"Princess, you love the people like your own children and care about them, but isn't Miss Ming also a citizen of Zhaoling? Just because she is a lady of the Ming family, you are attacking her like this. Don't you think you are going too far?"

"Miss Ming doesn't mean to look down on the common people, but no one is born knowing how to do farm work. Is it her fault that she has never done it?"

"And we've already said that she's been exposed to that dirty water and has developed a rash all over her body. She hasn't even had time to see a doctor yet, and yet you're still so persistent. Do you really have to make her collapse in the paddy field?"

"How could you be so..."

Dugu Yu, "Vicious, I get it. Is there anything else you want to say? If not, we'll have to wash up and take a nap!"

Lin Xiafeng: “…”

Ling Anli, “…”

Dugu Yu's words were like pressing the mute button, and everyone was silent. Lin Xiafeng had a lot of anger to vent and a lot of words to say, but they were all blocked by Dugu Yu.

Faced with Dugu Yu, who had no principles and no bottom line in shielding Qin Qingyao, she was really powerless and speechless. She felt that Dugu Yu was simply terminally ill and beyond help!

No one spoke, so Dugu Yu took Qin Qingyao back to the house. Anyway, how to deal with Ming Ruoxi was Prince Duan's business, so what did it have to do with his princess consort?

A group of people are shouting here, it's totally incomprehensible!

After the two returned to the house, Baiji's hot water was not yet ready, so Dugu Yu helped Qin Qingyao wash her face and wiped the cigarette ash off her face with a towel.

Qin Qingyao looked at Dugu Yu who was silent, not knowing whether he was angry or not, so she did not speak either.

It wasn't until she finished washing her hair and taking a shower, when Dugu Yu was helping her dry her hair, that she finally couldn't help but ask, "How do you know she's going to say I'm vicious?"

"She always says that!"

"So, do you think I'm poisonous?"

"Let me try it first..."

When Qin Qingyao was about to die, Dugu Yu finally left her lips and gave a very sincere appraisal, "Sweet."

Qin Qingyao: "..."

Dugu Yu, "Are you angry? They're scolding you, but I can't scold them back for you. Aren't you useless?"

Qin Qingyao, "I don't need you to do this. When have I ever suffered a loss?"

After all, Dugu Yu was a man, so what could he do to a group of young girls? He couldn't possibly go through the same training results as he did with Lu Hui and the others, right?

Although Qin Qingyao spoke with full confidence, Dugu Yu still felt unhappy when he saw those people always ganging up on his princess. "I feel bad even if I didn't suffer any loss. Let me hurt you more!"

They didn't have time to take a nap. They got up after half an hour and prepared to go to the fields to take a look. Baiji said that Prince Duan was still in the house and hadn't left.

"Overslept?"

Dugu Yu thought it was unlikely. His Royal Highness Prince Duan was a very self-disciplined person. "I'll go and take a look."

When Dugu Yu knocked on the door, Prince Duan had just put away his brush. "Dugu, you've come at the right time. Please help me take a look at these suggestions."

Dugu Yu took over what Prince Duan wrote and read it. Qin Qingyao also came over. It was a long and densely written article that hurt her eyes.

"What does your highness Prince Duan write here?"

"I suggest to the court that merchants be encouraged to raise and trade water buffaloes, and at the same time, the government should control the price of water buffaloes to ensure that farmers have enough cattle to buy."

"How to control it?"

"My initial plan is to have the imperial court set a unified price for calves and cattle, and not allow merchants to arbitrarily raise prices."

"Pfft, Your Majesty, are you kidding me?"

"What do you mean, Princess?"

"Let's take a very simple example. The imperial court uniformly stipulates that the price of a full-month-old calf is three taels. The Zhang family's calf was born sick because the mother cow lacked milk, so it grew up malnourished and sickly. The Li family's calf is healthy and strong and growing rapidly. Must these two cows be priced the same?"

Prince Duan, “…”

"For example, an old, almost-lost ox is priced the same as a strong ox that's only one or two years old? What about a ox that's three or five years old?"

"If I follow your deadly rule, do you know what the consequences will be?"

"You only care about the people being able to afford it, but don't you think about whether merchants can make money? Who would raise cattle if they can't make money? Sick calves and old cows can make money, so who would bother to take the trouble to take good care of healthy cows to sell?"

"Sick and old cows have a low chance of survival, and the labor force is low, which directly leads to increased mortality and culling rates. Farmers may have to replace a cow every one or two years, or even several times a year."

"In this case, in order to make money, will merchants deliberately neglect their care and make healthy cattle sick, just to increase the mortality rate and increase the number of cows they can sell to make money?"

"Anyway, the imperial court has already set the price. These are the cattle, and the price is this. Do you want to buy them or not?"

Ling Jingxuan frowned. "Then we can strengthen the legal management in this area. Those who abuse buffaloes or buy and sell sick buffaloes will be punished severely."

