Being fooled by fierce beasts to travel through the beginning is fleeing famine

As a result, when they were going out the next morning, they were stopped again.

This time it was a funeral procession. I didn't expect that several families would have a funeral together at the same time. This made the procession very long and it took a long time to finish.

Think about it, this snowstorm has caused several families to die at the same time. Funerals must be held at the same time, unlike happy events that can be rescheduled.

To be honest, it is very uncomfortable to encounter this kind of thing in this new year. It is just after the New Year and I am in a good mood. To encounter such a natural disaster and someone in the family has died, it is really very unpleasant. accept.

If several families do it together, it saves the villagers from having to go to express their condolences and have a banquet. They can just organize it together, which saves a lot of time.

Moreover, the cemeteries in their village were all in the same direction, so the funeral was held together. Almost everyone from the village came out, so the queue was quite long.

By the time the funeral procession passed, it was already ten o'clock, so they quickly continued their journey east while no one was out of the way.

The snow on the road has not yet melted, and there are many undulating slopes, so it is really difficult to walk very fast.

It was not until five days later that they arrived at Jinghu South Road in Xiangyin County, which is now the boundary of Tanzhou.

Because it is located in the south of the Xiang River, it is named Xiangyin.

Although there was freezing rain here, it was much better than the place they passed by. The temperature also rose to ten degrees, but the ground was muddy, making it even harder to walk.

They planned to stay in the county town for a day to replenish supplies. The rice they bought before was not much. Because they could not buy too much at one time and they had big appetites, they had almost eaten.

There is still a lot of flour and coarse grains they bought in the north, but they are not very good at making pasta, and they don't like to eat coarse grains. Except for the ones they gave to the victims when they passed by, they have always left them untouched.

The flour was only eaten a few times for gnocchi and egg pancakes, and they didn't know how to make steamed buns or anything like that.

So they planned to buy more rice in Xiangyin County, and then they could go to several grain stores to buy it separately.

As soon as they entered the county town, they discovered that few people in the county town were walking around outside.

Qingyan used her consciousness to explore several restaurants and teahouses, and found that they were all closed and no one was doing business, not even the shopkeepers or waiters.

This is not right. Even if I go home for the New Year, it is already past the fifth day of the Lunar New Year. Today is the tenth day of the Lunar New Year. The shop must be open anyway.

But the entire county is very depressed, and the street in Yiyang where the inn on New Year's Day is even busier than this.

Although the shops over there are closed, at least there are a lot of firecrackers and laughter in the place across the street, which is much more popular than here.

They had originally planned to stay at the inn for the night, but now that the doors were closed, they had no choice but to leave.

They did not stay in the city longer, but left the city directly through another gate. Because they did not stop on the way, people thought they were passing through the city.

When she just used her spiritual sense to investigate, she also took a look at the largest grain stores in the city.

Several grain stores were not open, and she even found that not only were there no people in the grain stores, but all the goods had been emptied. It looked like they had stopped working. There was nothing inside, which was even more wrong.

If it weren't for the ordinary people in the city who were staying at home, the officials in the county government were also working normally, and the four city gates were guarded by soldiers, they would have thought this was a city. It's an empty city.

Since they couldn't buy anything or stay in the inn, they definitely had to leave, but they didn't plan to leave too far and wanted to see what was going on here.

So I plan to go to the nearest town in the county to buy some food first, and then find a remote place where no one is around, and return to space to stare.

Of course, they can also find a place to take out the wooden house. Anyway, with the Fire Spirit Stone, they don't have to worry about being uncomfortable. However, there are no valleys here. They are all villages, towns, roads and trails, so they are easy to be discovered.

Anyway, Chou Chou can stare at this side in space. In fact, there is no need to toss back and forth at all.

In fact, Jin Yang can also see out from inside the space, but only at a close distance, so as long as they are nearby, Chou Chou and Jin Yang can take turns to stare, which is easier.

In this way, they drove out of the county seat and continued walking east to the nearest town.

This town is located due east of Xiangyin County, and is called Huashi Town. Because it is very close to the county seat, it is very prosperous, with a large population and many shops. There are two shops selling grain on the main street alone.

