Your Majesty, the princess is fleeing famine with her child!

Chapter 344 Smallpox

Anyone who received Yun Fuling's post arrived as promised.

After Yun Fuling explained what a franchise store was, some people became cautious and wanted to back out because of this store opening model they had never heard of before.

After all, people are always afraid of unknown things.

But there are also some brave ones with a bit of adventurous spirit in their bones, who are very interested in the franchise stores that Yun Fuling mentioned.

The franchise store model proposed by Yun Fuling screened out some people first.

Once the joining fee of 50,000 taels of silver was paid, some people were screened out.

At the end of the conversation, only two people were left.

One of these two people is the Princess of Laiyang County, and the other is Princess Qiongyu.

Yun Fuling had no intention of becoming a big shot in one go, and she did not plan to open too many franchise stores in the beginning, so it was better to proceed step by step.

This result is just right now.

The capital city is the most prosperous capital of the Great Qi Dynasty, with a large population. Opening three cake branches can almost cover all the customers in the capital city.

The shop that Yun Fuling chose happened to be in the east of the city.

This store is operated as the head office.

The franchise stores of Princess Laiyang and Princess Qiongyu are located in the west and north of the city respectively.

As for the south of the city, most of the residents there are poor people from the lower class, and it is like a slum. The target customers of the cake shop are not this kind of people.

If a cake shop is opened in the south of the city, its business will certainly not be as good as that in the east and other three places.

Therefore, Yun Fuling ruled out the location in the south of the city from the very beginning.

After reaching an agreement with Princess Laiyang and Princess Qiongyu about the franchise store and signing the contract, Yun Fuling began to prepare intensively for the store opening.

Renovate shops, train employees...

Everything was going according to her plan.

At this moment, an urgent secret letter with a journey of eight hundred miles was delivered to the Zichen Palace.

After Jing** opened the letter and read it, his expression changed drastically!

He staggered and almost fell down.

"Your Majesty!" Eunuch Gao hurried forward to support the man.

Jing** held the letter in his hand and said in a hoarse voice: "Quick, summon the six ministries and nine officials to come and discuss the matter!"

"There are also several adult princes who have entered the court, including the eldest prince, the third prince, etc. They should all be summoned!"

The imperial court has not yet opened its seal, and except for those on duty, all other ministers are still on vacation.

Even Jing** has been concentrating on having fun and ignoring government affairs recently.

Now that the important officials of the six ministries have been summoned suddenly, even the eldest prince and others have been summoned, it is obvious that something big must have happened.

Eunuch Gao was startled and did not dare to delay any longer. He immediately asked the eunuchs waiting outside the hall to come out of the palace to summon him.

When the residences of important officials and princes in the capital heard the emperor's oral order to urgently summon them to the palace, although they did not know what had happened, they quickly changed into official uniforms and hurried to the palace.

Some adults met on the way and had a good relationship with each other, so they couldn't help but ask each other about things.

But after asking each other, they found that no one knew why Princess Jing urgently summoned them to the palace.

Everyone had no choice but to quickly head towards the Zichen Palace.

Once you meet His Majesty, everything will be clear.

The palaces of Xiao Jingyi and other princes are all located near the imperial city, so they arrived the fastest.

But after they arrived, Jing** didn't say anything and just asked them to wait.

After the summoned ministers arrived one after another, Jing ** spoke: "I just received an urgent report from the northern border that smallpox has appeared in Shuozhou, and nearly half of the people in the city have been infected."

"Even soldiers in the army were infected with smallpox."

"In addition, the Northern Barbarians and Western Rong are sending more troops to the border, intending to take advantage of the opportunity to start a war!"

As soon as these words were spoken, all the ministers and princes below changed color.

Shuozhou is a city located in the northernmost part of Daqi, bordering the Northern Barbarians.

Smallpox is a terminal disease that everyone is afraid of.

Wherever smallpox appears, the city will almost always become a deserted place.

At this time, the Northern Barbarians and Western Rong suddenly sent reinforcements to the border, probably because they had learned of the outbreak of smallpox in Shuozhou and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to gain some benefits.

After Jing** finished speaking, he signaled to Eunuch Gao, "Pass the urgent letter from the North to the ministers."

Eunuch Gao immediately held the letter and passed it around for everyone to read.

After everyone had seen it, Jing** sat on the dragon chair and looked at everyone and said, "Do you have any countermeasures?"

The eldest prince stepped out from the crowd and spoke first: "Father, in my opinion, the imperial doctors from the Imperial Hospital should be dispatched to Shuozhou to treat the smallpox patients."

"Otherwise, if smallpox is allowed to spread, I'm afraid the entire Shuozhou City's people, as well as the 100,000 soldiers in the northern border, will die from smallpox."

"By then, Shuozhou will be an empty city, and the northern border will be unguarded. I'm afraid the northern barbarian army will take advantage of the situation and march straight into the Central Plains."

"The Northern Barbarians and the Western Rong must have learned about the smallpox incident, so they secretly joined forces and sent more troops to the border."

"When the time comes, the Northern Barbarians and the Western Barbarians will simultaneously launch a war and lay claim to our Great Qi territory."

Before the eldest prince finished speaking, the third prince retorted: "Brother, that's easy to say. How do you treat a smallpox patient?"

"Smallpox has always been a stubborn disease that is difficult to cure."

"Anyone who gets it will die, and smallpox is contagious."

"Whenever smallpox appeared, the only solution was to seal off the city. Once all the people infected with smallpox died, smallpox would naturally disappear."

As soon as the Third Prince finished speaking, a minister objected, "No! Closing the city is not an option for Shuozhou!"

"Shuozhou not only has tens of thousands of civilians, but also hundreds of thousands of elite soldiers. If the court abandons them, won't it make the civilians and soldiers feel disheartened?"

"Besides, Shuozhou is a barrier in the north. Behind Shuozhou are plains, and there are no good defensive fortresses."

"If we allow Shuozhou to become an empty city, the Northern Barbarians will definitely march straight in from Shuozhou, and the Western Barbarians may even use this as a passage to invade our Daqi territory."

"Once Shuozhou is lost, the Central Plains will be in danger!"

The Third Prince curled his lips and disagreed, "Smallpox is spreading in Shuozhou now. Those Northern Barbarians and Western Rong people, who dare to risk their lives to get close to Shuozhou? Aren't they afraid of getting infected with smallpox?"

"The Northern Barbarians and the Western Rong have deployed their troops on the border. I think they are afraid of smallpox. They want to prevent people from getting smallpox from sneaking into their territory and infecting them with the disease."

"Even if Shuozhou becomes an empty city, with the threat of smallpox, I don't think those northern barbarians and western Rong people would dare to approach."

Having said this, the Third Prince turned to face Jing **, lowered his eyes and bowed, saying:

"Father, in my humble opinion, since smallpox has already appeared, we must make heroic efforts to preserve our strength."

"The 100,000 northern troops are all elite soldiers. It is not easy for the imperial court to train them. It would be a pity if they were all annihilated like this."

"It would be better to withdraw the soldiers who are not infected with smallpox to Pingcheng behind Shuozhou and retain the border troops."

"Seal off Shuozhou again, no one is allowed to enter or leave."