"Making money isn't guaranteed in the first place. Merchants are bound to feel unbalanced when their high-quality cattle are priced the same as others' inferior ones. Now you're forcing them to pay a fine. Aren't you forcing all cattle farmers to change their professions, and then there will be no more buffaloes on the market?"

"this……"

"Are you going to make laws requiring people to do this business?"

Ling Jingxuan was silent for a long time, thought about it carefully, and found that what Qin Qingyao said made sense.

"Your Highness, the market has a self-regulating mechanism. The more external interference there is, the easier it is to get out of control. Moreover, farmers are under the control of the people, and merchants are also under the control of the people."

"You're harming the interests of cattle-raising merchants just to make cattle more affordable for farmers. That's too biased. They're doing business honestly, so why are you provoking you?"

Qin Qingyao's words were like a wake-up call to Ling Jingxuan. Ling Jingxuan discovered that when he wrote these things, he was indeed only concerned about the labor of the people and only thought about their need for cattle, the more the better, but he forgot that merchants raised cattle to make money and people also had to make a living.

Why would he control prices and harm the interests of merchants to subsidize farmers? Merchants are also his people!

"Then according to your opinion, how should this matter be handled?"

"The imperial court encouraged merchants to raise cattle, reduced taxes on the sale of buffaloes, and raised the price of buffaloes. This will surely stimulate more people to start raising buffaloes for sale."

"But the common people can't afford buffaloes. If..."

"I know what your Highness is worried about. Listen to me first. When too many people raise buffaloes, the number of buffaloes on the market increases dramatically. In order to sell them as quickly as possible, merchants will definitely adjust their prices."

"It's impossible for buffalo prices to remain high forever. After all, slaughtering cattle is illegal in our country and punishable by imprisonment, so it's almost impossible for merchants to kill excess buffaloes to ensure high prices."

"With so many cattle on hand, they need a lot of fodder, a place to graze them, and people to look after them. These are all costs. So, in order to sell the cattle as quickly as possible, I have to lower the price."

"People will definitely choose good quality cattle when buying them. As a result, businesses that can't raise buffaloes well will have no customers and won't be able to survive. They will naturally be eliminated by the market. Only those businesses with rich experience and good reputation will remain, and the quality of buffaloes will continue to improve."

"As for the fact that the people can't afford to buy a cow after the price goes up, Your Highness, you don't have to worry too much. As you can see, the people don't own one cow per family. They all share one cow, and everyone takes turns to look after it and use it."

"So, when buying a cow, everyone must have pooled their money together, not just one family paying for it."

"No matter how high the price of buffalo is, there's always a limit. It can't be ridiculously high. To make money, merchants must set a price that farmers can afford. Otherwise, scaring away customers is just courting death."

After Qin Qingyao finished speaking, Dugu Yu and Ling Jingxuan were both thinking about their own things, and no one spoke. The scene was very awkward for a while. Qin Qingyao thought that what she said was too confusing and they couldn't understand.

Or maybe she was taking things for granted, and what she said about the market and self-regulation didn't fit Zhaoling's national conditions?

"good!"

Ling Jingxuan suddenly spoke, which scared Qin Qingyao.

"The princess is truly extremely intelligent. This prince admires her immensely!"

Ling Jingxuan discovered that when he was writing the memorial, he only considered two things from beginning to end: the people needed cattle and the people could not afford to buy them.

However, Qin Qingyao considered issues such as buffalo breeding, trading, etc.

Moreover, according to her method, there will indeed be survival of the fittest. The better and healthier the appearance of the cows, the higher the price and the more popular they will be. People who are not good at raising cows will naturally have to change their careers.

But his method is to suppress the price of buffaloes. If merchants want to make money, they have to sell in large quantities. A cow can normally live for more than ten years. How can they sell in such large quantities? Then there will be more and more sick and old cows on the market!

After all, the price is the same. Who would be so stupid as to take good care of the cows, and then make the same amount of money as others by just raising them casually and making them sick?

Ling Jingxuan took back the memorial that Dugu Yu had read, tore it up, and rewrote it.

Of course, he knew that if he suggested raising the price of buffaloes to allow merchants to make more money, he would definitely be criticized by many old officials, saying that he was exploiting the people.

But from a long-term perspective, this is definitely beneficial to farmers. Only when someone is willing to raise buffaloes on a large scale can they buy them, right?

The imperial court is now taking the initiative to help raise prices so that when the market becomes saturated in the future, merchants will be forced to lower prices on their own initiative!

"Your Highness, the imperial court could actually hire some government-run farms to join the market, keeping prices as low as possible. This way, it would also have a restraining effect on the prices of merchants."

"Of course, since the official price is low, it's inevitable that there will be things like embezzlement and backdoor dealings. So, it all depends on how the court selects and employs people, and how it manages them."

Ling Jingxuan's eyes lit up like light bulbs, and she turned around to go into the house to write a memorial.