This days out of the capital is more and more difficult, in addition to worrying about the little fat cubs from time to time falling security value, but also worry about the life of the rabbits bred in the Imperial Household Food Safety.
The Prince didn't let them go out for three days in a row to explore the price of food.
In the morning of that day, the eunuch serving the Crown Prince came to the side courtyard to invite Xue Yao to the study to deliberate.
Before Xue Yao came here, she didn't expect to be honored by the Crown Prince in this way, so she quickly revived her spirit and followed the eunuch to the study.
Participating in the deliberation were also accompanied by several strategists of the change of law, and two eunuchs of procurement.
The two guards sent by the Prince to investigate, told the crowd about the information they received.
The two guards split up, respectively, in Hangzhou city's two largest grain houses lurked in the inner courtyard for three days, and did not find that the owner of the grain house received the Beijing merchants.
The merchants that come in and out of the grain store are ordinary grain merchants from the neighboring areas, and the so-called Beijing merchants, I'm afraid, have already hid before the Crown Prince came to raise grain.
The guards two secretly observed three days, and finally took a store boy unclean handle, as blackmail, plus bribe some silver, from the mouth of the man forced to ask about some of the things of the Beijing merchants.
According to the shopkeeper's account: there was not one but two groups of Beijing merchants, all with Beijing accents and very distinguished.
One group of Beijing merchants acted and behaved like civil officials, while the other group of Beijing merchants who rode horses and wore swords looked like military generals.
Officials that wave of Beijing merchants, came to Hangzhou first, visited the eight grain houses, almost the whole of Zhejiang grain silos are wrapped up.
They have pressed the price of grain to five hundred and three stone wen, and have not yet finalized it, trying to get the grain merchants to reduce it to five hundred and one stone wen.
And on the fifth day of the stalemate between the two parties, a group of military generals look like a group of people also came to Hangzhou, on the first day, they sent people to call all the proprietors of the eight grain houses to the restaurant, sitting together to talk about business.
Also needing a large amount of grain, the martial arts general-looking Beijing merchant also wanted to use 500 Wen to collect grain, but learning that there was already a group of people negotiating the price, and the stock was not enough for the two merchants to share equally, the martial arts general's wave of Beijing merchants made a direct decision and was willing to offer 550 Wen to take 1,400,000 stones of grain and rice.
The zhejiang merchants are overjoyed and ready to organize their inventory and deliver their goods.
And the official's set of Beijing merchants also inquired about the news, and in a hurry, they raised the price to five hundred and sixty wen!
The exact origins of these two groups of merchants are not clear to anyone, but for some reason, both seem to be in urgent need of acquiring this grain.
Wu General that batch of merchants are more anxious, the second negotiation, directly mention the price of five hundred and ninety Wen, the day of the negotiation, took out eighty thousand taels of white silver as a deposit, demanded with the Zheshang on the spot deal.
The proprietors of the eight grain houses in Hangzhou are happy red-eyed, and in their hearts they hope that another merchant will bring the price up again, so they will make excuses and forfeit the deposit.
As expected, the official's set of merchants lived up to their name and raised the price to six hundred Wen.
So back and forth, the two groups of Beijing merchants fighting each other, in the end, the price of grain to six hundred and forty Wen, by the martial arts general look like the group of Beijing merchants shot.
Beijing permitted the actual purchase price of six hundred and forty wen, although lower than the price of the grain store owner misrepresentation of fifty wen, but this is also the price of heaven, and so with the bulk of the market price of large quantities of grain, a loss of nearly two hundred thousand taels of silver!
Because Wu will that batch of merchants did not expect the price will be raised so high, the silver ticket simply did not bring enough, so first paid a deposit, sent back to the capital to raise silver to go, so the recent did not show up.
And the official-looking group of merchants also left Hangzhou to look for food elsewhere.
After listening to the information that the two guards had gotten, Eunuch Liu's face turned iron-clad.
I did not realize that there is really such a wrongdoer Beijing merchants, and more than one, and is not a Zhejiang grain merchants made up to raise the price of grain in the guise of.
"Things are pretty much as Xue Yao expected." The Crown Prince spoke up, "The first batch of merchants negotiated and pressed the price, the second batch of merchants directly took out 100,000 taels of silver to order, and both batches showed great sincerity. The Zhejiang merchants couldn't think of their fraudulent motives, so they naturally thought that the deal was already done, and after collecting the deposit, they used a higher price to talk us out of it, not wanting to cause any more trouble."
