Spring comes to the desperate place

Chapter 155 Price Reduction

While other people's grain shops were deserted, the grain shops in the marquis's mansion were bustling with sales. The grain shops were packed every morning, but all the grain was sold out before noon. Some people who failed to buy any grain became extremely anxious and kept asking the shopkeepers and their assistants when new grain would be available.

How would these shopkeepers and their employees know when the food would be available? They just go to the warehouse on time every morning to move the food. They have no idea where their masters get so much food from, so naturally they can't ask anything.

Some people who were mixed in the crowd became more and more confused when they saw that the shopkeepers really knew nothing. After they went back and reported the truth to their masters, their masters were also confused.

The head of the Li family was the most excited at the beginning, but he became completely obedient after a few days. There was nothing they could do. They didn't even know where the other party's source of goods was, so they couldn't intercept them even if they wanted to.

There were also people who wanted to go to the other party's grain shop and buy up all the grain. However, the shopkeepers were all shrewd people. When they heard the other party say that he wanted to buy all the grain in the shop, they immediately became alert. When they saw that the visitor was dressed richly and was obviously from a wealthy family, they thought carefully and felt that the other party had no good intentions.

The people who were queuing up to buy grain saw those people not only cutting in line to buy grain, but also trying to buy all the grain by themselves. If all the grain was bought by him, what would they buy?

At that moment, the crowd became indignant. There was no need for the shopkeeper to drive them away. The people in the queue drove them all out. In the end, they could not buy any food, let alone a single grain of rice.

Later they learned their lesson and sent their men to buy in batches. Each person bought only one bag of rice and flour. After buying, they carried them directly back to their own shops and then sold them at a higher price.

But this method is too slow, and there are so many people queuing up that they can only buy a few hundred kilograms at most in a day, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the other party's huge inventory.

It's not that no one thought of sending people to guard those warehouses, but all the assassins within a ten-mile radius had never returned. They were strangled to death as soon as they showed their heads. No one was left alive, and they were dragged and buried in a mass grave.

In the middle of the night, they took people to drag back the bodies of the assassins. After asking the coroner to examine them, they came to the conclusion that all of them were killed by a single blow from a master. Only the emperor's secret guards could kill people so quickly and efficiently.

The heads of the families had already begun to suspect that this was the emperor's doing, but someone soon denied it.

"The national treasury just sent a large amount of grain to the border. Even though those grain shops don't sell much grain every day, their goods are constantly flowing in. At this rate of grain sales, the grain in the warehouse should have been sold out long ago."

"That's right. My cousin who works as a minor official in the Ministry of Revenue has also asked his colleagues who are on good terms with him. In recent days, the national treasury has been calm and no one has gone there to take grain."

Everyone looked as if they had seen a ghost: "Where did they get all this food from? Not to mention the food collected from the countryside, we have already bought back all the food that we could find. As long as the remaining people are not stupid, they will not be stupid enough to sell food when they see the rising food prices."

So the topic comes back to where does all the food come from?

The head of the Li family said quietly, "The grain we collected from the countryside is not as good as the ones in their shops. The people I sent out bought some back. You can come and take a look to see if the rice and flour are different from what we have."

Before he finished speaking, several servants came in carrying several bags of food, including rice and flour. The rice was snow-white and the flour was fine. Everyone had grown up in luxury and could tell at a glance that these grains were top-quality goods. In the past, only wealthy families would buy such good rice and flour. Most ordinary families ate brown rice, and the flour would be mixed with some other grains to make three-grain flour. The taste was not that good, but it was enough to fill them up.

The Li family owns the largest grain shop in the capital. The pile of grain in front of them is one of the most expensive in their shop.

However, even such high-quality rice flour is priced the same as ordinary japonica rice flour in those grain stores. Only a fool would not buy such cheap rice flour.

Everyone looked at the food in the bag, grabbed a handful, and felt it carefully. They found that it was indeed top-quality food.

