It's late at night, and the vast white Milky Way lies quietly in the night sky. The brilliant stars are flashing in the Milky Way, like countless beacon lights floating on the river. The frogs around are playing beautiful music.
Li Qi was half lying on a chair in the courtyard, but he couldn't bear to gaze at the beautiful and gorgeous night sky, because this night sky was the only place similar to the one in later generations. He didn't know why, but he felt particularly homesick tonight.
"Husband, what are you thinking about?"
Li Qi was startled for a moment, and when he looked back, he saw Yelv Guyu standing behind him wearing a light green gauze pajamas. His plump figure was looming, extremely attractive. He smiled and said, "It's Guyu. I'm just
I’m thinking about some things that happened today.”
Yelu Gu wanted to step forward and sit on the chair opposite him that was originally used to rest his feet. He asked curiously: "But that strange smell Xuan?"
Li Qi groaned and said in surprise: "You know?"
"Well, I heard what Ma Qiao said."
Li Qi snorted, nodded and said, "Yes."
Yelv Gu said eagerly: "That shop owner is really weird. He actually likes to cook with insects."
"If she's not weird, why would others call her Wei Shi Niang?" Li Qi chuckled and said seriously: "Actually, there is nothing wrong with using insects to cook. Grasshoppers, ants, and scorpions can be eaten as long as they are handled properly.
All insects are good for people, especially snails. Its benefits to the human body are no worse than those of abalone and ginseng. I used to have a chef friend who also loved eating bugs and made them very well. I went to his house once and he
So they entertained me with a feast of whole insects, and I remember that one of them was dried crickets, which were full of meat and tasted better than shrimps and dried fish, not to mention chicken and duck. It was an excellent appetizer and served with wine."
At this point, he suddenly sighed and said: "What she said is right. People in the world now love to eat mutton, river fresh food, and seafood. These foods are so expensive that ordinary people can't afford them.
Some people have never even eaten meat in their lives. If they can cook with these little bugs, the taste will be as good as any meat. Maybe the price of meat will drop accordingly, and grasshoppers and crickets can be dried.
Store it dry, and if famine suddenly strikes, you can use it to satisfy your hunger. It will last for a while, but at least you won’t go out to eat people—alas!”
In fact, compared to those snakes, insects and ants, what Li Qi remembered most was Liu Yunxi's statement that his relatives had been eaten.
Yelu Guyu frowned slightly and said softly: "When a person reaches a desperate situation, cannibalism is inevitable."
Li Qi raised his eyebrows and said, "Have you ever seen cannibalism?"
Yelv Guyu showed a bitter smile on his lips and said, "I've seen it before."
"Have you eaten it?" Li Qi asked in surprise.
Yelu Guyu shook his head and said: "I didn't, but--alas, when my father escaped from Yanyun, he took all the food with him. My soldiers and I were trapped in the valley by the Jin general Wanyan Zonghan.
During the battle, we had no food at all and the soldiers were very hungry. However, in order to leave the last food to me, they proposed to cook the prisoners and eat them. I was shocked when I heard this, but I finally agreed.
Later, after we were captured, Wanyan Zonghan, in order to retaliate against me, threw my soldiers one by one into the boiling boiler in front of me. I remember that he also told me at that time how many Jurchens the Khitans had killed.
, he wanted to pay back a hundred times. If we cooked a Jurchen alive, he would cook a hundred Khitan people alive, and he did it."
After she finished speaking, a layer of mist appeared in her eyes. If it were any other woman, she might have collapsed long ago. It is a miracle that she can survive to this day.
Li Qi felt his throat was a little clogged and his heart was full of mixed feelings. He sighed: "Yes! There is no difference between humans and wolves, tigers and leopards, and they are even more vicious. Maybe one day, I will become this executioner."
Yelv Gu said with desire: "The executioner is lucky, at least it is ten thousand times better than being eaten by a man."
Li Qi was startled, glanced at her, and asked: "If Wanyan Zonghan falls into your hands in the future, what will you do?"
Yelu Guyu opened his mouth slightly, but finally chose to remain silent.
However, her silence also made Li Qi remain silent for a long time. He looked up at the sky and murmured: "Food is the foundation of human beings. If there is food, who would go and eat people! In the final analysis, it is still food, food!"
On the second day, Li Qi held the Zhengmeng meeting in his own name for the first time. The matter of discussion was to lower the price of grain. He had no time to fight a protracted war with those grain merchants, so he proposed to other restaurants to repurchase the grain they had stolen.
