"Those who inform us should immediately stock up on food and collect as much as they can." Out of Lijiamen Village, Guo Yang, who was depressed, suddenly said.

"Grain?" Anu was a little surprised and confirmed once.

"Yes, all the food received is secretly transported to our bases all over the country, the more the better." Guo Yang said.

"All harvest grain...... What about other businesses? Anu asked with some hesitation, after all, the caravans were only beginning to take shape, and such a major decision had to be confirmed.

"All other businesses, what can be sustained, continue to be maintained, and the manpower to feed us is the mainstay. Throw away all the luxuries and it doesn't matter if the price is cheaper. Guo Yang said with certainty.

"Why?" Anu was still a little confused.

"Food prices are going to rise." Guo Yang walked slowly on the snow, like an old man thinking about a problem.

Anu was a little unable to react, and for two consecutive years there was a large-scale bumper harvest of grain, and the price of grain was at a low point, which led to the Zhou royal family and the princes of various places having to lift the ban on the sale of grain. According to business experience, it is indeed possible to consider seizing the opportunity to buy a batch of grain at this time, but Guo Yang's meaning is very clear, that is, to hoard all the coins into grain, which is very risky.

"Young master, even if the price of food rises, we won't be able to make much profit." Anu said.

"What if the price of food rises tenfold or twenty times more?" Guo Yang stopped, looked at the two footprints left on the snow on the road when he came, and said lightly.

Anu was stunned, looked at Guo Yang, licked his lips, and said with a smile: "Young master, don't scare me, how can the price of grain rise so outrageously!" ”

Guo Yang glanced at Anu, and suddenly smiled: "Have you forgotten that in Tianshui Village, there was a famine for thousands of miles in Yandi, and a handful of grain could be exchanged for twenty or thirty women?" If I knew you were so stupid, I should have gotten a few bags of food and replaced it all for a woman. ”

Anu widened his eyes and asked, "Is there going to be a great famine?" ”

"I guess." Guo Yang said.

"That's not good, don't give enough reasons, can't listen to your blind command, our caravans around the country have just improved, and if you're not careful, you'll be in trouble." Anu said resolutely.

"Drinking in Lijiamen Village just now, didn't you notice that the Zhou people have begun to ban alcohol, which means that they have got some kind of news." Guo Yang said.

"No, that Zhou Gongdan obviously changed his methods to suppress businessmen, do you believe this?" Anu said unconvinced.

"The Zhou people's divination should not be underestimated, and in addition, I always suspect that there are a large number of Xuanmen masters among their advisors, so on the one hand, I will withdraw our core personnel from their sphere of influence in advance, and on the other hand, we must learn to look for business opportunities from their decrees." Guo Yang said with a deep groan, as if he was a little preoccupied.

"Young Master, your senses are very sensitive, and I am also convinced that they do have the help of Xuanmen cultivators behind them. However, is it a bit rash to find a business opportunity in a decree? Anu was still a little hesitant.

"Execute. Anu, even if the hoarded grain can't be sold for a high price, we can still find a way to sell it for a high price. Guo Yang said confidently.

Seeing that Anu still looked disbelieving, Guo Yang continued: "We can use those grains to make wine and sell it to the distant vassal states and the tribes of the Beirong Ghost Fang, in addition, we can also expand the scale of breeding, improve the process of curing meat, and make it into food that can be stored for a long time, so that our caravans can take it to distant places and sell it." ”

Anu listened to Guo Yang's words, then nodded in disbelief and said, "Okay, I hope your judgment is okay this time." Otherwise, our efforts over the past few years would have been in vain. ”

Guo Yang patted Anu's thick shoulder and said with a smile: "Don't worry, I won't waste your hard work." ”

The snow fell more intensively, and it was so white that I couldn't see through where the sky was, where the earth was, and where was the way forward.

Guo Yang and Anu walked one foot deep and one foot shallow, walking alone, and the remaining two lines of crooked and oblique footprints were quickly erased by the wind and snow.

……

At the beginning of spring, the spring cold was poured three times in a row, and the seeds of the crops buried in the soil froze to death before they could arch out of their young shoots, leaving the summer crops of that year soaked in soup.

The royal family of the Zhou people was nervous, and the king of the Zhou people built a high platform thirty miles on the outskirts of Luoyi and held a grand ceremony.

For the specific content of this ceremony, the Zhou people carried out a strict blockade, some people say that it is to commemorate the work of King Wen of Zhou to draw hexagrams, some people say that it is to worship the gods of heaven and earth, and pray for the great Zhou Tianyun for a long time. But when Guo Yang and Anu heard the news, they concluded that the king of the Zhou people should have carried out a way similar to a blood sacrifice to pray to the heavens, praying that the heavens would not send any more natural disasters.

