These landowners returned home happily, ready to pack up their money and run away at any time, but within two hours they received news one after another.
"The Yanzhou government issued another announcement: Recently, the Beihu cavalry raided Yanzhou, and Yanzhou implemented a city closure and curfew. Then... the price of food was reduced to twenty coins and one stone!"
"impossible!"
Duanmuxian, who was the first to return home, jumped up in shock before his butt got hot from sitting.
On behalf of the Duanmu family, he just sold all 500,000 acres of fertile land to Liang Xiao, but the price of rice will be lowered?
“There isn’t much food left in Yanzhou, so why did he lower the price of rice to twenty cents??”
Everyone outside the Prefect's Mansion couldn't believe the price.
Especially the rice merchant Gong Ping and others who are preparing to make a fortune.
They were hoarding money a while ago and refused Liang Xiao's purchase price of 60 cents. They just waited for the price of food to soar so that they could earn several times the profit.
When the price of grain was one hundred and fifty cents per stone, the people in the city relied on the government to distribute rations, and no one bought their rice for the time being.
But they believed that unless the imperial court shipped food, the entire Yanzhou would never be able to survive for three months even if it was frugal.
Just 400,000 stones of raw food.
A family of five consumes at least one and a half kilograms of raw grain in a month.
There are about 100,000 households in Yanzhou.
Liang Xiao also has 10,000 Liang family troops and 5,000 candidates under his name, and he is also a big food farmer.
Food is limited, which means that if armies from other regions want to mobilize troops here, they need to bring more food and grass themselves, or they will not mobilize troops at all.
The food Liang Xiao has on hand will definitely not be able to support Yanzhou for three months, or even two months!
This is a fact that even the Higashino family does not deny.
"Wait! He said he wanted to close the city??"
Duanmuxian's eyes fell on the notice and he was furious.
He has been involved in officialdom, so of course he is well versed in its ways.
Liang Xiao is in charge of Yanzhou. Once the city is closed, it will be a problem for them to get out, let alone bring rice out...
Dugu Chen, who was inciting scholars to protest in the academy, was also shocked when he heard the news.
"What does he mean? He wants to keep all the rice merchants in Yanzhou?"
For the first time in his life, Dugu Chen felt his scalp numb.
He instantly understood Liang Xiao's intention.
"This guy is so vicious..."
The rice merchants of the Dugu family have spent more than 80 cents per stone of rice. They are waiting for the soaring price of grain in Yanzhou to take advantage of the situation and completely crush the Yanzhou economy, making the people unable to make a living and losing money. tragedy.
After that, Beihu moved south, and the northern border was in danger. Even with Yanzhou as the starting point, it was not impossible for the entire territory to be lost!
In this way, they can put pressure on the empress, attack Liang Xiao and Zhuge Hui, and regain power.
After all, their food purchase was legal and reasonable, and Duan Yunyi couldn't do anything about them.
Zhuge Hui, who is over seventy years old, does not have that much energy to deal with them.
But now, Liang Xiao used what they considered extremely rogue methods.
It can also be legal, reasonable, and high-sounding...
Duanmuyan in Duguchen's arms also became anxious: "Brother Dugu, what should we do? Can you spend time with him?"
Hearing this, Dugu Chen said with a gloomy face: "Of course I have to accompany him to see how long he can hold on! I don't believe that the imperial court will send food thousands of miles from all over the capital at any cost. The cost has already exceeded 250 Wen. One stone!"
Duanmuyan gritted his teeth and said: "Then we must gather all the rice merchants and insist together that we will never sell at a lower price. The price of grain must be at least one hundred and fifty coppers and one stone, and my father will be satisfied!"
Duguchen summoned many rice merchants who came to the city overnight to discuss the matter.
"Twenty coins and one stone? Liang Xiao deceived us into bringing food back to Yanzhou. This is too much!"
These rice merchants were furious and selectively ignored that they were maliciously sweeping away Yanzhou's remaining grain.
