Niu Qian called a group of brothers from the Ziben family to come over as Liba, Luo Shi prepared a big dustpan to sweep the grain, and a team of people planned to go to the Ruifeng rice store in the city to line up to buy grain.

When I went out, Luo Shi's eyes were sharp, and I saw Mrs. Li holding a basket of Bai Song, walking home unhurriedly.

She glanced at the crowd outside her house and said:

"What are a lot of people doing, what's the excitement? Do you want my wife to take a look at it too? ”

Mrs. Li seemed to be in a good mood, and her eyes were wrinkled together with a smile, but after her gaze swept over Luo Shi's anxious face, she inevitably muttered:

"The girl has a sad face all day long, and if she doesn't know, she seems to owe her 180,000 money"

"Grandma Li, let's go to the city to buy grain, I have to wait in a long line, you and Sanniang have dinner first, you don't have to wait for us"

Niu Qian is an honest man, what did Mrs. Li ask, and he answered for Luo Shi.

"What to do when you buy food! If you want to buy it, you can also buy food stamps! The food is heavy, it is troublesome to store at home, and you have to prevent pest bites, and you can leave the rations, you hire a group of people to carry rice bags, and you can't contribute to the silver? If you're young, you're not sensible! ”

Mrs. Li was anxious, she knew that Niu Qianmu was stunned, and she listened to the girl's film in everything, so she walked up to Luo Shi and said:

"You give me the money, I will exchange food stamps for you, I know a place, it is cheaper than the grain store, more than a mile"

Luo Shi didn't want to talk to her more, if she wanted to explain to Mrs. Li what a price bubble was, she might as well go to the top exam to save trouble.

"I don't have to worry about you, I like to buy white rice with real money, I feel comfortable when I look at it"

With that, Luo Shi smiled at Mrs. Li, planning to bypass her and walk outside.

"Eh, you disobedient girl, don't listen to the old man, you suffer in front of you! Ouch hey! ”

Mrs. Li saw that Luo Shi insisted on going her own way, so she reached out to pull her, but unfortunately she pounced, her center of gravity was unstable, and she fell to the ground!

Fortunately, it was a soft muddy ground, which didn't make her fall somewhere, but the basket she was carrying smashed to the ground, and Bai Song rolled to the ground.

Looking at the afterglow, I saw a thick stack of newly printed food stamps in ink!

Mrs. Li was obviously a little nervous when she saw that things were exposed, and she hurriedly wanted to put away the food stamps-

Luo Shi was quick and picked up things from the ground first, and she counted about twenty of them!

A grain stamp circulating in the market is one stone of grain, and twenty is twenty stones, and now the price of grain is two or four, and this stack will cost at least more than forty taels of silver!

Where did Mrs. Li get the money? Crazy?

And the smell of ink is very strong, like a new one recently rushed out, Luo Shi can't help but slander: these people have a lot of money to see things, and they don't know the tickets that control the circulation of the market! Looking at everyone's loyalty and fried grain, there is no bottom line for printing and distribution.

Luo Shi bet that the total reserves of all the grain shops in Tongzhou City were far less than the number of food stamps issued.

Once a run occurs, the market crashes immediately.

"Where did you get the money to buy food stamps?" Rashi immediately asked.

Mrs. Li opened her eyes and muttered quietly, first straightened her rickety back, and then said righteously: "The money I borrowed from my wife, it has nothing to do with you, bring it to me!" ”

"Who do you recognize? Sanniang will never borrow this silver from you, did you borrow money from Yinzi? ”

Luo Shi stared at her tightly, and her calm voice hit Mrs. Li's heart.

"I didn't ask you to borrow it, when the price of grain rises a few more days, I will sell it for money, and then you don't look at me to make a lot of money!"

Luo Shi rolled her eyes in her heart, if she wasn't for her own grandmother, she really didn't want to care about her life or death, let her die, and she wouldn't frown.

Sighing secretly, Luo Shi raised his hand and rubbed his eyebrows and said: "I know how many money banks will collect tickets again, you go into the city with me to sell, take the money and pay it back, if it is not enough, I will label it for you."

