The wharf on the Yangtze River outside Wuchang was full of cargo ships that had come to collect grain, all of which were waiting to be loaded onto the wharf and shipped to the southern Zhili Zhejiang area for sale.

There are merchants with various names hanging on the grain collection, such as the Shen family, the Qian family, the Xu family, the Wang family, etc., but the largest is the Xu family.

Xu Niancun is the great-grandson of Xu Jie, the first assistant of the Ming Dynasty, the third in the Xu family, the eldest brother Xu Nianzu entered the office, and now lives in Shangbao Temple, and the second Xu Nianzu is responsible for family affairs.

As the youngest of the three brothers, Xu Niancun has been in charge of the family's business since he was a child.

The Xu family is one of the largest families in Songjiang Mansion, and the Xu family not only has a large area of land in Songjiang Mansion, but also a large area of good land in the north of Nanjing Mansion.

It is rumored that the Xu family has a total of 240,000 acres of fertile land in the Nanzhili area.

It is rumored that when Hai Rui investigated the Xu family, he once wrote back to Li Chunfang, the first assistant: Cunweng has suffered too much for the small group recently, and the number of industries is shocking, and he also takes it by himself. If you don't retreat more than half, the people's customs can be stopped?

Hai Rui couldn't find out how much land the Xu family had at that time, but seeing the appearance of the local people and the number of industries of the Xu family, Hai Rui couldn't help but be shocked.

After decades of development, the Xu family's land has increased many times.

But the Xu family's business is still doing hot, in recent years the world is in turmoil, there is a drought in all parts of the north, and last year there was also a drought in Zhejiang, resulting in soaring food prices.

Xu Niancun felt that the world would change, and there would be war all year round.

Money and grain are needed to fight wars, and Xu Niancun's rice business is very successful, and he will sell millions of stone of grain to the imperial court and local governments every year to make huge profits.

Nowadays, there has been a war in the north, and the price of rice in the northwest and Henan has been at a high price.

When Chongzhen was four years old, there was a shortage of soldiers in Shandong, and the price of rice rose directly to 221 stones, and in the eighth year of Chongzhen, the price of rice in Henan rose to 150 taels of stone rice.

Two taels of silver to collect one stone of rice, Xu Niancun transported this stone of rice to Henan, and sold it for hundreds of taels of silver, and the profit in the middle was simply ridiculously high.

The Xu family not only sold the rice produced in their own fields, but also collected rice everywhere to monopolize the market, Xu Niancun heard about the harvest in Huguang, and immediately realized that there was rice to harvest in the Wuchang area, and immediately came to collect rice with a boat.

Xu Niancun was determined to collect 200,000 stone of rice in Huguang and Jiangxi and transport it to Nanjing, and then transport it to the north through the Hai Canal.

Xu Niancun and a group of rice merchants were collecting rice in the city with such a big move, and naturally some people in Wuchang City were unhappy.

As the master of Wuchang, Mo Qian naturally couldn't sit back and watch these people transport their strategic materials away so easily.

He called Lu Zhao, the commander of the navy, and ordered him to immediately send troops to arrest all the cargo ships and boatmen who were leaning on the wharf to carry grain.

In addition, troops were sent to block the wharf and prohibit rice merchants from buying rice, and at the end of the day, Lu Zhao directly detained 50 boats and more than 700 people, as well as more than 30,000 stone of ready-made rice.

Xu Niancun, who was drinking tea in the teahouse, immediately panicked when he heard that his fleet was detained.

He immediately went to the Governor's Mansion and asked to meet Mo Qian.

Where did Mo Qian have time to deal with him, a merchant, and directly asked someone to blow him away, and warned him that he would not be allowed to appear in his jurisdiction without permission in the future.

Xu Niancun was confused, not knowing what he had offended Mo Qian.

He had to spend money to find a relationship, and after some operation, he only saw a small scribe in the yamen.

When the little scribe heard that he was here to inquire about the detention of the ship at the wharf, he didn't even dare to accept the money at the moment, but said to Xu Niancun: "The Governor has just given an order, grain belongs to military supplies, except for the yamen of the Governor's Palace, the rest of the people are not allowed to accept rice, once discovered, not only the boat and the goods are detained, but also the people have to be arrested and imprisoned, if Master Xu wants to save his life, he should hurry up and hand over the rice and go back to Nanjing!" ”

Xu Niancun never thought that such a big business would be ruined by an order from the Governor's Palace.

Xu Niancun was furious in his heart, but he didn't dare to vent at will.

There are soldiers patrolling the streets in this Wuchang city at any time, and if he is heard scolding the governor, I am afraid that he will be taken away and squatted in the office for a few days on the spot.

