PS: I drank too much wine at the class reunion yesterday, and today I only have one shift, and I have to go to the same school for dinner in the evening. Thank you all for your support, and now the update will try to be stable!

This time the punishment of the magnates and scholars involved in the grain merchants is indeed a bit much, and the entire Nanzhili is simply a lot of magnates and scholars who are implicated.

If there is no army in charge, it is estimated that Nanzhili is already in turmoil at this time, because the emperor's hand is too 'dirty'.

First, he threw out the bait for them to bite the hook, and then directly confiscated the grain, not only lost all the low-priced grain they bought, but even lost 7 million stone of grain, which is simply a catastrophe! The money accumulated over the years is basically all thrown in.

Moreover, in order to purchase those low-priced grains, the capital chain was still very extensive, and a lot of money was borrowed.

What's even more annoying is that not to mention the confiscated food, the people who came also caught it, and it didn't take long for them to bite one by one, pulling out a large group of people.

Dongchang and Jinyiwei directly issued huge fines to these grain merchants who manipulated grain prices, ranging from 3,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan.

Although this sentence was formed in the Qing Dynasty, because the Manchu Qing Dynasty openly allowed them to embezzle in order to entrap the Han ruling class, it was very common in the Qing Dynasty to take advantage of the situation. Such a phenomenon in the Ming Dynasty was much better than that in the Qing Dynasty, but it was not impossible.

It can be seen that once the official power is used, it is too easy to seize it by force. It's just that under normal circumstances, those corrupt officials use this set to deal with the people. But now the emperor is using this set to deal with these powerful and noble grain merchants.

The saddest thing is. Because the news of food price manipulation has been reported. It has already aroused the strong indignation of the people of Nanzhili. The imperial court announced the punishment of unscrupulous grain merchants, and immediately won the support of the people of Nanzhili. Those nobles and magnates did not want to be killed by the emperor, the only way was to raise an army to rebel, and it was impossible to incite the people to make trouble, and no people would support these grain merchants.

But if there is a rebellion, and the imperial court has transferred a large army to suppress the formation, if anyone jumps out to rebel, they will want to get the final result in their normal minds. That is the emperor's ruthless repression. At that time, it will no longer be a matter of manipulating food prices, but a major crime.

As a result, no one dared to jump out to be a bird, and everyone knew that the end of a person who jumped out to be a bird was the most terrifying.

As for the emperor to be fined, then fine!

Seeing that their arms could not be twisted around their thighs, many grain merchants had no choice but to start selling real estate to pay the fines. Some sold their fields, some sold their grain stores, and some simply sold their rice processing factories.

The prices sold by these grain stores and rice processing factories are not very high, because many Nanzhili businessmen have realized a serious problem, and after this crackdown, the grain sales industry in Nanzhili will probably be monopolized by the Jimin Grain Bank in the future.

Because the grain merchants of Nanzhili suffered too serious losses in this blow. Such a huge capital loss is not something that can be relieved in a year or two. It is impossible to relieve even more than ten years, and many businessmen have accumulated the capital of several generations and have been trapped.

At the same time, the Jimin Grain Bank had already begun to make arrangements in the Huguang area, and as soon as these grain merchants fell, the Jimin Grain Bank quickly took over the rice processing factories and replaced these grain merchants as the main force in the purchase of Huguang commercial grain.

On the one hand, the peasants in the Huguang area will go bankrupt, and on the other hand, the people in the coastal provinces and areas will go hungry, and the grain prices will become very high.

This is precisely the result of the Jimin Grain Bank, that is, to carry out a large-scale grain purchase, processing, and sales business in the south, so as to cut off the umbilical cord of the Jiangnan chaebol to grab huge profits through grain supply, so as to reduce the exploitation of ordinary people.

When those grain merchants paid the fines and were released, the grain sales market in Nanzhili has undergone earth-shaking changes both upstream and downstream. A large number of grain stores went out of business, but the Jimin grain stores quickly opened all over the cities and towns of Nanzhili.

The grain price of Jimin Grain Bank is very stable, the price of a stone of ordinary rice is 2 yuan, never higher than a penny, never lower than a penny, and according to the local population to calculate the grain supply, and began to set up warehouses in various places, each area can store grain that can be consumed by the market for 2~3 months.

When food prices are too low, grain is purchased to ensure the benefit of producers.

Although there is no huge profit in this way of operation, the profits are very stable, and it is also very scary after the scale is expanded. Cao Jinyu has now become a wealthy businessman, and has also won a three-rank civil honor, which is the highest among the civil honors. As for the capital of the Jimin Grain Bank, there is no need to worry at all, the bank can provide sufficient operating funds for the Jimin Grain Bank.

Especially after the imperial court issued paper money, the funds that Jimin Grain Bank could get were even larger. The operation of grain, a bulk commodity, requires a large amount of capital to operate. Because these grains are real things, and they are huge.

Qian Yuan's shipping company also entered the Yangtze River water transportation market and established a Yangtze River freight company, which is still operated in joint stock with state-owned capital, and its Chinese enterprise capital accounts for 70% of the shares.

