In a tavern in the west city of Yongcheng, four men ordered a few side dishes and chatted while drinking.

"Have you heard? Something happened at the front. Passerby A said.

"What's wrong? Our prince has won the battle again? Passerby B.

"Oh! This time, our prince has suffered a defeat. Passerby A continued.

"You Shaota's nonsense, the prince is wise and martial, when have you ever suffered defeat since you led the army." Passerby C Road.

"What I said is true, haven't you noticed that the price of food in our Yongcheng has risen in the past few days?"

"What does this have to do with food prices?"

"I heard that the grain and grass camp in the Great Earthquake Pass was burned, and there were hundreds of thousands of stones of grain and grass that were burned to the ground, and that night the fire burned so much that even half of the sky was burned red; I heard that since the day before yesterday, the officials of the palace have begun to quietly buy grain, otherwise the price of grain will rise just after the autumn harvest! Passerby A.

"That makes sense! Where did you hear this news? Passerby C asked.

"Where did you get that? I saw it with my own eyes. Passerby A said confidently: "Didn't I go to Longzhou two days ago!" Do you know what I'm going to do? ”

"What are you doing?" Passerby B asked curiously.

"I'm going to send ordnance to the defenders of the Great Earthquake Pass, spears, knives, bows, crossbows, arrows, and dozens of carts!" Passerby A said proudly.

"Who asked you to say this, it was for you to say that the grain and grass camp was burned." Passerby C reminded.

"We were returning to the ordnance that day, and because it was getting late, we camped in a col to rest." Passerby A said with a nose and eyes: "The place where we camped is thirty or forty miles away from the grain and grass camp; I slept soundly that night! I'm dreaming of hugging a beautiful woman! Suddenly I felt an urge to urinate, so I went out of the tent to pee;

When I went out, I found that the sky had turned red, and at first I didn't care, thinking that it was going to change, but when I wanted to go back to the tent, I heard the sound of horses' hooves of 'rumbling, rumbling, ......rumbling', and I realized that something might have happened, so I climbed to the hillside not far away, and then I found that the grain and grass camp had caught fire;

Later, I learned that the fire burned for a day and a night, and burned all the hundreds of thousands of grain and grass stored by the defenders of the Great Earthquake Pass. ”

"And who did this?"

"Needless to say, of course it was the Xijon thieves who did it, since the Xijon thieves were defeated by our prince in the front, they have been using some means that cannot see the light, and they have been sending small groups of troops through the mountains and forests to sneak behind us to carry out sneak attacks."

"Alas! With so much grain and grass lost, how can this front-line army live! Passerby Ding said sadly.

"It's a little sad, but there is a way to do it, didn't the palace start buying grain!" Passerby C said.

"I said you two, what are you doing with sad faces! It's not the two of you to worry about this, the sky is falling and there is a high top! Passerby A said while eating.

"You wolf-hearted thing, do you have a conscience." Passerby Ding scolded angrily: "You kid think about it with your toes, the person you can wear now looks like a dog, you are well fed and warm, and it is not all given by the prince, and now you are talking about this cool talk;

If the front-line army can't eat because of the burning of food, how can they fight with the Xijon thieves when they are hungry! This is my body and bones, and I can't look down on it when I am a soldier, otherwise I would have gone to join the army to kill the Xijon thieves of the dog day. ”

"What I said is that although we are ordinary people, we can't be soldiers and can't go to the battlefield; But that doesn't mean we can't help fight the Xijon thieves! Passerby B said: "Isn't the front-line army short of food now!" I'll go back now, take out the food from my family and send it to the palace, although it's not much, but it's enough for a few days to eat. ”

"That's right, I'll go back and donate food!"

…………

Soon the news that the front-line grain and grass camp was burned spread throughout Yongcheng, and the more evil it was, many people in Yongcheng began to spontaneously donate food to the palace, although a few buckets and stones for a family were not much, but together they were a large amount, which greatly surprised Song Yiming and Ling Jing.

When some merchants who came to Yongcheng to do business heard the news, they spread it to other places, and the farther it went, the more exaggerated it became, saying that hundreds of thousands of stones were burned in Yongcheng, and when they arrived in Guanzhong and Hanzhong, it became 8.9 million stones, when they arrived in Gyeonggi and Jingchu, it became more than 1 million stones, and when they arrived in Huainan and Jiangnan, it became 2 million stones, and it was said that even the Great Earthquake Pass almost made people break through.

With the news that the grain and grass were burned, as well as the grain price in Yongdi, at the beginning, because the grain price in Yongdi was not high just after the autumn harvest, only nine coins of silver and one stone, but after the news of the grain and grass camp was burned, it immediately rose to one or three coins of silver.

As Yongzhou's grain was purchased in large quantities by the royal government, there was less grain on the market. The price of grain also began to rise, and in just a few days, the price of grain changed from one tael or three cents of silver to one tael and five taels of silver, one tael and eight coins, two taels of silver, two taels of silver, and three taels of silver, and rose to five taels of silver; Grain prices have risen almost every few hours, and many grain stores have simply closed.

The closure of these grain stores does not mean that there is no grain in the grain stores, but that the grain merchants do not want to buy it, and now they have grain in their hands, and what they hold is not grain, it is a hen that can lay golden eggs! Now the price of grain in Yongdi is higher than the price of grain in the north!

Sichuan Shu Road Yizhou Chengdu Shu Wangfu inside.

"Are you saying that the price of grain in Yongdi has risen to five taels of silver and one stone?" Guo Feng, the king of Shu, sat on the throne and asked the people below.

"Exactly, since the grain and grass of the Yongjun army in the Great Earthquake Pass were burned by the Xirong army, the price of grain in Yongdi has not risen three times a day, and now the shortage of grain in Yongdi is very serious, and ordinary people have no rice to cook, so they can only survive by boiling wild vegetables." The chubby middle-aged man reported to Guo Fengyu.

This middle-aged man is none other than Qian Ding, one of the commercial managers of Shu King Guo Feng, responsible for taking care of the grain, tea, cloth and other industries under the command of the King of Shu, as a child of the royal family, of course, it is impossible for Shu King Guo Feng to be a businessman, but this does not prevent the King of Shu from pretending to do business by the hands of others, this method is very common in the family, although they do not personally do business, but will support some agents.

It is through this means that the king of Shu controls the commercial activities of the entire Shu region, and on the surface, the necessities of life such as grain, tea, salt, and cloth that the people need are bought from different merchants, but in fact, the boss behind them is one person, that is, the king of Shu; It can be said that the king of Shu sneezes can affect the price of goods in the real Shu land.

"You mean, let this king sell grain to Yongdi?" Guo Feng, the king of Shu, asked.

"The prince is wise, at this time, he can earn back at least three times the profit by selling grain to Yongdi."

"But does King Yong have so much silver in his hands?"

"Don't forget, Lord Yong, King Yong captured the land of Xirong Six Prefectures, it is said that King Yong plundered a large number of gold, silver, jewelry, antiques, calligraphy and paintings from these six states, and the silver alone is as high as tens of millions of taels, and the money to buy food is trivial to people."