The other rice merchants were not doing well, and they all received a warning from the governor's yamen, ordering them to leave Wuchang with their goods at once, and not to go to Huguang and Jiangxi to collect rice in the future.

Everyone is a businessman, where is Mo Qian, who has soldiers in hand, can only choose to compromise, and after promising not to collect rice again, he left tens of thousands of stones and rice and ran away.

Mo Qian used coercive means to organize a farce of rice harvesting in his jurisdiction, but the people didn't buy it.

Rice that could have been sold for two taels of silver can now only be sold for one tael or eight cents, and the income of two taels of silver is missing for no reason.

Some people were not satisfied and went directly to the governor's yamen to complain.

When Mo Qian heard that there were complaints from the people, he was not ambiguous, he came directly to the door of the governor's mansion, and he wanted to see them in person.

When the hundreds of complaining people saw Mo Qian who appeared at the door, the people felt frightened and knelt on the ground with a plop.

"Meet the King!"

Mo Qian looked at the hundreds of people outside the governor's mansion, and said loudly: "Fellow villagers, you think that I, the governor, am unfair to you because I don't allow rice merchants from other places to buy the rice in your hands, don't you?" ”

The people lowered their heads and didn't dare to look at Mo Qian, only a man in the front row was bold and replied cowardly: "Yes!" ”

Mo Qian saw that everyone was standing, so he instructed Yuan Xingdi, the captain of the pro-soldiers beside him, to say, "Go, move some chairs, and let the big guy sit and talk." ”

"Yes!"

Soon the soldiers came out of the palace with chairs and placed them on the street outside the governor's palace.

Mo Qian himself asked for a small maza.

"Come, don't stand, sit down, let's sit down and talk!"

Everyone looked at Mo Qian actually sitting in front of them with a small horse, and they were a little surprised, this governor was really casual, and he actually sat down in front of everyone with a small horse.

"Don't be afraid, I'm not a tiger, I won't eat you, you can sit in peace!"

The people saw Mo Qian with a smile on his face and a very kind attitude, and suddenly the fear in his heart weakened a little, and everyone sat down one after another.

After sitting down, Mo Qian began to popularize science for them.

"Folks, do you know how much the price of rice in the Ming Dynasty was a stone when the country was first founded?"

When the people heard this, they immediately understood what Mo Qian meant.

An older white-haired old man got up and said, "I remember my grandfather once said that in the time of Emperor Yongle, in the year of the harvest, one stone of rice was sold for more than one penny and silver, and one or two pieces of silver could buy seven or eight stones of rice!" ”

"Well, this uncle has a good memory, during the Yongle Dynasty, the folk rice stone rice was only a penny of silver, but later, the price of this rice has been in a stage of slow rise, to the Wanli year, the price of this folk rice is also quite stable, to the Apocalypse Dynasty, the price of folk rice began to rise.

At the beginning, one tael of silver could still buy seven or eight stones of rice, but how many years has it been since the Apocalypse Dynasty? In less than 20 years, the price of this rice has risen directly to 128 coins and 1 stone, a full increase of 18 times, does this uncle know the reason for this? ”

The uncle shook his head and said he didn't know.

"I can explain to you why the price of rice has risen so much in just twenty years, and that is because of the drought in the north that has been plagued by drought year after year since the Apocalypse.

Because of the drought in Shaanxi, the people in Gansu and Gansu could not grow grain at all, so the imperial court allocated grain from the Jiangnan area to the northwest.

But when transporting grain to the northwest, most of them are doing it, rice merchants.

These merchants collected rice from Jiangnan for one penny of silver, and then transported it to the northwest and sold it for one tael of silver, which was ten times the profit.

At that time, because of the rising price of rice, the people in Jiangnan sold rice to these merchants one after another, resulting in not much grain in their hands.

The year before last, these rice merchants harvested rice in the south of the Yangtze River on a large scale, and many rice in Zhejiang were rejected by them.

Last year, there was a severe drought in Zhejiang, and all the rice in the rice fields dried up, and as a result, because the people had no rice to save, they had to pay to buy it from rice merchants.

But as for these merchants, they have raised prices aggressively, and sold the rice that was originally one tael of silver and one stone directly to five taels of silver.

Five taels of silver, how many families can afford to buy rice at such a high price?

In order to survive, many people had to sell the only land they had to the landlords, and then exchange money to buy rice to survive.

Some families who have no land, or who have little land, will be forced to become tenant farmers of landlords because they cannot afford to buy rice, or sell themselves to large families.

Folks, it's not that I want to stop the folks from selling rice to them, but we don't just pass this year but next year, in case there is no rain in Wuchang all year round next year, and if there is a drought for a few months, there will be no crops in the fields to give us food.