At that time, everyone, including Fan Shaobai, thought Li Qi was crazy about his intention to reduce the price by five cents. You must know that today’s grain prices have fallen below two hundred cents. Even if they fall below one hundred and ninety cents, they will still be
If you surrender, you are really doing business with your life.
However, Li Qi once again used his outstanding eloquence to persuade other restaurants to accept his proposal and shoulder the debt with him.
These restaurant owners know very well that the lower the price of grain, the greater their profit margins. The temporary pain may be exchanged for good life in the next few years. Moreover, if those grain merchants are given relief, who can guarantee that
He said that these grain merchants would not retaliate against them and this deal would definitely be done.
Everything above is just warm-up, and the real food price war begins today.
Soon, food prices fell below the freezing point since Song Huizong took office.
For the common people, this is really a rainbow after the storm. A large amount of food floods into the market, and the price is so low that they can't believe their eyes. Nowadays, you can see people everywhere in the capital holding the food and going home happily.
.
This can also be said that when the snipe and the clam compete, the fisherman benefits, but it is also the people's turn to benefit.
In fact, those grain merchants have long discovered that the people who come to their stores to buy grain every day are people sent by major restaurants, and only a very small amount of grain flows into the hands of ordinary people. After all, those people are professional grain buyers. But they are eager to sell them.
They had to get rid of the extra food stored in their hands, so they didn't care about so much. At the same time, they were also very angry and united to fight to the end. They knew that as long as they could survive this period, the future still belonged to them. However, until
Only today did they understand that Li Qi did not intend to let it go, and because Li Qi was coming so fiercely, they had no choice but to close the grain store for the time being.
Less than a quarter of an hour after they locked them up, Li Qi also closed the grain purchase channels for everyone and returned to lottery to buy grain, in order to delay time, making it clear that he was targeting these big grain merchants. In addition, he released
According to the news, Zui Xianju is preparing to purchase grain from all over the country and bring it to Beijing for this autumn harvest.
At this time, the grain merchants were completely panicked. They began to understand that they were in an extremely embarrassing position, because every time the price of grain dropped by one penny, they would have to shed a layer of skin. This is their main business.
However, Li Qi's business is still making huge profits due to the drop in grain prices. Those restaurants that use the grain at the lowest price to make wine are not affected at all, but benefit from it. They don't make money from grain anyway.
.
Seeing that they could not defeat Li Qi and the others, those big grain merchants repeated their old tricks and began to put pressure on the court. But will the result this time be the same as before? If they knew the foreign policy recently decided by the court, maybe they would
I don’t think so anymore.
Bureau of Commerce.
Just as Li Qi was arranging tasks, his servants suddenly announced that Liang Shicheng and Tong Guan were here.
This was beyond Li Qi's expectation. The two eunuchs arrived at the same time, so he had to handle them carefully and quickly went out to greet them.
"Taiwei, the Prince of Guangyang County is here. Li Qiyou came from afar to greet you. Please forgive me, forgive me."
"Economic envoy, you're fine." Tong Guan said with a cupped hand.
In fact, in their eyes, Li Qi is now like a lunatic. This person is desperate to make money, and even more desperate to lose money!
The three of them chatted for a while, and then Li Qi invited them to sit down and asked, "I wonder what you have to do when you arrive suddenly?"
Liang Shicheng got straight to the point: "I've just told you to leave. In fact, we are here because of the recent food prices."
Li Qi's heart trembled and he asked: "The price of food?"
Tong Guan smiled softly and said: "You are so busy fighting among the people that you forget about it, but do you know that the harem is much more lively than the people at this time."
Li Qi frowned and said, "What does Prince Guangyang mean?"
Tong Guan said directly: "You don't know, right? Many grain merchants in our capital are relatives of the emperor." He is famous for his generosity and boldness, especially towards the concubines in the harem.
Therefore, the harem is his most solid backing. If something happened to those concubines, how could he stand by and watch.
Liang Shicheng said again: "Now that the price of food has dropped, should you stop it? It's not good after all."
It turned out that they were here to be lobbyists. Li Qi finally understood that it was Song Huizong's harem that was on fire. He also knew that all of the concubines were ruthless characters and were by no means easy to mess with, but he did not intend to do anything about it.
