Dahan first prince

Chapter 155 Why did you promise the prince?
Walking out of Weiyang Palace with a worried face, and walking on Hao Street north of Weiyang Palace, Xiao He couldn't stop heaving a sigh regardless of Yang Chengyan following behind him.

"This time at home, it's really better than Meng Lang..."

A leisurely murmur to himself finally caught Yang Chengyan's opportunity to start a conversation, and hurried forward two steps.

"Master."

"The previous strategy of the family was to forcibly seize the rice stored in the hands of grain merchants in Guanzhong?"

Hearing this question, Xiao He shook his head bitterly again.

"It was just at home that I ordered the old man to spread the order of Guanzhong. Do you still remember the Young Mansion?"

Hearing this, Yang Chengyan nodded naturally.

"nature."

"The family is willing to announce the decree of the prime minister's government in Guanzhong, saying: No household with a business registration can reserve more than a hundred stones; if it has exceeded it now, it will be sold quickly and follow the order."

"On the first day of Jiawu (the first day of the new month) in the spring and March, those who are still not as good as the order will have no food in their storage; and for every stone that is exceeded, they will be fined four liang."

After roughly repeating Caicai and Liu Ying's explanation in the Phoenix Hall, Yang Chengyan looked up at Xiao He with a slightly happy expression.

"If this decree is distributed in Guanzhong, all the grain merchants in Guanzhong, Mijia, will probably not be able to store up grain; in order to make the most of the grain in hand, they should sell it at a reduced price!"

"In this way, the price of grain in Guanzhong will be fair, and I can also pay the Shaofu money to buy cheap grain and rice, so as to make money inside!"

Speaking of this, the expression on Yangcheng Yan's face was already a little beaming.

Only a moment later, I saw Yang Chengyan's slightly confused light'eh? With a sound, he frowned and looked at Xiao He beside him.

"Grain prices in Guanzhong are about to stabilize, so how come you don't like it, but show worry?"

Listening to Yang Chengyan's elated description of the beautiful scene after the 'drop in food prices', and then expressing his confusion about his worries, Xiao He only sighed leisurely, stopped, turned his hands behind his back, with a serious expression on his face. Looking towards Yangchengyan.

"Young Mansion, if you really fail to understand the disaster that will be caused by the family's order?"

Hearing Xiao He's words, Yang Chengyan's expression froze suddenly, and he shook his head repeatedly like a rattle.

Seeing this, Xiao He couldn't help showing a trace of deep worry on his face.

"The family wants to make the old man issue a government order in Guanzhong. Although it looks like 'prohibit merchants from storing too much grain', in fact, it prohibits merchants from making a living from goods and grain!"

"But this decree has to be issued in Guanzhong. In the future, there will be no grain merchants in Guanzhong to buy rice for the people after the autumn harvest. In spring and summer, there will be no rice merchants in the market!"

After saying these two sentences in a very determined tone, Xiao He's complexion gradually became serious.

"Let's think about it in the Shaofu: No one with a commercial household can store more than a hundred stones of grain."

"——The merchants in Guanzhong today, whoever has a little money, who has no males, more than ten wives and concubines, and dozens of servants?"

"Rice, rice, and a hundred stones are enough to feed such a family for dozens of mouths, but it's only ten months' work!"

"With this order, are there still merchants in Guanzhong who dare to store grain in warehouses after the autumn harvest and sell them in spring and summer?"

"There is no food to store, and there is no food to sell!"

"So this time, the decree issued by the old man in the family is actually restricting grain merchants in Guanzhong. After the Jiawu (first day of the first lunar month) in spring and March, they are no longer allowed to be grain merchants!"

Seeing Xiao He's gradually serious face, and listening to Xiao He's explanation, Yang Chengyan's expression also gradually brought a little surprise.

"How?"

"Is it because my husband is worrying too much?"

"This policy at home should only be temporarily in Guanzhong, as an expedient measure to stabilize grain prices; wait until the autumn harvest, and then let it go."

"If that wasn't the case, why did the family have to envoy the minister to announce the decree instead of asking His Majesty to issue an imperial edict to legislate?"

Hearing Yang Chengyan's first two words, Xiao He shook his head with a gloomy expression.

After hearing this last question, the stern look on Xiao He's face finally turned into a wry smile...

"What the Shaofu said hits the nail on the head..."

With a wry smile and a long sigh, Xiao He looked towards Yang Chengyan with a little deep meaning in his gaze.

"In the past, the family passed a letter to His Majesty, and in the past, the family was assassinated in Changling."

"And ask Your Majesty to promulgate an edict to clarify the law. It has also been written in a book for the family and presented to His Majesty..."

Hearing this, Yang Chengyan finally let go of the last trace of luck in his heart, and his expression became completely serious.

Xiao He was right.

Liu Ying's decree that "merchants can't have more than [-] shi of grain storage" is actually aimed at exterminating grain merchants.

The reason is simple: whether it is a grain merchant, a cloth merchant, or any other merchant, if you want to sell a certain type of goods, the first thing you need to do is to stock up.

