Huguang Yuezhou City, located in the connection between Dongting Lake and the Yangtze River, is the main point of water and land transportation.

After the Qing army entered the customs last year, although it defeated Li Zicheng and captured Beizhili, Shandong, Shanxi and other places, the northern land was ruined, and the Qing army was unable to obtain much materials, so that the Qing army could not continue to fight.

At the end of last year, Nanjing sent a northern mission to the north, so that Doll immediately sensed an opportunity.

At this time, Li Zicheng was not destroyed, and Dol was weak-minded, and did not dare to deal with the Shun army and the Ming army at the same time, so he emphasized that the Qing Dynasty was to avenge Chongzhen and confuse Nanjing, so he left the northern mission in Beijing and sent the scholar Feng Quan to pretend to negotiate with the northern mission, but in fact it was to paralyze Nanjing, so that Nanjing did not prepare, and at the same time obtained resources from the south.

The Manchu Qing Dynasty saw that Nanjing intended to sue for peace, and Dolgon sent Fan Yongdou and others to the south with silver to purchase grain, iron and other materials to prepare materials for the Qing army, so that the army could continue to fight.

At the end of the year, Fan Yongdou and Wang Dengku, Jin Liangyu, Wang Dayu, Liang Guest, Tian Shenglan, Zhai Tang, Huang Yunfa and others carried a large amount of silver south.

Nanjing's implementation of the policy of uniting and retaining the Kou is not entirely the opinion of the bigwigs of the DPRK and China, but in fact has a certain basis of public opinion.

As far as the southern squires and landlords were concerned, they did not know how cruel and barbaric the Qing army was, and the Qing army did not harm their interests, but the generation of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, who knew very well that once these rogues were killed, they would cut off their heads and take away all their family property.

Therefore, they did not realize that the contradictions in the world have changed from land contradictions to national contradictions.

At this time, in their hearts, the thieves were even more terrifying than the Qing army, and the Nanjing court rejected the officials who returned south from Beijing, so that most of the officials in the DPRK and China were southeastern officials, and their eyes were naturally limited to the southeast.

Before the Qing army went south to the south of the Yangtze River and exposed its hideous minions, both the Nanjing court and the local squires and landlords had a little insufficient understanding of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and they did not deliberately take precautions, on the contrary, they were very strict in guarding against thieves.

Of course, this is the inevitable result of class attributes.

Yuezhou is an important node in the territory of Huguang and connecting Hunan and Hubei, and Fan Yongdou was ordered to come to Yuezhou to preside over the purchase of grain for the Qing army.

His people went to Changde, Changsha, Hengzhou and other places to buy grain, and then bought boats and transported them to Yuezhou, where they were replaced by big ships and went down the Yangtze River to Yangzhou, and then transported to the north through the Grand Canal.

Such a long transportation distance is naturally not an easy thing, and the government and the army along the way need to deal with it and maintain relations, which is a very energy-consuming and money-consuming thing.

However, the Qing Dynasty was not short of money, what was lacking was materials, as long as he could buy things with silver, Dolgon was willing to pay.

The money will be given to you first, and the things will be brought over first, and when the time comes, won't the silver still be the silver of the Qing Dynasty?

In April, Huguang is the rainy season.

Next to the shipping wharf outside the city of Yuezhou, the emerald green willow trees hang down one by one, the drizzle falls from time to time, a drop of water droplets, along the branches, drips on the water surface, a few wild ducks in the rain, quacking and playing, full of the atmosphere of the land of fish and rice.

On the wharf, coolies dressed in robes were pulling oilcloth to cover the grain bags piled on the wharf.

At this time, on the second floor of a restaurant on the edge of the wharf, Fan Yongdou stood by the window, looked at the grain pile below, and frowned, "Why is there so much less grain that has been transported to Yuezhou in the past few days?" ”

Behind Fan Yongdou, a shopkeeper immediately bowed down and bent over, "Owner, the price of grain in Huguang has soared recently, and one stone of rice has risen from two taels of silver to six taels and one stone, so the grain collected has decreased." ”

When Fan Yongdou heard this, his brows furrowed, "Huguang is not short of food, how can it rise to six taels?" It's already April, and after a period of time, it's the summer harvest, when there will be more grain, and there is no hoarding of people, even if the price of grain is going to rise, it shouldn't rise to six taels, which is outrageous! ”

Fan Yongdou has been in business for decades and has a wealth of experience. Generally, grain merchants will choose specific times to raise grain prices, such as famines, or when there is still a long time before the harvest.

At these times, there is little grain on the market, and new grain will not enter the market, and grain merchants do not need much silver to raise the price of grain, and the risk is small.

Now that the north has fallen, the face has thrown off the heavy burden of the north, and the Ming army has blockaded the invading army, and a large amount of grain has been stranded in the south, and grain prices have shown a downward trend.

At this time, there is already a lot of grain on the market, and with the addition of new grain and entering the market, grain prices will only go down, not rise.

Choosing this time to raise the price of grain is basically an act of looking for death, and now it is purchased at a high price, and as soon as the new grain enters the market, it will definitely be lost, so Fan Yongdou is a little puzzled why the price of grain suddenly skyrocketed at this time.

"The owner, according to the news obtained by the humble position, it seems that there is a group of businessmen from Nanzhili, who collect grain at a high price. As soon as they came, they opened the price to three taels, and within two days it rose to four taels, and then raised it to five taels. The people in the cities, seeing that the price of grain is one day a day, are afraid that it will rise, so they have stockpiled grain, and when the grain numbers of each family see it, they also follow the price increase, so the price of grain suddenly skyrocketed! The shopkeeper replied.

Their purpose is very simple, that is, to create panic and take advantage of the panic of the people to stir up the price of grain, and once the price of grain rises, the local grain merchants in Huguang will naturally join in when they see that it is profitable.

Relying on the strength of Ma Hongshan and others alone, it is difficult to leverage the grain prices in Huguang, but when the people and local grain merchants are involved, the situation is different.

As a businessman, Fan Yongdou is naturally familiar with this kind of hype, and he has done similar things before.

Generally speaking, the people in the city do not have much food in store, and basically eat almost enough to buy it.

At this time, businessmen only need to pull the price of grain step by step, day by day, the people can survive three or four days, but after that, seeing that the price of grain is still rising, they will collapse and scramble for grain, and after the price reaches a certain high level, the businessman can make a lot of money by throwing away the grain he bought before, and the people have just finished the grain, but they find that the price of grain has plummeted, and the wealth has been harvested.

Fan Yongdou's face twitched a few times, and he couldn't help but scold angrily, "A ** businessman!" ”

This group of businessmen from Nanzhili did this, which undoubtedly affected his plan to get enough food.

Fan Yongdou's eyes suddenly narrowed, revealing a murderous aura, "How much food do we have in our hands?" ”

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