"I wonder if the Grand Vizier is here, but I am not welcomed from afar!"
Here at Tianjin Ocean Trading Company, Qiu Jun, the general manager of the branch, welcomed Ibrahim's arrival with a smile on his face.
"Mr. Qiu, I came here this time to inquire about food."
As soon as Ibrahim sat down, he quickly asked about the food.
"It seems that the Prime Minister has also received the news."
"That's right, our Emperor of Heaven has now issued an edict and begun to strictly restrict the export of grain. Our trading company has also officially received the order from the imperial court, so from now on, I am afraid that our trading company will not be able to be the same as before.
, I have sold grain to you on a large scale."
When Qiu Jun heard this, he was slightly surprised. This Ibrahim was very well-informed and he knew the news very quickly.
"Is there really no way?"
"Don't you have a lot of food in your hands?"
When Ibrahim heard this, he immediately frowned. This Ming man was really fast. With telegrams and telephones, the news was quickly spread from the mainland of the Ming Empire to here.
"Our trading company has a lot of grain in hand, but we don't have an export license now, so we can't export a large amount of grain to you."
Qiu Jun nodded and said: "You also know that the background of our trading company means that we must fully comply with the will of the Ming Empire to do things."
"Besides, our firm has never made money from this grain. Our firm has always been losing money in the sale of grain."
"The main purpose is to sell the grain in the hands of farmers in our Ming Empire, so even if it is a loss-making transaction, our business must do it."
"Now that the imperial court restricts us from exporting grain, it is actually a good thing for our business, because we no longer have to make losses in this area, and we no longer have to waste a large number of ships transporting grain."
Qiu Jun's face was filled with a smile. Selling and buying grain was a task assigned by his superiors.
If it weren't for the imperial court's order, Tianjin Ocean Trading House wouldn't have been doing this loss-making business.
Of course, Qiu Jun is a small manager, and of course he doesn't know Liu Jin's situation. He used to lose money, but now, he can make back all the money he should have made in the past few years in one year.
"If you don't sell food, what will we eat?"
"It's easy to say that if you don't sell it, you won't sell it. Isn't this a scam?"
When Ibrahim heard this, he immediately said with great anger.
The Ming people are really cheating. They have always used extremely cheap food to attack the agriculture of the Ottoman Empire. If it weren't for the Ming people's cheap food, the Ottoman Empire would at least still have its own agriculture. Maybe the output would be reduced in the year of famine, but it would not be
It's said to be completely useless.
Compared with natural disasters, man-made disasters are more terrifying.
Because of the impact of cheap food from the Ming Empire, there were very few people growing food in the entire Ottoman Empire. Everyone raised sheep and grew cotton because it was more profitable.
Now the people of Ming Dynasty say they won't sell it unless they sell it. This is directly forcing the Ottoman Empire to die.
"Master Prime Minister, there is nothing I can do."
Qiu Jun said helplessly.
"I know~"
Ibrahim calmed down the anger in his heart, thought for a while and said: "I wonder if you have any channels to continue to purchase grain on a large scale. The price is easy to negotiate, and we are willing to pay more."
"Prime Minister, there is really nothing I can do about it. The emperor's will must be obeyed. Our Tianjin Trading Company will never do anything illegal."
Qiu Jun shook his head and said.
You have to pay some extra money, and after a while, you will have no food to eat. Even if it is ten times the price, you will still have to eat and buy it.
In this year of famine, if you still want to eat cheap food as before, just dream.
Ibrahim didn't get the answer he wanted from Qiu Jun. Then he visited some other well-known trading houses in the Ming Dynasty. He also contacted Ningguo, Western United Trading Company, South African Colony and other large grain producers, hoping to buy from them.
food.
But the responses they received were all the same, that is, they may not even have enough food in their hands to eat, so now there is no excess food for export.
Soon, as the Ming Empire officially issued an order to strictly restrict grain exports, the news quickly spread around the world.
Without the continuous input of grain from the Ming Empire, large-scale and widespread grain shortages soon began to occur all over the world.
At the grain store in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, the owner of the grain store was the first to receive the news, and he immediately chose to hoard the food in his hands.
At the same time, the price of grain was also directly raised ten times. Originally, one Akchi silver coin could buy almost 10 kilograms of grain. Now it has risen directly to the point where one Akchi silver coin can only buy one kilogram of grain. The price has risen tenfold.
times.
