In the three days that followed, starting from the capital of Chu Guoying, a tide of grain price increases broke out.

On the first day, there were three large-scale increases in corn and wheat rice, from 33 to 60 yuan, and by the afternoon of the third day, the price of corn and wheat had stabilized at 100 yuan.

This situation spread to the entire territory of Chu State a few days later, and not long after, the situation of the sharp rise in grain prices in Chu State was known to all countries.

Wei.

The envoy of Chu brought greetings from Chu to the king of Wei and expressed the meaning of the king of Chu to the king of Wei.

After the envoy of the State of Chu left the palace of the State of Wei, the King of Wei asked the ministers: "I wonder what the Qing thinks the State of Chu means?" ”

Xiangguo Lou Yu replied: "Great King, the meaning of the King of Chu is obvious, that is, in response to the lack of food in the Qi country, I hope that all countries can unite to restrict the Qi country." ”

"Before, when the grain of Qi State was just burned, Chu State had already restricted the flow of grain into Qi State and severely cracked down on smuggling and selling grain. However, the reason for the repeated prohibition of smuggling activities is that the purchase price of Qi is too high, and the merchants of various countries are profitable, so they do not hesitate to take risks. ”

"Therefore, the state of Chu raised the price of grain several times in order to restrict the flow of grain from various countries into the country of Qi, prevent the country of Qi from breaking the wealth and avoid disasters, and quickly accumulate grain."

King Wei was noncommittal to Lou Su's words, and sighed: "Then what should the widow do?" Is it to follow the king of Chu to raise the price of wheat and rice, close some gates to the Qi country, and restrict the Qi country? Or do nothing and favor the Qi country? ”

Lou Yu replied: "King, we sold grain to the State of Qi before, which has made the King of Chu very dissatisfied, if we are biased towards the State of Qi this time, the minister is worried that our Wei State will be attacked by the State of Chu." Moreover, although our Wei State needs the Qi State to balance the pressure from the Chu State, a strong Qi State is not conducive to the Wei State, and it is not impossible to let the Qi State have a blood! ”

"It's just that if we keep pace with the Chu State and restrict the Qi State, then it will also make the Qi State dissatisfied, and it will also make all the achievements we have done before go to waste."

"Therefore, in the opinion of the ministers, it is better to raise the price of wheat rice and beans and keep it two or three percent lower than the price of Qi State, so that the profiteers who smuggle grain will be unprofitable and avoid the grain of our Wei State from flowing into Qi State."

"As for the closure of the border to face the Qi country, the consequences are too serious to be considered undesirable."

King Wei was silent for a while, then nodded and said: "Okay, just do what Xiangguo wants, we will also raise the price of grain, if Qi wants food, then buy it at a high price!" ”

On the other side, Yan, Zhao, Song and Yue Siguo: "Raise grain prices and close half of the passes to Qi." ”

The news of various countries reached the Qi country.

King Qi looked at the news in his hand with an unkind face, and then passed the news to the prince Jizi, and was silent.

After reading the information in his hand, Chu Zi sighed and said: "King, now all countries have raised the price of grain, especially the five countries headed by the Chu State, and they have closed half of the passes facing the Qi State, and most of the checkpoints of the Huaishui River have been closed, which will definitely deal a heavy blow to our plan to burn grain and buy grain." ”

Saying that, the prince bowed his head and pleaded guilty: "The king, the plan to burn the grain has failed, this is the minister's ill-thinking, please punish the king." ”

King Qi's face was slightly soothed, and he said with a smile: "Xiangguo said that he laughed, the plan to burn grain is a plan approved by the widow himself, even if the plan fails, this is also the problem of the widow, how can the fault be blamed on Xiangguo?" ”

"Besides, the grain burning plan did not fail. We used the burning of grain to hide from the nations in order to force the people to grow wheat for us. Now, not only have the people of our Qi country planted wheat and rice, but also the countries have no doubt about it, and they really think that all the food of the widow has been burned, doesn't it show that Xiangguo's plan is very successful! ”

After King Qi finished speaking, he paused, and said to Ji Zi: "Ji Zi, I don't know how the statistics are about the winter wheat planting in Qi Province?" ”

Ji Ziying said: "King, although the wheat planted by our Qi country this time is a little late, but the wheat is originally a grain that can be wintered, so under the compulsory implementation of various places, the wheat planted is close to sixty percent. ”

Saying that, Ji Ziyou hesitated: "It's just that because the planting time is a little late, this will delay our planting and harvesting of corn next year." ”

"And the time for the Chu State to harvest corn is originally a little earlier than that of the Qi State, if the harvest time next year is too late, the minister is worried that the Chu State will take the opportunity to attack and loot the grain we are still in the field."

After Ji Zi finished speaking, Chu Zi also spoke: "Great King, the minister also has the same worries, if Chu and Yue come to attack, then our Qi State will either take the initiative to attack and keep the enemy out of the country; Either those places south of the Great Wall will be harvested without waiting for the corn to fully ripen, and then the city will be defended. You can't wait for the corn to ripen thoroughly before harvesting. ”

"Although it also takes time for the Chu army to assemble and march, when the Chu State attacked the Qi State before, it not only plundered food and money, but also plundered the population. So, we have to allow time for people to evacuate. ”

Hearing this, the King of Qi nodded: "What Xiang Guo said is extremely true, if the State of Chu really intends to come to attack the State of Qi, then the widow can only choose to harvest these immature grains in advance." ”

"As for the people south of the Great Wall, they will face the problem of food shortage, and the widows can only exempt them from taxes for this year."

Chuzi Jizi arched his hand and said: "The king is benevolent." ”

King Qi sighed slightly, and then asked Ji Zi: "Sir, I don't know how Mr. plans to solve the matter of purchasing grain from various countries." ”

Ji Zi paused, if food was not the most important material, he really wanted to take advantage of the price increase of various countries to sell all the grain of Qi to Chu State, and take the opportunity to destroy Chu State's finances.

After thinking about it, pressing his thoughts, Zhengse said: "The king, the minister means that since all countries want to raise the price of grain, then we will accompany the country to the end." In terms of financial resources, I am not afraid of any country! ”

King Qi was stunned when he heard Ji Zi's words, although Qi has money, but money can't be spent like this!

Seeing that King Qi's face stiffened, Ji Zi immediately explained: "King, after more than a month of layout testing, the minister has a general understanding, because the Chu State knows the flour manufacturing method, so the Chu State took the opportunity to buy a large number of wheat from various countries, and now the wheat that is still left in various countries, except for those in the official reserves of various countries, the part in the hands of other nobles and ordinary people is not much. ”

"So, even if the price of wheat rises to 300 yuan a stone, it won't actually cost much, unless the countries release grain to us."

Only then did the king of Qi put his mind at ease, if the countries wanted to release grain to the Qi country, then when the price of Qi was five times the price before, the countries had already released grain.

Thinking about it, King Qi asked, "Then Jizi, what are your plans..."