The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 154 The Grain That Can't Be Transported
Compared to the Loess Plateau and valley landscape of Hedong Provincial Administration Office.

Youzhou is a vast, flat plain.

Several centurions, while resting, drooled over other people's fertile fields:

"Youzhou is truly a wonderful place. The soil here is grayish-black, much more fertile than our yellow soil!"

"This black soil is excellent for growing wheat!"

"No wonder I didn't see any large-scale riots by refugees after walking for three days. The people of Youzhou should be doing alright."

"They wouldn't dare to cause trouble even if they wanted to, would they? There are 100,000 border troops guarding Yuyang City!"

“Youzhou was a place where Han and Hu people lived together thousands of years ago. After several generations of migration, the people here did not have the deep-rooted clan concept of the Central Plains people. They liked to fight among themselves because they were strong and martial.”

"I see, that makes it difficult to form a large force like the Po Jun and the Yi Jun!"

"The general knows far more than us roughnecks!"

"."

Horses galloping on the plains and official roads can travel up to 150 li a day.

Finally, on the afternoon of the thirteenth day, we arrived at Haijin Town.

Haijin Town is a ferry town located near the sea.

From a salt-producing town during the Han and Tang dynasties, it gradually developed into an important grain transshipment center of the Bei State.

The arrival of 10,000 border troops alarmed the entire town.

The head of Ni's Trading Company, who was in his early fifties, quickly squeezed through the crowd of onlookers to the front of the line.

Despite the freezing weather, he kept wiping the cold sweat from his forehead.

It wasn't easy.

He said that he and the people from Ni's Trading Company had been waiting here for three months.

After his introduction.

Everyone learned that Haijin Town had two granary villages, one in the north and one in the south.

Nancang was the government's Ever-Normal Granary.

Beicang was a civilian grain depot.

Several months ago, more than a dozen unidentified local forces opened all the granaries in Nancang and stole the grain stored by the government.

In Beicang Village, more than 800 households rely on granary rentals and safeguarding food security for their livelihood.

The person in charge of Ni's Trading Company continued:
"Everyone in Beicang Village is martial and quite strong. Ordinary people don't dare to cause trouble in this village, but no grain merchant has ever been able to successfully transport grain out of Youzhou Provincial Administration Office."

Grain merchants from other regions were unable to transport the grain.

They wanted to resell the grain to local grain merchants, but these merchants ganged up to cut the price.

The cuts were far too severe.

How could businessmen do such a losing business?

They heard that the Ni family, a thousand-year-old clan, had recently split into branches, and that one branch planned to invest in the son-in-law of a general in a remote border town.

After discussions, the major grain merchants took out the grain they had stored in Beicang Village, Haijin Town, and exchanged it with the Ni family's trading company for the resources they wanted.

The brother-in-law, who had just borrowed a million taels of silver from Zhao Muyun last year, was naturally aware of the food shortage in the border town.

With a large army escorting them, he believed that Zhao Muyun could transport the grain back to the border city.

Tian Jiu: "."

before coming.

Zhao Muyun's military order was to have them find several thousand coachmen from Haijin Town or nearby prefectures to help transport grain by horse-drawn carts.

The border troops' responsibility was to protect the area along the route.

In this situation, how could they dare to hire anyone? Even the head of the Ni family business shook his head: "The people of Youzhou are fierce and unruly. If we hire them to transport grain, they will only transport it to their own homes."

Tian Jiu and the others were very puzzled: "Didn't they say that Youzhou had a bumper harvest last year?"

The person in charge of the business explained:
“In the plains of Youzhou, 30% of the land was allocated to military farms, 50% to landlord families, and 99% of the common people only received 20% of the land.”

Because of last year's bumper harvest, grain from Jiangnan all came here to buy most of the grain from farmers at prices several times higher than the market price.

Nobody knew that grain prices would rise to this level from the second half of last year until now! It's estimated that many farmers' grain reserves won't last until spring planting.

Rumor has it that a group of bandits who disappeared from Longpan Mountain in Youzhou decades ago have returned! Everyone in town is guessing that this group is likely among those operating the Ever-Normal Granary.

Today's act is merely a covert theft.

They'll rob us outright tomorrow!

Don't stay here for long!

But how can we get 600,000 shi of grain to the border town?
Tian Jiu invited Gan Minglan and the eight centurions to brainstorm together.

"A horse-drawn carriage can carry a maximum of five shi of grain. Even if each of us drives a carriage, we still can't carry it all."

“The target is too big. If someone with ulterior motives digs more pits for us along the way, we don’t know how long we will be delayed or how many grains we will have to leave behind before we can return to the border town.”

"."

I can't come up with a single reliable idea.

There are many difficulties ahead.

Gan Minglan had never seen a map of the State of Bei.

When it was her turn to speak, she asked about the distribution of the nine important border towns of the State of Bei.

Tian Jiu dipped his finger in water and drew a rough sketch for her on the table:

"Starting from Jiuliancheng in the east, heading west, you'll reach Yuyangcheng, the closest town to Haijin. Then come Shanggu, Pingcheng, Pianguan, and beyond Pianguan, you'll reach the two towns of Huaiqing Prefecture."

Gan Minglan: "The military fields north of the Zhuohe River must have had a bumper harvest last year! General Tian, ​​why don't we exchange 600,000 shi of grain from the South Granary with them?"

"very?"

Everyone understands the literal meaning, but there's a barrier to comprehension.

Gan Minglan pointed in the direction of Yuyang City and asked everyone:
"If we use the 600,000 shi of grain from the North Granary of Haijin Town to exchange for 580,000 shi from the granary of Yuyang City, do you think the general of Yuyang City would be willing?"
With their strength, they could make a round trip by sea in three days. No matter how powerful the various factions in Youzhou were, they could not contend with the 100,000 border troops of Yuyang.

One exchange can earn you 20,000 shi of grain.

Only a fool would refuse, right?

Tian Jiu felt like she had vaguely grasped something, but she couldn't figure it out for a moment. Frustrated, she scratched her head and said, "Scholar's wife, please continue, please continue!"

Gan Minglan said calmly:

"If the garrison commander of Yuyang City agrees to our deal, General Tian, ​​you can take the garrison commander's letter to the garrison commander of Shanggu Pass to discuss it."

Tell the commander-in-chief of Shanggu Pass that we will exchange 580,000 shi of grain from Yuyang City for 560,000 shi of grain from Shanggu Pass.

Once these two key towns are captured, negotiations can proceed simultaneously with those with Pingcheng and Pianguan.

Following this logic, our ultimate goal is to transport 520,000 shi of grain back to the border city directly from the nearest pass.

The centurions were dumbfounded:

"This...this...this idea is unheard of!"

"The replacement of granaries in four important towns is no small matter!"

"If the generals of one or two important towns in the middle disagree, wouldn't the supply chain be broken?"

Gan Minglan waved her hand domineeringly:

"If a problem arises, we'll solve it; if they disagree, we'll keep negotiating until they do! Don't we have a trump card up our sleeve?"
General Tian, ​​when you go to negotiate, give one to each of the generals first, and see who can refuse this powerful weapon!
Or perhaps you can come up with a way to transport grain that results in less waste and is faster?

All the commanders remained silent:
(End of this chapter)