Immediately afterwards, a specific secret report came, and sure enough, as Guo Yang expected, the Zhou people had accurately predicted a year ago that this year would be the year of the catastrophe and famine.

Hearing the news, Guo Yang and Anu were speechless for a long time, looking at each other, not knowing whether to be happy or sad.

They bought almost all of their net worth of food, and although the famine had not yet shown signs of it, it was a foregone conclusion that they would make a steady profit. However, when they thought of the serious consequences of the catastrophe that even Zhou Tianzi had alarmed, the two men were not happy, and even began to worry.

They had seen famines, they had seen displaced people, and they had seen how the widespread panic caused by the lack of food destroyed one city after another.

"When people are dead, we don't have to do business." Anu was in a very low mood and just drank one after another.

"Let's let our people survive first." Guo Yang said expressionlessly and swallowed a sip of sake.

……

Fortunately, the bumper harvest for two consecutive years made the Zhou royal family and the princes of various places save a lot of grain, but everyone received a secret order from the Zhou royal family and began to hoard a large amount of food and greatly reduce various expenses.

The biggest blow to businessmen was the official promulgation of Prohibition.

With the experience of the alcohol restriction order, the implementation of the prohibition order was surprisingly smooth, and the shochu shops, liquor stores, and taverns of the descendants of the merchants disappeared overnight. Because the decree is very clear, once someone is found to have violated the ban, the violator will be skinned and cramped on the spot, and all relatives and family members will be beheaded, and the neighbors will be implicated and sold into slavery.

Once again, the buying and selling of grain was strictly forbidden, and together with salt, horses, and copper ore, it could only be bought and sold by the Zhou royal family and vassal states.

Merchants who make wine, transport, sell wine, and drink alcohol will also face the punishment of peeling skin and pulling out their tendons and gouging out their eyes once they are discovered.

At the same time, because of the drastic reduction of various expenses, the demand for luxury goods by the royal family and nobles was strictly restricted, resulting in a large number of bronzes, jades, mink furs, silk silks, etc. could not be sold, so they had to be hoarded in the hands of merchants, watching them depreciate day by day, and finally they were not as good as a handful of grain.

For a time, everyone was in danger, and a large number of unemployed businessmen began to wander, like wild dogs, in panic all day long.

The Zhou army was dispatched and set up checkpoints everywhere, on the one hand, to strictly inspect the outlaws who sold grain, salt, horses, and copper ore without permission, and on the other hand, to besiege and intercept the descendants of the wandering merchants.

Every day news came that a handful of merchants had been caught selling contraband, and a group of merchants had lost their citizenship and had been caught and sold into slavery.

Rumors spread, all kinds of bad news have become a norm, and many people even start selling their property in advance, planning to flee far away.

The more stable are those nobles and commoners who own a little land, they are not worried at all, Xia Tian has no harvest, isn't there still Akita? Even the autumn fields cannot be planted, and the surplus grain in the granary is frugal, and it should be no problem to support the harvest of the summer field in the next year.

Especially those aristocrats, they don't worry about food at all, their biggest distress is that they suddenly run out of wine to drink, and the joy of life is much less. So, they began to secretly get the descendants of merchants who could make wine into their estates and make moonshine for them.

According to the decree of the Zhou royal family, except for the fixed amount of grain, cloth and other agricultural products handed over to the royal family, the rest of the nobles belonged to their private property and could be freely disposed of.

As a result, the descendants of the merchants stopped making wine, and the moonshine of the Zhou nobles began to proliferate, and even became the main source of their huge profits for a time.

The Zhou royal family expressed dissatisfaction with the behavior of these nobles and the major vassal states, but to no avail, and later, they had to hastily issue a decree that they should not be brewed indiscriminately and sold in large quantities, and it was not done.

……

Guo Yang evacuated all his people, part of them returned to Tianshui Village, part of them gathered in Nanyan Kingdom, and the other part was mixed into the manor of those Zhou nobles and became a brewing master, working day and night, and gradually gaining the trust of those nobles.

Of course, there are a few big things he needs to deal with before he can do that.

Zimao, this traitor, has to find a way to kill him; Ziyu and a large number of subdued Zhou nobles had to find a way to be promoted; The number of pigeons is in dire need of an increase; The military defense forces of the Southern Yan Kingdom need to be strengthened urgently; The caravan still had to function normally, and even if it made little or no money, it had to find a way to keep it afloat.

Guo Yang returned to Nanyan with Anu and began to solve these problems.