pertwk Chapter 1561 People's Hearts Rise
Chapter 1561 People's Hearts Rise
Chapter 1561 People's Hearts Rise
Cao Wendao stroked his chin and thought, the monkey with a ghost face was too ugly, and ordinary people would not want to look at it for a long time. They would probably ignore the fact that its body proportions were not very coordinated, its hind limbs were a little longer than those of its peers, and it had one less toe on both feet than normal apes.
These are extremely subtle features that only a demon puppet master like Cao Wendao can see at a glance. Ordinary people may not be able to discover them even if they stare at the ghost ape for a quarter of an hour.
Is this a congenital disability or an acquired transformation?
Because he only had a quick glance at the beetle, Cao Wendao found it difficult to judge for a moment.
Well, it needs further observation, and it would be best if it could be angered.
As for the bat with a pointed beak, it did not look like an ordinary monster, so the beetles were reluctant to approach it. This was a natural conflict.
He murmured, "Seventy percent."
The disciples didn’t hear clearly: “What did you say?”
Cao Wendao didn't say anything. He was 70% sure that the ape and the bat were demon puppets, and Wei Yishan was the demon puppet master.
"On the other hand, if Wei Yishan is really a demon puppet master -" his eyes flickered, "- besides us, how many demon puppet masters are there in this Shining Gold Plain?"
The disciples said, “We have never heard of it.”
They followed their master to the Shining Gold Plains and had never seen any other demon puppet masters before. There shouldn't have been any on this land.
But as the master of Honglu, Cao Wendao always suspected that there was a demon puppet master among the Black Armored Army of Emperor Jiuyou. Otherwise, how could he take away his hook-tailed tiger and sowbug porcupine, and transport them to the territory of Yao Kingdom quietly and without anyone knowing!
The Demon Puppet Master is such a rare profession. He had been missing for the past ten years, but two of them suddenly appeared within this year, and both of them are in the central part of the Shining Gold Plains. Is it possible?
Could it be that?
Cao Wendao couldn't help but stand up and pace back and forth.
If we look at the facts and reason, this idea has no evidence to support it at all.
However, if Wei Yishan is really the demon puppeteer in the Black Armor Army, he is the last person to see Xiao An!
The demon puppet's body is unstable and its life span is short. Judging from the time, even if Xiao An is not dead now, she is in a dying state. One of Cao Wendao's most important tasks is to record her entire process from birth to death.
Can he get this valuable information from Wei Yishan?
Thinking of this, he became restless.
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The undercurrents among the people finally transmitted their waves to the upper echelons of the Yao Kingdom.
After the grain price went up, officials reported the increase to their higher authorities, but King Yao was busy with the expansion of the new capital of Tianshui and did not take it seriously. He only signed an opinion that "officials at all levels of the Ministry of Revenue should assist in this" and then distributed it.
The price of grain has been fluctuating for several times in a year. Besides, the large-scale exchange of grain in the public warehouse will cause some fluctuations in grain prices, which has been the case in previous years.
Other countries in the Golden Plains collect taxes from the land by collecting grain directly. However, the transportation and storage of grain are inconvenient, and some farmers live in the suburbs, so collecting grain is particularly troublesome.
Yao State had a developed economy and owned several large silver mines, so it had long ago implemented the land tax in silver, which meant that the land tax of the people was converted into cash and handed in. The government received the silver and bought whatever it needed, such as silk, food, weapons...
Although this approach greatly simplified the intermediate links and brought convenience to both the government and private households, it also gave rise to a problem: what the government collected directly was not grain.
If you want grain, you have to take silver to buy it from specialized grain merchants and landlords. In previous years, this chain was very smooth.
Of course, Yao State also has public fields, but the quantity is limited, and the grain grown there will not be circulated in the market or served on the tables of ordinary people.
The problem caused by this is that there is not enough food in the public warehouse!
Don't forget that autumn is the time for public warehouses to exchange grain. According to regulations, they have to sell old grain and buy new grain at the same time.
But since we are talking about "according to the regulations", the result is most likely not following the regulations.
Most of the grain in the public warehouse was sold in advance to avoid being undercut when the new grain was put on the market. He Lingchuan knew exactly where the profits went.
He was one of the participants.
But this will not be reflected in the report. According to the report in Yao Wangting's hand, the amount of grain in the public warehouse has hardly changed, so Yao Wang is not panicking.
It was not until reports came in from all over the country that the grain was not being collected from the fields that Wang Ting realized something was wrong. It was clearly the harvest season, so why was there no grain in the warehouses?
check!
After checking, it was found that some forces were buying grain in large quantities, and the amount they bought was so large and fierce that it was like a bottomless pit. Grain merchants and landlords had just received grain from farmers and then turned around and sold it to these forces at a higher price.
The authorities were more than one step behind.
When we wait for official bids from various places, I'm sorry, the landlords have no surplus grain and we can't collect much.
In fact, the King of Yao should be blamed for this. In the past, when Yao State collected grain, it would agree on a base amount with grain merchants six months in advance, with a fixed price and quantity, called "base grain". When the harvest season arrived, grain merchants and grain stores had to pay the government enough base grain according to the agreement, and the excess grain could be sold on the market.
This is done to prioritize ensuring that public warehouses have enough grain, but it also brings up a problem:
The grain prices are far from the market price when the grain is ordered six months in advance.
The official purchase volume is large, and once the price is set high, the national treasury will suffer a great loss.
