After mid-autumn, it is time for the wheat harvest.

The vast golden wheat fields around Shangjing have become bare in the blink of an eye. The hugging straw lay on the edge of the ridge, waiting for someone to come and move it back. The grown-ups had already begun to bust themselves in the village yard, with only the occasional one or two sensible dolls gleaning ears of wheat in the fields. These dolls know the hard work of adults farming and want to help a little. They walked up and down in the sun-scorched fields, with their heads bowed, clutching a few pitiful grains of wheat in their hands, hoping to get back all the grain that had fallen into the cracks of the earth......

This year is a good year. Although the weather after autumn is not much different from summer, there is no lack of rain and no significant drought, so this is the year with the most grain in recent years. In particular, the sunny days of mid-to-late August made drying wheat easier. The farmers who had worked hard for most of the year, when they were resting, had to squat on the threshold, look at the thick square of yellow and clear wheat grains spread out on the yard, and estimate over and over again in their hearts how much harvest they could have left after paying the autumn tax, paying the dingkou money, and paying off the rent that was promised before the beginning of spring. As they mentally calculated the number again that they didn't know how many times they had confirmed, a satisfied smile gradually spread across their faces.

However, there are two sides to everything. Some people are happy, and naturally some people are worried; Some people are happy, and naturally some people are sad. During this harvest season, the only ones who are happy are those tenants who have to rent other people's land, and those who have to rent part of the land. And the vast majority of middle and upper households, they are jumping up and scolding their mothers, they are scolding the grain merchants, all of them are these grain dealers whose conscience has been eaten by dogs, and they have partnered to reduce the price of grain to only half of that of previous years, so that all kinds of thoughts that everyone has been thinking about for more than half a year have come to naught! As for the big families and squires who owned a lot of land, they were so worried that they didn't even have the strength to scold their mothers. Today, God opened his eyes, the wind and rain were smooth, from the beginning of spring to the harvest of the sickle in mid-autumn, it can be said that everything went smoothly; What a wonderful year! However, now when they look at the hoards of grain at home, they not only do not feel the slightest joy of harvest, but instead feel a deep sadness. At today's grain prices, whoever gathers more grain will lose more! As for the time when the family has saved grain to survive this period of grain cheapness, they generally don't dare to think about it at all. Hoarding grain also costs money; There is no point in hoarding less, if you want to hoard more, where is there such a suitable ready-made granary for a while? You can't just pile up all the food in the open, can you?

However, if you are worried, you will be worried, you will be scolded by your mother, and the grain that should be sold still has to be sold. In the face of unexpected and grim realities, the vast majority of people have chosen to bow their heads. They had to sell the grain. If you don't sell food, where do the indispensable things like diesel, salt and vinegar sauce come from? If you don't sell food, will you still be able to read the doll's books and learn them? If they don't study and don't go to school, how can they, the villagers, change their homes and courtyards, and how can they change the fortunes of themselves and their descendants? The most important thing is that if this grain is not sold, you can't even find a place to store it!

Sell it. There is no choice but to sell. Even if you lose your capital, you can only sell the grain at a cheap price! Fortunately, they are all middle and lower households, and there is not much land, and the food they grow is not only enough to eat, but also to spend a few spare money. Nowadays, not only can the grain not be sold at a price, but the things such as firewood, salt, vinegar and sauce are much cheaper than in the past, so they are not too much of a loss when they repay the account.

Hmph, it's cheaper than those rotten grain merchants! And let you run rampant for a while. However, thirty years in Hedong and thirty years in Hexi, the guys who stamped the sun, let's wait and see, there will be a day when you are unlucky!

But the grain merchants also have bitterness that they can't say. The grain can't be sold at a price, and I can't blame them for this at all. Alas, the bankers who do not know the world still think that they have made a lot of huge profits in the middle, but they themselves know very well that according to the current price of grain, plus the principal, labor, transportation, hoarding, sales, and commercial taxes of a series of business steps such as buying and selling, and waiting for the grain to be transported to the city and then sold at the market price, they are also losing capital. In business, to put it in their hearts, in fact, they are reluctant to do this kind of loss-making business, but they are engaged in the food industry, and the big business of grain, tea, cloth and medicine, it is not easy to get in, and it is not easy to go out. Their lives and futures are in the hands of others, even if they are losing money, they can only pinch their noses and admit that they are unlucky. Hey, other people's loss-making transactions can still earn a good reputation, they lose their capital, but they receive a lot of scolding. They are like the rats that got into the bellows, one is that the dealers scold them for profiteers, and the other is that the government also scolds them for profiteers, and they are angry at both ends. Even the people in the market, who can buy as much grain as in the past with only half the money in the past, are also scolding them: now there are more than half fewer boats on the Luo River than in previous years, the price of manpower at the gate wharf has fallen to less than 50 wen a day, and many people stay at the wharf for a day, and they can't even get a way to live, why do the grain prices in the city dare to rise so high? These black-hearted grain dealers, they still don't let people live?