Someone at the scene was puzzled: "Such good rice and flour, they are selling it at a normal price? If it was in my shop, I would increase the price five times at least."

The rest of the people also echoed this. These were their true thoughts. Merchants would not do anything without profit, let alone these greedy children of aristocratic families.

Some people just thought it was a pity that something that could have been sold at ten times the price was sold at a low price by others, and it took them several days to sell it.

The head of the Li family stared at the grains and suddenly laughed.

"Don't worry, everyone. Those grain stores will go bankrupt within three days."

"Brother Li, why did you say this?"

The head of the Li family pointed at the bag on the ground and swore: "Such a good product, how much can you have on hand? How much do we have together? Even we dare not sell such a good thing openly. Those people have been selling for so many days in a row. How much stock do you think they still have?"

Everyone around suddenly understood. Yes, rice and flour of such high quality, even if all the major families were added together, could probably only supply food for the entire city for three or four days. Even if the other party had the support of the imperial court, how much of such high-quality rice and flour could they get?

"They have been selling for so many days. Li estimates that they will soon run out of food to sell. When that happens, won't the untouchables come back to buy our food?"

"Hahahahaha, Brother Li is right. Let's just wait and see. The best is yet to come!"

"A-choo!" Song Chunlin sneezed loudly at the newly planted seedlings. After that, he rubbed his shoulders. He didn't feel cold. Is someone scolding me behind my back?

After finishing planting the fields, Song Chunlin left the space. Seeing that it was almost afternoon, he thought that since all the goods in the shop were sold out, he might as well go and restock them. After restocking, he would go home to sleep. He hadn't eaten the noodles made by Song Qinshi for a long time, so he wanted to eat noodles with a runny fried egg.

In order to make the juicy and runny fried eggs, Song Chunlin quickly went to the grain stores, collected the money in the warehouse, and took out the rice and flour. The empty warehouse was immediately filled with rice and flour.

After replenishing the rice and flour in the last warehouse, Song Chunlin went home happily. When he got home, it was time for dinner. Song Chunlin quickly ran over and sat down. Song Qin poked her son's head in annoyance.

"I don't know where you've been all day. Look at you, you're all sweaty. Have you washed your hands?"

"I've washed it, mother. I'm hungry and I want to eat soft-boiled eggs." Song Chunlin obediently raised his white and tender hands to show Song Qinshi, indicating that he really loved cleanliness.

Song Qinshi laughed even more angrily when she heard this: "Now you know to come back to see your mother? I haven't seen you come back for so many days, I thought you had settled down outside, you little brat, wait."

After scolding her second son, Song Qin went to work tirelessly to fry eggs for him. Now that life at home was better, she was afraid that one fried egg would not be enough for Song Chunlin, so she fried two and put them in front of Song Chunlin.

Song Chunlin smiled and thanked Song Qinshi: "Thank you, mother. You are the best!"

Song Chunming mocked him mercilessly: "Shame on you, second brother. You are such a grown-up and still act like a spoiled child with your mother."

"That's right, Chunlin, you will be twelve after the Chinese New Year. Young boys your age from ordinary families are already embroidering wedding dresses."

Song Chunlin was horrified: "What? I have to embroider my own wedding dress?"

Song Qin glared at him and said, "Other people's boys and girls embroider their own wedding gowns, but you are the worst. You can't even hold a needle at the age of twelve."

I feel guilty when I talk about Song Chunlin. He is really a modern man and he really can't learn the tricks of the ancient guys. How can I blame him?

After dinner, Song Chunlin returned to his room. Although he said he was going to sleep, he actually had a lot of things to do.

For example, when it was time to water the crops in the fields, Dabao operated the pump to draw water from the stream, and the water was evenly spread on the fields. Soon the seedlings grew taller, and some of the seedlings in the fields even began to form ears, and they would be mature soon.

Dabao seemed very excited when he found Song Chunlin coming. He waved a water pipe wildly above the rice field, splashing water everywhere.

"Master, you are finally here!"

