Chapter 464: Ling Xia's Sense of Smell (Page 1/1)

It has been ten days since Ling Xia left Xu Zhoujiang, and on the way back, he led the troops to hurry day and night, because there were supplies provided by the government offices in the station area along the way, and there was no threat of Japanese robbers on the road, so the troops were in a hurry to go very smoothly, and estimated the itinerary, as long as there were about ten more days, Ling Xia and the troops could leave the southern theater and enter the western theater controlled by Xia Yuanwen.

On this day, Ling Xia hurried to the "Disi Province in Heyong Territory," when looking for the local governor Yamen to receive grain and grass materials, the governor Yamen, who was supposed to supply 300,000 quintals of grain, only allocated 50,000 quintals of grain, no matter how Gu Xiuyuan negotiated, the other party just refused to pay the amount, after learning about this, Ling Xia and Xia Ning'er personally found the governor and political envoy of the province and asked the two for food.

"This is the military order for the supply of grain and grass along the way in the Southern Theater, the Governor of Nangong personally promised before leaving, saying that all territories in the Southern Theater will provide supplies free of charge, I ordered someone to inform you three days ago, saying that you would come here today to receive supplies, and you also agreed at the beginning, why are you only willing to allocate us so much food and grass materials today? Could it be that the military order of the Grand Governor of Nangong does not work? ”

Looking at Ling Xia's material supply order, seeing Ling Xia and Xia Ning'er's menacing appearance, the local governor and political envoy were all startled, wiped the cold sweat on their foreheads, and explained helplessly, it was not that they were unwilling to allocate grain and grass in full, but since yesterday, they have not been able to raise food, not only the shortage of military food, but even the price of civilian food has begun to rise.

Originally, the most important thing in the hands of the common people was food, but five days ago, the Japanese in Bengyuan Xinjiang began to grab grain, and those Japanese robbers may have been scared, they changed the habit of attacking cities and conquering places in the past, and specially grabbed grain from nearby cities, snatched away the grain from several surrounding territories, and went back after robbing, so that those robbed territories began to buy grain from other territories.

Three days ago, a load of grain only needed eighty copper coins, but since yesterday, the grain has skyrocketed five times overnight, and this morning, a load of grain has risen to eight hundred copper coins, and just when Ling Xia's troops came to the governor's yamen to receive supplies, a load of grain has exceeded a thousand copper coins, and at this moment, the people of the whole city are frantically buying and hoarding grain.

The governor yamen had already notified the grain village and grain number in the territory before, and he also tried his best to suppress the price increase of the grain village, but there was no way, all the grain in the local territory was transported to the outside territory for sale, which was considered labor and transportation costs, and the price of grain naturally rose a lot.

Prince Xia Yuanwei wantonly expropriated grain, and the price given was always much higher than the market price, at the same time, the trading building also monopolized the grain and grass, one of them collected a large amount, the other hoarded and monopolized, and the grain farms and grain numbers in the surrounding territories sent grain for sale, which led to a shortage of grain in various territories, and the price of grain was raised again and again in this context.

Although the governor of Disi Province sent all the government and county governments to levy and transfer military rations, only 10,000 quintals of grain were collected, and the remaining 40,000 quintals of grain were paid by them from the official grain depot, and a total of 100,000 quintals of grain were stored in the grain depot of their province, and nearly half of the reserve grain had been allocated this time.

After listening to what the governor and the political envoy said, Ling Xia looked at the two with some suspicion, he looked at the two people suspiciously, and then ordered Lao Cui to go outside to investigate, after a cup of tea, Lao Cui came back breathlessly, he told Ling Xia that at this moment, the grain and grass in the outside world had risen to 1,400 copper coins a load, and the grain of many grain numbers on the city wall had been sold out.

"How so?"

After determining the rhetoric of the two, Ling Xia ordered people to load the 50,000 loads of grain and grass into the carriage first, send troops to guard it, and then let Lao Cui issue a military order to all the government offices along the way to levy grain.

When Lao Cui took the military order to go outside to issue a mission, Ling Xia secretly calculated from his heart that a soldier would eat at least two catties of grain a day, and two and a half million soldiers would need to consume five million catties of grain a day, one load of grain is equal to one hundred catties, and five million catties would be converted into 50,000 catties, which means that the food received today is only enough for the army to consume for one day.

This food crisis is different from the situation he encountered when he went to Ziyan Xinjiang to provide disaster relief and comfort to the people, last time it was a few wealthy businessmen in the territory and people in the governor's yamen colluded, and they joined forces to raise prices and materials, the purpose of which was to take advantage of the disaster to hoard Juqi and then make a lot of money. However, this crisis was started by Xia Yuanji, and there was also the intervention of the trading building secretly, and the situation was a little wrong.

Because the southern theater is closer to the famous frontier where Xia Yuanjie is located, it is the first to be impacted, but those distant territories should not be involved yet, but if Xia Yuanjie continues to buy military rations on a large scale, coupled with the secret promotion of the trading building, it will be more and more difficult to buy food, and at this rate, it is estimated that it will not take a few days, and the entire Xia Dynasty will fall into a crisis of food shortage.

In the past, all major theaters also levied grain to raise soldiers, but the prices were all controlled within an affordable range, coupled with the people's hatred of the enemy, so the military food was always able to ensure self-sufficiency, but after the Japanese robbed the grain of several surrounding territories, there was a gap in the grain market, and Xia Yuanjie and the trading building hoarded and purchased grain at this juncture.

As soon as they do this, the grain channels are frantically pouring into the prestige territory and the trading building, and the grain reserves are so much, and their large-scale reserves and hoarding will lead to people in other territories not being able to buy grain, if this matter can be controlled in time, there will be no major problems in the future, but if they continue to do this, sooner or later they will cause a big mess.

Ling Xia keenly smelled that this matter was unusual, so after leaving from Disi Province, he immediately passed a secret letter to Luzhu Weng, asking Luzhu Weng to purchase grain reserves from the outside world without a trace, and strictly control the transportation channels of the Huangshui River. In addition, the outflow of grain and vital materials from the six territories must be prohibited, and the phenomenon of price hikes in the territories must not occur.

After the secret letter was sent, a trace of uneasiness faintly rose in Ling Xia's heart, and he had already smelled a hint of conspiracy.

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