Dear mother, how did we become the leaders?! How did we become the chickens that killed the chickens to scare the monkeys?!
Shopkeeper Tai and Shopkeeper Lu were so frightened that they collapsed on the ground, cowering in fear. There was no trace of blood on their faces. The cold sweat on their foreheads couldn't stop flowing down, and their fat bodies couldn't stop trembling like chaff.
Shivering, as if being electrocuted at the same time.
In the eyes of Shopkeeper Tai and Shopkeeper Lu, the smile on the guard's face next to them was like the smile on the prisoner's face when he gave the prisoner his last meal, which was eerie and terrifying.
A gust of breeze blew past, like a ghost howling. The clear sky suddenly turned dark, and the surrounding air seemed to turn into a bloody mouth, swallowing the two people alive.
There is no rain in the clear sky, but the rain is dripping on two people's crotches!
God knows how Shopkeeper Tai and Shopkeeper Lu got to the county government office, even they themselves can't remember.
When they arrived at the gate of the county government office, their minds went blank. When they stepped across the threshold of the county government office like zombies, they stumbled and almost fell to the ground.
"Mr. Lu, Mr. Tai, please come here. Please wait inside for a moment. The county magistrate will come after handling official business."
The officer made an inviting gesture and led the two of them to a cell on the left side of the county government office.
"Hey, there's work, there's work..."
Shopkeepers Tai and Lu held their fists tremblingly as they thanked them, their voices trembling.
Shopkeepers Tai and Lu looked up at the squad room in front of them. In their eyes, the squad room seemed to suddenly come to life and turned into a black, crouching evil ghost with grinning teeth. The two doors were its bloody mouth.
The kind that has no way out!
"please."
The guard stood at the door and made an inviting gesture to watch the two of them enter the squad room.
"Hey..."
Shopkeepers Tai and Lu opened the door of the squad room with trembling hands under the watchful eyes of the guards.
I'm going to die, I'm going to die...
Shopkeepers Tai and Lu were trembling all over, and walked in with the mentality of stepping into the execution ground.
The sun was shining brightly outside, but the room was a little darker. The light difference between the inside and outside was so great that the two of them seemed to be blind the moment they entered.
"Hey, aren't these Shopkeeper Tai and Shopkeeper Lu? They're all here now. Come on, sit here."
As soon as the two entered the door, they heard a familiar voice before they could adjust to the light difference.
"Old Xing?!"
Shopkeepers Tai and Lu immediately recognized the owner of the voice and spoke in surprise.
Lao Xing is another grain merchant in the county, but he is not on the same street as them. Due to the long distance, the three companies do not have a direct competitive relationship, and their relationship is relatively good.
Lao Xing is here too?!
And what does Lao Xing mean when he says "everyone is here"?! It means there are other people in this room?!
In an instant, thousands of thoughts and emotions came to the minds of Shopkeeper Tai and Shopkeeper Lu. They hurriedly stretched out their hands to rub their eyes, adapted to the light difference in the room, and looked up to see a group of people sitting in the room.
, the one at the front is Lao Xing who just spoke.
Behind Lao Xing, there were more than thirty people sitting, and they all looked familiar. These thirty people were all grain merchants in the county, some from the county, and a few from the town below.
The two took a quick glance and found that basically all the grain merchants in Jingnan County were gathered in this room, including the shopkeepers of the three largest grain merchants in the county.
It turns out that all the grain merchants in the county have been invited! It’s impossible for the county magistrate to kill them all, right?!
So, in this way, we are not the sheep that stand out and the chickens that were killed to scare the monkeys?!
Shopkeeper Tai and Shopkeeper Lu looked at each other with surprise and a feeling of escaping from death.
"Hehehehe, everyone is here. I, Lao Tai/Lao Lu, are late. I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Shopkeepers Tai and Lu clasped their fists at the grain merchants and finally laughed again.
"Hahahaha, Shopkeeper Tai, Shopkeeper Lu, look at how bad you two were just now, if you didn't know better, you would have thought you were going to the execution ground."
Among the grain merchants, there was a shopkeeper named Han, who was an old acquaintance of the two of them, and said with a smile.