Mrs. Li did not accept her kindness, but sneered:

"I know what your idea is, don't bully me when I'm old, you're just afraid that I'll earn money and take my pocket back to my hometown, so you can't see me well, you black-hearted girl with a small belly!"

After that, Mrs. Li slammed into Luo Shi, snatched the food stamps back from her hand, and put them away closely!

"I'm not afraid to tell you, I'm going to take my pocket away sooner or later, how can I follow your nameless sister, when I earn money, I'll take him away, buy a field and a house, and then marry him a daughter-in-law who is good to have, even if I kick my legs and die, I can explain to the ancestors of the Li family"

With a heavy snort, Mrs. Li rubbed her waist, picked up Bai Song on the ground and walked home.

Niu Qian was a little embarrassed, and he didn't know what to do when he looked at Luo Shi.

"Brother Niu Qian, do you know the person who put the money in the village?" Luo Shi could only ask him.

"I know a few, I know what you mean, I will come back after buying food for a while, I will go to the door to ask, see how much Grandma Li has borrowed, how much interest is there, I will tell you together, so that you can have the bottom of your heart"

"Well, I'm afraid that she will have some trouble, the sooner this Yinzi money is repaid, the better, you also ask Sanniang to persuade her, she is prejudiced against me, and she can't listen to what I say."

The cow should be full of mouthfuls.

Luo Shi glanced at Mrs. Li's back, and deep worry flashed in her eyes.

Put aside Mrs. Li's affairs for the time being, Luo Shi followed Niu Qian all the way into the city, and went to the grain store to buy rice.

*

Tongzhou City, Ruifeng Grain Bank.

Ruifeng is the largest grain store in Tongzhou City, and Mo San, the owner here, is also the president of the Tongzhou Grain Association - he has full authority to issue food stamps.

There was a long queue outside the shop, but most of them came to buy food stamps.

These people live a fairly worry-free life, a well-off family, and plan to make a little money with the general situation. Really big families speculate on grain stamps, they will not come to the shop to queue up, they all ask the second dealer to buy a large amount, or go directly to Mo San's relationship and ask him to buy.

And the rest are poor people, barely making ends meet, coming for rations, and they are full of anxiety when they see the price of food getting higher day by day, and they are worried in their hearts: if it continues to rise like this, they will really have to borrow money to buy food!

waited in line for a long time before it was Luo Shi's turn.

The guy on the counter didn't raise his head, he held a brush in his hand, and quickly took a photo on the ledger, and only asked coldly:

"How many?"

"If you are tired of the shopkeeper, I only buy cash grain, and I first ask for 100 stone of grain and rice."

The bookkeeper paused the brush in his hand, twisted his eyebrows, raised his head and glanced at Luo Shi, and when he saw that it was a girl, he said impatiently:

"Don't look for me to have fun, if you don't buy food stamps, you will dodge, there is a long queue behind you! Bulk grain on the rice shop to buy it! Go - next! ”

Rass raised her voice:

"A millet shop only has a dozen stones of grain, if I can buy it, why should I go to you? Don't you even have a hundred stone of grain in store? I see that you are never soft when you sell food stamps, one or two hundred pieces are sold out, if you can't redeem the grain, aren't you selling these waste paper? ”

The people around heard it, and many of them, who were about to buy food stamps, gathered around the counter, and their hearts beat drums, waiting in unison for the man's reply.

As soon as the man heard this, a cold sweat came down, and he stood up slowly, looked at Luo Shi's eyes full of vigilance, and said in a deep voice:

"The girl is here to find fault?"

"Heh, I came to buy grain with real money, there is no truth in the world that understands better than me, polite, don't steal or rob, how can it be regarded as finding fault?"

She took out a silver ticket worth three hundred taels from her sleeve and slapped it on the counter.

The silver ticket was pressed into the palm of his hand, and it just revealed the amount of money on it, so that the guy could see it clearly.

"This girl is right, why don't you buy food, isn't it an empty warehouse to deceive people, and you still send us food stamps like this, you have to give a quasi-word!"

The next line of people is going to be excited, and if you don't feel easy, I'm afraid this matter will be big.

