The governor's office issued a new decree, which was vigorously implemented throughout Yuezhou.
However, such things can easily become distorted as they are passed down through layers of communication!
Even in He County, within the prefectural city, by the time the "ban" reached the lowest-level grain shops, everything had changed—
No grain is allowed to be sold; it must be used to brew wine!
Although the owners and managers of the major grain shops did not understand and were unwilling, they dared not disobey the governor's office.
They had no choice but to either put up signs at the shop entrance indicating that they only needed to buy a fixed amount of food each day, or simply close the shop.
They forgot that food is the most important thing for ordinary people.
A seemingly insignificant action by them could trigger panic among the people.
"What? The grain shops in the city aren't selling grain anymore?"
"Yes! I heard that too. They say they're going to use it to make wine."
"Oh dear! This is forcing us to our deaths! Our fields have been taken to grow sugarcane, so our harvest this year was already meager. Now, even the grain shops aren't selling grain anymore!"
"Wait a minute, doesn't the imperial court forbid the use of grain to make wine?"
"...I think brewing wine is just an excuse. Humph, those unscrupulous merchants just want to hoard and speculate!"
"That's right! They must have known that farmers had planted sugarcane this year and that there would be a food shortage, so they stockpiled grain in advance."
"My God, are they planning to deliberately inflate grain prices when Yuezhou runs out of food?"
The local people were talking about it.
Some self-proclaimed clever people saw through the unscrupulous merchants' scheme: "No! We must stockpile grain immediately!"
We can't wait until unscrupulous merchants drive up grain prices, because then the same amount of copper coins will only buy half or even less grain!
People began rushing to grain shops to sell their grain.
Grain shop: ...We can't sell! The governor's office has issued a ban!
However, that's how things are; the more they refuse to sell, the more it confirms the suspicions of many people.
The people became increasingly frenzied.
Even though there is no food crisis yet, the situation has become tense.
The people are starting to panic!
The farmers whose farmland had been taken away and who had been bullied also flocked to join in the fun.
Furthermore, the Li people whose territories had been seized colluded with several major local clans and began stirring up trouble throughout Yuezhou.
For a time, Yuezhou was filled with a tense atmosphere, as if "dark clouds were pressing down on the city and a storm was brewing."
This was not Xie Yuan's "lucky accident," but rather a long-standing conflict that erupted like a volcano that had just been awakened.
The "food crisis" that Xie Yuan unintentionally created was just a small trigger.
A tiny spark, with a bang, actually detonated a "landmine" that had been buried in Yuezhou for a long time.
Yuezhou is in chaos!
Tensions began to rise in He County as people began to blockade grain shops.
"Sell grain! No hoarding or speculation allowed!"
"Quick! Open the granaries and sell the grain! We need to eat! We don't want to starve to death!"
"What a damned, unscrupulous merchant! He clearly has grain, but he'd rather use it to brew wine than sell it to us!"
People have a herd mentality; when they see people besieging a grain shop, many others follow suit.
In addition, grain is an extremely important commodity, so when people hear that grain shops are not selling grain, even if they still have some grain stored at home, they can't help but want to buy some more.
Having food in hand means you won't panic.
As a result, more and more people gathered around the grain shop.
There is only a small opportunity for the conflict to escalate.
The opportunity has arrived—
When Cui Boyong heard that some "troublemakers" were besieging the grain shop, he was furious.
Firstly, these grain shops all have shares held by his family, so roughly speaking, they are all his own businesses.
How could Cui Boyong not be angry when his shop was surrounded?
Secondly, Cui Boyong was used to being the only one who mattered in Yuezhou and had long treated the people as his own servants.
Now, these servants are disobedient and have actually come to cause trouble.
How could the high and mighty Prefect Cui possibly tolerate this?!
"Troublemakers! They're all a bunch of troublemakers!"
Cui Boyong cursed irritably, "No wonder they say that bad people come from poor and remote places! This wretched place, Yuezhou, has an especially large number of bad people!"
"Men! Send some constables over there! Hmph, this governor wants to see if they really dare to rebel!"
A dozen burly, fierce-looking bailiffs arrived at the grain shop. The onlookers were instinctively afraid when they saw the officials.
Immediately afterwards, they felt a sense of shame and indignation at being treated like dirt:
"These officials really don't treat us ordinary people like human beings!"
"Exactly! What are they up to? Collusion between officials and businessmen? Favoring unscrupulous merchants?"
"Well, this corrupt official is leaving us no way out!"
"In Huangzhou next door, a few years ago there was a corrupt official who seized farmland and killed civilians!"
"...Let's fight him to the death!"
Lingnan is a remote area, and the local Tu people still live in tribal form, with a particularly fierce folk style.
Then there were some ambitious people with ulterior motives who maliciously instigated the Liao and Li people to cause trouble... The conflicts among the people continued, and the credibility of the court declined again and again.
The Great Zhou Dynasty was a new dynasty, and it only took a few years to unify the north and south.
The entire court was busy pacifying the country, stabilizing the government, reforming the bureaucracy, selecting talented individuals, and so on.
The imperial court and powerful families engaged in various competitions and fiercely contested for territory.
However, they were focused on prosperous and affluent places like the capital and the Jiangnan region.
In remote and wild places like Lingnan, no one really paid much attention.
The sage did want to stabilize the southern border, but his energy was limited.
For now, his focus remains on the imperial court.
We can't worry about Lingnan for the time being.
This place seems to have become a lawless land, giving certain ambitious people the opportunity to stir up trouble!
My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!
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