Chapter 239: The Wisdom of Common People

After entering the city, Peron was shocked by its prosperity.

As a city on the outskirts of the territory that undertakes foreign trade, although this newly built city has a small permanent population, the number of people moving in and out every day is huge.

The influx of a large number of caravans led to a large amount of goods flowing through the city, which also brought about commercial prosperity.
However, although the city is very prosperous, there are not many shops in Belon. It seems that there are warehouses everywhere, and only occasionally can you see a few restaurants.

Naturally, Belon's confusion could not be separated from the half-elf's gaze, and he explained enthusiastically while running around skillfully.

"Most of the business here is large-scale business. The caravans coming and going basically negotiate directly with the officials. They basically take everything and take whatever they bring over."

"The requirements for opening a shop in the city are very high. They are basically concentrated in one area, and most of them are government-run shops. The prices of various daily necessities are fixed. The few private shops are mostly opened by locals. It is difficult for outsiders to open a shop. There are few shops opened by real outsiders."

"The current situation is so chaotic that with the official store, merchants coming and going will not take the risk of opening a store here unless there is a huge profit."

Veron nodded and said.

"I see."

Following the half-elf, Belon and Edison walked into a large building.

This was a large store that was completely different from the stores they had talked about before. The interior of the store was huge, with wooden shelves one after another, and on the shelves, all kinds of goods were densely placed.

At the door, several shop assistants in uniform were quickly calculating something.

They took out the items from the wooden basket in front of them one by one and counted them. After finishing the count, they took some papers with unknown things written on them from the hands of the customers in front of them.

Finally, the customer put the items back into the wooden basket himself and walked out of the store with the contents.

Looking at the customers lined up in several rows, the shop assistants calculating with their heads down, and the papers they passed back and forth, Veron's brain was a little confused.

What kind of store is this? I've never seen it before.

Just when Belon and Edison were at a loss, the half-elf skillfully brought three wooden baskets from the side, stuffed a wooden basket into each of them, and said.

"Although you only want to buy a map, since you are here, take a look. Maybe you will want to buy something else later."

Veron and Edison held the wooden basket and looked at each other.

In the end, in the spirit of being here anyway, they followed the half-elf into this strange shop.

The half-elf first enthusiastically took the two of them to an empty corner of the store and pulled out a map from a dusty shelf nearby.

"By the way, do you two want one or two? The price here is 2 dollars per ticket."

The half-elf said as he took a map from the shelf.

As he was speaking, he suddenly reacted, turned his head hesitantly, and asked Veron and the other man.

"By the way, do you have money? Not the gold and silver out there, do you have food coupons?"

After listening to the half-elf's words, Veron and Edison both showed confused expressions.

Belon scratched his head, took out some silver coins, and said somewhat embarrassedly.

"Can't we use this money here? If the food stamps refer to those pieces of paper, then we probably don't have them."

Hearing this, the half-elf was silent for a while, patted his head a little helplessly, and said, "Well, I should have known it earlier. It's not that it can't be used, but the official store will not accept this gold and silver."

The half-elf said as he pulled two maps from the shelf.

"Just treat it as making friends. I'll pay for it."

Veron and Edison looked at each other in bewilderment. Gold and silver are hard currencies everywhere, so why can't they be used here?

A piece of paper is not as reliable as real money.

Although Belon didn't understand, he asked curiously why this happened while helping the half-elf carry things, in the spirit of asking if he didn't understand.

The half-elf put the things he wanted to buy into the wooden basket that Belon was carrying, and answered Belon's questions.

Food stamps were originally just an old reward used to improve workers' labor efficiency.

As long as you do a good job, you can get a food coupon, which you can use as a basis to exchange for a pancake at the official grain store in Jiuqi.

As Jiuqi developed, it began to recruit formal workers, providing them with food, accommodation and wages.

It is said that Jiuqi had insufficient gold and silver reserves at the beginning, so he wanted to use food coupons with higher value to pay part of the wages to slow down the consumption of gold and silver.

However, the old system did not force the workers to make the exchange; it was up to the workers themselves to decide how much food coupons they were willing to exchange their wages for.

Since the old business system had collapsed at that time, the only stores still selling goods were official stores.

In order to ensure that food coupons could be exchanged stably, official stores were more inclined to recycle food coupons. Therefore, the goods that could be purchased with gold and silver were limited.

As long as the daily quota was sold out, even if there were still goods left, people would not be allowed to buy them with gold or silver in order to avoid the situation where there were food coupons but no goods.

Later, after working for a few days, some laborers who had exchanged all their wages for gold and silver found that although they were doing the same work and receiving the same wages, the laborers who exchanged their wages for food coupons lived a much more comfortable life than him.

So the workers began to try to exchange their wages for food stamps.

"Well, although the food coupons can be used here, what if..."

Peron did not continue speaking, but glanced hesitantly at the other guests around him.

Without even looking up, the half-elf casually replied as he took a bag of rice from the shelf and placed it on the wooden basket.

"What do you think is more useful in Donnar now, gold and silver, or food?"

Everyone in the old Qi knew that if the old Qi was destroyed, the so-called food coupons would naturally become worthless if they could not be exchanged for food.

Therefore, although people in the old Qi Dynasty basically accepted the concept of food coupons, no matter who they were, they would spend the food coupons as soon as possible after getting them and exchange them for substantial commodities such as food. Even if they were not particularly needed, they would stockpile them first.

Moreover, they do not completely abandon gold and silver. Basically everyone will reserve some gold and silver.

Once the Green Tide comes and the Old Qi is defeated and destroyed, they will immediately run away with their stored food, gold and silver. As for the food coupons that may not have been spent yet, as long as they keep spending them and not saving them, there will be no problem.

　After yesterday's painful lesson, I decided to move the update time a little earlier.

　　Maybe I can change the introduction? I feel like the introduction is not good enough.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)