In Liu Jin's courtyard, Liu Jin was listening to Tong Yuan's report on the situation in the capital.
"Teacher, the price of grain here in the capital seems to be almost unstable. Some grain merchants are already quietly lowering prices. It seems that it is almost unbearable."
Tong Yuan told Liu Jin with a smile on his face that he was paying attention to the price of food in the capital every day, and he had been spreading rumors about large-scale food purchases.
"In the past, even if I was willing to pay a high price to purchase grain, these grain merchants were unwilling to sell to me. Now some of them have contacted me quietly and are willing to sell grain to me on a large scale at a price of 100 cents per catty.
It seems like everyone is really anxious."
"Of course they are anxious. The cost of these grains is at least more than ten cents per catty. Especially the grains they eat later from the south are high in price and large in quantity, which makes their overall costs rise sharply."
"Calculating the time, the grain transported by the imperial court from the south will arrive in the capital in about half a month. Once this grain arrives in the capital, their doom will come."
"So now, they must find a way to sell all these grains, and they are definitely not an iron plate among themselves. None of these businessmen are fools, and they will definitely compete to sell the grains in their hands.
, no one will be so foolish as to wait until the end and throw these high-priced grains into their own hands."
When Liu Jin heard this, he couldn't help but laugh. This war without gunpowder was finally about to be won or lost. They wanted to use food as a weapon to achieve their goals, but in the end they lost to food.
Moreover, Liu Jin has already seen their tragic ending. Losing everything is not a big deal. What he really loses may be his own life, or even the fate of the entire family.
Emperor Hongzhi has still not issued an order to severely investigate and deal with these businessmen. It is obvious that he is playing a long-term game to catch the big fish. To Emperor Hongzhi, these businessmen are just small fish and shrimps, insignificant at all. The real opponent is the imperial court.
Above those who want to limit the imperial power and control the imperial power.
No emperor would tolerate anyone touching the imperial power, unless the emperor himself was a puppet. Obviously Emperor Hongzhi was not, and the real show would come later.
"Teacher, what should we do now?"
Tong Yuan also had a smile on his face. He liked mathematics and learned knowledge and content from Liu Jin that were not found in the Four Books and Five Classics. Now he seemed to understand the power of the economy and the power of the market.
"What do you think we should do now?"
Liu Jin looked at Tong Yuan and asked.
"I think at this time, we should increase the supply of marine fish to the capital."
"We have launched several fishing boats in the past few days, and together with the fishing boats returning from the sea, we have caught more than three million kilograms of marine fish every day. We can't finish all the marine fish and have dried it in the sun."
"As long as we supply another one million pounds of marine fish to the capital every day, they will definitely collapse immediately."
Tong Yuan thought for a while and replied.
"You are really talented in economics and mathematics. You will increase the supply of marine fish in the capital from tomorrow, but don't increase it too much all at once. You will increase the supply of marine fish by 200,000 kilograms a day and completely overwhelm the supply of marine fish in the capital.
Here comes the grain merchant."
After Liu Jin listened, he looked at Tong Yuan and couldn't help but admired that this was almost exactly what he thought.
At this time, what Liu Jin needs to do is very simple, which is to continuously increase the supply of marine fish and slowly overwhelm the grain merchants in the capital.
"yes!"
When Tong Yuan heard this, he nodded quickly.
…
In the capital, in a secret manor.
Hu Wanan no longer has the coolness and self-confidence of before, nor the elegance of strategizing and winning thousands of miles away. Since the news of what happened in the court a few days ago, his good days have come to an end.
Originally, in his imagination, the princes in the court would definitely unite to launch an attack, pointing their swords at sea fish, prohibiting sea fish from entering the capital, and strictly prohibiting fishing in the sea.
After all, the maritime ban is the foundation of the Ming Dynasty, and the influence of the Southern Scholars on the imperial court is unparalleled. Whether they are cabinet ministers, six ministers, ministers, etc., there are many big shots from the Southern Scholars.
In this regard, the interests of these scholars in the south are almost the same. They oppose the increase in commercial taxes and strictly enforce the maritime ban. This is a measure that is in line with the interests of the scholars in the south.
He believed that as long as the imperial court and all the princes in the country worked together, they could easily ban sea fish from entering Beijing and implement a more stringent sea ban policy. If fishing in the sea could not be carried out, everything in Tianjin would be in chaos.
The huge number of victims will starve if there is no sea fish. If some people are mixed in to fan the flames, Tianjin can easily become a huge powder keg and directly blow up Liu Jin, who dances the most happily.
of being shattered to pieces.
