The rice shop owner, surnamed Wang, was quite shrewd in business.
He had relatives in Jinxi who knew about the Prince of Jin's rebellion in advance. He made a bold decision to buy up all the rice in the rice shops in Ruzhou City. However, the shop owners were not as shrewd as Manager Wang, so when they saw that he wanted to buy rice, they sold it all to him.
Of course, buying all the rice in Ruzhou City would require a considerable sum of money, so Manager Wang not only borrowed a lot from the money exchange but also wrote many IOUs.
However, he was not worried, because he knew that as soon as the news of the Prince of Jin's rebellion came, the people would definitely hoard rice!
Sure enough, within a few days, news of the Prince of Jin's rebellion in Jinxi spread throughout Ruzhou. Although no news came from Jingzhou, the people spontaneously began to stockpile grain.
Perhaps this is the purest mentality of ordinary people. Suddenly, grain prices in Ruzhou became expensive, rising again and again compared to before. Manager Wang's face was almost crooked with a smile.
The warehouse of Wang's rice shop and the owner's house were full of grain. The owner simply raised the price on the spot. He was not afraid of the people's opinions. After all, he had grain in his hands. Why would they be dissatisfied?
Get out!
Sure enough, after Manager Wang finished speaking, the people fell silent.
Then, the people who had been shouting loudly just moments before all lowered their heads and walked out, while many of them discussed when to start queuing up tomorrow.
Upon seeing this, Manager Wang's face lit up with joy.
"A bunch of troublemakers!"
Manager Wang watched the departing crowd and sneered, "You dare to negotiate with me? Bah, you're not worthy!"
After saying that, Manager Wang turned around, hummed a little tune, and prepared to go back and study how much the grain price would rise again tomorrow.
"etc."
Shopkeeper Wang immediately turned around and saw a handsome young man standing outside the door. Shopkeeper Wang felt that the young man looked somewhat familiar, but he couldn't remember who he was.
However, judging from the young man's clothes and demeanor, Manager Wang could guess that he was either rich or noble, so he said in a gentle tone, "Young master, I'm really sorry, we've sold out of grain for today. If you would like to buy some, please come back tomorrow."
Jing Zhe shook his head and said, "I'm not here to buy grain, but to offer a few words of advice to Manager Wang."
"oh?"
Manager Wang frowned slightly, looking puzzled.
"With the Prince of Jin's rebellion, Manager Wang must have a lot of grain stored in the warehouse, right? If you sell it all, it might take at least ten days to half a month. But what if the rebellion is quelled in just three days? Wouldn't Manager Wang's grain be stuck in his hands? Therefore, Manager Wang would better quickly distribute the grain among other grain shops and lower the price at the same time, otherwise he will lose everything in the future!"
After hearing Jing Zhe's explanation, Manager Wang's face immediately fell. He had collected all the rice in the city and deliberately controlled the sale of only a small portion of the grain each day. The longer the sale lasted, the more profitable it would be for him. How could he bear to distribute any more grain? And why would he lower the price?
"Who are you?"
"Who I am is not important. What is important is that Manager Wang had better listen to my advice."
"Pooh!"
Shopkeeper Wang still couldn't remember who Jing Zhe was. However, there were many wealthy families in Ruzhou City, and he hadn't seen all of their young masters and sons, so it was normal that he couldn't recognize them.
Perhaps this is the young master of some grain shop, jealous of his current profits, deliberately trying to annoy him!
"Whether to lower the price or not, and how long to sell it, is all up to me. Why are you meddling in my business? Get out of here!"
As he spoke, Manager Wang pushed Jing Zhe and shooed him out.
Jing Zhe wasn't angry, because he had no reason to be, and he happily withdrew.
This is why they cracked down on monopolies in their time. Not to mention monopolies, even if there were only two or three companies left in the market doing a certain job, the goal of monopoly could still be achieved.
They can sell whenever they want and raise prices whenever they want, and ordinary people can't do anything about it. However, there is no anti-monopoly law in this world, so Jing Zhe can't do anything to Manager Wang.
...
Afterwards, Jing Zhe went to Wenxiangju and Da'an Newspaper Office.
The Prince of Jin's rebellion caused widespread panic among the people, and everyone rushed to seize grain. No one had the leisure to eat.
Therefore, both Wenxiangju and Zhangjia Winery were struggling financially. Jing Zhe inquired and learned that they had a considerable amount of grain stored there.
When Zhangjia Distillery was in Jingzhou, it directly purchased cloudy liquor for processing. However, after arriving in Ruzhou, due to the abundance of land and grain, the distillery started from scratch, making cloudy liquor from grain and then processing it into spirits. Zhangjia Distillery had a lot of grain stored in its backyard warehouse for brewing.
There is also a considerable amount of grain in Wenxiangju.
Jing Zhe was satisfied with the result. As for the lack of guests, he simply gave them a day off and then came to the Yu family's house.
The servants of the Yu family recognized Jing Zhe and hurriedly ushered him in. Soon after, Yu Li came running over.
"Why did President Jing arrive so quickly?"
To be honest, Yu Li had only received news of the Prince of Jin's rebellion a few days ago, and according to his deduction, Jing Zhe should be in Jiangling at this time.
Jing Zhe smiled but didn't answer. Instead, he asked, "Governor Yu, where are the Prince of Jin's rebel army?"
Upon hearing this, Yu Li replied earnestly, "Reporting to Chief Jing, I sent men to investigate yesterday. For some reason, the Prince of Jin and the allied rebels from the Western Frontier are moving slowly. Although they have been traveling since Jinxi three days ago, they have not covered the halfway point. At this rate, it will probably take them another three or four days to reach Ruzhou!"
"That took so long..."
Jing Zhe nodded, then said, "You know about the rising grain prices in the city, right?"
Yu Li looked distressed, then nodded and said, "President Jing, I do know, but there's nothing I can do about it!"
According to the laws of Da'an, agricultural and sideline products can only be reported to the government if the price increase exceeds 100% in a day. Therefore, Wang's rice shop only sells a fixed amount of rice each day, and the price increase does not exceed 100% each day, so the government cannot do anything about it.
Jing Zhe patted Yu Li on the shoulder, indicating his understanding.
“That Manager Wang is indeed quite cunning, but we can’t let him keep raising prices like this. Otherwise, before the Prince of Jin’s rebellion even happens, the common people will start to panic.”
"Yes, yes, yes..."
Yu Li quickly agreed, and then asked, "Does President Jing have any good ideas to appease the people?"
In fact, Yu Li himself knew that there was only one way, which was to lower the price. However, the Wang family had already tasted the benefits, so it was not easy to get them to lower the price voluntarily.
Are we going to use their status to force him to lower the price of grain?
In Yu Li's view, this was the only way.
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