Urban Sims

In early June, the weather gradually became hotter.

In the slightly empty and deserted palace.

In a side hall for leisure.

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

Zhou Ming's playmates are two girls and one boy.

The two women are the two maids who serve him personally, and their names are Hairou and Marcia.

Hairou is 16 years old this year, less than six months after entering the palace. She has a delicate appearance, perfect development, and a relatively mature personality.

Marcia is only 14 years old, but she has been in the palace for eight months, and has spent a lot of time with Zhou Ming. As for her appearance, she is more beautiful than Hairou, but she is still in the growth stage, and she still has obvious disadvantages in some aspects. She is going crazy recently. He drinks milk to replenish his milk, and in terms of personality, he is more outgoing and lively.

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

Of course, the Lucis family was not happy about this, and planned to select two maids from the Lucis family and send them to Zhou Ming to serve them personally.

But it was unanimously opposed by the "royalists".

"This is a rule, don't break it from the Lucis family!"

Indeed, this is a rule, a tacit rule that has lasted for nearly three hundred years. It is also one of the measures to maintain a balance between the "royal faction" and the "aristocratic 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 also marry three concubines. These concubines must be women from the ministers' families.

Therefore, Zhou Ming, who often faced the intentional or unintentional temptations of the maids Hairou and Marcia, who was less than 14 years old, understood the reason why the average life span of the 16 previous emperors was less than 50 years old... they were too hard and harmful to 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 direct grandson of the royal family's patriarch, Rubust. 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.

If anything happens to Zhou Ming, Reggie will be his replacement... assuming that Zhou Ming doesn't have any heirs yet.

This will inevitably bring about a question: What if the royal family patriarch Rubester has a different heart and Reggie's young heart has thoughts that he shouldn't have?

Zhou Ming's personal safety was in danger.

However, Zhou Ming was not worried. The patriarch of the royal family, Rubster, was loyal to the royal family, upright and honest, and had no tricks in his belly.

As for Reggie, after getting along with him for a short time, Zhou Ming discovered that he was a more upright boy, who could be said to be innocent and kind-hearted without any scheming.

Therefore, Zhou Ming took the initiative to ask Reggie to stay in the palace and become his playmate... Patriarch Rubster nodded in agreement.

In this way, with two maids and a royal cousin, Zhou Ming had three partners... four people in total.

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

Not only that, Zhou Ming also asked businessmen in the "Business Zone" to open a chess and card product sales store to sell products such as chess, flying chess, poker cards, and mahjong. He also arranged for service personnel to teach how to play.

Once launched, within half a year, the entire imperial capital was involved in various gambling activities. Mahjong became rapidly popular among the upper-class ladies. Even in the most popular month, the sales of mahjong tiles reached an exaggerated 100,000 pairs. Bringing profits of over one million gold pagoda shields.

But gambling is not a good thing. By doing this, wouldn't Zhou Ming be harming his own empire and causing a large number of citizens to fall into the abyss of gambling?

In fact, even if Zhou Ming did not invent the above chess and card tools, those who are addicted to gambling still have various gambling methods and engage in various games... You must know that gambling has been around since mankind entered the feudal era. It has begun to appear, and the higher the social productivity, the more prosperous the gambling trend will be.

Instead of strict restrictions, it is better to provide reasonable guidance, orderly and standardized, so that people can understand the principle of "small gambling makes people happy, but big gambling harms the body".

Finally, we can enrich people's entertainment life and also make a small profit from it.

"Four twos."

"Wang Zha, I win." As a landlord, Zhou Ming had already played out all the cards in his hand.

"Oh, Knox, why did you win again? We all lost." Marcia pouted and reluctantly pushed the last golden tower shield in front of Zhou Ming.

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

"Hey! It all depends on your luck tomorrow." Reggie shook his head in annoyance.

"Hairou, has anything important happened in the imperial capital recently?" Zhou Ming asked.

"Well, no, except for the 'Emperor's Hoe' incident that happened last month, which still has some impact on the people, there are no other things." Hairou, who is quite familiar with civilian affairs, said.

The Emperor's Hoe Incident?

It turns out that in the "Business Zone" opened next to the palace, Zhou Ming asked a businessman to open a farm tools store that specializes in selling various farm tools, including a hoe. Because it is made of alloy material, it is not only light in weight and not easy to rust, but also a hoe. It has a long service life and is 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.

Logically speaking, the sales volume of a hoe with such a high cost performance should be quite high. However, because the business district is located in the core area of ​​the imperial capital and has a very small agricultural population, it has not sold many hoe for more than three months since it opened.

The turning point of the drama is in the agricultural area around the imperial capital. There is a place called Serra Town. An old farmer from this town accidentally came to the imperial capital for a visit. When he was visiting the business district, he accidentally entered the farm tools store and saw many hoes. , was suddenly shocked: "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 swing.

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

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

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

As soon as this live advertisement went out, it spread to tens and hundreds, and countless farmers rushed into the imperial capital to buy the so-called "Emperor Hoe".

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

The influence of the rumors was naturally growing. In the eyes of the farmers, the aloof emperor seemed to have become a manual laborer who also had to farm and use a hoe.

This naturally alarmed the authorities. The Royal Guards were dispatched on a large scale. Within half a month, tens of thousands of peasants were arrested. All of them were convicted of "slandering the Holy One." According to law, they should be punished with death. Tens of thousands of heads were about to fall to the ground. .

After learning about this, Zhou Ming couldn't sit still and quickly took action to stop it.

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

And announced on the spot: Royal Agricultural Tools Store will establish sales outlets nationwide, and Emperor Brand Hoes will be sold to farmers across the country.

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

As soon as these news were announced.

"Long live! Long live the emperor!"

"Long live the Emperor!"

The farmers were so moved that they knelt down and kowtowed, with tears streaming down their faces.

Even the ordinary citizens who were watching nearby knelt down and shouted long live.

Suddenly, among the middle and lower classes of the empire, Zhou Ming gained an excellent reputation for the first time and received sincere support.

The Emperor's Hoe incident thus came to an end.

However, in mid-June, after a heavy rainstorm that lasted for ten days, an emergency report suddenly came from Andohar County, more than 200 miles east of the imperial capital:

Severe floods broke out, causing countless casualties in Andorhal County, and the court urgently needed rescue!