The Yangtze River Freight Company provides stable transportation conditions for the export of Jimin Grain Bank and other commodities to the Yangtze River Basin, so that the state-owned capital consortium can transport raw materials and commodities from the Yangtze River Basin, and at the same time transport the goods to the Yangtze River Basin for sale.

With the opening of channels for grain sales, the state-owned capital consortium began to gradually control the grain supply in the Jiangnan region, and at the same time monopolized the supply of steel and salt.

Grain, steel, and salt are all commodities, inconspicuous but in huge quantities.

In recent years, the steel smelting in the south has been declining in the context of the rise of state-owned steel mills, and the state-owned steel mills have quickly occupied the commodity steel market in the Ming provinces by virtue of higher quality and lower prices.

In terms of salt, anti-smuggling efforts have also been intensified in the sixth year of the Apocalypse, and the quality of official salt supplied to the market has also been continuously improved, especially the smell of seawater and brine in the salt. In addition, the salt introduction system was abolished, and anyone could sell official salt, which greatly reduced the price of official salt, which was welcomed and praised by the people.

At this time, the state-owned capital consortium was expanding to the south, and its goal was naturally not satisfied with such a situation, and the state-owned mining companies and textile companies were expanding to the south.

First of all, in terms of coal supply, Nanzhili, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, and the provinces in the Yangtze River basin have all begun to have northern coal supply. Mining companies have also begun to explore and invest in minerals in the South. Coal is also one of the advantageous commodities, because the further east, the further south the coal resources, many towns in the Jiangnan area are not very sufficient, most of them are burning wood.

Because the cost of logging will be higher than that of coal due to transportation constraints and resource constraints. Coal mining is relatively concentrated, transportation can be solved by building roads, and transportation efficiency is higher than that of wood. Therefore, coal from the north is also popular in the Jiangnan region.

In particular, honeycomb coal only needs a stove, which is very simple to use, and is welcomed by the people of Jiangnan.

The whaling industry also produced a batch of whale oil at this time, and these whale oils began to enter the market, because the production was not too high at the beginning, so the price was relatively high, and these whale oils were popular with the wealthy class, and the sales were very good. Because whale oil combustion does not produce black smoke and unpleasant odors, the brightness is relatively high.

Candles made from whale oil were also popular, and lubricating oil was also made after obtaining whale oil, which solved the problem of not having high-quality lubricating oil and further improved the performance of steam engines.

In the sixth year of the Apocalypse, the state-owned capital consortium also set up two textile factories and a silk reeling factory in Songjiang, and began to officially enter the competition of the textile industry and raw silk industry in the Jiangnan region.

The Jiangnan area is obviously more suitable for the development of light industry, so the scale of the textile industry in Beizhili will not continue to expand too much in the future, and the textile industry center will be transferred to Jiangnan. On the one hand, the establishment of the silk reeling factory is to produce raw silk for the northern market, and on the other hand, to supply the raw silk for export, which is very profitable, because it has its own sales channels, and the technology of production equipment can also be developed by itself.

The state-owned capital consortium has begun to press towards the Jiangnan chaebol step by step in all fields, and when the interests of these commodities are controlled by the state-owned capital consortium, more than half of their profit acquisition channels will be cut off.

In contrast, the maritime merchants in Fujian and Guangdong have not had a good time, and their profits have fallen sharply since the establishment of the customs and the fact that the merchant fleets of state-owned capital consortia have begun to run around the seas. Some maritime merchants tried to collude with the pirates, but the pirates were already being swept away by the imperial court. Some tried to smuggle at sea, and as a result, anti-smuggling boats were everywhere.

After obediently paying the tariff, the profit decline is very serious, but in general, business can still be done, but it is so easy to make a lot of money.

Zhu Youxiao has been scolded thousands of times by a large number of businessmen, and all kinds of absurd rumors have been widely circulated in the market.

Obviously, Zhu Youxiao is not afraid of these businessmen scolding him behind his back, anyway, he has already got the money, as long as he doesn't go too far, he will pretend not to know.

Over the past few quarters, the imperial court's tax revenue has been in a state of rapid growth, especially in New Deal areas such as Beizhili, because a large amount of investment has driven the economy, and the scale of commodity consumption has increased significantly.

In this year, the government basically applied the civilian power that could be mobilized to various construction activities, and only maintained it militarily, and there was a marked increase in military spending.

In particular, the investment in water conservancy facilities in the New Deal area has greatly improved the ability of agriculture to resist disasters. The development of resources in the Northeast, Taiwan and the South Seas, as well as the development of resources in Australia, can provide a large number of agricultural products in the future.

The improvement of fiscal revenue and agricultural production finally allowed Zhu Youxiao to breathe a sigh of relief. No matter what natural and man-made disasters happen in the future, he has enough resources to deal with them. As long as the common people were not allowed to go hungry, there would be no peasant uprising, and the Ming Dynasty would not have perished. (To be continued.) )