Without the sea fish, the millions of people in the capital and the gathered victims will still need the food in his hands to survive, and the ace weapon of food in his hands can still play a role in determining victory or defeat.
However, what happened above in the morning a few days ago was really unexpected.
Before the princes in the DPRK proposed a strict sea ban and banned fishing, Zhou Jing, the Minister of Household Affairs, proposed to fully lift the maritime ban. What was even more unexpected was that the princes in the DPRK finally agreed to allow fishing in coastal areas.
, and even used Tianjin as a pilot to fully lift the maritime ban.
As soon as this news came out, it was like a huge earthquake, completely disrupting all Hu Wanan's deployments and subsequent plans.
This means that not only Tianjin can go fishing in the sea, but the entire Daming coast can go fishing in the sea from now on. More importantly, it is legal for Tianjin to go to sea to do business. In the future, not only will those who enjoy the huge profits from sea trade
They are just big families and big businessmen in the south.
The big families and big businessmen in the north can also enjoy the huge profits from sea trade. In the past few days, there are countless wealthy families and big businessmen in the north running to Tianjin, preparing to make arrangements in advance.
"I lost, this time I lost completely."
Hu Wanan was walking around in his room. He had been thinking hard about countermeasures for the past few days, but after much thought, he couldn't think of any good solution.
He clearly realized that this time, he lost miserably, miserably, and more importantly, he still hasn't figured out where he lost until now.
Everything was going according to his plan, and victory seemed to be within his grasp, but the situation suddenly took a turn for the worse, as if everything collapsed at once.
He clearly felt that there was an extremely clever person controlling everything behind this. All of his plans were seen through by the other party, and they were planned accordingly in advance. Once he made a move, he had no backhand power at all.
"Master, Master~"
While Hu Wan'an was thinking hard about countermeasures, housekeeper Hu Yining hurried over.
"What's up?"
Hu Wanan asked quickly.
"Others have lowered their prices, and they started selling grain at lower prices regardless of the agreement."
Hu Yining looked very lively.
This time, the Hu family took the lead and brought many grain merchants and salt merchants together to make a plan. Everyone's original agreement was to listen to Hu Wanan's command, make a fortune together, and slaughter a super fat sheep together.
Now other grain merchants and salt merchants have begun to sell grain at lower prices without permission from Hu Wanan. How can Hu Yining not be angry?
"Have you started selling grain at a lower price?"
Hu Wanan looked very calm, as if he had already expected this.
Because he knows very well how much grain they hold in their hands now. The grain in the two official warehouses of Linqing warehouse and Dezhou warehouse is in their hands.
Since the famine, all the food shipped from the south to the north for sale has been eaten up by them at high prices. In addition, they already have a huge amount of food in their hands. It can be said that almost all the food in the three northern provinces is in their hands.
Holding a huge amount of grain, more importantly, the cost of these grains is too high.
Getting grain from Dezhou Warehouse and Linqing Warehouse cost millions of taels of silver. From the filial piety of the princes in the court to the officials and petty officials who managed the two warehouses, none of them were necessary.
It needs to be managed and unblocked. Some require tens of thousands of taels of silver, while others require several hundred taels of silver.
When there is a famine in the north, grain merchants in the south will naturally transport a steady stream of grain to the north. In times of famine, the price of grain is already high. If you want to eat this grain, the price will be very high, even more expensive than usual.
Several times, you still need to be familiar with it, otherwise the other party may not sell to you.
Because if they sell this grain themselves, they can definitely sell it at a higher price, but if they sell it to people like Hu Wanan, the price will definitely be lower.
The greatest investment is in eating food from the south. As soon as news of the famine comes out, profit-seeking businessmen will naturally swarm in like sharks smelling the smell of blood.
Although the power and influence of Huizhou merchants and salt merchants was huge, they could not control all merchants in the entire Ming Dynasty. There were many merchants who did not favor them, especially those in Huguang, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Henan, Shanxi, etc. to the west of the Ming Dynasty.
, the merchants in the north don't care whether they are Huizhou merchants or salt merchants, they only care about money.
In order to eat the food from the south, people like Hu Wanan spent millions of taels of money, because no matter how much food came in, they had to eat it. Only in this way can a situation of control be formed.
"I can't stand it anymore, so I don't blame them."
Hu Wanan didn't mean to blame anyone else, because he knew that everyone could no longer bear it. Once the disaster relief food from the court arrived, everyone would be doomed.
"Pass me an order to take out all our food and sell it at a reduced price. We will also sell it for one penny per catty. At this time, money is no longer as important as life."