Before they entered the town, they were divided into two groups, preparing to split up to buy food.

Qingyan and Jin Yang went to the house in the west, and Chou Chou took Huang Jin to the house in the east.

Qingyan and the others drove the ox cart there, while Chou Chou and the others found a place first, got a human-powered cart and pulled them there directly.

When the time comes, just leave this town and then retract the space. They entered from the west of the town and will exit from the east.

Qingyan and Jin Yang parked the car and carried Yuanbao into the grain store. The shopkeeper and the waiter saw them and greeted them.

"Is it objective to buy food?"

The shopkeeper greeted with a smile on his face.

Qingyan and Jin Yang nodded and looked at the goods inside. They found that there were not many goods in the store. They only filled a quarter of the room. They didn't know if it was because the Chinese New Year had just come and they didn't have time to buy goods.

Jin Yang walked to the rice bucket where the samples were placed, picked up a few grains of rice with his hands and looked at it. Seeing that it was quite fresh, it was new rice, so he said to the shopkeeper: "I wonder how many kilograms of this rice can we buy at most? The shopkeeper should We also know that the weather is not good during this period, so we want to buy more and put them away."

Upon hearing this, the shopkeeper said with a clear face: "I need to buy more. The day is cloudy and sunny, hot and cold. However, the court stipulates that ordinary people cannot buy more than 200 kilograms of grain at a time. If you buy more, you will have to buy more." We have the documents issued by the Yamen." Qingyan and Jin Yang exchanged glances, and Jin Yang said to the shopkeeper: "Then please ask the shopkeeper to weigh 200 kilograms of rice for us. After we have weighed it, we have to trouble the little brother to help us move it. On to the bullock cart.”

The shopkeeper smiled and agreed, "Of course, I should move it out for you. We can deliver the goods as long as we are in town."

While directing the workers to move down the sacks containing rice, he said to them: "The current price of rice is five cents per catty, and two hundred catties is exactly one tael of silver."

Qingyan raised her eyebrows, but without saying anything, she took out a tael of silver from her purse and handed it to him.

He also inquired about Xiangyin County by the way, "We originally wanted to buy rice in the county, but we just don't know what happened. The shops in the county didn't even open their doors. Does the shopkeeper know the reason?"

Hearing this, the shopkeeper did not answer immediately. Instead, he walked to the door and took a look. Seeing that no one was passing by outside, he came back and said to Qingyan, "Are you from other places?"

Qingyan nodded, "The shopkeeper is well-informed and immediately noticed that we are not locals."

This is purely a compliment. With their accent, anyone who is not deaf can immediately tell that they are not locals.

Jin Yang also said: "Not only were all the shops in the county town closed, but there was no one on the streets. If the city gate hadn't been closed, we would have thought something had happened, and we were so frightened that we left without even daring to stay."

The shopkeeper sighed and said: "Hey... isn't there a snowstorm in the west? The superiors have issued an order to provide disaster relief. It can't just be silver coins. If you want food, bedding and firewood, everyone in the city and surrounding towns will be confiscated. ”

Qingyan said in surprise: "They were all taken away? Then wouldn't you merchants suffer a huge loss?"

The shopkeeper was stunned for a moment, then smiled and waved his hands and said: "Girl, I misunderstood. I didn't take this thing for free, I gave it in silver, but I gave it the lowest price it usually sells for.

Many merchants originally thought that they could increase their prices during the Chinese New Year and make more money. However, they did not expect that the imperial court would collect them and take them away. Now those large grain stores were empty of goods and there was no place to purchase goods just after the Chinese New Year. I'm a little unhappy, so I'm going to close the shop. "

Qingyan heard what the shopkeeper meant. The merchants were dissatisfied with the government forcibly expropriating their goods at low prices and were a little emotional. This was a silent protest.

That's not right. The items collected by the imperial court were food, bedding, firewood, charcoal, etc. These items were to ensure the food and clothing of the victims. She could understand this, but what did those inns, restaurants, and teahouses have to do with them?

Qingyan thought so, so she asked.

