As a result, when they were about to go out the next morning, they were stopped again.

This time it was a funeral procession, but I didn't expect those families to go out at the same time, so the queue was very long, and it would take a while to finish.

Think about it, this snow disaster caused several families to die at the same time, and they must have to do funerals at the same time, and it is not like a happy event that can change time.

To be honest, this kind of thing in the New Year is also very uncomfortable, it is just after the New Year, when the mood is good, when this kind of natural disaster is encountered, there are still dead people in the family, which is really unacceptable.

Doing it together saves the villagers from going to the condolences and eating together, and it saves a lot of time.

Moreover, the cemeteries in their village are still in the same direction, so the funerals are also together, and almost all the people in the village have come out, so the queue will be long.

It was already ten o'clock when the funeral procession passed, and they hurriedly took advantage of the fact that no one was out of the space on the road and continued to rush east.

The snow on the road has not yet melted, and there are many undulating slopes, so it is really hard to walk fast.

It wasn't until five days later that they all walked to Xiangyin County, which is now part of Jinghu South Road, which is now part of the boundary of Tanzhou.

Because it lives in the south of Xiangshui, it is called Xiangyin.

Although it was also freezing rain here, it was much better than the place they passed by, and the temperature had risen to more than ten degrees, but the ground was muddy, and it was even more difficult to walk.

They were going to stay in the county seat for a day to replenish the supplies, and they didn't have much rice before, because they couldn't buy too much at one time, and they had a lot of food, so they had almost eaten.

There are still a lot of flour and coarse grains that they bought in the north before, but they don't know how to make pasta, and they don't like to eat coarse grains.

The flour is just a few times to eat gnocchi and egg cakes, steamed buns or something, they don't know how to make noodles at all.

Therefore, they are going to buy more rice in Xiangyin County, and when the time comes, they can go to a few grain stores to buy it.

As soon as they entered the county, they found that there were very few people in the county town who walked outside.

Qian Yan used her divine sense to investigate several restaurants and teahouses, and found that they were all closed and did not do business, and there was no one inside, not even the shopkeeper and his buddies.

This is not right, even if I go home for the New Year, it is now past the fifth day of the new year, and today is the tenth day of the new year, why should the store be opened?

But the whole county is very depressed, and the street of the inn on the first day of the Lunar New Year in Yiyang is more lively than this.

Although the shops over there are closed, there are at least a lot of firecrackers and laughter across the street, which is much more popular than here.

They had thought of staying at the inn for the night, but now that the doors were closed, they had to leave.

They did not stay in the city long, but went out of the city directly through another gate, because there was no stop on the way, which made people think that they were passing through the city.

When she had just used her divine sense to investigate, she also took a look at the largest grain stores in the city.

Several grain shops did not open their doors, and even she found that not only was there no one in the grain shop, but even the goods had been emptied, and it looked like it was dry, and it was empty, which was even more wrong.

If it weren't for the ordinary people in the city, the ordinary people in the homes of the people, the officials in the county government office also working normally, and the four city gates guarded by soldiers, they would still think that this is an empty city.

Since they couldn't buy anything and couldn't stay at the inn, they were definitely leaving, but they weren't going to be too far away to see what was going on here.

So I'm going to go to the nearest town in the county seat to buy some food first, and then find a remote place where no one is around, and go back to the space to stare.

Of course, they can also find a place to take out the wooden house, anyway, there are fire spirit stones, and they are not afraid of being uncomfortable to live in, but there are no valleys or anything like that here, they are all villages and towns and roads and trails, which are easy to be discovered.

Anyway, Ugly can stare at this side in space, but there is no need to toss back and forth at all.

In fact, Jin Yang can also see the outside from the space, but it has to be close, so as long as they are around here, so that Chou Chou and Jin Yang can take turns staring, and it is easier.

In this way, they drove out of the county seat and continued eastward to the nearest town.

This town is in the east of Xiangyin County, called Huashi Town, because it is very close to the county seat, so it is very prosperous, with a large population and many shops, and there are two shops selling grain on the main street alone.

