Internal Reform

During the period when the governing departments were replacing the old currency with the new, Zhou Xu was also busy leading the newly established market supervision department in adjusting the prices here.

The people had just escaped famine and homelessness and regained their jobs. The needs they had to address first were food and shelter.

But as their working hours steadily lengthened, once food and shelter were no longer troubling them, more needs would gradually emerge.

What they needed then was a market—a market where they could seek out and purchase the things they required themselves.

Zhou Xu strongly supported this. A functioning economy could help a city recover its vitality more quickly.

But in return, it would also bring him more work.

Now that the currency had been replaced, the original prices in the New Continent obviously could not continue unchanged.

Yet if merchants were allowed to set all their own prices, the market would inevitably descend into chaos.

The market needed a standard. That was the fundamental reason Zhou Xu had established a market supervision department specifically to adjust and oversee prices.

Of course, he had no intention of fixing every price completely. He understood that prices would fluctuate according to circumstances, so he allowed commodity prices to vary by up to thirty percent in either direction.

Aside from that, if any new product appeared that had not existed before, it had to be registered and reviewed by the market supervision department. Only after passing the review could it be sold.

Otherwise, it would be deemed an illegal product, and anyone caught selling it would be punished severely.

Those were roughly the rules for now. They would be gradually adjusted and supplemented according to actual circumstances.

Looking at the mountain of documents before him, Zhou Xu felt his