Far from being comparable to the famous Champagne Bazaar of the Middle Ages, this market is only once a year, for seven days, and the trade is mainly agricultural products, but it is still the most important event for people within a radius of several hundred miles.

For the first two days, merchants set up stalls on the streets, followed by wholesale trading, and the last two days were grocery trading.

The bulk of wholesale transactions are wool, oil, wine, honey, timber, grain, salted fish, minerals...... And slaves.

The last item shocked Luo Yi.

"Doesn't it say that the air of the city makes people free?"

"You say the city of freedom? That must be with the permission of the lord. Shepp replied, "In exchange for the additional tax not to serve the lord." ”

It sounds a bit like Wang Anshi's exemption law, the difference is that one is implemented by the government in order to get more taxes, and the other is the extra tax paid by merchants on their own initiative in order to get rid of labor and concentrate on trading. But whether or not the city was granted autonomy also required the consent of the lords, and some greedy lords first agreed and then repented, and this and other historical progress

All the same, filled with many bloody struggles and dirty deals.

Turnest was not a free city, and its walls were inhabited by both freemen and slaves.

Even trading is not free.

For example, wool was to be sold in its entirety to merchants from St. Omere, and not to merchants from other countries, because they had purchased wool monopoly certificates from kings and bishops for large sums of money, and all wool was to be sold to them except for their own use.

The merchants of St. Omer had a so-called "stronghold" in the city, which they called the merchant house, and Luo Yi thought it would be more appropriate to call it a concession, with their chapel, dormitories, and warehouses where goods were stored, and a high wall built outside, which was not built for nothing, because they relied on their wealth and ran amok and had a bad reputation in the city.

Salted fish was monopolized by Humphrey's merchants, and no one was allowed to sell them wholesale at the Tournest market.

Buying and selling, neither of which is free, but is restricted by the lord's monopoly and monopoly certificate, which is a kind of monopoly by power.

In addition to the transaction tax paid at the time of the transaction, the buyer and seller have to pay the bishop a tax in advance in order to obtain the right to the transaction.

The bishop's soldiers and servants patrolled the bazaar, not only to maintain order, but also to check for any violations of the law by buying and selling goods for which the bishop had not paid a license fee.

This made Luo Yi frown.

She could imagine how much of a restriction and loss such a system would cause to her in the future.

What if she invented something, and the bishop decreed that only his merchants could buy it?

If the other party does not take the opportunity to lower the price, there will be no such system of monopoly and monopoly.

In particular, she found that the content of the big deal included bluegrass.

She saw old Frank among the bluegrass traders, and when she inquired about it, she learned that he was working not for himself, but for a wealthy man of his kindred, buying large quantities of bluegrass and slaves to be sold to the pagan countries of the south, and from there importing indigo, alum, and other dyes for dyeing cloth, which was a great deal.

Bulk buying and selling......

Luo Yi was absent-minded in her next shopping.

But there was still something that could be in the newspaper - if there was a newspaper at this time - which successfully attracted Luo Yi's attention.

A baker was arrested by the bishop's soldiers after being accused by foreign traders of mixing chalk (commonly used to make chalk) in the bread they sold to them. The frustrated baker is wheeled with his hands tied and pushed by rough soldiers, followed by an angry plaintiff who has eaten a belly of chalk.

It seems that the food is natural and pollution-free...... It doesn't mean that there will be no fraud......

Luo Yi still didn't know that during the Renaissance, there were black-hearted merchants who mixed diluted sulfuric acid with vinegar - after sulfuric acid was successfully manufactured. Of course, their southern and eastern counterparts were not particularly innocent, and muddy roast ducks, papier-mâché boots, donkey meat and horse meat pretending to be beef and mutton were endlessly recorded.