Chapter 298
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Chapter 298: Opportunity to Spend Money
As he quickly confirmed each resource, some medicinal resources were undoubtedly precious, but what made Luo Ji happiest were four other things, silk, spices, tea, and alcohol!
Why would these four seemingly not particularly high-utility resources make Luo Ji happy?
The reason was simple.
Luo Ji realized that his current civilization needed some luxury goods.
To put it more bluntly, he had to give the particularly wealthy individuals a chance to spend their money.
Otherwise, money would lose its significance to them, for example, that kid Guo Jia…
However, in this era, the only one capable and wealthy enough to operate these businesses was probably Luo Ji, His Majesty the Emperor.
Luo Ji acted quite decisively in this regard.
With the mindset of doing things thoroughly, he grandly waved his hand and directly opened several storefronts in Mirror City.
One was a fabric shop selling silk, linen, and other materials.
Right next to it was a clothing store selling clothes, pants, and shoes.
These two shops were adjacent.
On the other side were two other adjacent shops, a tea house and a tea shop.
It’s worth mentioning that currently, the tea sources in Luo Ji’s civilization were mainly two, one was high-mountain tea provided by Ye Qingxuan, and the other was Songshan tea from the Songshan Mountain behind Songshan City, considered two different varieties.
Based on this, Luo Ji further categorized the teas into several grades, targeting different income groups.
The highest-grade tea was priced as a luxury item, while ordinary-grade tea was more affordable.
Luo Ji intended to promote ‘tea’ as a beverage throughout his civilization.
As for the winery, spice shop, and restaurant, Luo Ji opened them in a different location to prevent the strong aroma of spices and cooking fumes from interfering with the tea shop.
Facts proved that once these shops were opened, business indeed boomed to an extreme.
Long queues formed outside almost every shop, and at the same time, many people who had originally lived affluent and comfortable lives began to find their finances a bit tight.
For example, Guo Jia, the two cans of top-grade tea and the exquisite tea sets conveniently introduced by the tea house depleted a significant portion of his savings, indirectly providing these people with the motivation to work hard and earn money.
But if one were to ask which of these shops had the best business, the restaurant became the biggest money pit in Mirror City, once again proving that the saying, “Food is the first necessity of the people” is truly a profound truth.
Of course, the main reason was Luo Ji’s truly wicked sales tactics.
He directly had someone set up a barbecue stand outside the restaurant and grill lamb skewers there.
With a sprinkle of cumin, the aroma was enough to make passersby unable to move.
Then, upon entering the restaurant and facing an even richer selection of dishes, after one meal, their wallets were bound to shrink considerably.
However, the second-best performing shop surprised Luo Ji, because it was the winery.
He had originally thought the second best would be the clothing store or fabric shop, but he hadn’t expected it to be the winery.
Luo Ji was not a drinker, so he naturally couldn’t understand those who loved alcohol.
However, it was a fact that the winery’s business was good, and this could not be denied.
At the same time, alcohol was a good thing, after refinement, it could be used in the medical industry, a point Luo Ji had already ordered people to investigate.
Conversely, due to the promotion of ‘alcohol,’ it was inevitable that certain industries and groups would introduce rules like ‘no drinking during work hours,’ especially in the military, where any violation would be severely punished!
The several shops under his command earned him a full vault, filling his ‘national treasury.’
Less than half a month after opening, they were ready to open branches in other cities.
This was naturally a joyous occasion.
However, matters on the other side were a little disappointing.
After a round of confirmations, no other treasures like the ‘Xu Cauldron’ appeared among the bronze artifacts, and they were all just ordinary tools.
At the same time, the investigation that Zhou Yi and the Mirror Division were tasked with also yielded results, from the artisans, it was learned that Zhou Dongnan seemed to have only made this one Xu Cauldron, and there was no information about the other eight bronze cauldrons.
This led Luo Ji to consider a possibility, could the Nine Tripod Cauldrons have nine different design blueprints, counting as nine separate items?!
If so, the difficulty of collecting all nine cauldrons would be far too high, even hundreds of gold treasure chests might not yield them.
Having reached this conclusion, Luo Ji was visibly dejected for a moment.
After his dejection passed, he no longer bothered to dwell on it.
Such a luck-dependent matter truly couldn’t be forced, and it was better to let nature take its course.
Casually setting the report aside, Luo Ji, who had been sitting at his desk all morning, stretched vigorously.
“I wonder how Luo Yong’s selection of people is going?”
“I’ll go take a look, and stretch my muscles at the same time…”
Bringing a few guards, Luo Ji was in no hurry along the way.
While heading to the military camp, he also planned to inspect the construction within Mirror City, as Mirror City had undergone significant changes during this period.
Besides the shops he had opened, another major project was the construction of the academy.
Speaking of which, one must mention Zhou Dongnan’s spoils.
The items inside were unexpectedly much more numerous than those from Wang Luzong.
There were large quantities of Bronze and Black Iron-tier items, not to mention a few unexpected Silver-tier items.
Of course, generally, any Silver-tier item carried by a Bronze-tier player usually meant that the Silver-tier item wasn’t particularly good, as truly rare and valuable items would be kept in a warehouse.
Among these less impressive Silver-tier items, there was a Silver-tier ‘Academy’ design blueprint, which clearly provided a buff for increasing learning efficiency.
With the thought of developing and taking shape early, Luo Ji invested a sum of money and ordered the construction team to speed up work and build this academy.
Luo Ji had already finalized the entire academy’s system.
As a modern person, he naturally didn’t need to follow the ancient system.
Considering various aspects, Luo Ji decided to temporarily divide the academy into two classes, a children’s class and an adult class.
For teaching children, fun was important, while for teaching adults, efficiency was even more crucial.
As soon as the news of Mirror City building an academy spread, before the academy was even finished, registration was already full.
However, among those who registered, very few were ordinary citizens.
They were all sub-city lords under Luo Ji’s command, or heads of various departments in different cities.
Some registered for their children, while others registered for their brothers and friends, because they understood very clearly the importance of education.
Take those department heads, for example.
A whole department, with dozens or even hundreds of people.
Why did the position of department head fall to them?
The reason was simple, their learning ability was stronger than others, and they could read and write!
When Luo Ji selected a department head, he would always ask, “Among you, who can read? Those who can read, step forward.”
Generally, unless someone had made truly outstanding contributions in that department, the position of department head would be given to the one who could read.