The guy said in a loud voice: "Give it, we Ruifeng has hundreds of thousands of stones of grain, enough for the people of a city to eat for the winter!" ”

As soon as he said this, everyone's noise gradually became quieter, and the guy let out a long sigh of relief, and said reluctantly to Luo Shi:

"Girl, please!"

Luo Shi followed him inside, through the shop, into a spacious courtyard, east and west north are grain and rice warehouses.

The man took the key from his waist, picked out one, and opened the door to the innermost part of the west—

As soon as the door opened, a burst of ash greeted him, and the man choked and coughed constantly.

Luo Shi stretched out his hand to dust the ashes, covered his mouth and nose and said, "How many years is this old grain, right?" Why don't you give me new bread? ”

The man's eyes rolled and he smiled:

"The girl is a layman, our Tongzhou almost relies on the northern transportation of rice, and it is planted by itself, and it is only so much a year, which is not enough to pay the rice tax in the capital, this year's new Cao has not yet arrived, it is all last year's old grain, you want so much at once, you can only do it at once"

Luo Shi looked into the warehouse, bags of rice were piled up at the foot of the wall, the rice bags were old and yellow, obviously not from last year, but like the leftover from the previous year.

"You open another warehouse and let me see—"

"It's not a rule, if you don't want it, then you don't have it, and it's the same for everyone else!" The guy bites to death, and he definitely doesn't give Luo Shi a chance to choose.

After hesitating for a moment, Luo Shi could only compromise, and she said lightly:

"Okay, you and I settle, I'll call Liba to carry the grain"

"Okay, a hundred stones, come and count it as soon as possible!"

The guy asked Luo Shi to go to the tea room to wait for the tea to settle, and then walked out of the warehouse, Luo Shi looked into the next few rooms - through the Dongchang paper in the pane, she could probably see it.

Most of them are only piled up in the corners, less than a third of the room!

Luo Shi was secretly surprised in her heart, the situation was worse than she thought, the grain storage of Ruifeng Grain Store was probably not even 10,000 stones!

Its guys are still shouting that they have more than 100,000 stones of grain in stock, enough for the people of Tongzhou City to eat for the winter?

It's all full of nonsense!

*

Niu Qian waited for Luo Shi to pay the silver, so he took a group of people to come in to carry rice and grain, and from the back door of the grain store, he used more than a dozen Taiping cars to push them to the grain shop of the lady.

Niu Changgeng waited outside the shop early, and when he got the message at noon, he immediately cleaned out a few empty warehouses and prepared to store grain.

He also deliberately erected wooden planks on the ground to prevent moisture, opened small windows on the wall for ventilation, followed the example of the big granary at the wharf, and looked good, and he has always been very attentive to the things entrusted by Luo Shi.

"It's all empty, not to mention a hundred stones, even five hundred stones can fit it!"

Niu Changgeng's sleeves are rolled up on his elbows, his strong arms are full of muscles, and he has been doing hard work all year round, and carrying rice bags is his old job. The brothers in the errand team who came out with him also came up to help—

Everyone worked together to make the dust fly.

Luo Shi couldn't help for the time being, so she had to stand on the side, she thought about where she was going to have dinner for a while, in addition to paying Liba, she also had to take care of a meal.

was thinking about it, and a person came from afar, looking a little familiar, like Liba from the original dock, but he was familiar with Niu Changgeng.

"Chang Gung Chang Gung!"

He waved his hand, ran to Luo Shi and Niu Changgeng, took a breath, and then said:

"There was an accident at the dock, it was Lao Liu Tou who unloaded a cargo ship, he was so scared that he didn't dare to tell the steward, thinking that you might have an idea, so let me come to you to have a look!"

Niu Changgeng put down the rice bag on his shoulder and said suspiciously:

"What's going on?"

The man glanced at Luo Shi and stopped talking.

Niu Changgeng frowned and said: "You don't have to avoid her, just say, I have no way, I only have one strength, I really have to worry about it, I have to rely on her!" ”

The man nodded, hesitated, and then gritted his teeth and said:

"There's a dead man hiding under the deck of that cargo ship!"