readx; The carriage stopped in Xiling Lane, which was close to the West City, and Li Qing'an entered Atamiju, and soon, a middle-aged bearded man came out of the back door on the other side of Atami House with two young orchids, and the middle-aged Hu man was naturally dressed up by Li Qing, and there were several orchids in Atami who were very clever makeup artists, and they gave Li Qing'an a beard, thick eyebrows, and a kind of blue color in his eyes, and even his complexion changed, and no one knew him anymore as Li Qing'an. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

Mingzhu also made up a orchid, which changed a lot, her hair became maroon, her eyelashes became longer, and her nose was slightly raised, she kept taking out the small bronze mirror to look at her face, frowning for a while, and secretly laughing for a while, she simply became a different person.

Another orchid is also a Han disguise, her name is Li Rong, she belongs to the Anxi Army Internal Guard Intelligence Hall, her martial arts are extremely high, she is the team of twenty-seven female bodyguards in Zhao Wangfu, and today she pretends to be Li Qing'an's mistress and is his personal bodyguard.

Not only that, but eighteen personal bodyguards followed not far away, vigilantly watching the surrounding situation.

The house structure of Atami Ju is very special, Xiling Lane is a dead alley, it only takes more than 100 steps from the front door to the back door through Atamiju, but if you come out of the alley and then go around the back door of Atamiju, it will take at least half an hour, it is this special house structure that can ensure that when Atami Ju encounters a crisis, the people inside can be evacuated quickly, and today it can also ensure that Li Qingan is not tracked and discovered.

Li Qing'an took two beautiful orchids to walk slowly in the West Market, there are many Hu merchants in the West Market, accounting for at least thirty percent, Li Qing'an, this Hu businessman is not surprising at all, but the two concubines around him also occasionally attract people's attention.

"Delis, let's go to Mihang first!"

Li Qing'an spoke Turkic, and Li Rong assumed the name of Dai Lisi and translated for Mingzhu, "Mingzhu, the master said to go to Mihang first." ”

Mingzhu smiled like a flower, she held Li Qing'an's arm affectionately, her face showed sweetness, but her heart was itching with hatred, obviously so many Hu businessmen spoke Chinese, he was a fake Hu man and just talked nonsense, Mingzhu quietly pinched Li Qingan's arm fiercely, and said in a low voice: "My eldest brother, can't you speak Chinese?" ”

Li Qingan turned his head and blinked and smiled: "Little lady, what are you talking about?" I don't understand. ”

Speaking in Turkic language, Mingzhu was angry, and seeing Li Qingan's ambiguous smile, she was embarrassed to ask Li Rong, so she had to turn her head and ignore him......

The West Market is mainly based on people's livelihood goods, tea, rice, oil and salt, cloth, ordinary silk, cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry, pen, ink, paper, inkstone and other goods, there are hundreds of kinds, mainly wholesale, the amount of entry is very large, there are thousands of shops, a few shops are privately bought industries, most of them are leased, and the rent of the east and west cities alone every year is a lot of income for the imperial court.

Things are clustered by like, and the shops of a certain kind of goods will be concentrated in one place, called the line, such as the rice line, the silk line, the cloth line, the oil line, the tea line, the pig iron line, etc., and some bulk commodities are also subdivided, and the rice line alone has four industries, such as the five cooked lines, the white rice line, the rice line, and the japonica rice line, which is located in the middle of the West Market.

Since ancient times, grain is the focus of attention of various imperial courts, its price increase is even related to the rise and fall of a dynasty, the most prosperous middle of the Tang Dynasty, the price of rice is only ten Wen of rice, therefore, Du Fu wrote in the poem "Memories of the Past": Kaiyuan is in its heyday, Xiaoyi is still hidden in ten thousand families. The rice is fat and the corn is white, and the public and private warehouses are abundant.

But since the Tianbao year, the water conservancy in Guanzhong has gradually become barren, disasters are frequent, land annexation, and the price of rice has begun to rise step by step.

There are more than 100 rice shops in the west market, all of which are big stores that are more than a thousand stones, basically monopolizing the supply of grain and rice in Chang'an, and the rice shops in each square city have to come here to wholesale, of course, there are more than a dozen official stores over there in Changping, but they generally do not buy and sell at ordinary times, and only when the grain price must be stabilized in the disaster year, the official stores will open their doors to sell grain at low prices.

The rice shop is generally to pay money to buy rice in the front, pick up the goods at the back door, and there is a small river in the back, many people use boats to transport rice, and the purchase is mainly by boat, so the scale of the rice shop is not very visible from the gate, and it is all a small door and a deep courtyard.

Li Qing'an walked through several shops in a row, and finally he found a rice shop that looked relatively clean, and the plaque said 'Huhang Old Shop', the plaque was a little old, at least more than 50 years old.

"Let's go check it out!"

This time, Li Qing'an said it in Chinese, Turkic was just a temporary cover-up, and when the guards told him that no one was following him and there was no abnormal situation, he didn't want to roll his tongue and say Turkic.

Mingzhu was overjoyed, she finally understood, and hurriedly smiled: "Okay!" We'll see. ”

Li Rong walked in front, and as soon as they entered the gate, a guy greeted him warmly, but when he saw that it was Hu Ren, his enthusiasm immediately decreased by seven or eight points, and he asked lazily, "How much rice do you want to buy?" ”

"I'd like to take a look first!"

When the guy heard that he spoke fluent Chinese, he immediately became enthusiastic again, "I'll show you." ”

Li Qingan saw that he was like a chameleon, cold for a while, hot for a while, and couldn't help laughing and scolding: "You guy, if you don't wake up, you will come with another person!" ”

The guy smiled bitterly and said: "The guest officials don't know, the imperial court strictly prohibits selling rice out of the country, and once it is discovered, the rice shop will also suffer, so we generally don't dare to do business." ”

"Wait!"

