In the morning, in Jiankang, Pengcheng Duke's Mansion, and Houting, Wu was talking to Lin, the eldest son who came to greet him, and another son, Huang Gui, was also present.

Wu returned to Beijing with his son Li Li, so he naturally lived in Jiankang. It happened that Changsun Li Xin and his family were also in Jiankang, so the family was reunited.

As people get older, they will pay more attention to family reunion. Wu did not expect that everyone could get together outside of their hometown, and he was happy.

As they chatted, Wu talked about Jiankang's customs and customs. Because Li Li specially arranged the maid to serve as a "inquiry" and told Wu about strange stories from various places to relieve his boredom, Wu now has a good understanding of Jiankang.

Then he sighed that the grain prices in Jiankang were expensive.

Lin replied: "There are 250,000 and 60,000 yuan in total, and there are many people. The local grain output is not enough, so it depends on external transportation. Of course, the price of this grain will be expensive."

"It's spring now, and it's the time when the green and yellow people are not in line. Even in Poyang, the food prices are higher than usual, let alone Jiankang."

The reason is this, but it just doesn't affect the Li family.

The children and grandchildren of Wu have all become officials, and their salaries are food. As long as they are not squandered, they are completely enough for the people in the mansion (including servants) to eat, and they do not need to buy them on the market.

Therefore, the high and low grain prices actually have little impact on the Li family.

Besides, there are many lands in Poyang's manors. The grain harvested in autumn is stored in the warehouse and can be transported to Jiankang at any time, so there is no need to buy it outside.

But Wu still sighed repeatedly: "The price of grain has been rising. Ordinary people have to spend a lot of money on buying grain, and life is not easy..."

"I remember when the year was not good, the prices of grain soared and my family couldn't afford to buy too much food. Erlang and Sanlang tried their best to fish in the lake. I, and you, went out to dig wild vegetables with Xin'er on my back..."

Wu, who has been used to hard life, still cannot forget the past even though he is rich and well-off.

At that time, two orphans and widows at home lived in a few acres of fish ponds, and they were so impressed.

When Lin heard his aunt (mother-in-law) mention it back then, he felt a little moved. If my brother-in-law hadn't made a name for himself, the Li family would probably still be an ordinary family in a small fishing village by Pengli Lake.

Huang Gui listened aside, a little embarrassed, silently listening to Wu and Lin recalled the past.

The Huang family is a big family in Poyang City. Although Huang Gui disguised himself as a man since childhood and was the "uniform son" of the Huang family. He was not favored by his mother and brother, but he had no worries about food and clothing with his mother, so he did not experience hard life.

When she married Li Li, the Li family's family had improved a lot, so she and her aunt and sister-in-law had no experience of sharing hardships.

However, over the years, Huang Gui "mastered" and knew a lot of things and the sufferings of the people.

So I understand what the rise in grain prices in Jiankang City means to ordinary people now.

The unscrupulous businessmen were raising the price of grain. They started when they learned last year that Li Li was going to return to Jiankang to "regulate taxes". These people continued to buy a large amount of grain and hoarded it, artificially creating the "facts" of shortage of food.

This move led to the residents of Jiankang starting to rush to buy grain, while these unscrupulous merchants bought more grain transported to Jiankang and hoarded it, resulting in the increasingly serious shortage of food.

Not only did Jiankang's businessmen do this, but grain merchants and merchants from all over the country were also hoarding grain and "intercepting" the grain that was supposed to be transported to Jiankang in the middle.

Therefore, under the large-scale hoarding of these businessmen and businessmen, the prices of Jiankang's grain rose rapidly, and other prices also rose.

This is nothing for families with wealthy families, but for families with shortages, rising prices rapidly is not a good thing.

In Jiankang City, the poor account for the majority. Once the prices are too high, many people face not the problem of whether they can eat enough or not, but the problem of whether the whole family can survive.

Li Li has been arranging people to do "social surveys" in Jiankang, so Huang Gui knew that many poor people in the city had a daily income of only thirty or forty cents.

Excluding expenses, there is not much left. If grain prices rise sharply and trigger other prices to rise, the poor will not be able to live a life.

If it is in the countryside, the poor cannot afford to sell food, and they can also dig wild vegetables and fish in the wild to barely support it.

But the poor people in Jiankang City don’t even have the chance to dig wild vegetables or fish, because the surrounding mountains, rivers and lakes have their own masters, and there is almost no place to dig wild vegetables or fish.

Thinking of this, Huang Yan was angry: You businessmen, for their own selfish interests, have maliciously raised the price of food, and should be killed!

Qi returns to Qi, and Qi is useless.

Huang Gui knew that these profiteers had only one purpose to raise prices, which was to target the new tax system (commercial tax) that will be implemented in Jiankang.

As long as the new tax system criminals are angry, the reform of the tax system will be left alone.

Therefore, it was originally not under the control of Li Li, but Li Li could not escape the relationship.

If Li Li really implements a new tax system in Jiankang, it means that people who evade taxes, leak, evade taxes and even resist taxes on weekdays will suffer the interests of people who are suffering from taxes.

Among these people, there were businessmen, officials, powerful people, nobles, noble families, royal families, royal families, and royal relatives.

Without exception, they all gain a lot of benefits from tax evasion, water leakage, and tax evasion, and even use this as a way to make money.

Under the operation of these people, a large amount of materials and commodities did not have to pay a penny of commercial tax. Under various banners, they entered and exited Jiankang and all the gates and capitals in a noble manner. The "way" formed by this has raised countless borers.

As the saying goes, "cutting off people's wealth is like killing their parents." Li Li wanted to collect taxes from these people, so he had a grudge against these people for killing their father.