For example: If a businessman wants to start a cloth business, the first thing to do is to recruit dozens or hundreds of skilled weavers to weave cloth for himself.

When you have a stock of thousands of eight hundred pieces of cloth, you can find a place in the market and hang up a signboard of 'X's Cloth Shop'.

Otherwise, if you really take three or five bolts of cloth and go to open a store, what should you do when the goods are sold out?
Sell ​​cloth for 5 minutes and close for two months?
This is not bad, after all, cloth is also a handmade product, as long as there are raw materials, it can be produced continuously.

Food, however, is a very special category among 'goods'.

As the handlers of the grain trade, merchants cannot produce grain by themselves at all, and can only buy it from the people after autumn every year.

After the grain is bought back, the only thing the grain merchant needs to do is to store it properly, and wait until spring and summer, when the people are out of stock, to increase the price and sell the grain back to the people.

To put it simply: Cloth merchants earn the processing fee of "weaving silk and hemp rope into cloth", while grain merchants earn the management fee for long-term storage of large quantities of grain.

Since it is a management fee, the indispensable link is naturally management.

Specifically, after the autumn harvest, the grain was bought from the people and stored in granaries.

However, Liu Ying's decree that "businessmen can't hoard more than [-] shi of grain" precisely hit the fatal vital point of grain merchants' survival and profit.

What is one hundred shi of grain enough for?
——According to today, each household of farmers in Guanzhong owns a hundred mu of land, and the yield per mu is more than two shi. The annual grain output of a farmer is more than 200 shi!
That is to say, after Liu Ying's decree, if businessmen want to store grain legally, they can only store half of the grain output that a farmer can get after the autumn harvest at most!
Obviously, no businessman would be willing to spend energy building a granary and assigning someone to look after it in order to store a hundred shi of grain.

There will not be any businessman who is willing to accept the market share of "one hundred stones of grain per year".

In this way, what Xiao He said is indeed not a problem.

——If Liu Ying's decree successfully becomes a legal decree in Guanzhong, then from now on, there will never be such a creature as a "grain merchant" in Qinzhong for three thousand miles!
Without grain merchants, there will be no buyers for the grain harvested from the fields during the autumn harvest by the people; and there will be no sellers who sell rice grains in the market in spring and summer.

What makes Yang Chengyan feel even more heavy is that without the grain merchants, the grain in Guanzhong cannot flow into Kanto!

Without the grain 'export' in Guanzhong, in the barren land of Kanto, it is still easy to eat each other and starve to death everywhere!
To be more serious, I am afraid that mourning is everywhere, and the people are in dire straits; as soon as a certain victory, a certain Guang ascends to the top, the world will immediately fall into disaster...
"Since that's the case, why didn't Marquis Feng speak out to dissuade him from being in the empress's womb just now?"

When he asked urgently, he saw Yang Chengyan's gaze was also slightly tentative.

"But Xianggong thinks that the policy of the family must not be allowed by His Majesty?"

After saying that, without waiting for Xiao He to answer, Yang Chengyan hurriedly shook his head on his own.

"Even if His Majesty disapproves of the policy of the family, and has not issued an edict to prohibit the grain merchants from harvesting rice, if the family acts like this this year, it may shut down the grain merchants, and everyone should be frightened!"

Hearing Yang Chengyan's deep words that seemed to be talking to himself, Xiao He also nodded with worry.

Regardless of whether the Emperor Liu Bang agreed to Liu Ying and formally promulgated the legal ordinance on "prohibiting merchants from hoarding grain", it has become inevitable that Guanzhong merchants should not hoard more than [-] shi of grain from March [-]st to the autumn harvest this year.

——Because in the womb of the imperial concubine just now, Prime Minister Xiao He has already accepted the order of the Crown Prince Liu Ying!

Under this premise, even if Liu Ying's request to "please issue an edict" was rejected by the emperor Liu Bang, the grain merchants in Guanzhong would inevitably jump out of the "grain" pit one after another.

The reason couldn't be simpler: this year, because of the high price of grain, the crown prince forced the grain merchants in Guanzhong to lower prices or even sell grain at a loss through the coercive means of laws and regulations to stabilize the price.

Then next year, the year after, or whatever it is, when the price of grain in Guanzhong is booming again, wouldn't the grain merchants still have to cut their meat?

If it happens once in a while, it's barely acceptable - in business, there are profits and losses.

But the crux of the problem lies in this: under the model of "merchants cutting meat to quell food prices", grain merchants will have no room for profit at all, and they will lose money no matter what!
If the price of grain does not rise, grain merchants can only sell their grain at a price slightly higher than the purchase price; taking into account the cost of grain storage such as granary construction, maintenance, and labor, even if they do not lose money, grain merchants will definitely not lose money. Can't make money.

If the price of grain has risen, it will be even more serious-the crown prince said, "Every household with a business registration must not store more than [-] shi of grain", and the big guys will have to sell the grain in their hands at a low price in a hurry.