Song Chunlin always felt that Dabao's personality was very similar to that of a Samoyed - loyal, reliable and adorable. Song Chunlin smiled gently into the air, and then began to shuttle through the fields, checking the growth of crops in each field.

After walking back and forth several times, I found that the crops in the fields were growing well. Of course, there was nothing that did not grow well in the space.

After these days of continuous selling of grain, Song Chunlin now has only one third of the grain left in his space. He estimates that it can last for a few more days. When all the grain in the space is sold out, every household in the city will probably have surplus food, and his pressure will be relieved a lot by then.

For several days in a row, Song Chunlin went to collect money and replenish supplies in the middle of the night. Except for eating, he spent the rest of the time in the space, growing crops non-stop.

The grain in the grain shop was sold out continuously. The noble families who had once vowed to make the grain shop go bankrupt in three days were all silent when they saw the long queues at the grain shop every day.

They said they would close the shop in three days? Three days passed, and how come they still had so much food to sell?

The most terrifying thing is that they sent people to watch the city gate every day, but they had never seen any caravans other than their own. There was not even any caravan, so where did the food come from?

Not only were they puzzled, even the emperor was puzzled. He looked at the head of his secret guards to make sure that what the other party said was true.

"You said your people only saw a child going in and out of the warehouse? No grain carts? No one to carry it?"

The head of the secret guards also swallowed his saliva secretly. He had seen many strange things since he was a child, but this time, it was the first time that he felt really chilling.

The emperor asked him to recall what the child looked like. The head of the secret guard was about to speak, but suddenly found that he could not describe what the child looked like.

The emperor was confused: "What's wrong? Can't remember?"

Originally he was just asking casually, but the head of the secret guards found that he really couldn't remember what the child looked like.

He was so anxious that he broke out in a cold sweat. For the first time in his life, he replied to the emperor in a trembling voice: "Your Majesty, I... I really can't remember what the other person looks like. I only remember that he was about seven or eight years old? Eight or nine years old... Your Majesty, please forgive me. I really can't remember."

When the emperor heard what he said, he inexplicably felt a chill on his back. He remembered what Gu Fengyun had said to him that day:

"Your Majesty, no matter how incredible the things that happen are, please trust me. I will never do anything that will harm the country."

At that time, he did not understand the implication of Gu Fengyun's words. Now he understood what the incredible thing Gu Fengyun was talking about.

But he quickly returned to normal and waved his hand to let the leader of the secret guards retreat.

After the person went down, he slowly took out his handkerchief and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. In his heart, he was thinking whether that person had any connection with the huge vine that appeared on the night of Prince Ru'an's rebellion.

Thinking of the vine that was burned by the raging fire but still dug an escape route for them, the emperor suddenly felt more at ease. No matter whether the other party was a demon or an immortal, it was on Dajing's side after all. Otherwise, how could it save Dajing from danger again and again.

I just don’t know how Gu Fengyun got in touch with the other party.

Half a month after selling grain at low prices, all grain shops began to lower their prices in order to compete with the low-price grain shops. However, even after they lowered their prices, very few people came to buy grain, and often they did not sell much in an entire day.

Anyone in the city who had some spare money was able to buy enough food to last a month. The pressure on the grain shops was greatly reduced. Although there were still many people lining up every day, the situation was much better than at the beginning.

Because their rice and flour were cheap and of high quality, some stewards from wealthy families also came to buy them. These people were different from the aristocratic families, they bought the food to eat themselves, so the shopkeepers would not stop them and did not require them to deliver the food. They would just come with their servants and buy a whole cart of food each time.

The noble families would also take advantage of the situation. When Gu Fengyue came out to check several times, he would see people sent by the noble families coming to the grain shop to buy grain. Even though they were dressed very low-key, their sneaky expressions could not deceive people.

Watching the other party buy back the grain that Song Chunlin had grown with great effort, over-packing it and selling it at a high price, now most of the grain in the other party's grain shop was grown by Song Chunlin.