If it is a disaster year next year, and the villagers have no rice to eat, they will inevitably buy rice at that time, but the rice you sell is cheap, but it is expensive to buy back, folks, will you buy this kind of rice? ”

"This is robbery while the fire is burning, why should we buy their rice!" A strong man raised his hand and said.

"This eldest brother said it well, why should we buy the rice they shipped, but if you don't buy their rice, whose rice do you buy? There are so many rice merchants in the whole world, they increase the price, and other rice merchants will also increase the price, you still have to eat high-priced rice, at this time the big guy said, what should I do? ”

The crowd in the audience stopped talking, because they didn't know how to answer Mo Qian's question.

After a while, Mo Qian got up and said, "Folks, do you know why I don't allow them to collect rice, but ask you to sell rice to our governor's mansion?" ”

"I don't know!"

"That's because, our Governor's Mansion collects rice, because rice is a strategic material, is the bottom of our Huguang people, I collect so much rice, in case of a famine in the coming year, you don't have to be afraid, I don't ask here's a solemn promise, what price will the Governor's Mansion collect rice this year, how much money I will sell to you in the year of the disaster, I will never make the difference between you, and never let the people under my rule go hungry, you say, is it better to sell this rice to my governor, or to those rice merchants from other places?"

"Of course, it's good to sell it to the king, the king gave my family a field, and abolished my family's cheap status, the king is so good for the people, folks, we should support the king and sell the rice to the king!"

"Yes, sell the rice to the king, we only believe the king, and no one else believes in it!"

Someone took the lead, and the emotions of the people below were instantly ignited.

Mo Qian gave the people a backing answer, so that these people were no longer afraid of not being able to buy rice in a disaster year.

Cao Guoqi, who came in a hurry, saw Mo Qian's remarks, and admired Mo Qian in his heart.

He said to Cheng Zhidun beside him: "The lord's urgency and wisdom, we are really beyond our reach!" ”

"Yes, the lord is a holy lord that has not been met for a thousand years, and it is really a great blessing in life for us to be able to assist such a holy lord!"

"What the urge said is extremely true!"

Cheng Zhidun had just arrived in Wuchang from Nanchang, and as Mo Qian's logistics director, he was busy flying all day long.

After the summer harvest, Cheng Zhidun went back and forth between Jiangxi, Huguang and Guangxi, and he wanted to supervise the grain collection of county officials.

Each county, prefecture, and place will have an index, which is set according to the amount of cultivated land in the local area.

Cheng Zhidun's job is to supervise the local government to collect these summer grains in place, and check whether the official warehouse is full.

Seeing that Mo Qian easily coaxed the people away, Cheng Zhidun and Cao Guoqi stepped forward to meet Mo Qian together.

"I've seen the lord!"

"Yo, the urging department is here, how is it, how is the situation in Nanchang?"

"Back to the lord, all the merchant ships at Nanchang and Jiujiang wharves have been detained, and a total of 100,000 stones of rice have been confiscated!"

"Well, good job, how is the summer harvest going?"

"Back to the lord, Jiangxi has a bumper harvest, Yuanzhou, Ji'an, Nanchang, Linjiang, Ruizhou, and Ruizhou have a good harvest, but the newly harvested Raozhou, Guangxin and other prefectures have not yet fully implemented the Juntian policy, so the grain collection is insufficient."

"Well, these places have just been occupied, and the people don't know much about our policies, so we sent 300 scholars from Yuanzhou and Ji'an, ordered them to go to the eastern part of Jiangxi to take up posts, and arranged all the mayors and magistrates of each town and county in place, and sent more propagandists to the village to publicize the Juntian policy.

I immediately set out to let Li Banghua arrange this matter! You two, hurry up and register all the grain you have collected in the warehouse, remember, each grain depot must be guarded by heavy troops for me, pay attention to fires, you know? ”

"My subordinates understand!"

The two followed Mo Qian into the Governor's Palace, and as soon as they entered the Governor's Palace, they saw Yang Suxin dressed up and seemed to be ready to go out.

"I've seen the Mistress!" The two hurriedly saluted.

"Lord Cao and Master Cheng are here!"

When Mo Qian saw Yang Suxin's dress, he couldn't help but ask curiously, "Lady, are you going out?" ”

"It's too boring in the house, go out for a walk!" After speaking, Yang Suxin walked past Mo Qian with a cold face.

Seeing Yang Suxin's face, Cao Guoqi and Cheng Zhidun couldn't help but secretly wipe their sweat in their hearts, it seems that the housewife is still worried about the matter of the lord's second room!

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