Then, it is actually very polite to unite these people in a tacit understanding, raising prices to arouse public grievances, forcing the court to abandon reforming the tax system, and leaving Li Li in a dilemma.

However, grain prices cannot continue to rise like this, otherwise something big will happen.

The only way is to open a granary for the Jiankang government and sell grain at a low price (relatively speaking) to alleviate the rising trend of grain prices in the city.

At the same time, the court had to mobilize a large amount of grain from other places to Jiankang and sell it openly to stabilize the price of grain.

That is, in a short period of time, a large amount of grain was invested in Jiankang, which was far more than the amount of funds that the profiteer could buy, making it impossible for the other party to buy and hoard food.

Then because of the influx of food, the food price will naturally fall back to normal levels.

However, the attacks were both Jiankang's businessmen and foreign merchants. The court was anxious that it could not buy a large amount of grain from other places to transport it to Jiankang.

You cannot easily use the grain stored in various prefectures and counties, because all prefectures and counties also have to rely on inventory just in case.

Moreover, many officials in the court watched the scenes and were happy to see Li Li aroused public anger, so they were not concerned about stabilizing the food prices.

This has led to the delay in releasing grain in the official warehouse and transferring grain into Jiankang to calm grain prices, which further stimulated the people to rush to buy grain and the prices of grain rose.

Therefore, Li Li, who did not have much power, could not get the cooperation of the bureaucrats and could not mobilize a large amount of food to Jiankang in the short term, "breaking through" the wallets of the profiteers.

During this period, Li Li ran around to coordinate the transfer of grain into Beijing, but the results were not great. Although the King of Xiangdong, who supported his reform of the tax system, tried his best to cooperate, the results were minimal.

The complaints of the people of Jiankang are increasing day by day, and grain prices have been rising, and there is no possibility of a slowdown.

Huang Gui was anxious when he thought of this: The opponent's offensive is no longer possible to resolve, what should he do?

......

In a private case, in the room, several well-dressed men were discussing the current situation and talking about the price of food.

Now that the grain prices in Jiankang City are soaring, everyone is worried, but here, everyone has a smile on their faces, as if the more the grain prices rise, the happier they are.

"Where else can he transfer food? There is no place to transfer food!"

A fat man smiled, his eyes almost narrowed into a line: "It is impossible for Sanwu. Now merchants everywhere are garrisoning grain, but they just don't transport it to Jiankang. What dares he dare?"

"The grain in the two Huai Rivers is self-sufficient. Huaibei and Xuzhou have to eat a lot of surplus grain. Even if the farmlands are harvested this year, it is impossible to transfer too much grain to Jiankang."

"He really wants to adjust, how much can he adjust? I have a friend in Xuzhou Prefecture Party and have already figured out the bottom of Xuzhou. He doesn't have much food to adjust!"

Others listened to the fat man's analysis of his ability to adjust food, and this "he" refers to the famous ever-winning general, Li Li, the Duke of Pengcheng.

"If you transfer grain from Raozhou and Jiangzhou, it is not enough. You have calculated the surplus grain that can be taken out from Raozhou, and it is not useful. After all, the price of Jiankang grain has soared now, and no matter how much grain is transferred from Raozhou, it cannot withstand..."

"I can't resist everyone working together to eat all the surplus grains. Anyway, the estimated total amount of grain that can be bought in various places is not enough for him to help him. Haha, now, he should know what public anger is so unfair."

Everyone laughed happily when they heard this.

They are wealthy merchants in Jiankang City and have great backers behind them, otherwise they would not be able to gain a foothold in Jiankang.

Now, because the imperial court lacks money, it has to reform the tax system and collect more commercial taxes.

It is simply tolerant that the court dares to collect commercial taxes on them, but who is unbearable!

Because this business tax was received by them, they reached into the backers' money bags to get the money.

Who are their backers? The nobles of the gentry, the nobles of the Three Wus, and even royal relatives, powerful people, royal families and princes.

Can these people get the money easily?

Even Emperor Gaozu, who has been an emperor for decades, can't get it!

The King of Xiangdong, who was assisting in the administration, knew the interests, but he was really short of money, so he specially found a piece of goods to reform the tax system.

Then, they have to let this guy see what it means to be infringed on public anger.

A simple move to raise the price of grain is enough to make the slaughtered goods bleed.

You should know that this was not something that someone took the lead. It was because countless people were tacitly informed and worked hard to create a situation where Jiankang’s grain prices soared but localities could not transfer too much surplus grain.

So, even if the goods are broken and they want to arrest people, who can they be arrested?

Want to fabricate a charge? A joke!

The fat man's name is Chen He, who is a wealthy businessman. The more he talks, the more he becomes more proud:

"The uncles guarding outside are happy that there is a problem with Jiankang. I want to see the King of Xiangdong and the stockpile make a fool of themselves. They will not actively respond to the call of the central government and transfer grain to Beijing for emergency treatment."

"I even acquiesced to the large amount of food that merchants from all over the country have hoarded, resulting in a significant decrease in the amount of food transported to Jiankang compared with previous years. I can guarantee that this news is accurate, so you can rest assured."

Chen He showed off his well-informed knowledge, and the others became more and more happy when they heard it.

He said again: "If they don't give in, it's okay, next, they will be bloody."

"Seeing blood? That's not good. After all, we always make money with kindness..." Someone was worried, and Chen He didn't care. He drank a glass of wine and sneered.

"Yes, you have to see blood. People must die. Only when people die will things get bigger."

"They are now setting up porridge sheds everywhere in the city, trying to save the poor and calm the hearts of the people. Haha, it's useless!"

"If you hold on, someone will attack the grain store and rob the grain, and then have a conflict with the shopkeeper and then cause death."
To be continued...