"Today's grain price is one tael and seven qian of silver or one thousand seven hundred coins per dan. Those who want to buy should line up behind the head of the village. Each household is limited to buying two dan per month. You have to pay the money with one hand and the grain with the other!"
The grain merchants and gentry in Shaanxi were completely furious.
In the minds of the people, official grain is the benchmark for grain prices. If others want to sell grain, they can only pay a price lower than the benchmark, otherwise they will not be able to sell it at all.
Except for a few grain merchants who stockpiled grain early on, the grain storage costs of the vast majority of grain merchants and gentry were equal to or higher than one liang and six taels.
"This is too much! This is too much!"
"It's over, it's over, I've lost a lot!"
"I've always heard that when the imperial court is short of money, it either plunders the people or plunders the merchants. Now it has come true!"
"I'm going to beat Cao Huachun and Lu Daqi to death!"
Amid the curses of the gentry and grain merchants, Cao Huachun released the news that he would reduce the price of grain to 1.6 ounces.
"what to do?"
The grain merchants gathered together again to discuss countermeasures.
"What else can I do... lower the price! I have to sell it even if I lose money, otherwise I will lose everything."
"You can't lower it any further. The more you lower it, the more you lose!"
"The sooner you sell, the less you'll lose. The later you sell, the more you'll lose!"
"Maybe..." a businessman said mysteriously, "We can change our thinking."
"What idea?"
"Let the price of government grain increase!"
"The price of government grain has been falling, how could it possibly go up?"
“Who sets the price of government grain?”
"The grain was transferred by His Majesty, and the price should also be set by His Majesty."
"Wrong! Your Majesty is too busy to care about such trivial matters."
"You mean...Lü Daqi, the governor of the three borders of Shaanxi?"
"According to the gentry who hoarded grain, the price of grain was jointly set by Cao Huachun and Lu Daqi, the managers of the Shaanxi branch of Daming Money House. As long as we can deal with these two, we can also deal with the price of government grain!"
"This...we are not familiar with them."
"It doesn't matter if you're not familiar with him. You can ask Captain Wang of the Imperial Guard to help you build a bridge!"
"Forget it, he has cheated us out of a lot of money."
"It's okay if we don't look for him. Some of the gentry who store grain are quite familiar with Lu Daqi. They plan to discuss this matter with Lu Daqi in the near future. We can spend some money to get involved."
After discussion, the businessmen expressed their agreement.
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