Datang Coins

Liu Xiaolan sighed.

When she came to the city this time, she thought that with her sale of mushrooms she could earn a substantial amount of money.

However, at the end of the day it's not good to be too greedy. She didn't have time to sell them yet and the price was already 10 times smaller. While it's not good to think about, it's still not too bad.

After all, 1 silver for a pound of mushrooms? If someone thinks about it, selling seems more like stealing money.

At this point in time, even getting 1 silver is hard for some families, not to mention earning dozens of silvers every time they go to the city.

In the Datang Empire the currency is still not unified, but most people pay using official coins issued by the government. The valuation is pretty simple, meaning that most peasants use copper coins, which aren't worth much. A 1000 copper coins is only worth a single silver coin.

Silver coins are pretty much what people use for most bigger translations. Although there are also gold coins valued at 100 silvers each, the amount of officially issued gold coins is not big. Because of that, most people just keep their financials in the form of silver. After all, we're still in the ancient times.

The so called official coins are simply coins with the Tang character engraved on them. While gold reserves are few and are strictly controlled by the empire, silver ore mines are more popular. There are quite a few of them and some people even mine silver illegally.

This also helps with the foreign trade, since foreigners can just trade using silver itself, or their own silver coins. After all, if someone wants to, it's not hard to recast them into new coins similar to the official ones.

Liu Xiaolan did a quick account of her own finances right now. Last time she was in the city she didn't have time to spend much money, and the things she bought weren't super expensive.

However, she did have to pay for the fact that she bought them in shops inside Shenyang. Her shopping last time cost her 2 silver coins, while if she bought the same things from nearby villages, she probably wouldn't need to spend even a single silver coin.

But as they say, quality comes with a price. Shenyang's things aren't the most impressive in the world, but they are made pretty well. Materials used in them are of good quality, so their price is also understandable.

With 48 coins left from her last visit in the city and another 17 silver coins earned this time, she has a total of 65 silver coins.

Liu Xiaolan thought about what she wanted to buy and couldn't decide. She has already picked up some clothes for herself and her little fool, since he only had a single set he had on himself when she found him.

She also bought a few bowls and utensils used for their food. While she wasn't a clean freak, she still didn't like eating from the same things as other people.

Oh, now she remembers. She also needs to buy new bedding, since they've only got a single pair of it as well. Thinking of the previous night when she slept on the straw, she almost cried.

Well, now that she made a decision, there's no time to lose. However, the place where she bought beddings last time is pretty far away from here…

Thinking now, she remembered! Last time she asked for some informations about shops in the city, someone mentioned Zhouhua Clothing Workshop to her.

She quickly remembered where it was and moved towards it.

Soon, she was outside a shop with a huge sign saying Zhouhua. Liu Xiaolan took a breath and went inside.

When she was inside the store, she noticed that it didn't look as the usual shop she saw, neither in the ancient nor the modern times.

While in the modern times most shops had their products on shells and you just needed to pick them and pay for them, in the ancient times people weren't that trustfull of each other.

Well, no wonder, she thought. After all, social security during these times still wasn't too good, if some beggars came inside the shop and just run off with some of the stock, there's no place to even report it. It's not like if someone could search for beggars in a city so big.

However, in this workshop, there's not even that. Liu Xiaolan looked around and it was basically an empty shop, with only a single desk used as a counter in the middle of the room.

The shopkeeper looked at her with disdain, but didn't say anything.

"I'd like to buy some beddings, can you show me some of your already done ones?" Liu Xiaolan asked politely.

Shopkeeper Wen looked at her and didn't move at all. Seeing that he was ignoring her, Liu Xiaolan got a little angry. "Sorry? I asked if I could see some of your beddings, didn't I?"

"Little girl, don't come here and make a joke. Look at what you're wearing, can you even afford the things made by us?" He said, looking at her as if she was some random beggar.

Liu Xiaolan tried to keep her calm by breathing in and out. "It's my business if I have the money or not. Are you going to show them to me or should I look for another shop?"

Shopkeeper Wen looked at her disdainfully, but in the end still stood up and went behind the counter to pick things up.

A moment later he came back with some cheap looking beddings, probably thinking that she isn't able to afford any better ones. "Here, you can look at them. Just don't make them dirty by accident."

Liu Xiaolan looked at these beddings and got really angry. After all, selling her some of their cheaper products is fine, but these looked like used ones? And not of good quality, that she knew for sure.