In Xiang Prefecture, one copper coin could buy only a vegetable bun. Even ordinary people might hesitate before buying one, wondering whether they should get two plain steamed buns instead.
But now, Void Sage Fang Yun's declaration of war, together with Prefectural Governor Dong Wencong's guidance for the Beginner Scholar Examination, cost only one copper coin. Even children of poor families who spent no more than three coins a day on food did not hesitate.
In Xiang Prefecture that day, the only thing spreading faster than a plague was news of where to buy the People's Gazette.
Not just scholars, but even ordinary people with no children at home clutched a copper coin and ran toward the nearest Literary Academy when they learned that Fang Yun had declared war on the Qing Kingdom.
All manner of bizarre scenes appeared across the prefecture. Beggars stopped begging, courtesans stopped singing for money, and students stopped attending classes. Everyone scrambled to buy the People's Gazette.
Booksellers normally sold books and newspapers, but that day, the bookshops at Literary Academies everywhere had already forbidden anyone from buying multiple copies of the People's Gazette. The booksellers could only abandon their own sales and dutifully queue up to buy a single copy-not to sell, but to keep and read themselves.
The Xiang Prefecture Gazette's supplement had sparked a scramble across the prefecture with a print run of just a hundred thousand copies. Yet the People's Gazette had been selling from morning until noon, and people were still lining up.
Baling City's printing workshops worked at full capacity. At first, six people handled sales at the bookshop, then twenty, and finally fifty people were selling the People's Gazette.
Fortunately, the officials had anticipated this scene before sales began. Every workshop had started printing the People's Gazette at