After entering the Kaibao Year, Tokyo's annual input of various grain materials from outside has basically stabilized at around 7 million shi, and even if it fluctuates, it will not change much. In his early years, Emperor Liu suffered from food shortage, so he developed the habit of storing food.
Throughout the Gyeonggi region, the imperial court always maintained a grain reserve of about 20 million dan in the large and small warehouses distributed at various ferries and transportation thoroughfares. This quantity is not small and can satisfy the people of Gyeonggi Province for at least three years, but in fact it will take longer.
According to Emperor Liu's original plan, it was required to store it for at least ten years for state use, and he was working on this goal for a while. However, he later found that the management costs were a bit high, so he had to lower the requirement. At the same time, it was also allocated from the official warehouse every year. Food is put into the market for renewal.
Therefore, with the resources in the hands of the imperial court, no matter how high food prices are, they can stabilize and adjust them at any time. This is the reason why they have been sitting back and watching the rise in food prices.
Since April, in Tokyo alone, the imperial court has put two million stones of rice, millet, wheat and other food supplies on the market in batches. The effect achieved was immediate. The price of food, which had been flying over the heads of the people of Tokyo for several months, was suddenly suppressed, like mercury falling to the ground. Within half a month, it dropped from sixty cents to thirty-one cents.
However, under the deliberate control of the imperial court, it could no longer be lowered. Obviously, thirty cents was the food price that the imperial court considered appropriate. For most people in Tokyo, this is still a high price. After all, it has nearly doubled compared to the original price, but compared with 60 cents, it does not seem so unacceptable.
But no matter what, after the imperial court took the initiative to calm down the situation, the people's plight in Tokyo was finally alleviated. The people of the Han Dynasty, whether they are ordinary people in the market or small people in the countryside, have always been docile and easy to look forward to the harvest. As long as they can survive, they can get by. As long as they are not forced to a desperate situation, there will be no big disaster. question.
In this wave of skyrocketing food prices, the people represented by the two capitals are naturally suffering, but for farmers all over the world, it is nothing less than a blessing. At least, in the past six months, the same More food can be exchanged for more money. Under this premise, their lives can indeed be improved. With less food to cover taxes, more will naturally be used for livelihood.
However, in this trend, it is obviously not the peasants who have grabbed the vast majority of the profits, but the exploiting classes such as the nobles, bureaucrats, and merchants who are weighing on them.
At least those businessmen engaged in grain trade, transportation and related industries had a good meal and made a lot of money. In the past twenty years, Han Dynasty's commerce has become increasingly developed, but the status of merchants has not been substantially improved. In addition, the court harvests and squeezes from time to time, which also makes many merchants have to add more while working hard to make profits. Be very careful.
Of course, this part mainly refers to those famous and wealthy merchants, and ordinary small businessmen and hawkers cannot attract attention. No matter how big or small businessmen are, in some industries, they pay great attention to their goodwill and behavior.
Especially in a business like food, which is related to the national economy and people's livelihood, few people dare to mess around. After all, there are too many people watching from top to bottom in the court, not to mention the Wude Department, the Imperial City Department, various government agencies, and even the Ducha The imperial censors of the hospital would always give advice and hammer out any opportunity they had. As for the grain merchants of the Han Dynasty, they were able to be so well-behaved because of the harsh punishment methods of the imperial court. They had to be a little less greedy. In Tokyo alone, some people were arrested, ransacked their homes, and executed for expropriating people's livelihood supplies in the past. There are hundreds of merchants.
But this time it was different. The court's relaxed and even indulgent attitude was almost obvious and difficult for ordinary people to detect. How could those businessmen who were immersed in it not know about it.
Although it can't be said that they were "ordered to raise prices," grain merchants in Tokyo, big and small, took advantage of this opportunity to boldly raise prices. Otherwise, with the normal supply of food materials on the Tokyo market, even if objective factors such as war and production reduction occur, it is impossible to show a skyrocketing trend.
For a long time, under the suppression of the imperial court, low grain prices have allowed many grain and oil merchants to gain little benefit. Even those large grain merchants can only survive due to their scale.
The meager profits once caused a large number of grain merchants to change careers. The increase of five cents per bucket of rice in the past twenty years was also to increase the enthusiasm of grain merchants, and the relaxation was just adopted.
However, no matter how hard it was suppressed in the past, it would be crazy when it was released. The changes in food prices in the past six months have already proved this. The court's intentional indulgence, coupled with the crazy profiteering of the gluttons in the profit chain, jointly triggered this "grain price breakthrough".
Of course, food prices are only one aspect, and are accompanied by rising prices of various daily necessities, such as oil, salt, sauce and vinegar. Compared with the rise in food prices, the performance of salt prices is more significant.
By April of the 22nd year of Kaibao, the price of salt in Tokyo had climbed to 95 cents per bucket. Unlike the subsequent suppression of grain prices, after the rise in salt prices, there seemed to be no intention of falling.
In the mid-Tang Dynasty, there was a saying that half of the world's financial and tax benefits were derived from salt. But now, the Han Dynasty has really begun to wield the sickle and ruthlessly reap the benefits brought by salt affairs.
Due to these circumstances, a frenzy to buy supplies inevitably broke out in the Gyeonggi region. Although this put great pressure on the supply of supplies, it also allowed the court to recover a large amount of copper coins.
No matter how much noise there is, it will eventually subside. With the promulgation of the imperial court’s pricing guidance for various daily necessities, such a wave of price increases finally receded. After that, many people in Gyeonggi Province felt it firsthand. , the cost of living has risen sharply, especially for those small citizens, life has begun to become difficult.
This "price reform" was basically carried out under the leadership of the Political Affairs Hall and the Financial Secretary. Although Emperor Liu had always paid attention to it, he had never expressed his opinion and had always maintained a default attitude. He did not intervene from beginning to end and just let it go. They act.
When problems arise, solutions must be found, and new problems that arise in the process of solving old disadvantages can only be left for later. When considering the immediate advantages and disadvantages, we always choose to pursue advantages and avoid disadvantages, or adopt practices that bring greater benefits than disadvantages. This is what Emperor Liu has always advocated.
If it can be said that the prosperity of the Han Dynasty was based on a huge agricultural system in the past, and the imperial court maintained the prosperity of the Kaibao era by sucking the blood of farmers, then from now on, for a long time, the spearhead will be directed at the merchants and ordinary people in the cities. As well as small handicraftsmen, part of the pressure borne by farmers in the past will also be transferred to urban people.
