At the same time, Li Wenhe and Zhang Hu rushed back to Cangzhou with their people non-stop, and then an explosive news spread in Cangzhou City, the shortage of grain in the Tianjin Acropolis had reached the point of running out of food, and the General Military Office sent 500 people to Cangzhou to urge grain, but the treasury in the state was also empty.

The news soon spread throughout the city and outside Cangzhou, and the nearby villages also got the news, and even some businessmen began to go to Hejian, Dezhou and other places to purchase grain to prepare to make a big profit in Cangzhou. As the Cangzhou Prefecture Yamen continued to buy grain, the grain in Cangzhou City had a price a day.

In order to deal with the price of grain in Cangzhou and the cumbersome situation of frequent trading and weighing of a large number of grains, there are smart businessmen who began to organize the chamber of commerce to open up a trading market, the market is open every day, and the end of the application, the merchants who enter the transaction do not need to directly carry out grain transactions, the buyer only needs to provide silver, and the seller provides a promise to exchange a list, the front of this acceptance is the quantity of grain, and the following is the commitment to exchange people, and the responsibility of not redeeming when due. What appears on the face of the acceptance bill is a well-known big household in Cangzhou or six counties and one state in Tianjin.

There is a specific amount of grain on the acceptance ranging from 1,000 stone to 5,000 stone, in addition to the acceptor's signature and handprint, it is also indicated that the ticket is redeemed at sight, if it cannot be cashed enough grain, the bearer can go to the local yamen to file a complaint to request the seizure of the acceptor's property for auction repayment.

After hearing this, Yang Hongzhang had to admire the wisdom of the Chinese working people, and the birth of the acceptance note showed that some businessmen had begun to go crazy. Therefore, after he discussed with Li Wenhe in the state office, Li Wenhe found his brother Sun Xiaoliu, the younger brother of the concubine who came to Cangzhou, and Liu Zhengguang, the chief secretary of Cangzhou, who were the culprits who had sold the purchased grain with Li Wenhe.

"The two of you must have also known that the chief soldier Yang Hongzhang has arrived in Cangzhou, and he has limited me to buy enough food in three days, otherwise the head will fall to the ground, you two should talk about what to do for today?"

Sun Xiaoliu and Liu Zhengguang, you look at me, I look at you, I am scolding my mother in my heart, I was just thinking that Li Wenhe made money and shared a little bit of them, but now I look at Li Wenhe's posture as if the three of them are conspiring, especially Liu Zhengguang, he has been the master of the book for many years, Zhang Shiwen's predecessor He is in this position, and now he has changed the position of two Zhizhou and has not moved, it is precisely because there is no money to deal with it, he has been stumbling for most of his life, thinking that if Li Wenhe makes money this time, how can he share the profit to a few thousand taels, Liu Zhengguang also thought about it, he didn't plan to keep any of this money, the current Tianjin prefect is for young people, and there is a lot of shortage of officials in Tianjin, so he will send all his belongings up, maybe he can get a magistrate or stay in the prefect's yamen to listen to errands.

But I didn't expect such bad luck, and I didn't expect these grain merchants to be so crazy, the grain of two taels of silver and one stone has now risen to four taels and eight yuan, and the price is still rising, if you buy grain at this price to meet the grain required by the prefect's yamen, you need to add at least 80,000 taels. This Li Wenhe is also the Zhizhou who has just been boiled out of the county position, Sun Xiaoliu is a local gangster, relying on his sister to tie up Li Wenhe, and now the Cangzhou Treasury has long been taken over by the military for a period of time because of the plague, it can be said that those families in the treasury of Tianjin are like a number of treasures, and it is even more impossible to rely on him Liu Zhengguang to post these 80,000 taels, if he had so much money, he would have used it to buy a county magistrate or even Tongzhi to continue to make money.

Now Li Wenhe wants the two of them to find a way, where do they have a way? The conversation naturally broke up unhappily, especially Liu Zhengguang, because of Sun Xiaoliu's lowly identity and the relationship with Li Wenhe, no matter how Li Wenhe scolded people, he had a cheap smile.

How could Liu Zhengguang stand Li Wenhe's kind of arrogant accusation, he just came up with this idea at the beginning, it was he Li Wenhe who made the decision, and Sun Xiaoliu was the specific operation, in the final analysis, it didn't have much to do with him, so it didn't take long for him to finally break up, Liu Zhengguang brushed his sleeves away, and Li Wenhe scolded and scolded in the state ya, and Sun Xiaoliu also hugged his head for a while, and saw the soap in the yamen sighing. , I didn't expect that the two most popular people in front of Lord Zhizhou on weekdays were frustrated one after another today.

The matter of the three people who happened in the state yali soon spread out with a quick mouth, and that night someone saw Sun Xiaoliu drinking in the tavern and getting drunk, and scolding his mother while drinking, and scolded Li Wenhe, the governor of Cangzhou. Someone with good deeds stepped forward and asked, "Little Liu, Lord Zhizhou is your brother-in-law, if you don't rely on your sister, how can you have the money to drink here?" Why do you still scold him? ”

Sun Xiaoliu glanced at the other party with red eyes, he didn't know, he did have the money to drink a little wine in this kind of restaurant recently, but this did not affect him to count Li Wenhe: "It is said that reading is terrible, you don't know, the thief raised it, when I helped him with Master Liu's idea, he was so happy that he praised me Sun Xiaoliu for being smart, and now he turned his face and didn't recognize people in a blink of an eye, obviously it was his own responsibility and he said that he wanted to take me and ask me, and he wanted to hand over me and Master Liu to Yang Dashuai, do you say that there are such relatives?" ”

"Oh, it looks like this little brother is very aggrieved, can you tell me more? Xiao Er, give this brother another donkey meat fire and a pot of good wine. A well-dressed middle-aged man came over when he heard this.

