and hoarding the cloth did not buy it in time. The instigator of the nonsense in the classroom was very dissatisfied, so someone used cow dung to paste the gate of his house in the middle of the night.

As Luo Yong is the official in charge of the local area, this matter is naturally under his control. He was called up early in the morning and rushed over to take a look. It was really horrible.

Afterwards, it was time to catch the mastermind behind the scenes, but the Wannian County Government had been unable to catch anyone for a long time, and they couldn't even find out who was behind the incident.

The official's family believed that Luo Yong was covering up and did not investigate the case seriously. After the subsequent court, they heavily participated in Luo Yong's book.

That guy felt that he had received a great humiliation. As a gentleman who sees ordinary people wearing the same color clothes as himself, it is really a great humiliation to be covered with cow dung on the front yard. .

So this time, the process of impeachment was very sad. Luo Yong didn't even notice the crying, howling, snot and tears. He just pretended to be a nobleman, and he was embarrassing to their ancestors.

The emperor had a good temper, and comforted him with kind words.

In fact, it's just putting on airs, and this is not a really good-tempered person. He usually likes to show his kindness and tolerance on such innocuous things.

After being comforted by the emperor, the official's face finally recovered a little.

Then everyone began to discuss the matter of the color of the clothes, and someone again suggested that Luo Yong should post official documents in Chang'an and Wannian counties, prohibiting civilians from wearing colorful clothes, so as not to mess up the regulations.

Luo Yong said: "I'm just a small county magistrate, how can I control what color clothes the people in the world wear? Now that the price of cloth is cheap, I'm afraid there will be many things that disturb the regulations in the future. It is better to issue official documents from the central government, to the local governments, and the whole country to ban it, so that this unhealthy trend can be stopped..."

When the emperor heard this, he felt a little dizzy. The coffin board clearly wanted to leave the problem to himself. He didn't like to take care of it, and it wasn't a big deal, but he was put on the line by some old antiques. Take it out and say it.

If he said he didn't care, and allowed the people to wear whatever they liked, then it was obviously inappropriate. If he wanted to care, and he really sent out such an official document, it would show how old-fashioned and mean he is as an emperor...

"That's all, we'll discuss this matter later." The old emperor put on a tired posture, waved his hands a little impatiently, and then asked another question.

It was said to be discussed later, but in fact, most of the people had already seen at this time that the sage no longer wanted to talk about this topic.

When the court came down that day, Zheng Shilang smiled and said to Luo Yong: "Those outdated rules and bad habits should have been broken long ago. I just want to trouble County Magistrate Luo to work hard."

"It's not hard, it's not hard..." Luo Yong also smiled and bowed to him.

Once he is an official, he always has to do some practical things. Those dirty things that have been accumulated for hundreds of years and thousands of years should be cleaned up sooner or later. Since he has caught up with him today, then he will do it.

As for those jumpers in the court, if they are really capable, they can get rid of him as an official. He can still live well no matter whether he is an official or not. As for those who are not capable, they just yell a few times. Take care of what they do.