The accusations made by the people of the market against the grain merchants are unfounded. The fundamental reason for the decrease in the number of boats on the Luohe River is that the prices in the capital continue to fall, and the merchants are not profitable, so of course they are not willing to transport goods to Beijing for sale as in the past, and the number of ships on the Luohe River will naturally decrease; There are fewer boats on the Luoshui River, and the people who work on the docks to make a living naturally cannot find something to do, and in order to attract business, these people can only sell their strength cheaply, so the price of labor can only go down again and again; These people can't make money on the docks, and they must be even more reluctant to spend money indiscriminately, so that the tea shops, small restaurants, cake shops, and many other industries that originally relied on them to earn a living have also fallen into depression, and the income of those who work in these places will inevitably be directly affected...... Eventually, the impact spread to all industries throughout the Gyeonggi region, and it began to spread to other states and counties.

The impact of this incident was so great that it even alarmed the Dongyuan Emperor, who had never cared much about the suffering of the people. However, the Dongyuan Emperor was good at calligraphy, and to deal with this kind of thing, he couldn't even say one, two, or three of the high-level program instructions. The only thing he could do was to severely reprimand the prime minister's office headed by Tang Xing and Zhang Pu, and demand that they must settle the matter within a time limit. But the imperial court never expected such a thing to happen, and it didn't know how to deal with it at all, so it could only hurriedly write all kinds of contradictory documents and notices. The consequence of this is to attract a lot of scolding from the government and the opposition. The squires who own a large amount of land are scolding, the upper households who own a small amount of land are scolding, the grain merchants who collect grain are scolding, the people who buy grain are scolding, the merchants are scolding, the laborers on the wharf are scolding, the officials of the six ministries are scolding, and the local officials are also scolding......

There is no doubt that in this piece of scolding, the right minister Zhang Pu is the absolute target of the public. Because the state treasury revenue began to fall into stagflation only after he became prime minister, and there was even a regression last year, public opinion inside and outside the court was very unfavorable to him. People not only accused him of some of his practices, but also doubted his ability to be a physiognomy. As his personal prestige was severely challenged, doubts about him reappeared in the court, and the dispute between the left and the prime minister, which had just become clearer, seemed to have the possibility of falling into chaos again......

It was also in the midst of this scolding that after the first day of September, a sales contract was recorded in the Yamen of Pingyuan Mansion. This is a land sale contract, and the buyer, Pingyuan Ran, purchased 147 mu of high-grade cooked land for 6,545 yuan, which is an average of only 44 yuan per mu and another 500 yuan.

One stone stirs up a thousand waves! No matter what else is behind this land sale that is not written into the contract, it is undeniable that the unit price of land has fallen below 50 yuan, and the continuous decline in land prices seems to be an irreversible trend! Through the word of mouth and the news of the middlemen in the land sales in the Jingxi Queer Market, it took only three days for the sellers who wanted to sell the land and the buyers who wanted to buy the land in the capital to learn the news. The price of land in Gyeonggi fell in response, and the land transaction in Qi'er City fell from the reserve price of 60 taels per mu that had been insisted on for more than 30 days to 55 taels per mu. It's like a signal. In the next day or two, the prices of grain, tea, silk, cloth, fur, medicinal materials, manpower, and other industries in the Shangjing area were also readjusted, and the prices were reduced by half to one percent...... It is a process in which there are few beneficiaries, and all participants, whether they are laborers, owners, or vendors, are all victims; Even the yamen and the imperial court were not spared. For example, the land tax is 20 taxes and the commercial tax is 1 out of 10. It doesn't matter if it's in kind, but the amount on the grain account will inevitably decline with the price adjustment. On the day when prices fell, the Gyeonggi states and counties suddenly wailed. Everyone knows that with such a tax book, the household department will definitely not be able to pass the pass, not to mention this year's official evaluation, there can be a "Zhongping" test language, everyone should go to burn incense and make wishes.

It was not only the capital that was depressed, it soon spread westward to Zhengzhou and Huaizhou, north to Huazhou and Xiangzhou, south to Caizhou and Xinyang, and eastward to Shanzhou. It even affected Jiangnan and Chu'e, which were important producers of grain and tea. According to the latest submission from the Changzhou government, the local grain trade in August was reduced by 20 percent compared with previous years, grain prices fell by half, and the prices of tea, silk, porcelain, and medicinal materials also fell in price. The Changzhou government also speculated in the submission that this was likely to be affected by the drop in grain prices in Beijing......

…… Just as the depression in Gyeonggi began to spread to the surrounding areas, Jiang Jian once again came to Shangzhuang.