The Jagged Emperor of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 573 Market Regulation
As the two wealthy merchants of Luo and Qian announced that they would put all the food hoarded in their homes into Jingzhou, the news spread on a large scale in the market, and the ordinary residents were very happy. They should not be hungry this year. Stomach it.

But such a news is a big blow to those grain merchants and wealthy households who are hoarding grain and preparing to make a lot of money in the following autumn.

In fact, these people have been secretly manipulating the price of grain on the market, and wait for the best time to slowly raise the price before selling the grain in their hands.Now that the summer is coming to an end, the government has been implementing a "relief-for-work" policy, so that the residents and victims of the disaster still have enough food to eat;

On the other hand, the city-wide celebration that lasted for a long time made businessmen in the city and businessmen from other places come to do business one after another.They provided a vast array of commodities, partly food, that could be used in place of grain.

The third point is that when the market is booming, merchants and their suppliers also expand their scale of operation and employ a large number of people.This move actually made many residents richer than before the war.The increased income of residents has more effectively allowed them to withstand the pressure of rising food prices.

For example, this is equivalent to the relationship between rising income and inflation rate.Assume that the increase in food prices this year drives up the CPI by [-]%, and the income of residents this year increases by [-]%.It can be seen from this that the [-]% inflation rate causes the residents to suffer a loss of purchasing power, while the increase in income increases the purchasing power of [-]%.Although the purchasing power of residents has declined due to inflation, the pain has also increased.But the growth of income has reduced the pain of this part of the increase.

Therefore, the emergence of the above three points greatly interfered with the manipulation of grain market prices by grain merchants.As a result, the rate of increase in food prices in the market has become very slow, which is simply not what they wanted.

But the grain merchants have plenty of cards in their hands-they have a large amount of grain hoarded in their own warehouses.And as far as they know, the grain hoarded in the Jingzhou government's granary is simply impossible to support everyone in Jingzhou for a long time.

Therefore, they are all nervously staring at every move of the Jingzhou government, seeing how long the government can survive before jumping over the wall in a hurry.At that time, he will have two gambles.

In the first game, they gambled that the government would suddenly attack some of the grain merchants and force them to lower grain prices or simply kill them.It is inevitable that these people will suffer huge losses.

However, once such a thing happened, it would be like providing a clear signal to other grain merchants that the Jingzhou government finally couldn't support it, and they could no longer support the people of Jingzhou.

Therefore, when the time comes, when these grain merchants launch a counterattack against the government, they will continue to hesitate to sell grain in the market, causing a sharp rise in grain prices.At this time, the government was powerless, and it was impossible to rely on murder and extortion to maintain the situation. They could only watch food prices continue to rise.

At this time, it is time for the grain merchants to defeat the government—they have never failed before, and it is time for them to make a lot of money.

However, Liu Chan's "work-for-relief" policy and "economic stimulus" policy have almost completely abandoned the previous government's use of administrative power to intervene in market food prices arbitrarily.Therefore, this reduces the possibility that the Jingzhou government will use violence to steal.

But for grain traders, if none of the above happens, it seems to be the best case.Because, everyone no longer has to worry about whether the government's butcher's knife will fall on their heads in the end.

Therefore, the grain merchants actually felt a little grateful to the government at this time.But gratitude doesn't represent that, and they'll stop at the brink.Gratitude and making money are two completely different concepts that cannot be confused.

The second gamble for grain merchants is a time point: after autumn.

This year is not only a year of war for Jingzhou.It also turned into a disaster year because of a flood released by Guan Xing.

Although it is said that many of the victims' fields have already been planted with crops, but because the cultivation time is too late, the grain production will definitely drop a lot.

Therefore, they only need to wait until after autumn, and the news of the poor harvest will automatically spread in the market, which means that the people of Jingzhou will still be hungry in the next year.The Jingzhou government can help them through the months before the autumn harvest, but there is still a whole year to go!How long can the government's "relief with work" policy last?The hearts of the people will inevitably follow in chaos.

At that time, the price of the grain market will be controlled by them again, and the speed of increase will follow.Then, all businesses in the city will also begin to wither due to the problem of food prices, and the "economic stimulus" policy that the government is currently implementing will no longer be able to be implemented.

So, everything came back to a starting point: Jingzhou is a disaster area, the food price in the disaster area must rise the most, the victims of the disaster will have a hard time living, and the grain merchants will make a lot of money.

All of this was already planned by the grain merchants.But they also know that they have encountered economic experts now, and Liu Chan's policy has made them lose a lot of money.But they are confident that as long as the autumn comes, they can make a lot of money.

But at this time, the worst news came.Luo Tong and Qian Yan didn't know if they were pressured by the government, but they rushed back from Yizhou and announced publicly that they would sell a large amount of grain in Jingzhou.

The market fluctuated immediately.Some small grain merchants really panicked and started shipping to the market.

But the big grain merchants are obviously still waiting and watching. They don't believe that Luo Qian and the two will really take action.But not long after, the performance of Luo and Qian really confirmed that they will really take action next.

Liu Chan sold a piece of land beside the river in Jiangling City to Luo and Qian.They started building large docks and granaries nearby.

Then, the most important news came.The government announced that they had purchased a large amount of grain from Jiangzhou, and the Jiangzhou navy had sent a large number of ships to transport it to Jingzhou.

All of this was completely beyond the expectations of the grain merchants in Jingzhou.They suddenly discovered that they still have cards in their hands, and these cards are still enough to make food prices continue to rise.But the problem is that the money earned in this way is not too much, and the money is too slow.Instead of wasting a lot of time and energy on this, they might as well consider selling the grain to collect funds and move to other industries to make more profits!
Of course, even if these heavy news come, there are still grain merchants who are willing to continue to gamble.However, in fact, the result is almost doomed, and it is impossible for them to make crazy profits like before.Moreover, they will spend a whole year fighting with government policies and the market, whether it is worth it or not, only they know best.

——The matter of internal affairs is almost written here.This book is not like most books, where a certain profiteer is written as evil, and the protagonist is like a businessman who uses his power to deceive and attack him.In fact, I feel that this is a relatively naive way of writing. The author doesn't know what the economy is at all, and he doesn't know that businessmen are a class, and it can't be done by hitting someone.Even more do not understand the dangers of abuse of power, in fact, more than a flood.

(End of this chapter)