A strategist immediately stood up with a face full of shock and anger: "These two groups of people are clearly singing a double act! They are spending 100,000 taels of silver as a fake deposit to hold up the grain depots in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, in order to delay the trial implementation of our new law!"
Another bearded half-white strategist sitting in a circle chair, whispered: "This can be difficult to do, we can't possibly find out the identity of those two groups of people in the short term, their excuse to go to the capital to raise money, a month or two to come back is not uncommon, the Zhejiang merchants holding 100,000 taels of silver deposit, it is impossible to suspect that group of people will not come back, and we can't even afford to spend half a month! "
After hearing the real situation, Xue Yao's heart went cold.
No wonder in the original story the Crown Prince collected one million two hundred thousand stones of grain at market price.
It turns out that the Prince was not unable to counter-offer and was ripped off, but rather he was set up by an unknown enemy with a big head, who spared no expense and set up a trap to be shady.
Xue Yao was practically falling apart, the original had practically simplified the Goldbach Conjecture level of puzzles into addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division within ten, making Xue Yao mistakenly believe that he could easily handle it.
Reality is too harsh!
Just as he was fuming on the brink of collapse, Xue Yao suddenly heard the Crown Prince's call--
"Xue Yao, what do you have in mind?"
Xue Yao returned to his senses and looked at the Crown Prince in a flattered manner.
Such a parliament can let him such a juvenile companion to listen to, has not been easy, did not expect the crown prince actually named to ask his opinion.
The Crown Prince could see what was on his mind, so he explained with a light smile, "It's strange, I always feel that you are surprisingly keen on the matter of grain collection."
"Your Highness is flattered!" Xue Yao squeezed out a smile on his face, but in his heart, he was screaming.
Sharp because he knows the general direction of the end ah!
Now that he has learned that the problem he has to face is so desperate, he is afraid that he can only watch himself follow the ship of the Prince and sink into the sea.
But at the moment, the eyes of the room full of people were falling on him, so Xue Yao could only speak casually with a stiff upper lip: "Is it possible to find out the identities and whereabouts of those two batches of Beijing merchants as soon as possible?"
As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt like I had asked a nonsense question.
Since those two groups of people had arranged this drama of raising grain prices in such a watertight manner, how could they divulge their real identities to the Zhejiang merchants, and they must have forged perfect false identities.
The Prince answered truthfully, "Not to mention that we can't find out in the short term, the enemy is in the dark and I'm in the light, they can come up with 100,000 taels of silver to set up a trap, the depth of the water behind it is immeasurable, I'm afraid that we may not be able to find out the truth in the long term."
A middle-aged strategist immediately rose and said, "I thought ......"
The Crown Prince immediately raised his hand to interrupt him, "You have to have proof before you can 'think', this is not the place for wild speculation."
The middle-aged schemer immediately understood that the Crown Prince had obviously guessed several possible identities of the mastermind, but just didn't want to bring the matter up for discussion in front of the inner court eunuchs.
"How can this be ...... good," the purchasing eunuch surnamed Fang has been scared white.
The emperor out of his own pocket one million taels of silver, which can be worth one-eighth of a year's military expenditure on the coast of 100,000 troops, and now to breathe a loss of one-fifth, relying on the crown prince's new policy of benefiting the people, may not be able to fill such a large hole.
When the time comes to settle the score, certainly to blame on the matter of food preparation, the crown prince at most received a few words of admonition, while they are dedicated to the purchase of lackeys, that is, a hundred heads, but also not enough to offset the crime.
Eunuch Liu now understands the problem has been grim to what extent, scared constantly swallowing saliva, want to open the mouth to beg the Prince Master next year to start trying out the new law again.
But how could he, a purchasing eunuch, interfere with such things? He could only stare at his eyes and keep wiping his sweat.
After thinking about it, he turned his hopeful eyes to Xue Yao again-
"Mr. Xue! You can get five hundred and forty wen of grain from the hands of Jinling grain merchants, then please run a few more, talk about all the big and small grain houses in this Jinling and Hangzhou, and collect fifty thousand stones each, so that you can at least mobilize one million stones, even if it's a lower grade grain, ah! First of all, the affected counties in Shanxi will be hard to get through!"
