Although Panyu City is not very tall, it covers an extremely wide area, because it is located in the extreme south, with abundant precipitation, many rivers, and the moat around the city is wide and deep. A water gate is provided on each side of the city gate to facilitate the entry and exit of ships carrying goods and passengers.

When I entered the city, I saw that most of the people who came and went were dressed in short fights and merchants, and only a few of them were self-respecting and wore wide robes and big sleeves that were popular in the Central Plains. After the Dragon Boat Festival, the weather began to heat up, Guo Bin and his entourage went south, although they suffered from the hot and humid weather in the south of the Yangtze River, but no one dared to tear off the tightly wrapped Lu Min. Although this sultry weather makes people suffer, but the miasma and malaria in the south of the Yangtze River are life-threatening!

Fortunately, Panyu at this time is at the mouth of the Pearl River, and further south is the South China Sea, the sea breeze blowing on the land, can always give a little comfort to the residents who are dizzy by the sun overhead.

Guo Bin and his entourage, except for the guide who led the way, no one has ever been to the extreme south of the world, and this Lingnan scenery dazzles everyone. The most dazzling of these are the pearls, rhinoceros horns, ivory, and all sorts of tortoiseshell products, including feathers, which are displayed in street stalls.

These goods, which are regarded as valuable and extravagant items in the Central Plains, can make a lot of money if they are transported to the north. The Lingnan region was far from the center of the imperial court, the city was built late, and Panyu was a city known for its trade and the sale of luxury goods, so the separation between the fang and the city was not very obvious. The businessmen who can come here from the Central Plains are all responsible and courageous people who have abandoned their families and businesses, otherwise who would dare to risk bandits and miasma on the road to come to this Lingnan land to pan for gold? With the Central Plains people's emphasis on nostalgia, all those who are willing to come to Lingnan have abandoned everything and come to fight for their lives, where is the sense of superiority of later generations mixed in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou?

Everyone walked all the way, only to see that although there were many shops on the road, there were not many pedestrians, and all of them looked anxious, and many even ran on the road with burlap bags. Looking at the stall owners on the roadside, they are all worried, obviously not thinking about business at all.

Guo Bin looked curious, grabbed a young man running with a sack, and said, "This little brother is polite." ”

The man was dragged by a handful, and he was about to get angry, but when he turned around, he saw Guo Bin, who was tall and big, and Guo Bin, who was extraordinary, and dozens of entourages leading horses behind him, were soft, and before Zhang Fei's black face came up, he took half a step back and said in fear: "The villain is going to buy rice!" ”

Guo Bin was even more surprised in his heart, and said: "Buy rice, buy rice, why is everyone so anxious?" ”

The man snorted, pursed his lips tightly and said, "The price of rice in this city has risen sharply, if you don't take advantage of the fact that you can buy some now, I'm afraid you won't be able to buy it even if you have money in the future!" ”

Guo Bin said: "I remember learning that the climate in this southern region is humid and hot, which is very suitable for the growth of crops. Especially for rice, the further south you go, the shorter the growth cycle, and there are even three crops of rice a year. On this day, I don't know how many times better than the Central Plains, but there is a shortage of food? ”

At that moment, he said to the young man with a pleasant face: "We just came from the middle school, and we don't know the market, what is the price of the grain in this Panyu City now?" ”

Beads of sweat appeared on the young man's forehead, and he said urgently: "This morning, it was one hundred and ninety yuan per stone, if you run slowly, who knows how much?" This eldest brother, the villain is in a hurry to buy food, if there is nothing else, he will leave first. ”

When Guo Bin heard the price of grain, he was shocked and stunned in the local area. Seeing that Guo Bin didn't speak, the young man nodded and retreated step by step, and after five or six steps back, Fang turned around and ran away.

Guan Yu's face was gloomy, and he was beside Guo Bin and said, "Lord, I didn't expect the price of grain in this Panyu city to be so high, isn't there something wrong in the city?" After a pause, he added: "Alas, the people of the city are going to suffer." ”

Guo Bin nodded, and did not speak with a gloomy face.

Even in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, large cities with developed industry and commerce had a large number of non-agricultural populations in the cities. Although there were also dignitaries and wealthy merchants in the city, they were only a few, and the largest number were small craftsmen and laborers who lived by selling their laborers. Most of them have no land, no or very little fixed property, and basically earn as much as they eat every day, and they have nothing to eat for a day without work.

Grain is the foundation related to everyone's basic life and living needs, and stable grain prices are the fundamental prerequisite for social stability and people's happy and harmonious lives. Once there is a large fluctuation in food prices, it will inevitably bring devastating disasters to the urban economy. Therefore, since ancient times, food prices have been one of the most important indicators to measure the stability of society and the abundance of people's lives.

However, it is undeniable that the price of grain, as the center of market prices, is also affected by various factors. The most important factors are war, natural disasters and, of course, man-made disasters. There is no doubt that wars are often accompanied by rising food prices.

From historical data, it can be seen that the three major fluctuations in grain prices in the Han Dynasty occurred at the turn of the Qin and Han dynasties, the end of the Western Han Dynasty and the Xinmang period, and the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Three Kingdoms period. Several large-scale wars that changed dynasties have undoubtedly caused a sharp rise in grain prices in the world.