"Come on, Old Han, you were no better than the two of them when you came in. When a crow falls on a pig, no one can blame the other."
As soon as Shopkeeper Han finished speaking, other grain merchants laughed at him in the same tone.
Ha ha ha ha……
There was a burst of laughter in the room, and the atmosphere suddenly became cheerful.
Except for the seven or eight grain merchants who are close to each other in Xifang of the county, when they first received the notification from the county officials about the invitation, they all thought that they had been chosen to be the leading sheep, to scare the monkeys and chickens, and they were in panic all day long.
After meeting other grain merchants in the wooden house, they breathed a sigh of relief and cleared away the gloom. It was impossible for the county magistrate to drive out all the grain merchants.
"You said, why did the county magistrate invite us here?"
Shopkeeper Liu of Fushu Grain Store was a cautious person. He first stood on a chair and looked out the window, then lay at the door and listened for a while. After making sure that no one was outside, he said to everyone.
"Aren't you squatting in a latrine and asking about smells and smells, even though you know what's going on? What else do you think you should do at this stall, and it's not just about the price of food!" Shopkeeper Han rolled his eyes and said angrily.
"The county magistrate invited us here to bring down the price of grain!" Several grain dealers present replied without thinking.
"You said that if the county magistrate comes later and asks us to lower the price of food, what will we do?" Shopkeeper Liu asked.
"How much? Now the food price is rising three times a day. Based on the external food price, we can reduce the price of grain by three or five cents per stone. It will not work if it drops much! It is becoming more and more difficult for us to purchase food these days.
It is difficult to buy food in the south of the Yangtze River. You can only go to Bashu in the west or Shandong in the north to buy food. Not only the distance is long, but the local food has also increased due to the wind. People eat horse chews along the way. Plus the freight is a lot of money.
Big money, and there is no peace of mind on the road. Our manager was robbed yesterday when he came back. A group of bandits who looked like refugees came roaring in. If it weren't for the accompanying guards who worked hard, the food that had been transported so hard would not have been saved... The cost
If the price is so high, how can we not raise the price?! If the price is lowered and there is no profit, why are we still doing this?!" said a shopkeeper present.
"No surrender?! Are you going to die? The beheadings of shopkeepers Mi and Wang in Taizhou Fucheng are a lesson to the past! In Taiping County, I heard that shopkeeper Zhang from Zhangji Grain Store was also arrested and said he would be arrested tomorrow at noon.
We are going to ask for execution! The same goes for Linhai County. Three grain dealers were arrested and sent to jail... We, the county magistrate, are polite before fighting. If we agree to lower the price, it will be easy to say. If we don't agree, I am afraid we will learn from the prefect's thunderbolt.
Means!" After hearing this, a shopkeeper next to him shook his head and smiled bitterly.
"Hmph! If we advance and retreat together and grit our teeth, I don't believe he can still kill them all! Now the court is obviously unable to rescue them. Without our grain merchants to transport grain, the people in the county will starve to death!" Shopkeeper Wang sneered.
He said that he was money-hungry and was unwilling to lower the price, even if the price of grain per stone dropped by three or five cents.
"How can we, with our flesh and blood, fight against the government?" the shopkeeper who just spoke said with a wry smile.
"Confrontation, why should we fight? If you don't keep me here, I will keep you! If you are forced to lower the price, then I will not sell grain in Jingnan. There are many places in Jiangnan where there are disasters. I will just sell it elsewhere."
A long, thin shopkeeper with a beard on his chin sneered.
He is one of the three largest grain merchants in the county. His name is Yang Zhen. He is the shopkeeper of Yangji Grain Store and the most influential grain merchant in Jingnan.
"Yes, what Shopkeeper Yang said makes sense. The bustle of the world is all for profit, and the bustle of the world is for profit! Why do we work so hard to transport food, other than to make money. If he forces a price reduction, we will not
If you don't go against him, you won't be caught and have your head chopped off. If you don't want to keep me here, I will have my own place!" Hearing this, many grain merchants' eyes lit up and they agreed.