Super Cultivation System of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 930: Big Price Cut
Just after this grand court meeting, within just a few days, a large number of good farmlands suddenly appeared in business houses across the country and were put up for sale. The areas ranged from a few hundred acres to tens of thousands of acres, and most of them were fertile paddy fields, which surprised the merchants.

"Your Majesty..." Qian Li walked in holding a document.

"The latest report from Anhan Trading Company shows that in the past five days, various trading companies have added 836,400 acres of land for sale, of which less than 170,000 acres are dry land, and the rest are paddy fields. As a result, the price per acre of paddy fields has dropped by nearly 15%, and that of dry land by about 10%. However, despite this, the number of lands listed for sale is still increasing day by day."

Qian Li was nominally the Inspector of the Imperial Capital, but in fact he was in charge of all matters concerning the money and grain of the Han Dynasty. Anhan Trading Company was now a semi-official and semi-civilian company, and all transaction information would be summarized in his hands and reported to Liu He.

Liu He put down the brush in his hand and looked at the document sent by the business with some interest.

"Interesting. Wang Situ and his team are really willing to spend a lot of money to buy these 50,000 books."

"Haha, if you sell the land and use the money to buy books, you can avoid the high land tax and make a fortune from selling books. Wang Situ is so smart and experienced, how can he not figure out this account?"

Xun Yu smiled.

Liu He leaned back with a relaxed look on his face: "On the one hand, you want to evade the court's taxes, and on the other hand, you want to make money by taking advantage of the court's opportunities. Is there such a good thing in the world? Daozhun."

"The minister is here."

"You will select a number of paddy fields and dry fields from the military farms of the imperial court in Liangzhou, Sili, Bingzhou, and Jizhou. The minimum number in each state is more than 100,000 mu, and the maximum is 400,000 to 500,000 mu. You will also go to the merchant bank to list them for sale."

Today, the court has official fields and military farms of no less than seven or eight million mu. These fields are managed by Zhan Lian and thousands of farmers he has trained over the years. They lead the people in intensive cultivation, and the output is far better than that of ordinary people. Tens of millions of shi of grain can be harvested a year, which is the main source of food and fodder for the army today.

Qian Li was stunned at first, but since he was the person in charge of the court's finances, he quickly understood.

"Your Majesty, I will do it right away."

In the blink of an eye, another five days passed.

"Situ, this is not good. This is very not good..."

Several ministers hurried to Wang Yun's mansion, and before they entered his study, they started shouting loudly outside the door, which made Wang Yun very unhappy.

"You are all important officials of the court and famous scholars of the time. Why are you so flustered? You are disgraced by your manners."

The ministers didn't care about that at all: "Situ, something big has happened. In the past few days, the business houses have suddenly added nearly one million acres of land for sale. Today, the latest prices of paddy fields and dry fields have dropped by about 15%."

Wang Yun's expression, which had originally seemed a little nonchalant, suddenly tensed up.

"Who dares to go against us in secret?"

A minister pointed in the direction of the imperial palace and said in a low voice: "Could it be..."

Wang Yun shook his head. "That's impossible. Three days ago, General Zhang Yong and General Gao Shun reported to me at the same time that Cao Cao had ordered Xiahou Dun to transfer 60,000 troops from Jingzhou to Yuzhou, and to send more troops to Cao Ren and Yu Jin, ordering them to garrison Pengcheng and Xiapi respectively to prevent Liu Bei from attacking. This clearly means that war is coming. The more this is the case, the more anxious Your Majesty will be to sell the books. Why would you secretly make things difficult for me?"

"This... What Situ said makes sense, but who else would deliberately become our enemy at such a critical moment?"

Several ministers frowned, unable to think of a clue. Wang Yun suddenly said, "I have already made an agreement with several ministers in the court. Except for Minister Cui Lie, Imperial Academy Lu Zhi, General Huangfu Song, and Taiwei Yang Biao, most of the other ministers will contribute money to participate in the book sale. Since those ministers have already refused, they should not do something like pretending to build a plank road to attack Chencang secretly and deliberately make enemies with me. After thinking about it..."

He suddenly clapped his hands and said, "Only Zhen Yi, Zhang Ding, and Su Shuang would be so bold."

"Yes, why didn't we think of them?"

"These three people are your majesty, and they are also relatives of Generals Guan and Cheng. Although they are merchants, they have a high status. How could they not know about this rare good business in the world?"

"Yes, yes. They all have considerable wealth. They will definitely take this opportunity to take over the book business."

Wang Yun's eyes flashed with coldness. "Humph, Zhang and Su are fine, but Zhen Yi... must not be allowed to succeed."

These ministers are all shrewd people. How could they not understand the deep meaning behind these words?
"Situ is afraid that after Zhen family becomes powerful, he will become the crown prince..."

"Hey, we can't say more about this matter." Wang Yun glanced at the man, and the minister immediately shut up.

"Then may I ask, Situ, what should we do now? His Majesty only gave us fifteen days to complete the transaction, and now ten days have passed. If we want to buy all the fifty thousand books, we still need at least eight billion yuan..."

Wang Yun made a prompt decision and said, "Don't hesitate, continue to sell the land."

"But, the current market..."

"Stupid!" Wang Yun shouted angrily, "Even if the land value drops, it's only a loss of several billion. But as long as we control the book sales, we can get back several times or even dozens of times the value in a blink of an eye. Don't you understand? Sell it. Anyway, my family has already stored at least a year's worth of food. Even if we sell 70% to 80% of the family's land, we must seize these 50,000 books."

His tone was firm and his expression was extremely resolute. Upon seeing this, the ministers said nothing more and immediately withdrew and handled the matter accordingly.

In the palace study, Qian Li came over again with the company documents.

"Your Majesty is very smart. Wang Yun and others continued to sell off their land despite the price drop. Yesterday alone, they sold off more than 300,000 mu of paddy fields. Now the price of paddy fields has dropped by about half a percent. I wonder if Your Majesty..."

Before he could finish, Liu He immediately said, "Sell. As long as they sell, the court will also sell. There is no need to be stingy."

Qian Li hesitated and said, "Your Majesty, the official farms and military farms of the imperial court are the main source of revenue for the national treasury. If we sell too much of them, I'm afraid it will affect this year's harvest."

Liu He looked at him and suddenly laughed: "Haha, Daozhun, you are really good at accounting and managing finances, but your strategy is far inferior to Wenruo. Wenruo, please talk to him."

Upon hearing this, Qian Li turned to Xun Yu respectfully, looking willing to learn from him.

Xun Yu also stood up, bowed to him, and then said: "Daozhun, you don't know that the land your majesty sold this time can be doubled in less than half a month. Not only that, between the purchase and sale, not only will the land yield double, but there will also be other financial income."

Qian Li was extremely surprised: "How...how is this possible? Could it be that the official fields of the imperial court can give birth to offspring on their own?"

“Hahahaha…” Liu He laughed heartily at his words: “Not bad, not bad, Daozhun’s metaphor is quite apt. That’s right, my official fields can give birth to offspring, hahahaha…”

(End of this chapter)