In 333 B.C., in the second month of the seventh year of King Chuwei. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoThe vanguard of the Chu State and the Qi army drove into the Fuli fortress in the north of the Chu State.

To the north of the fortress is the Song state, and to the east are the only remaining small states of Dongyi, which were mostly dependent on the Qi state and the Yue state in the south. Because none of these small countries were powerful, the walls of the fortress were very rudimentary. However, even so, Fuli Fortress can be regarded as the border fortress of Chu in the east and north.

When he learned that the Chu army had arrived at Fuli Fortress, Dai Yan, who was in the Song Kingdom, also immediately set off for Fuli Fortress. Here, he met Zuo Yin Zhaosui and Zuo Sima Zhaohua of the Chu State. Zhao Sui was in charge of the supply of grain and grass for the Chu army, and as soon as he saw Dai Yan, he asked: "Gongzi once said that the Song State will open the border of the Song State to the Chu State, and will do his best to ensure the supply of grain and grass for my Chu State, I don't know what Gongzi wants to do?" ”

Dai Yan said: "My Song country opened up the border, not all of them were opened, only Xiaoyi, Pengcheng, Fengyi and Liuyi in the east can pass through, and other places cannot be opened." The supply of grain and grass for the Chu army is also very simple, our Song State normally buys grain and grass from Taoqiu, and then transports the grain and grass to the front line of the Chu army. Of course, if your country thinks that the fees charged by our country are too high, your country can also buy grain from Taoqiu by itself, and our Song country will not stop it. ”

The difference in price is used as a hardship fee, which is indeed more reasonable, Zhao Sui thought to himself. In ancient times, the supply of grain and grass was the most difficult and important thing in marching battles. Without food, even the most elite army can collapse in one day. Sun Tzu's Art of War has a cloud: where the art of war is used, thousands of cars are galloped, thousands of leather cars are carried, 100,000 armor is brought in, and thousands of miles of food are fed. Then the internal and external expenses, the use of guests, the material of glue paint, the dedication of the car armor, the daily cost of thousands of gold, and then 100,000 teachers. Only with an adequate supply of food can the army be combative, and it is even more difficult to supply food thousands of miles away. Therefore, Sun Wu greatly advocated taking grain from the enemy, that is, stealing grain from the enemy country. And believes that if it is really possible to feed the enemy, the effect is "eat the enemy for one hour, and be me for twenty minutes".

Like this time, the army of Chu State attacked Qi, and the army going north can really be regarded as fighting thousands of miles away, if you want to supply food to the front line from within Chu, the nearest one is also from the hometown of Chen Cai in Huaibei to the north, which is not a small cost. And if the Song State is willing to buy from Taoqiu, with the advantage of the dense domestic water network of the Song State and the nearby supply, then the cost of the Chu State in this war is definitely lower than that of the Qi State. Zhao Sui was overjoyed in his heart, but he didn't show it at all, and then he said to Dai Yan: "Since the Song State is so kind to supply grain and grass to my Chu State, how can my Chu State not dislike your country for charging too high fees?" In this way, since your country has worked so hard to supply grain and grass to our country, and my Chu country is a big country of 5,000 miles, of course, I can't treat your country badly, so I will take the price of grain by 30% as your country's hard work, what do you think? ”

Zhao Sui actually took the initiative to raise the price? Is there such a stupid person in the world? Dai Yan didn't understand the details at first, but then he saw Zhao Sui's meaningful eyes, and he understood a little. So he said: "Since Zuo Yin said so, then I, the Song Kingdom, will definitely be grateful to the Chu State and Zuo Yin's great kindness in the future." ”

Then Zhao Sui took out a bamboo slip and handed it to Dai Yan. Dai Yan took it away and glanced at it, and then knew what to do. Zhao Sui really wanted to collect benefits, and Zhao Sui wanted to collect half of the extra two percent of the difference, and he gave the rest to Dai Yan. For such a decision, Dai Yan will not refuse. So he said to Zhao Sui: "Zuo Yin's intentions, I know it, and I will definitely do this matter seamlessly." ”

Zhao Sui then said with satisfaction: "Then in the future, the supply of grain and grass for the army of my Chu State will depend on your country." ”

Of course, although Zhao Sui said so, but the army was outside, and the grain and grass were completely handed over to another country for supply, and the Chu State would not be at ease. Therefore, the grain that the Huaihe Boat Division should transport still has to be transported, which actually ultimately determines the route of the Chu State's invasion of Qi, and indeed as Dai Yan said, the Chu army can only go to the east of the Song State, and the Song State does not need to let go of the west and the north. It seems that Song Guo's calculations are really accurate, Zhao Sui thought.

Later, Dai Yan mentioned to Zhao Sui the requirements of the Song State, and the Chu army marched within the territory of the Song State, so it was necessary not to harass the people of the Song State. Song Guo helped Chu Guo and him Zhao Sui so much, and this was also something that Qu Yuan had discussed with Song Guo before, and Zhao Sui of course agreed.