Before they entered the town, they split into two groups and prepared to go their separate ways to buy food.

Tilt Yan and Jin Yang went to the west house, and Chou Chou took the gold to the east house.

They drove the ox cart to the dump, and the ugly ones first found a place to get a manual cart and pulled it directly.

When the time comes, just get out of this town and then take in the space, they will enter from the west side of the town, and they will go out from the east side.

After parking the car, Qian Yan and Jin Yang carried the ingots into the grain store, and the shopkeeper and his men greeted them when they saw them.

"Objectively, but you want to buy food?"

The shopkeeper greeted with a smile on his face.

Qian Yan and Jin Yang nodded, looked at the goods inside, and found that there were not many goods in this store, only a quarter of the house, and I don't know if it was just the Chinese New Year and I didn't have time to buy it.

Jin Yang walked to the rice bucket where the sample was placed, pinched a few grains of rice with his hand and looked at it, and saw that it was quite fresh, it was new rice, so he said to the shopkeeper: "I don't know how many catties of rice we can buy at most?" The shopkeeper should also know that the weather is not good during this time, and we want to buy more and put it back. ”

When the shopkeeper heard this, he said with a clear face: "I want to buy more, this day is cloudy and sunny, cold and hot, but the imperial court stipulates that ordinary people should not buy more than 200 catties of grain at a time, and if there are more, there must be documents issued by the yamen." ”

Qian Yan and Jin Yang exchanged glances, and Jin Yang said to the shopkeeper: "Then ask the shopkeeper to weigh us two hundred catties of rice, and if the scale is good, we will have to bother the little brother to help us move it to the ox cart." ”

The shopkeeper smiled and responded, "Of course, it is appropriate for you to move out, as long as we are in the town, we can deliver the goods." ”

While instructing the men to move down the sack containing rice, he said to them: "The current price of rice is five cents a catty, and two hundred catties is exactly one tael of silver. ”

Qian Yan raised her eyebrows, didn't say anything, and directly took out a tael of silver from her purse and handed it to him.

I also inquired about the county town of Xiangyin, "We originally wanted to buy rice in the county, but we didn't know what's going on, the shops in the county didn't need to open the door, and the shopkeeper knew what the reason was?" ”

Hearing this, the shopkeeper did not answer immediately, but walked to the door to look, and saw that no one was passing by outside, so he walked back and said to Qian Yan: "You are from out of town, right?" ”

Qian Yan nodded, "The shopkeeper is well-informed, and he can see at once that we are not locals." ”

This is purely a compliment, as long as their accent is not deaf, they can hear it at first glance that they are not locals.

Jin Yang also said: "Not only are all the shops in the county closed, but there is no one on the street, if it weren't for the city gate not being blocked, we thought something was wrong, and we were so scared that we didn't dare to stay and left." ”

The shopkeeper sighed before saying, "Hey...... Isn't it that the west side has been hit by a snowstorm, and the order from above is given to give disaster relief, not only silver taels, but food, bedding and charcoal, so they have taken away the city and the surrounding towns. ”

Qian Yan said in surprise: "All of them have been requisitioned? Aren't you merchants at a loss? ”

The shopkeeper was stunned for a moment, then smiled and waved his hand and said: "The girl misunderstood, this thing was not taken for nothing, it was given for silver, but it was given at the lowest price that is usually sold."

Originally, many merchants still wanted to take advantage of the New Year to raise prices and make more money, but they didn't expect the imperial court to levy it away. ”

Qian Yan heard it, what the shopkeeper meant was that those merchants were dissatisfied with the government's forced expropriation of their things at a low price, and they were a little emotional, which was a silent protest.

It's not right, the items levied by the imperial court are also food, bedding, charcoal or something, these things are to ensure the food and clothing of the victims, which she can understand, but what do those inns, restaurants, teahouses, and teahouses have to do with them?

Qian Yan thought so, so she asked.