The price of food increased tenfold overnight, and these Jewish food merchants were still hoarding it. Even if the price was ten times higher, they still only sold a small amount and hoarded most of the food in their hands.
Because after comprehensive analysis from all aspects, they believe that the Ming Empire may restrict the export of grain for a long time to come, and the grain in their hands will become more valuable than gold.
The sharp increase in food prices immediately aroused strong dissatisfaction among the citizens of Istanbul. A large number of people came to buy food at the entrance of the food store.
They were very dissatisfied with the expensive grain. What was even more dissatisfied was that these grain stores were obviously full of grain, but they had signs saying grain was sold out at the door, and they were hiding the grain and not selling it.
The angry crowd kept roaring, and then someone said that the Ming Empire restricted food exports. Suddenly, people began to panic, especially those who had no food at home, and they were even more worried about starving themselves.
things.
All of a sudden, the angry citizens rushed directly into the grain store and started grabbing food. Some people took the lead, and others followed suit. In the blink of an eye, the food store everywhere became extremely chaotic.
This chaos quickly spread from Istanbul to the entire Ottoman Empire. The Ming Empire cut off the import of food, and the entire Ottoman Empire quickly fell into a food shortage.
Businessmen holding grain in their hands are hoarding it and seizing the opportunity to quickly drive up the price of grain. It is very common for grain prices to skyrocket tenfold or dozens of times overnight.
People who were unable to buy food and were going hungry began to panic, and incidents of snatching and stealing food quickly increased. It was as if the public order had been completely destroyed overnight.
The more convenient transportation and developed commerce and trade are in cities and regions, the more obvious this situation is. On the contrary, in some remote rural areas, these places still retain a large number of food growing habits and have a lot of food reserves. In addition,
In rural areas, you can always find food, so the situation is not very serious.
But this situation did not last long.
Because of this year's dry weather, there are also problems with food cultivation in parts of the Ottoman Empire itself. It is very common for drought to reduce production.
During this lean period, food reserves had bottomed out, and soon the cities of the Ottoman Empire began to fall into food shortages.
Of course, at this moment, it is not just the Ottoman Empire, but also Persia, Egypt, Europe and other places.
Here is the city of Tabriz, the capital of the Persian Empire.
Similarly, without the food input from the Ming Empire, the city of Tabriz also quickly experienced a food shortage. The merchants were well-informed and instinctively began to hoard food and drive up food prices. Overnight, the price of food soared more than ten times, and tens of times.
times.
This made the citizens of Tabriz very angry, and the situation quickly reached Ismail I. After learning the news, Ismail I quickly began to take over the supply of food.
But it was soon discovered that even if all the grain in the hands of merchants was taken out, the Persian Empire might not be able to hold on for long, because it had always been heavily dependent on the Ming Empire's grain imports.
In addition, this year's special drought has greatly affected Persia's own food cultivation, and its output will drop significantly. This means that from now until the new grain is produced next year, the entire Persian Empire will suffer from food shortages.
Suddenly, the entire Persian Empire fell into endless panic. If there is no food, we don’t know how many people will starve to death by then, and we don’t know how many problems will arise in the entire Persian Empire.
The entire Persian Empire would become extremely turbulent as a result.
You must know that it is not just people in the East who will rebel when they cannot survive. It is the same everywhere. If they cannot survive, they will rebel.
If there is no food to eat, people will do anything. After all, they all have to survive.
In Europe, in the palace of the Spanish Empire, Charles V was also worried about food.
"Your Majesty, since the Ming Empire issued an order restricting grain exports, our Spanish grain has soared more than ten times overnight, and a large number of merchants and nobles have begun to hoard grain, causing the grain on the market to suddenly become extremely tight.
There was a large-scale food shortage, which in turn triggered riots and unrest in the city, and all kinds of bandits and thieves emerged one after another."
Pelos reported to Charles V with a solemn expression.
“What about the food we grow ourselves?”
Charles V frowned. He was preparing to launch a large-scale attack on many states of the Holy Roman Empire. Unexpectedly, at this juncture, there was a food shortage. The Ming Empire suddenly stopped exporting food to itself.
"Your Majesty, the area we grow our own grain is not large, and we have suffered from severe floods this year. The reduction in grain production will be extremely serious, so relying on my own grain is simply not enough. We must import grain from the Ming Empire.