Through this incident, Dai Yan can be regarded as having a clear understanding of the characteristics of Zhao Sui, and he also knows how to deal with Zhao Sui in the future. In fact, Song Guo didn't care about the hard work at all, and Dai Yan didn't look down on the extra hard work at all. Because Dai Yan's way of obtaining benefits is not in the hard work fee collected at all, Dai Yan is actually betting on the rise in food prices in the whole world.

When the news of the Prime Minister of Xuzhou just came out two years ago, Dai Yan quickly foresaw that there would inevitably be a big war in the world in the future. And once there is a big war in the world, then the price of necessities (food) will inevitably rise rapidly. Being able to make this judgment is partly because Dai Yan was interested in history before crossing over, and knew that the Xuzhou Xiangwang incident triggered the Qichu War. On the other hand, there are some of his lessons in the afterlife. He used to speculate in silver when he was working, but the sudden outbreak of the war in Libya caused him to lose a lot of money as a short seller, so he paid special attention to the relationship between war and necessities and financial derivatives.

In this era, once a war breaks out, it is inevitable that food prices will rise, and many people will have such judgments. However, there are not many people who can judge how amazing this increase is. And using the laws of the economy to actively trigger a food crisis and increase the price of food is something that not many people can do. After all, before this era, there were only two economists in the true sense, one was Guan Zhong of Qi State, and the other was Ji Ran of Song State.

Back in January of 333 BCE, during this time, Zhao Yu, the warlike monarch of Zhao, directly led a large army to attack Wei and besieged Huangcheng. Later, Wei sent a large army to defend, and the two sides confronted each other at Huangcheng. Although the scale of this war between Zhao and Wei was not particularly large, its impact was very large. Although Huangcheng is a small city, it is a barrier to Yecheng, an important town in the northern part of the Wei State.

Yedi was an extremely poor place in the early years of the Wei Kingdom, and its change was after Ximen Leopard ruled Ye. Ximen Leopard came to Yedi, sank the wizards and three elders of Yedi into Zhangshui, and then personally led the people of Yedi to build water conservancy and open 12 ditches, which made Yedi great and the people rich. By this time, the Yecheng area was the richest area in the entire Wei State after the surrounding Liang, and it was also one of the most important food suppliers in the Central Plains. In the past two years, Dai Yan has continued to travel from Taoqiu to Fengyi, and the grain from Yecheng accounts for a large part of it. Now that Yedi is in a state of war, food prices have begun to rise rapidly.

In the past, during the war, the price of food in Taoqiu would rise rapidly, and then after the war ended, the price of grain would fall rapidly. Before the outbreak of the war, Dai Yan began to hoard a large amount of grain, and even though most of the world had a bumper harvest year in the previous two years, grain began to rise slowly. By the eve of the outbreak of war between Zhao and Wei, the price of grain had reached the point of one gold and 10 stone of grain, which was almost twice the price of grain before King Xiang of Xuzhou.

After Zhao attacked Huangcheng, the price of grain in Taoqiu rose directly to the level of 1 gold and 5 stone of grain in just a few days. By February, when the army of Chu entered the fortress of Fuli, the price of grain in Taoqiu had risen to the point of 1 gold and 4 stone of grain. If calculated according to the price before the king of Xuzhou, then in just two years, it is equivalent to the price of grain directly becoming five times the original!

Moreover, the increase in grain prices has not stopped, Dai Yan relied on the three major merchants of Taoqiu to purchase 1 million stones, if Dai Yan sold these grains at this time, he could immediately earn a profit of more than 200,000 gold, which was already equivalent to the financial and tax revenue of the Song Kingdom for two years. If you take the 50,000 gold that Song Junzixi took out two years ago as the cost, you can immediately have 400% of the profit!

To be able to achieve such an effect, of course, there is an element of war. However, if Dai Yan hadn't taken the lead and slowly snapped up the surplus grain in the market through the three major merchants of Taoqiu on the eve of the war, the price of grain might have risen, but it would definitely not have risen so fast, and the profits that Dai Yan could obtain would definitely not be so high.

However, Dai Yan is not satisfied with such profits. In his opinion, the war between Qi and Chu has not officially begun, and the real show has not officially begun. Judging from the news he heard from the Qi State and the Chu State through the merchants, for this war, the Qi State and the Chu State each levied more than 100,000 troops! If this war officially starts, then the price of food will soar to what level, Dai Yan himself can't even imagine.

The change in grain prices is naturally unpredictable, but as far as the Song State supplies food to the Chu army, Zhao Sui feels that the Chu State has taken a big advantage, and he can also obtain huge benefits, so he is very happy to do things that benefit both public and private.

Half a month later, the vanguard of Chu State drove into Fengyi, and the main force of the Chu army, which had been following behind the vanguard of the Chu army, and the king of Chu also began to enter the territory of Song State.