The shopkeeper glanced at her and then said: "You guys are from out of town, but you don't know that all the big shops in the county are owned by the same family, Yuan Xia's family."

This time it was Qingyan who was stunned, okay! It turns out that all the big stores in the county are owned by the same family, and Xia Yuan's family is really a big shop. It is considered a monopoly in the county.

Forget about inns, restaurants, and teahouses, even grain shops, cloth shops, and grocery stores are all owned by the same family. These are all people's livelihood. This is now. Who would dare to do this in future generations? The first one above will disagree.

This has monopolized the economy of a county. It will be too easy to do anything by then.

Qingyan thought of something and said to the shopkeeper: "Then the imperial court only confiscated the shops in the county. It seems that it has not affected this town."

The shopkeeper sighed and shook his head and said: "How could it not be? All the food in my shop has been confiscated, but for small shops like us, it is not a sale to anyone, unlike other big shops. , the goods they store are many times as much as ours, we won’t lose money even if we sell them directly to the government.

The items in this store now were collected by me from a village further east in the past two days. Otherwise, there would be no goods to sell. We can't close out of stock just after the Chinese New Year. Then the business will not be easy to do in the future.

Qingyan nodded in understanding, and finally understood why the price of rice was much higher than before. Although they were not short of money and basically didn't care about the price issue, she still remembered the price of food.

A pound of rice used to cost three cents, but now it costs five cents a pound. This is a 60% increase in price, which is quite a rise.

But it can also be seen that this rice is indeed new this year, and the rice here is grown for two seasons. The next harvest of rice is not long ago, so it is suitable. New rice is comparable to old rice. Much more delicious.

The shopkeeper only talked to them after seeing them happily buying so much without bargaining. Otherwise, it would still be very dangerous to make irresponsible remarks about the court. He might get into trouble if he said something wrong. .

After knowing the reason for the strange situation in the county town, Qingyan was relieved but also a little disappointed. Before, she had speculated whether there was some supernatural incident, or like before, some robbers were surrounding the city and these people were afraid to go out. .

I didn’t expect that it was just businesses protesting, which was relatively mild. As for why the people in the city didn’t go out to the streets, it was actually easy to understand. It had just snowed and freezing rain outside, and the ground was wet. Even the temperature It has risen, and the temperature is not very high here.

A temperature of around ten degrees is considered to be the temperature of spring in the north, but here it is still winter. It is wet and cold, and there is not much to see. Even the shops are closed, so it is better to stay at home. At least it's warmer.

You must know that the south is no better than the north. Although the north is cold, windy and snowy, people there have furs and cotton-padded clothes. The fur on the animals there is also thick, and they are warm when worn, as long as you are not standing outside in the wind. If you stay there, you won't feel so cold at all.

There is a fire and a fire wall inside the house, which is quite comfortable.

This is not the case here in the south. If the weather is cold, you can only wear one layer after another. Even fur is not very warm. There is no cotton yet. You can only rely on charcoal basins to keep warm in the house. But if you buy something like that Those who couldn't afford charcoal had no choice but to burn firewood themselves. Even if it was burning, the inside of their house was not closed enough and it was still cold and uncomfortable.

Just like now, Qingyan stood in the grain store for a while holding Yuan Bao, and she felt that her hands and face were wet and cold, and it was really cold from the bones.

At this point, she still held the small stove called Yuanbao, otherwise her whole body would probably be frozen to the bone. Judging from the fact that the shopkeeper kept rubbing his hands while talking to them, we knew that he was quite cold too.

Perhaps because of fear of catching fire, there was only a charcoal basin placed on the counter in the grain store, and there was no place anywhere else. As you can imagine, the temperature in such a big room was not as warm as outside.

After buying food and inquiring about the news, they were ready to leave. The boy and Jin Yang put the two sacks of rice on the box behind the oxcart and headed east.

Prepare to greet Chou Chou and the others, and if you finish shopping, leave the town with them.

As a result, when they almost reached the grain store on the east side, Chou Chou and the others had not yet come out of the grain store. The cart was parked at the door of the grain store, and Chou Chou and Huang Jin were still inside the store.