The Yanzhou garrison received Liang Xiao's order. Although the garrison was confused, he still obeyed the military order and sealed off the entire county.
Even the first batch of Liang Jiajun sent a thousand people to patrol around and strictly prohibited the rice merchants from evacuating.
But no rice merchants evacuated...
In the courtyard of the Prefect's Mansion, Liang Xiao was telling Jiang Fuxue, Mu Qinxue, and Gongsun Yue the story of "The List of Gods". He couldn't help laughing after receiving Lei Hong's report.
"I seem to have overestimated the determination of this group of rice merchants. If they evacuate Yanzhou, the round-trip freight will be another expense. Wouldn't the cost rise to one hundred yuan and one stone!"
Gongsun Yue quickly reminded: "I sold my family's food to you, but you promised me that you would not expose my family..."
Liang Xiao nodded seriously.
He already knew that Gongsun Yue collected food first, and Duan Yunyi made arrangements later.
Without Duan Yunyi's arrangements, Gongsun Yue would have raised two to three hundred thousand stones at most and then stopped.
Gongsun Yue supported the prefect's mansion with one million stones of food. If those big families knew about it, it would be enough to make them hate him.
Seeing Liang Xiao happy and relaxed, Mu Qinxue couldn't help but feel good.
He's been laying it out for so long, and it seems it's time to close it?
Those aristocratic rice merchants deserve it!
"The reason why they withdrew the food from Yanzhou is because they didn't want the people of Yanzhou to know that there was still a lot of food in Yanzhou. It was a shame. It's a pity that they had all their plans and didn't expect that my brother had thought further than them." Jiang Fu Xue put it bluntly.
Gongsun Yue could only feel happy.
Fortunately, the "ethnic citizen" reminded her early to lay out Yanzhou with grain.
Otherwise, she would never have imagined this.
Food, which costs seventy cents per kilo, is really not expensive. It's just that prices in Youzhou are relatively low.
In a bad harvest year, it is not uncommon for grain prices to exceed one hundred cents per stone.
These grains will be thrown into a tug-of-war between Liang Xiao and this group of rice merchants to see who can't hold on first.
Even if the rice merchant collapses first, the grain she sold to Liang Xiao can be stored as military rations, which is foolproof.
But businessmen cannot afford to be too early if they are not profitable.
"Rice merchants in areas other than Yanzhou have recently learned that the price of rice in Yanzhou has soared, and they must be on their way to transport grain to Yanzhou. You won't even need to lower the price. In order to sell the grain quickly, they will rush to lower the price themselves. ..." Gongsun Yue silently stared at Liang Xiao, who was telling a story, with complicated eyes.
Liang Xiao also took the opportunity to annex millions of acres of farmland from large and small landlords in Yanzhou...
Most of the rice merchants, landowners and academy scholars were from those big families.
Once these aristocratic families find out, each family has been cheated out of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver by Liang Xiao...
"Recently, Dugu Chen and his gang have been slandering you in the academy. Do you care?"
Liang Xiao then stopped and said with a smile: "Don't you know what 'catching them all' means?"
The three girls were stunned: What "bad idea" is this guy thinking of...
Liang Xiao continued: "Under my rule, Liang Xiao, the pen dominates the discourse. If I want to play, it is up to me to play. Their method does not work for me! As for those landlords, they are the Great Zhou moths. Zhou almost does a lot of harm but does no good, so what if I trick them to death?"
Mu Qinxue raised her eyebrows.
"You can distribute newspapers, but they can only copy some content by hand and spread it around. The efficiency is far less than yours."
"And my brother has solved the famine and public security problems for the people, so the people naturally trust me more~" Jiang Fuxue couldn't help but be proud.
Liang Xiao smiled mysteriously: "It's not just about famine and public security issues. The purchase of these millions of acres of farmland by Your Majesty and me is the key to my coming to Yanzhou. In a few months, those big families will lose all their influence in Yanzhou force!"