Sun Xiaoliu seemed to be a little drunk, but he refused: "This master, you don't have to break the bank, my Sun Xiaoliu is a gangster, this one was right just now, if it weren't for my sister, how could I be qualified to drink in this kind of place, but I'm afraid I won't have much chance in the future." ”

"Little Sixth Brother, meeting in the vast sea of people is fate, since you and I meet here is fate, I see that you seem to have grievances, it is better to say it and comment on it, even if you can't help Lord Zhizhou, it's okay to be a qualified listener. Do you think so? The middle-aged man glanced at the entourage next to him as he spoke, and the entourage immediately took out a silver ingot.

The middle-aged man took the silver and put it in front of Sun Xiaoliu's eyes and said with a smile: "Brother Xiaoliu, I paid for tonight's drinks, if these are enough, if they are not enough, let Xiao Er directly calculate my account." ”

Sun Xiaoliu's eyes lit up, he glanced at the middle-aged man and then at the silver on the table, stretched out his hand and put the silver into his arms and showed a sly smile: "Thank you boss, thank you boss, Xiao Er, go to wine, don't get drunk tonight!" ”

Xiao Er was still hesitating, and the middle-aged man had already spoken again: "Xiao Er, although the good wine and good food come up, count my account, I want to have a few drinks with the little six brothers." As he spoke, he sat down opposite Sun Xiaoliu and continued, "Brother Xiaoliu, come on, drink a ......."

Sun Xiaoliu was flattered and hurriedly stood up and raised his wine glass, the middle-aged man hurriedly beckoned him to sit down, Sun Xiaoliu was moved, and a glass of wine went down quickly, Sun Xiaoliu, who was already about the same, quickly drank too much, and began to say nothing: "Li Wen and that grandson are really not things, don't you know, when the prefect Yamen transported 50,000 taels of silver and asked the state government to give 50,000 taels, a total of 100,000 taels of silver, should come to buy grain and transport it to Tianjin Wei, this grandson moved very fast, and bought 45,000 stone of grain in a few days." Later, as you know, the price of grain in Cangzhou began to rise, and Master Liu and I were going to tell him to sell the grain first and exchange it for cash, and then buy it when the price of grain recovered.

This grandson was greedy for profit, and when he heard it, he was immediately moved, and promised on the spot that if he made money, he would share a thousand taels with me, and my grandson Xiaoliu was a gangster, although he got a little less, but he was also a contented person, and he personally led people to help him sell the grain, and sold a lot of the grain in the state government treasury. Boss Wang, you say that I have no credit and hard work, right? He's good, now Yang Dashuai has come to Cangzhou to urge food, he can't blame me and Master Liu for the food, you say I'm just a gangster, and the idea is right from me, but he is the official of the imperial court and the governor of a state, he actually handed me over and handed it over to Yang Dashuai, saying that it was for Yang Dashuai to vent his anger. I've seen that Rausch Yang Dashuai, that is a living Hades, and in his hands, my Xiaoliu is not all the way to the idea? ”

"You said that Yang Dashuai came to Cangzhou, but the Tianjin general soldier?" The middle-aged man asked.

"It's not him, I think he's also a mallet, and handing over such an important matter as buying grain to Li Wenhe is destined to be finished." Sun Xiaoliu yawned and continued to pick up vegetables.

"Little Sixth Brother, what do you mean by that?"

"This is you, I don't tell others, you must not tell outsiders, otherwise the grain in Cangzhou is estimated to have to rise."

"Don't say it, don't say it, it's out of your mouth and into my ears, I promise that no third person will know." The middle-aged Boss Wang lowered his voice like Sun Xiaoliu and got closer.

"I heard the king of Yama reprimand my brother-in-law, bah, when he reprimanded Li Wenhe, he said that 50,000 people entered the Tianjin Acropolis every day and waited for the grain of Cangzhou to eat, and the grain of Tianjin Wei must not be able to withstand three days, then King Yang said that if he couldn't buy enough grain in three days, he would kill Li Wenhe and sacrifice the flag! Li Wenhe didn't try to find a way to make up for the money but made up for it, but scolded me and Master Liu, what kind of reason do you say. He sold 45,000 stone of grain at the price of 325 yuan, but he made 60,000 or 70,000 yuan of silver, if the price of grain drops, these are his Li Wenhe's, and my Sun Xiaoliu will have to pay 1,000 taels of hard work, why should I be this substitute for the dead? ”

"Little Sixth Brother, do you mean that Yang Hongzhang, the chief soldier of Tianjin, personally went to Cangzhou to urge food? So what is Wen Ho Lee going to do? ”

"What else can I do? Deal with the rest of the treasury first, and then continue to buy from the market, but now this price is estimated to be bankrupt Li Wenhe, but I heard that Cangzhou was taken over by the military some time ago, and there was no silver left at all, but these empty pockets must be taken out of his personal pocket. ”

"It's not very difficult for Li Wen and Yizhou to make up for these shortcomings?"

"Boss Wang, how do you know, this scholar, he had a good reputation when he was young, and my sister married him before she knew that her family was almost as poor as my family, and taking a concubine was also a façade. I guess Yang Hongzhang also knew the details of Li Wenhe, so he was anxious and personally came over to urge. ”