Yao State has had bumper harvests for many years in a row. When the harvest season comes, the price of grain is getting cheaper day by day, but the public warehouse has to purchase grain according to the price set six months ago, which is much higher than the market price. Until He Lingchuan gave King Yao advice, the national treasury was in a state of deficit and had to buy grain at high prices every year, which made King Yao unhappy.
Moreover, if the grain purchasing plan is put in place in advance, there will be a lot of room for maneuver and many people will profit from it.
Once the price is set low, the grain merchants will be unhappy because they will suffer a loss. It is obvious that they can make more money by selling so much grain on the market. Therefore, naturally some people will lobby King Yao.
Therefore, King Yao personally changed the grain collection system and set a floor price. In a good year, if the market price of grain is lower than the floor price, the grain will be collected according to the market price; if the market price of grain is higher than the floor price, the grain will be collected according to the floor price.
The amount of grain collected depends on the demand of the public warehouse.
In years of famine, grain was still collected according to the previous system, with fixed quantities and prices.
This may sound unreasonable, but Yao State has had bumper harvests for years and has sufficient grain. The amount of grain collected in the public warehouse is almost fixed, and it is only a normal rotation. Even if the reserve price is a little lower than the market price, grain merchants still have surplus grain and can make a lot of money.
But this method works, and it is based on a foundation:
Surplus.
When there is a surplus of food, there is nothing wrong with doing this, and it can also save money for the national treasury.
But if the price of grain suddenly rises, and the increase is quite drastic, how can grain merchants be willing to sell grain to public warehouses at the minimum price?
This year is another bumper year, but when the official went to buy it, they were told that there was no grain.
Where's the food?
They were sold out a long time ago. Who told you not to order in advance?
It just so happened that at this time, the entire royal court and the entire Tianshui City were focused on the vigorous expansion of the capital, on the rising prices of residential land in the new city, and on how to get a piece of the pie, and they missed the best period for intervention.
By the time people realized what was happening, they discovered that not only food but also vinegar, wine and spices had increased in price!
Vinegar and wine are both made from grains. If the raw materials increase in price, how can their prices not increase as well?
As for the spice market, the supply has always been stable, but this time, for some reason, the prices of commonly used spices change every day.
Yao State is a country of spices. Common people do not have this stuff when eating, so they find it difficult to swallow the food and their sense of happiness drops sharply.
The prices of food and seasonings have gone up, so should labor costs not go up as well?
Labor costs have gone up, food prices have gone up, so how can restaurant prices not go up as well?
In just half a month, Tianshui City was booming.
Moreover, the price increase trend quickly spread from Tianshui City to other areas of Yao Country.
Yao Wang Ting made two responses:
First, investigate where the food goes.
Secondly, activate the price stabilization warehouse in the public warehouse and release grain to the market.
The Pingzheng Warehouse is equivalent to the Changping Warehouse that He Lingchuan was familiar with. It collects grain in good years to prevent farmers from suffering from low grain prices, and releases grain in bad years to prevent people from suffering from high grain prices. In theory, it has a regulating effect on the market price of grain.
This is again "logically speaking", because those who are interested know that there is probably no grain left in the current stabilization warehouses!
Although He Lingchuan also contributed to this, the amount of grain purchased by Yangshan Chamber of Commerce from Yao State was limited after all, far less than those forces that were frantically purchasing supplies in secret.
But these few forces alone were not enough to buy up all the food on the market. After all, Yao State had had bumper harvests for several consecutive years.
Only when all the Yao people join in will this evolve into an unprecedentedly fierce crisis!
When Fan Shuang arrived, Yongquan Villa was just opening for dinner, so He Lingchuan immediately invited him to have dinner together.
The rice, flour and oil used in Yongquan Villa are all the best, and the vegetables and fruits are fresh. Fan Shuang said as she ate some rice: "Wow, this good rice you eat is now fifty cents a pound outside!"
"Is there enough at home?" He Lingchuan was always generous to his friends. "I have plenty here. I'll bring you 100 kilograms."
The Fan family has a small population, so one hundred kilograms is enough to feed them for a while.
"It's enough. My family just bought some extra food from the farm a few days ago." Fan Shuang was puzzled. "It's strange. The harvest was good this year, but the price of grain has been rising instead of falling since the beginning. I don't know what's going on."
"Someone is taking the lead in hyping it up." He Lingchuan forked a piece of red stewed mutton and cut it with a knife. "You heard a few days ago that food prices were going to go up, right?"
This dish uses all eleven spices, making it tender and juicy, unforgettable, but without overpowering the original flavor of the mutton. Yao country's use of spices is a unique system that cannot be found outside the Golden Plains.
"Oh yes, it's been circulating for a while."
"If they say it will go up, it will go up. This trend has already started." He Lingchuan said without raising his head. "The most direct example is the expansion of Tianshui City. When the higher-ups said that there would be an increase in prices, it really went up there. It shows that people are eager for an increase in prices."
He was the one who corrupted the atmosphere. We all know that if we manage things properly, some things can soar to the sky.
Whose mind is not active?
"Now there are rumors that grain prices will rise. What do you think grain merchants and grain stores will do?"
“Holding back grain and being reluctant to sell it?”
"Whether it's true or not, just hold on to it first." He Lingchuan said with a smile, "Everyone is holding on to it. The price that was not rising before is now rising, and it will continue to rise higher and higher!"