Zhou Yunsheng, Wang Min and others looked as pale as death.

The tea merchants' actions this time were actually rather hasty. From May when Shengdu organized the opening of the Bianliang Jiaozi Office to the end of June when they found a way to gather many Chengdu tea merchants, it was only less than two months, resulting in limited gathered strength.

But there was no way. Firstly, Chengdu Prefecture had its own Jiaozi business, so the tea merchants in Chengdu deposited money there and arrived in Bianliang on time. They were summoned by the tea shop people without knowing what was going on, so there must not be many people.

Secondly, since the Jiaozi office did not have any outlets across the country, only the tea merchants in Chengdu deposited money in Chengdu. Compared with the huge power of tea merchants across the country, the tea merchants in Chengdu and Bianliang were still not enough, so they could not gather more power.

The third and most important issue is that they want tea permits and inflated value of goods. First of all, you must have food and goods on hand to transport to the border.

How can you inflate the value of goods without them? How can you take money out of the imperial court's pocket?

During the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty, Champa rice was introduced to the southeast, and within three decades, it spread throughout the south. By the reign of Emperor Renzong, double-season rice was already in the south, and even triple-season rice was being grown in Lingnan. This agricultural revolution led to a significant increase in population.

Champa rice has a very short growing cycle, generally being planted in February and harvested in May. In addition, wheat in the north also matures in May, so June and July each year are when the market is extremely abundant in grain.

Generally, merchants from China and France would buy grain on the market at this time, then hire people to transport it all the way to the northwest and Hejian. At the end of the year, they would get tea permits and overvalued coins, return to the south to purchase tea, and continue to do so after selling the tea. They would repeat this cycle of arbitrage and constantly suck the blood of the court.

If they do not resist the cash-seeking method at this time, they will lose a lot of profits.

Therefore, they had to cancel the court's policy as soon as possible in this short period of time and then buy up the goods immediately. Otherwise, if they were late, there would be less food on the market and they would have no chance to get tea permits.

So, to sum up the above, it is indeed as Zhou Yunsheng and Wang Min said, this is the only chance for tea merchants.

But the reason they thought they could win was that they knew the imperial court was using a large amount of money from the Jiaozi shops to purchase grain and fodder, and that the money from the Chengdu Jiaozi shops could not be sent to Bianliang in time. A run on the bank in Bianliang would most likely cause the Jiaozi shops to go bankrupt.

Now that they saw that the Jiaozi Shop could continuously take out money, they knew that it would be difficult for them, the tea merchants, to suck the blood of the imperial court in the future.