During the period of Qin Shi Huang, the price of grain was basically maintained at the level of "30 yuan of grain and stone" (that is, 30 yuan per stone of grain), and it was also recorded in the "Historical Records of the Goods and Colonies": "(The price of grain) is not more than 80, and if it is not reduced by 30, then the end of agriculture will be profitable." The so-called profit at the end of the farm means that both farmers who sell grain and industrialists and businessmen who buy grain to eat can make a profit.

Historical records record: "Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty was frugal······ Gu Shi to dozens of dollars, up and down the beauty. "There is no doubt that the price of grain at this time is normal, and the living standard of the common people living in the period of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty is also quite high. Because people can buy food for less, the rest of the money can be used to improve the quality of life. To paraphrase a later concept, this is the Engel coefficient, which is the proportion of total food expenditure to total personal consumption expenditure.

The lower a household's income, the greater the proportion of household income (or total expenditure) spent on food, and as household income increases, the proportion of household income (or total expenditure) spent on food decreases. By extension, the poorer a country is, the greater the proportion of per citizen's average income (or average expenditure) spent on food, and this proportion tends to decline as the country becomes richer.

It can be seen that our ancestors already understood this truth in the Han Dynasty by virtue of their summary of common sense in daily life.

However, the political and economic situation in the Eastern Han Dynasty was not as stable as in the Western Han Dynasty, and the young emperors and relatives and eunuchs in the Eastern Han Dynasty were important reasons for political instability. Therefore, the price level in the Eastern Han Dynasty was generally higher than that in the Western Han Dynasty, and the price of millet was usually more than 100 yuan.

At the same time, each dynasty was always politically clear at the beginning of the state, and the later it became, the more chaotic and corrupt it became, and the same was true of the Han Dynasty. Reflected in the price of grain, the level of grain prices in the entire Han Dynasty, including the Western Han Dynasty and the Eastern Han Dynasty, showed an upward trend. However, even now that grain prices have risen due to the Yellow Turban Rebellion and successive years of drought, the grain prices in Yangzhai County and Changshe County have remained at about 110 yuan.

It is in Luoyang, the capital of Beijing, that the prices are expensive, and the price of grain has risen sharply because of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, but at the foot of the Son of Heaven, the best place, the price of grain is only one hundred and thirty yuan. The grain prices of other counties in Yingchuan County are about the same as those in Luoyang, and among the other prefectures and counties, although the grain prices have also risen to varying degrees, they are also about 140 yuan.

And in today's Panyu City, the price of grain of 190 yuan per stone can really be regarded as sky-high grain, how can the people in this city live! Among Guo Bin and his party, except for Dong Xing'er and Guo Bin, they are all from poor backgrounds, and they are not people who don't know grains and animals.

Guan Yu has been in the rivers and lakes for many years, Zhang Fei was born as a butcher who killed pigs, Huang Zhong and his son sought medical treatment everywhere, and they were well-informed, at least they knew a thing or two about the price of grain. Not to mention these fifty guards, most of them came out of the earliest Fulong Villa, and they were really born from hardship, knowing the hardships of the people, and also knowing the price of food.

And Dong Xing'er is not familiar with the world, and she has never had the concept of money after coming down the mountain, so she has not been touched much by this grain price. Before Guo Bin crossed over, he couldn't distinguish between grains and grains, and he didn't care about people's livelihood at all, he only knew that a favorite meat bun in his small town cost six yuan, and as for how much is a kilogram of flour and a kilogram of rice, then he has no idea.

Since he was reborn in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the world has forced him to understand the suffering of the people and the prices of various necessities. And as he stepped into the official career step by step, standing behind him, more and more people were counting on him to eat, and the responsibility on him became heavier and heavier. As for the understanding of grain prices, it was also to calm down the high prices caused by the Yellow Turban Rebellion and the drought for many years, so Guo Bin used the tax collected by the middle industry and commerce in Yangzhai County to send people to buy grain everywhere, and then transported it to Yangzhai by various means.

In order to reduce the demand for grain and corn, he even started the idea of the Xianbei and the Huns. He asked the caravan to purchase a large number of cattle and sheep and trafficked them all the way to Yangzhai County, which not only adjusted the grain structure of the people in the county, increased the proportion of meat, improved the people's living standards, but also stabilized the grain price, so that Yangzhai County maintained a relatively reasonable grain price level even in troubled times. What's more, the action didn't cost much.

In the era of national food shortages, the cost of transporting food from everywhere is prohibitively high. Not to mention the high price of grain in various places, the transportation also has to be a lot of five baht money, including hiring grain trucks, sending escorts, and eating horses along the way, which is a huge cost. Why do you say that the soldiers and horses go first before the grain and grass are moved? Because the transportation of grain and grass, no matter what era it is, is an extremely complex and costly action.

Transporting livestock is different. As long as there is an army under Guo Bin's guard, and a little grass is fed to the sheep, the sheep will follow the head sheep on their own. It's a little slower, but it's much cheaper. In addition, there are three cities outside the Great Wall, which can buy a large number of cattle and sheep at any time. There are many cattle and sheep on the grassland, and taking advantage of the harsh winter to sell the cattle and sheep that cannot be eaten and exchange them for wine, silk and other goods with extremely valuable value, but can avoid the loss caused by freezing to death in the heavy snow due to too many cattle and sheep.

Therefore, batch after batch of sheep went south, which solved the dilemma of lack of grain in Yangzhai County.