Before the army set out, a group of riders led by Redfish headed north along the river. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

Hongyu's political skills have gradually matured over the years, and the entire city on both sides of the river knows that this is a very powerful woman in the Xia City system, and she can represent Jian Chen's attitude in many cases.

In the previous life, when the countries were in dispute, the people who sent envoys to other countries often made appointments for a hundred rides, and the red fish at this time were much colder.

Five cars, eighty riders, a stamp in his hand, and half a box of copper coins.

Other than that, there is nothing else.

Two years ago, the half-cart of copper coins was useless and could be exchanged at best as a work of art, but now these copper coins have their real purpose in some towns west of Yucheng - to buy.

Since the beginning of the construction of Yucheng, Hongyu has been near Onozawa, and has not moved back and forth between the summer city and Yucheng like Yuqian'er, so there are a lot of feelings along the way.

From Yucheng to the west, there are two cities within 400 miles.

Neither city is big, but it's not small either.

Hongyu was not the leader of the city, nor was he a relative of a clan, but just by virtue of his reputation as a prisoner of the city with Yu Qian'er during Chen Jian's expedition to Dongyi, he was very popular with the two cities.

The chiefs of both cities held banquets in person, and all the clan relatives accompanied each other, and even the riders and royal hands who followed were entertained with high standards.

These two cities were too close to Yucheng, so they were inevitably influenced by Yucheng.

The utensils used by the chiefs at the banquet were bronze, and the best liquor was distilled liquor from the Yucheng workshop, and the worse was fruit wine from the farm system.

Expensive foods such as soybean paste, stir-fried vegetables in an iron pot, steamed buns, and flour cakes are everywhere in the shadow of Xia Yu and the two cities, and some relatives wear handmade wool felt boots on their feet, or wear wool woven clothes.

Before the banquet, there were people riding horses, and there were people riding cars, many places in the city were filled with a faint bitter smell of cow dung, and the most prosperous place in the city was near the Yucheng workshop warehouse, and many relatives and nobles carried a blanket on their bodies, which were tinkling with the sound of copper coins.

There were also people who exchanged grain, furs, or other things for money in the storehouse, and then used the money to buy iron farming tools or other things inside. Although the exchange of money and the purchase are all in one place, they cannot directly exchange things for what they want.

Some of the brave nobles who followed the leader wore short bronze swords, and some of the city carried brittle spearheads of cast iron instead of stone or jade.

Hongyu smiled, looking at the slight changes in the city, and many relatives with bulging coats around their waists greeted her with smiles.

There have been a lot of inadvertent changes in the city.

Some of the relatives and slave owners who were close to Yucheng were getting better and better, and some of the Yucheng people used their slaves and reclaimed land to open new semi-slave estates, or raised a large number of sheep to shear their feathers, or planted dyes that Yucheng needed, and even some vegetables that Yucheng did not have enough people to manage.

There are also some people who cut down on the number of slaves after buying iron tools, and specialize in burning charcoal, pottery and other things that Yucheng needs but are too lazy to invest too many people, or cut down some wood suitable for making wheels and boats and send them down the river. This is more profitable than simple planting, which used to be calculated based on grain, but now it is settled in the currency of the Yucheng system, and it is not just about grain.

So the rich became richer and richer, and a large number of iron farm tools were concentrated in the hands of the chiefs and nobles, and they took advantage of these advantages to quickly complete the cultivation of fertile land near the city, and there was land in the farther places, but what was the use of the land that could only be reached from the city for a day or two? Who wants to live away from the city?

For the wealthier ones, they had their own private soldiers, freed some of the stronger slaves, and enriched their strength, and the authority of the chiefs diminished.

The less subordinate nobles even substituted slave soldiers for their own city obligations, or when they went out on the expedition, they had to bring their own private slaves saved by tool innovation to plunder the surrounding slaves.

The communal land system is even more precarious, and some of the lower classes are eager to have their own ploughing cattle and iron tools, so they are more and more neglectful of the compulsory public land work, giving priority to cultivating their own land, and after learning to apply manure, they scatter all the fertilizer they use for the toilet on their own fields.

In order to ensure the advantage over the clan nobles, the chieftains of the cities had to increase the number of public lands and increase the obligations of the low-level nobles, but for the sake of their own status, they had to compromise with the new nobles to ensure the needs of the clans and nobles who were becoming stronger as much as possible, or to replace the obligations of the nobles by collecting money in kind.

In the face of increasing obligations, many low-level people could not bear it, and some people began to fall to the bottom of the life dependent on relatives and nobles. They were free city-dwellers, not slaves, but they had to sell their labor power to the nobles of the clans, who were also obliged to go on the expedition, but fortunately there had been no war for the past two years, otherwise it would have harmed the interests of the upper echelons of the clan, who had owners of land, farm implements, and cattle.

Lower than the lower status were slaves, whether private or public, and as the influence of Yucheng gradually penetrated into the city, their lives became more difficult instead of getting better.

The amount of labor in the public fields was greater than before, and the chieftain had to exploit these slaves more heavily in order to accumulate money, in order to buy the primary industrial goods of the Yucheng workshops, which had been subjected to scissors poorness.

The same person, a smelter in Yucheng, could produce far more "grain" in a year than a slave in these two cities.

So it was no longer enough to farm the land, and the extra slaves had to do more than before.

It is necessary not only to ensure the prosperity of the slave owners, but also to do many things that were not necessary to do in the past for the exchange between the slave owners and Yucheng.

And the rich slave owners craved luxuries such as iron pots, carriages, and war horses, which could only be deprived of the slaves.

The price of slaves increased in the two cities, and the two cities began to go deeper into the more primitive jungles to capture the wild clan settlements, and the gap between the lower and upper ranks widened under the unfair distribution of spoils.

These two cities close to Yucheng were inevitably dragged into the abyss of sin by Yucheng, and the hidden exploitation of Yucheng was the most serious.

All the good things of the clan age, all the seemingly utopian observance of duties and rights, all the virtues left over from the primitive age, all the unity left over from the clan age, all the harmony constrained by the very low productivity, have been changed with the filthy copper coin.

The old is no longer in keeping with this era, but the new is new: new morals, new obligations, new deceptions, new ways of exploitation, new illusions, new loyalties...... Not yet established.

Everything is chaotic, but everything is thriving. While the old checkmate is not dead, new sprouts have emerged on the aging corpses.

This is the reason why the cities closer to Yucheng are afraid of Yucheng.

The people of the lower countries and the slaves hated not Yujo, but the ruler of the city itself, and even fantasized about escaping to Onozawa, because it was said that if they fled there, they would become human beings instead of slaves, and it was said that life there would be richer.

They didn't know that the dream had been shattered, and that there had been a sordid compromise between the chiefs of the city.

But no matter what, whether it is the bottom or the nobles, the biggest thing they have in common is that they agree with the currency of the Xia Yu system.

This jingling copper coin became the hard currency of the cities within 400 miles of Yucheng, and it was possible to buy all kinds of things that could be purchased.

That's why Redfish was one step ahead, buying food, labor, hiring slaves to transport food, and preparing food before the army set out for battle.

Half a box of copper coins is certainly not enough, it is just a gift sent along the way.

But the red fish has a seal in his hand.

The seal of the Yucheng Supply and Marketing Division.