The shopkeeper glanced at her before saying, "You guys are from other places, I don't know, there are several big shops in the county, all of which are from Xia Yuan's family." ”

This time, I was stunned by Tilt Yan, okay! It turns out that the big store in the entire county is one, and this Xia Yuanwai's family is really a big family, which is a monopoly in the county.

Inns, restaurants, teahouses, even grain shops, cloth villages and grocery stores are all one, this is all people's livelihood, this is now, who dares to do this in the future, the first one above disagrees.

This has monopolized the economy of a county, and it will be too easy to do something when the time comes.

Qian Yan thought of something and said to the shopkeeper: "Then the imperial court only expropriated the shops in the county, it seems that it has not affected this town." ”

The shopkeeper sighed and shook his head and said: "How could it not be, the previous grain in my shop has also been expropriated, but for us small shops, who to sell to is not selling, unlike other big shops, how many times the goods stored by others are ours, and we will not lose even if we sell them directly to the government."

Now the things in this store are collected by me in the villages on the far east side of the country in the past two days, otherwise there will be no goods to sell, and I can't just run out of stock and close the store after the New Year, and then the business will not be good.

Qian Yan nodded understandingly, and finally knew why the price of rice was much higher than before, although they were not short of money, and basically didn't care about the price, but she still remembered the price of grain.

Before, a pound of rice was three cents, but now it has become five cents a catty, which is a sixty percent increase in price, which is a lot of increases.

However, it can also be seen that this rice is indeed this year's new rice, and the rice here is planted for two seasons, and the next harvest of rice is not long from now, so it is also suitable, and the new rice is much better than the old rice.

The shopkeeper also saw that they bought so much happily, and they didn't bargain, so they would talk to them about this, otherwise, it would still be very dangerous to talk about the affairs of the court, and maybe if they said something wrong, they would get themselves into trouble.

Knowing the reason for the abnormality in the county, Qian Yan breathed a sigh of relief and was a little disappointed at the same time, before she guessed whether there was any supernatural event, or like before, what robbers besieged the city, so these people didn't dare to go out.

I didn't expect it to be just a protest by the merchants, which is relatively mild, as for why the people in the city don't go out to the streets, in fact, it is easy to understand, it has just snowed and frozen rain outside, and the ground is wet, even if the temperature rises, the temperature is not very high here.

The temperature of more than ten degrees is the temperature of spring in the north, but here it is still a proper winter, wet and cold, and there is nothing to see, even the shops are closed, it is better to stay at home, at least warmer.

You must know that the south is not as good as the north, although the north is cold, windy and snowy, but there are fur and cotton clothes over there, and the fur on the animals over there is also thick, and it is warm to wear, as long as you don't stand outside and stay at the outlet, you won't feel cold at all.

In the house, there is a stove and a fire wall, which is still relatively comfortable.

It's not good in the south, if it's cold, you can only wear layer after layer, even the fur is not very warm, there is no cotton, and you can only rely on carbon basins to heat in the house, and those who can't afford charcoal can only burn firewood by themselves, even if it is burning, their house is not closed enough is still cold and cold, and it is very uncomfortable.

Just like now, Qian Yan stood in this grain shop with the ingots in her arms for a while, and she felt that her hands and face were wet and cold, and she really felt cold from the cracks in her bones.

That's why she is still holding the small stove of ingots, otherwise it is estimated that the whole body will be frozen, just look at the shopkeeper while talking to them, while constantly rubbing his hands, I know that he is also quite cold.

Maybe it's because I'm afraid of fire, only a charcoal basin is placed in the counter in the grain store, and there is no other place, such a big room, the temperature can be imagined, and it is not as warm as outside.

After buying the grain and inquiring about the news, they were ready to leave, and the man and Jin Yang put two sacks of rice on the box behind the ox cart and headed east.

Prepare to welcome them, and leave the town with them if they are finished.

As a result, when they were about to reach the grain shop on the east side, they had not yet come out of the grain shop, and the cart stopped at the door of the grain shop, and the ugly and gold were still in the shop.