I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 88 Imperial Store
Zhu Houxuan felt as if he was in another world when he stood at the door of the Leopard House. His experiences in the Leopard House in the past few days seemed like a dream.

He was not idle during these few days. In order to participate more deeply in the military discussions of the Leopard Room, he made a simple weapons simulation.

Weapon simulation is not as complicated as imagined. A war game usually includes a map, simulation pieces and a set of rules, and simulates a real or virtual war through a turn-based system.

Maps are generally simulations of real maps, with various terrain scenes such as roads, deserts, jungles, and oceans; deductive chess pieces represent the combat units that actually participated in the battle, such as companies, battalions, regiments, and various arms, corresponding combat power, and other descriptions; rules are arbitration methods designed according to actual combat situations and combined with the principle of probability, telling you what you can and cannot do, the restrictions and results of marching, deployment, and fighting, etc.

Zhu Houxun's set of rules for weapons deduction only had four or five pages of paper, so the degree of simulation of the war was not high, because he did not know much about the combat units of this era.

The rules for weapons deduction in later generations are often a thick book. The more rules there are, the more realistic the simulation of war will be.

Now the weapon deduction game he made can only be played as a board game, but it is enough for the time being. Zhu Houzhao is obsessed with this new toy, and to a certain extent it satisfies his desire to command thousands of troops.

With the big framework he created, if the military officers in the Leopard Room were not stupid, they could follow suit and add more rules and elements on their own.

If this Leopard Room is guided well, it can become the Wolf's Den of the Ming Dynasty! These two even have the same name style! Zhu Houxuan sighed in his heart.

But he immediately realized that the name Wolf's Lair was unlucky. Forget it, it was appropriate to set up the General Staff Headquarters here in the future.

Zhu Houxuan put away his inner thoughts. Qin Ming was waving at him beside a carriage.

Zhu Houxuan was followed by four burly men because he told Zhu Houzhao that he wanted to travel around the capital incognito. If Zhu Houzhao had not been obsessed with war game simulations, he would have followed him, but he still sent a few guards to protect his safety.

Zhu Houxuan first returned to the Princes' Mansion to report his safety to everyone in the palace, then changed into ordinary clothes and took Qin Ming and the guards to travel around the capital in an ordinary carriage.

He first walked around the Drum Tower, and then sent people directly to the South City.

"Sir, do you really want to go to South City? South City is much more chaotic than Drum Tower, and it's also much dirtier and smellier. You are worth a lot of money, and I'm afraid it will pollute your eyes." An accompanying guard said after a moment of hesitation.

"Don't I have you? Can't you protect me when I go to Nancheng?" Zhu Houxuan looked at the guard who spoke and said.

"Please rest assured, sir. The four of us can definitely protect you well." The guard said quickly.

"That's all, let's go!"

The southern part of Beijing is a civilian area, and the Gulou area is inside the city, so the government's supervision is not as strict and there are more pedestrians on the streets.

Zhu Houzhao opened the carriage curtain, looked left and right, occasionally covering his nose to block the stench, and said with a smile: "This place is fresher than the Drum Tower!"

The accompanying guard smiled and said, "Outside the city is still too poor. There are only a few poor families, and the things they sell are not as diverse as those in the Drum Tower."

Zhu Houxuan did not say anything, but looked at the street scene that could only be seen in old photos.

The residents of the capital looked much better than the people on both sides of the canal when he went north, but there were not many fat people, many people were in rags, and there were also many beggars on the streets. Just as he was watching intently, a figure suddenly rushed towards their carriage and quickly got under their carriage.

The guards around the carriage quickly bent down to grab the person under the carriage, and it took them a while to finally pull the person out.

Zhu Houxuan looked closely and found that it was a middle-aged man selling candied haws. He was a little dirty but not seriously injured. He was holding a broom with strings of crystal clear candied haws stuck on it.

"You don't want to live anymore? Get under the car. It doesn't matter if you lose your life, but what if you scare my young master?" The leader of the guards was named Zhao Wu. He said while wiping his cold sweat.

"Please forgive me, sir. I have no choice but to do this." The middle-aged man selling candied haws looked around and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he looked at Zhu Houxun with a flattering smile on his face. He knew that Zhu Houxun was the one who could make the decision among this group of people.

"I don't want to alarm you, sir. Please be magnanimous and forgive my fault and let me go. I, Liu Si, have been making candied haws for more than ten years. I'm very famous in the whole South City. Why don't you take a few strings as my apology." There was a flash of pain in Liu Si's eyes when he said "a few strings". In this era, any sweet food was expensive.

Zhu Houxuan looked at the candied haws stuck on the head of Liu Si's broom. Although he had just rushed under the car, Liu Si still protected the candied haws very well and they were basically not dirty. It seemed that this was not the first time he had crawled under the car.

He reached out and took the largest bunch, which showed no signs of contamination.

After taking a bite, I felt the taste was sour and sweet, and my mouth was full of saliva. The taste was not much different from that in later generations.

After thinking about it, he took off two more skewers and prepared to take them back to Qin Yuelan and Liu Yourong. Girls, after all, like to eat sweets.

Then he looked at Qin Ming and the guards, and they quickly expressed that they didn't want to eat, so he gave up.

The pain on Liu Si's face was visible to the naked eye. If the young master's guards had not reacted so quickly, he would have been able to slip away.

"Qin Ming, give me the money!" Zhu Houxuan said.

Liu Si immediately smiled and nodded, saying, "Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir!"

"What happened to you? You were so reckless as to crawl under the carriage. Even if you didn't lose your life, being crushed would be enough to hurt you." Zhu Houxuan looked at Liu Si with interest.

"I'm sorry to embarrass you, sir. I'm being chased by those lackeys of the imperial store!" Liu Si said indignantly.

"Imperial Store?" Zhu Houxuan immediately became interested. "Why would someone from the Imperial Store chase you?"

"It's just the salt shop on the corner. Today, the lackeys of that shop targeted me and wanted to collect taxes from me. My small business can't stand such a hassle. If I pay the tax according to the amount he asked, all my work these days will be in vain," Liu Si complained.

"Isn't it natural to pay taxes when doing business? It's not good to evade taxes like this."

"From your accent, I can tell you're not from the capital. You don't know what's going on here. If paying the tax would allow me to sell candied haws in peace for a while, I wouldn't refuse to pay the tax. But this salt shop collected taxes from me today and will collect them tomorrow. At the next corner, there's a cloth shop that's also a royal store. They'll also collect taxes from me. If I pay all these taxes, I'll just have to starve to death!" Liu Si started talking.

(End of this chapter)