Xue Yao smiled helplessly: "Your Excellency can't think that the grain merchants are fools, the current situation, five hundred and forty wen, is the same as letting the grain merchants not earn a penny, letting me for nothing, and the market price is counted, then it is going to be a loss of tens of thousands of taels of silver. If you can really just stumble upon such a good thing, I would not have begged the eunuch not to reject the sincerity of the shopkeeper, the shopkeeper sincerely want to do long-term business with us, the grain merchants have a little bit of movement between each other know that this one-on-one agreement how to pull to the second family to participate in? With a second family, our exclusive cooperation would be worthless."
Mentioning that he insisted on refusing that 50,000 stone grain deal that day, Eunuch Liu scrambled to lower his head and shut his mouth, fearing that the Crown Prince would suspect him of not having foresight.
"There is no turning back from the bow." Prince set the tone: "Father's trust is hard to come by, we only let the Zhejiang grain merchants as far as possible to believe that the two sets of Beijing merchants are simply a front, the deposit will not come back to take, only then may be the backlog of Zhejiang merchants to buy down the grain at a low price, this matter all depends on us to work together, do our best."
The worst possible outcome was six hundred and forty cents to collect the grain.
The Prince has the cash silver, let the Zheshang find an excuse to pay off the deposit to receive the cash silver, but it is not difficult.
The cost was so high that the Prince lent grain to the peasants at the original interest rate, and after surviving the disaster year, he was still able to make a small profit on the coming year's intake, not to lose money.
Thus, the matter of grain collection will continue to be talked about, before the meeting was adjourned, the Crown Prince smiled at Xue Yao again, "Sixth brother also boasted with lone yesterday that you are eloquent, I hope that you can let the Zheshang businessmen also see some."
Xue Yao was named by the Crown Prince, a little fan's heart was alive and wanting to spin around, hands clasped and nodded: "I will do my best to serve Your Highness as a dog and horse!"
On that day, Xue Yao asked the two expert guards to go to the eight major grain houses, inquire about some information, and make all preparations to fight for the Crown Prince.
The price of six hundred and forty Wen is too high, and I remember that in the original, when the Prince was questioned, he mentioned the matter of borrowing grain for the first time, as if he had broken even.
As a matter of fact, the prince is willing to collect grain at this price, it should be planned that there is still a lot of earning, but after a year, what unexpected situation may have happened again, perhaps it is again by the dark gang of people Yin, resulting in a part of the prince's borrowing failed to recover, and the result is that the account is not a loss only.
This makes the Prince's new law a joke, one million taels of silver, let the Ministry of household operations, the silk tea to overseas, a round trip can also earn at least hundreds of thousands of taels.
And trying out the new law, tossing it around for a year and not earning a penny, is actually considered a devaluation loss.
Early the next morning, Xue Yao took two eunuchs and a few guards and went to the largest grain house.
"When you arrive at the place in a while, follow what I said and spread the news out, all acting like it." Xue Yao entered the grain line for money and reminded the two eunuchs once again.
The look on the faces of the two eunuchs was on the verge of tears.
Eunuch Liu no longer had the face to refute Xue Yao's idea, and could only squint his eyes toward Eunuch Fang.
Eunuch Fang bowed his head and asked, ''Master Xue, do you really want to spread such rumors? Wouldn't that make the grain merchants bite the price even higher? At that time, they may not even be willing to sell to us at 700 Wen."
Xue Yao sternly turned his head to look at him, "Eunuch, I already said before I left the house that if I speculate the price of grain in this way, I'll take the responsibility myself, but if you don't cooperate, I can only go back and truthfully report to His Highness the Crown Prince."
"Cooperate! Of course we have to cooperate with Master Xue! You're the World Warrior, your idea is right!" Eunuch Fang hurriedly kissed his ass.
There was no other way, but Eunuch Liu could only keep his head up and accompany Xue Yao to step into the grain store.
In the hall of the grain bank, one by one, the big merchants from abroad who were picking up grain were pulling the grain bank fellows and talking anxiously about something.
"We come to your bank every year to get grain and rice, according to the market, it's okay to increase it by a few dozen Wen every year, why did it go up so much this year? We're all merchants, there's no reason to rip off customers like this!"
"Aiyo Chen boss, small has told you ten thousand times, this year, foreign merchants transferred a large number of grain, our family inventory bulk sold to the end of the year are not enough, this price to you, more than a stone, on the loss of ten Wen, is to see you, is the old customer's sake, is really no way out!"
As soon as Eunuch Liu heard this conversation, his heart went cold.
Food was already in short supply to this point, so I couldn't figure out why this Xue Yao still wanted him to spread rumors like that?
Could it be that they want to mess up the Crown Prince's big event and let them, the eunuchs, take the blame?