In general: If food prices don’t rise, you can’t make money. If they rise, not only won’t you make money, you’ll even lose money!

Under such circumstances, as long as there is not too much water in their minds, no businessman is willing to take the risk of being "inexplicably convicted of treason" to get involved in the grain business with no profit margins.

In this way, it is not important whether the emperor Liu Bang promulgated the edict of the emperor to endorse the legitimacy of Liu Ying's "order to ban merchants and store grain".

As long as Xiao He really issues a decree to Guanzhong that says 'merchants are not allowed to stockpile more than a hundred stones of grain', even if it is only a temporary decree, it will inevitably lead the merchants to stay away from the business sector of 'grain'.

"Um······"

"Could it be that this time at home, I want to go to Guanzhong Grain Merchant?"

Hesitantly expressing his guess, Yang Chengyan turned his head slightly in surprise.

Hearing this question, Xiao He finally nodded slightly after thinking about it in every possible way.

"A while ago, the old man's family said, 'that is to say, merchants and merchants are forbidden to store grain, and it is not as good as the order within three days, and they all sit and spy on the country'!"

"The old man was terrified when he heard it, so he could only 'wait for a few days, as there are grain merchants who sell rice in the grain market' to suspend the thoughts at home, and wait for His Majesty's instructions."

"Today, although the family backed down a bit and changed 'within three days' to 'before Jiawu in spring and March', they are still stubborn on the matter of banning merchants and stockpiling grain.'"

"From this point of view, the family really has the intention of shutting down the grain merchants in China..."

Hearing Xiao Heyu's worried words, Yang Chengyan frowned after thinking for a while.

"If there is no grain merchant Mijia in Guanzhong, wouldn't there be chaos?"

As he said that, Yang Chengyan seemed to think of something, bowed his head for a while, and then asked after a while: "A while ago, my family set up a grain market in the south of Chang'an, ordering the Shaofu to sell rice to the people."

"Could it be that the family's intention is to use the Shaofu to ban the grain merchants in Guanzhong in the past, and to be in charge of the purchase and sale of grain and rice in Guanzhong?"

But when Xiao He heard the words, he nodded his head again, but his worried expression became even more serious.

"The old man's worry also stems from this..."

"Today in Guanzhong, there are more than [-] households and millions of people; they need rice and grain every year, no less than tens of thousands of stones."

"In addition, the Kanto is barren, and those who need to transport the Kanto from the central part of the Guanzhong will have no less than tens of thousands of shi."

"In the past, the tens of millions of stones of rice and grain were stored by hundreds of large and small grain merchants in Guanzhong, with tens of thousands of granaries."

Having said that, Xiao He cleared his throat slightly, and turned the topic leisurely.

"The head of the granary today is the Ao Granary in Xingyang, which can store 500 million shi!"

"If the family really wants to rely on the Shaofu to specialize in the purchase and sale of grain and rice from all over the world, it may be necessary to build a huge warehouse that is as large as Ao Cang, and there are no less than forty places."

"Even if we have these forty granaries, we still need officials to patrol the granaries, soldiers to protect the granaries, and civilians to transport rice and grain into and out of the granaries."

Saying that, Xiao He finally looked at Yang Chengyan with a solemn face, and shook his head deeply sadly.

"Currently, even though Chang'an is incapable of building the Chaotang, even if we renovate the Zhengguo Canal, we still need to send Lu's private food from the family and summon the people who came from Guanzhong."

"There are forty places in this huge warehouse, and there are corresponding warehouse officials, soldiers, young and strong..."

"Ugh······"

"Today's Han Dynasty cannot bear such a huge burden..."

Listening to Xiao He's sigh full of sorrow, Yang Chengyan thought over and over again, and the thousands of doubts in his heart finally turned into that question again.

"Since that's the case, why didn't Prime Minister Xiao refuse to stop the family from carrying out such a messy plan?"

Hearing that Yang Chengyan asked "Why did you agree" for the second time, the bitterness on Xiao He's face finally turned into substance.

"The Shaofu forgot: when the family stepped forward, why was he assassinated?"

"And why did the family go to Changling, and meet son Zhuanggong face to face?"

When Yang Chengyan showed a somewhat depressed expression, Xiao He only shook his head with a desolate sigh.

"The culmination of grain merchants is a hidden danger."

"However, the price of grain in Guanzhong is about to rise, and this is an immediate problem..."

"If you don't follow the order of the family, and the government prohibits merchants and merchants from storing grain, I am afraid that there will be a day when there is no grain merchant in Guanzhong. I, Han Zuo, will be able to return to Qin's mistakes..."

After saying that, Xiao He sighed again, and finally showed a bitter smile, looking sideways at Yang Chengyan.

"Two phases are all harmful, whichever is less harmful."

"In the case of the high price of grain in Guanzhong, there is no other way for me, except for the family's strategy..."

　Don't worry, I'm writing, and it should be sent out in the middle of the night!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)