"Explain the whole affair from beginning to end," Fang Yun said.
Dong Wencong nodded and said, "Xiang Prefecture enjoys an excellent location, a favorable environment, a dense population, and abundant wealth. Baling City, in particular, rose to prominence after the human race improved its water transport capabilities. With well-developed shipping, materials needed by workshops can arrive cheaply, while their products can be shipped out swiftly. That is why Baling City has so many workshops. Rivers and lakes lie north and west of the city, making those areas ideal for water-powered machinery. Thus, the Northern Workshop District and West Workshop District took shape. When you climbed the Military Review Tower... no, Yueyang Tower, you must have seen them."
Fang Yun nodded lightly and said, "Indeed."
"Many years ago, even with Baling's tremendous advantages and its unbroken stretches of workshops, only some of the city's residents enjoyed better lives. The benefits never reached the people of Xiang Prefecture as a whole. That was because all the workshops' Craftsmen School scholars and skilled artisans came from the Qing Kingdom. They left only the simplest, dirtiest, most exhausting work to Baling's residents. Moreover, they bought logs, medicinal herbs, grain, and other goods cheaply from Xiang Prefecture, then made them into paper, prepared medicines, and other products that they sold first to the Qing Kingdom or other nations. Only the leftovers were sold to the people of Xiang Prefecture, and at higher prices than those charged elsewhere."
"At this point, others would surely ask why the people of Xiang Prefecture did not buy goods from elsewhere. But you must already know the reason: the Qing Kingdom established the Xiang Prefecture Association. It decides which goods may enter or leave, and the prefectural authorities have no power to regulate it. Its members are all major trading