Li Qing'an interrupted him, "Isn't the Western Regions also the Tang Realm?" I came from Shiguo, including Shiguo and Hezhong Nine Kingdoms, and now they are all Tang Realm, and I don't break the law when I sell rice in the past! ”

Li Qing'an felt very strange, he only knew that he was not allowed to sell rice to An Lushan, and he didn't know the rule that it was strictly forbidden to sell rice out of the country, the guy looked out of the door, pointed to the north, and said in a low voice: "In fact, the imperial court does not have this regulation, it is the rules of the rice industry, mainly because I am afraid of selling rice to Hui Hui, three months ago, Luo Ji Rice Shop sold a thousand stone of grain to a Hu merchant, but it was seized in Juyanhai, the Hu merchant was killed, Luo Ji Rice Shop was fined 10,000 yuan, and the property saved by decades of hard work selling rice was lost overnight, and the rice shop was closed. Everyone was afraid, so they set a rule that they were not allowed to sell rice to Hu Shang. ”

Li Qing'an suddenly realized that he had read Cui Qianyou's report on this matter, that a Sogdian merchant wanted to secretly transport rice to Hui Hui, but was caught by the patrol border army, but he did not expect the imperial court to actually fine 10,000 yuan, which should be done by Liu Yan, who was also the secretary of the Taifu Temple.

Li Qingan nodded and said with a smile: "Then why are you enthusiastic now?" ”

The guy also smiled: "We have seen a lot of people, and the merchants can speak fluent Chinese, so they must have stayed in the Central Plains for a long time, and it is estimated that buying rice is also doing business in the Central Plains, so there are changes under the rules, except for the Tang people and Hu merchants." ”

The so-called Tang Dynasty Hu Shang is a bit like today's 'Chinese Americans', but on the contrary, called 'Chinese Americans', there are at least hundreds of thousands of Hu people in Chang'an who have stayed in the Tang Dynasty for a long time, some of them are envious of the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty because of the war in their homeland, and some are reluctant to go back, and they have stayed in the Tang Dynasty for a long time, and they have also obtained Tang Dynasty household registration, and most of them can speak fluent Chinese.

"Alright! I'm going to buy rice to Henan, so you can first introduce me to the price of rice. ”

"Okay! Merchants, please come with me. ”

The guy took them into the lobby in the middle, Li Qingan saw this 'Huhang old shop' from the outside and was deserted, but when he entered the main hall, he knew that he was wrong, there were as many as 100 people in the lobby, most of them were merchants who came to buy rice, and the others were guys in the store, noisy and quite lively.

The lobby is square, ten zhang long and wide, and the wall is full of bamboo baskets, which are all kinds of rice samples, Li Qingan probably took a look, and the price of rice is about 400 yuan for doumi, which made him secretly surprised.

At the beginning of the year, he read a report from the Ministry of Households, the price of rice at that time was 80 wen for doumi, how could it be that in only ten months, the price of rice had risen fourfold, was it because of immigration, because of the war?

Li Qingxin was a little nervous, you must know that Doumi is 400 Wen, he Li Qingan will definitely be scolded by the people for eight generations, and the report that Pei Zunqing gave him is all the people of Chang'an singing praises to him, if it is really singing praises to virtue, it is only possible to sing Doumi 40 Wen.

"So expensive rice?" Li Qingan frowned and asked the guy: "Isn't Longyou a bumper grain harvest this year?" ”

The guy smiled bitterly and said: "How big is Longyou, if Longyou can solve the problem of Chang'an grain by a bumper harvest, then what else do you need to do?" ”

The words sound reasonable, but Li Qing'an knows that it is not entirely right, in the past, the grain of Longyou was mainly for the Longyou Army and the Hexi Army, so it was basically not transferred to Chang'an, but now it is different, after Tubo was occupied by the Tang Army, Longyou Hexi was basically without soldiers, and the 20,000 Tang Army in Juyanhai was also mainly supplied with grain in Guannei, so this year's Longyou Dao grain was basically transferred to Guanzhong, and although the output of Guanzhong was slightly reduced compared with last year, the large farms that annexed the land have been swept away, and some legal small farms are also normal to pay rent, and the official warehouse has sufficient grain and grass reserves, It is more than enough to deal with the war, and it will not affect the price of grain, if it rises to 400 Wen, then the imperial court should also release grain to close the position, why there is no movement at all.

Li Qing'an was full of doubts, and at this time, a merchant who bought rice next to him said: "It's not that the price of grain is high, but that the money is cheap." ”

Li Qingan was stunned, he seemed to vaguely understand, and he hurriedly arched his hand and said, "This big brother, why is the money cheap and the grain expensive?" ”

The merchant saw that he was quite polite, so he nodded and smiled: "Not only is the grain expensive, but everything is expensive, silk was originally 500 wen a horse, but now it has risen to three times, and the meat was originally 800 wen a catty, but now it has also risen to 200 wen." ”

"That's it!" Another businessman next to him interjected: "It turns out that if you drink wine once, you can drink authentic Gaochang wine with consistent money, as well as four or five plates of good dishes, but now the same thing costs at least three times, you see!"

The merchant shook the cloth bag he was carrying, and said: "These are silver dollars, two hundred silver dollars, worth two hundred yuan, originally worth two hundred and forty yuan, now there are more, it is cheaper, two hundred yuan weighed 1,200 pounds before, and you have to hire an ox cart to transport the money, now it is good, carry it with you, it is convenient to be convenient, but the copper money is worthless." ”

"In addition to the Ansi silver dollar, there are also Byzantine gold coins! I also have a lot of them. ”……

(To be continued)