Then, Dou You saw that the King of Chu's face was stiff and not very good-looking, and he knew in his heart that the King of Chu was repulsed by this kind of thing of recruiting Ding Zhuang to help merchants transport grain.

Because even if the people are recruited, it is not that the king of Chu can recruit if he wants to, whether it is the king of Chu or the nobles, he has to pay attention to the rules.

Thinking about it, he immediately spoke: "My lord, this situation will not take long, it only needs to be implemented for two or three months after the wheat harvest, and it can be abolished. ”

Seeing that King Chu's face softened slightly, Dou You continued: "Finally, close all the passes to the Qi State. ”

"In this way, we can prevent the wheat of the Chu State from being sold to the Qi State as much as possible."

Xiong Huai let out a long sigh when he heard this, it's too troublesome, it's half the effort!

At that time, when the State of Chu acquired the wheat of the Three Jin Qi Kingdom, it still felt that there were many conveniences, but now it was the turn of the State of Qi to acquire the wheat of the State of Chu, and it was difficult to stop it.

If he could, Xiong Huai really wanted to follow the example of the salt administration and monopolize the grain.

The state-run salt invented by Guan Zhong at that time provided many ways for countries to collect money.

It's just that the grain monopoly doesn't work at all, and all countries can't prohibit the people and merchants from buying and selling grain, at most, they control the price of grain through Pingzong.

The reason is nothing else, but that food is not only food, but also money.

Countries distribute money to officials, and what they distribute is grain, not money, and most of the peasants buy clothes and farm tools in exchange for grain.

For example, Xu Xing, in the past, Chen Xiang debated with Mencius, and most of Xu Xing's daily necessities were exchanged for grain, not bought with copper coins.

As for copper coins, I'm sorry, not only weapons use copper, but also copper is also used in many places, the living need to use it, and the dead need to use it, and there is not so much copper in the world.

Otherwise, under normal circumstances, the price of grain is not thirty or forty copper coins that can be exchanged for one stone of fine corn.

In this day and age, gold is usually a gift, and basically except for large-scale transactions, the most used are rewards and bribes.

Merchants will use copper coins when they buy and sell, and only in South Korea, which uses a large number of iron tools in weapons, will extravagantly make copper coins in large quantities, so that in the north of Chu State, Han money and Chu money are parallel, and even Han money is more reliable than Chu money.

As for the common people, they generally used grain as currency, and rarely used copper coins.

Therefore, prohibiting the sale of grain means prohibiting the use of currency by the people and restricting the trading of the people.

It's just that in the absence of other ways, Xiong Huai can only ask Jing Carp Chen Zhen: "Regarding Taifu Yin's suggestion, I don't know what Ling Yin and Assassin Shi Ling think?" ”

Jing Li thought about it, but he couldn't come up with a better suggestion, so he arched his hand and said, "King, the minister thinks it's feasible." ”

After Chen Zhen seconded the proposal, Xiong Huai nodded and said to Dou You: "Okay, Taifu Yin, this matter will be handed over to you." ”

"Command!" Dou Yu answered.

As for Dongting's Maimi, Xiong Huai didn't ask, and Dou You didn't mention it, so they all ignored it.

After talking about the grain of the Chu State, Xiong Huai continued to ask: "Three virtuous ministers, the grain of my Chu State is still easy to handle, but it is just the grain of other countries, I don't know if the secretaries have a way to compete with the Qi State." ”

"King, this..." Hearing this, Jing Li hesitated and said: "Great King, the situation is unclear now, the purchase price of Qi after the wheat harvest is still unclear, if the purchase price of Qi is too high, then we may not be able to compete with Qi State!" ”

Xiong Huai was stunned, nodded and said, "That's right, then let's look at the purchase price of Qi in a few months." ”

It's April.

At the foot of Hengshan Mountain in the south, it was a busy scene at this time.

In other places, when the wheat is not yet fully ripe, the wheat here is already ripening and entering the harvest season.

As the southernmost feudal monarch of the Chu State, Lei Hou's territory is located at the foot of Heng Mountain.

The territory of Leihou is not small, more than 100 miles, but the population is the biggest problem, less than 1,000 households, plus the territory is mostly mountains, forests, swamps and rivers, miasma, too heavy moisture, difficult to develop, difficult to use.

Therefore, Lei Hou was one of the poorest of the feudal kings of the Chu State.

Of course, thanks to Wu Qi's blessing, the State of Chu had vigorously developed Dongting, so there were many feudal monarchs near Dongting, and there were barely seven or eight, which was not the poorest place in the State of Chu.

If you want to say the saddest, you have to count Peng Zejun and Ganjun, who are also in the Jiangnan and Pengze (Poyang Lake) areas.

It is the real backwood, and there are only two feudal lords.

Wearing a single coat, with his Xiang and Sima, he was inspecting the territory.

Walking on the road, Lei Hou glanced at the accumulated rain on the road, then looked at the farmer who was busy harvesting wheat in the field, and asked Lei Xiang Xu Wan: "Xu Xiang, the rainy weather in the past few days has made our wheat less and harvest a lot." ”

Xu Wan nodded with a heavy face and said: "Your Excellency, this is exactly the case, not only is the wheat on our side harvested two to three buckets of rice per mu, but also the rain for several days has caused many wheat to become moldy before they are harvested. ”

Lei Hou sighed when he heard this, and said, "Half the effort, the sky is not beautiful!" ”

Since the king of Chu promoted wheat rice in the Chu country, Lei Hou, as a feudal monarch, of course, also responded to the call of the king of Chu and promoted wheat rice in the territory, but the effect is not optimistic.

If the wheat between Jianghan and Han is due to the lack of water, the wheat grows poorly and the yield is low, then the area of Dongting is due to too much rain, which leads to a decrease in yield.

Except for the first year, the wheat was harvested in sunny weather, and nearly two and a half stones of wheat were harvested per acre. In the next three years, all the wheat and rice harvested were almost two stones, and the yield was seriously reduced.

Moreover, what is even more desperate is that in the rainy weather, the wheat rice will become moldy on the wheat stalks, which causes no one in the Dongting area to dare to eat the wheat rice, who knows if this moldy wheat will eat dead people?

No one would dare to try moldy wheat without a shortage of food.

Incidentally, the feudal monarchs in the Dongting area did not dare to eat flour, and God knows if the materials used to make flour outside were transmitted from Dongting.

However, fortunately, the king of Chu promulgated a new tax law in time, which can be used to deduct taxes with wheat and rice, so many people and feudal monarchs who responded to the call of the king of Chu to plant wheat and rice dried the moldy wheat and rice, and then waited until the autumn harvest to mix these wheat and rice with good quality wheat and rice to pay the tax deduction together, but there was no waste or vain.

Xu Wan heard Lei Hou's exclamation and did not echo it.

In this area of Dongting, it is normal to encounter rainy weather in April and May, and in abnormal years, there will be sunny weather.