He took a step back and said: "Originally, the two of you came to plead for mercy in person. Li Qi could not say anything to make your trip in vain. However, you two also know the recent strategy of the imperial court. The price of food in our Song Dynasty is the key. If I just do this
If I give up, food prices will rise again within half a year, then my work will be in vain, and the new policies will not be effective."
Liang Shicheng and Tong Guan made eye contact. Liang Shicheng asked: "Then what are you going to do?"
Li Qi smiled and said: "I plan to help those grain merchants make more money. I also ask you two to go back and tell the emperor. Li Qi will definitely make it end to the satisfaction of all parties, including you two."
Both of them were stunned. Although they didn't know what Li Qi wanted to do, but after hearing what Li Qi said, they couldn't say more. Anyway, if something really happened, then it would be Li Qi's fault.
I had to bear it myself, so I made some inquiries as usual, and then went back to resume my duties.
But in this way, Song Huizong had to pay for Li Qi's behavior. In the past few days, he almost didn't go to the harem. He ran from the secret passage to Li Qi's place to hide from trouble every day. Among the three sentences, one of them must be a curse.
Li Qi's.
Even Liang Shicheng and Tong Guan failed to lobby successfully. Those grain merchants finally realized that Li Qi was completely crazy. How could a normal person engage in such a loss-making business? If you want to know how much grain Li Qi sells now, you have to accompany him.
How much, but the problem is, Li Qi will only be with him for a while, and his business is still not affected, but they will have a headache.
Now some people outside have begun to call Li Qi "Crazy Li".
Three more days later, seeing that Li Qi's "condition" had not improved, the grain merchants finally couldn't sit still, so they made an appointment to go to the Bureau of Commerce together, hoping that Li Qi would let them go. They were doing well now. If Li Qi really
They bought grain from outside and came to the capital to fight them to the death, but they couldn't afford it. Besides, they didn't dare to fight with this lunatic Li Qi anymore, so they lost in terms of momentum.
I didn't expect them to come so soon. I still have a lot of tricks I haven't used! When Li Qi saw these grain merchants coming to the door, he secretly laughed in his heart, but on the surface he was quite polite. He invited them to sit down, served tea, and
It was cakes, and the reception was very attentive. People talked about it all over the country, but they didn't mention the food.
Those grain merchants were not in the mood to listen to his bragging, but they wanted to ask for help, so they couldn't interrupt him, but the smiles on their faces looked a little stiff.
However, Li Qi became more and more excited as he talked. He walked around the hall and said, "That's right, everyone, I heard a very interesting thing recently. Do you know what it is? Haha, I guess you can't guess it.
That’s man eating man.”
Everyone felt nauseated immediately, and they all secretly thought that Madman Li Guo really lived up to his reputation. Who in the right mind would find cannibalism interesting?
Li Qi continued: "It happened in the south of the Yangtze River. At that time, there was a famine in the south of the Yangtze River and the Fang La uprising. The people were in dire straits. They had no food to eat, so they ate some bark and grass roots. Soon the bark and grass roots were all eaten. What the people were hungry for was their brains.
They were dizzy and wished they could eat their own flesh, but they didn’t have the guts to eat their own meat. They were anxious and wondered what to do. They could only eat other people, so many people began to plan to start a human flesh business. It is said that the strong men at that time had
Meat is even more expensive than pork, and many people can't afford it. So what should I do? Of course, it's better to find someone nearby to save effort. What about fathers and sons? I heard that even unborn babies are eaten.
."
"vomit!"
At this point, someone finally couldn't help it and vomited it out.
Li Qi ignored them and continued: "But what is the reason that makes our kind and honest people in the Song Dynasty embark on this path? Natural disasters are on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is [***]. At that time, it was really
Is there no food in the world? I don’t think so. Yes, of course there is, but it is very expensive. Isn’t the scarcity of things more valuable? It was a real opportunity to make a lot of money at that time. Think about it, the money in the hands of ordinary people could buy ten
There was so much rice in the sky, but at that time I could only buy rice for one meal. This was such a huge profit that I was drooling when I heard it. But Confucius had a saying, "Don't do to others what you don't want others to do to you." Today it is said
If he takes the blame, maybe it will be your turn tomorrow."
As he spoke, he suddenly pointed at Gu Yan, the proprietor of Gu's rice shop. The latter's face turned green with fright and he almost fell off his chair.
Li Qi sneered and said: "I didn't expect that you would be scared. I thought you were all hard-hearted. Otherwise, how could you do such a heartless thing? Where does human life rank in your hearts? I'm really confused."