nanming man

Chapter 324
Yuezhou City, Huguang, is located at the junction of Dongting Lake and the Yangtze River, along the Yangtze River, accepting three Hunan and four rivers, where the rivers and lakes meet, and is the hub of water and land transportation.

After the Qing army entered the customs last year, although they defeated Li Zicheng and captured Beizhili, Shandong, Shanxi and other places, the northern land was broken and the Qing army could not obtain much supplies, making it impossible for the Qing army to continue fighting.

At the end of last year, the Nanjing side sent a northern mission to the north, and Dor Gun immediately sensed an opportunity.

At this time, Li Zicheng was still alive, Doer Gun felt guilty and did not dare to deal with the Shun army and the Ming army at the same time, so he emphasized that the Qing Dynasty was avenging Chongzhen and came to confuse Nanjing. The mission pretended to negotiate, but in fact it was paralyzing Nanjing, making Nanjing unprepared, and at the same time obtaining resources from the south.

Manqing saw clearly that Nanjing intended to seek peace, so Dorgon sent Fan Yongdou and others to go south with money to buy food, iron and other items, and prepare supplies for the Qing army so that the army could continue to fight.

At the end of last year, Fan Yongdou, together with Wang Dengku, Jin Liangyu, Wang Dayu, Liang Jiabin, Tian Shenglan, Zhai Tang, Huang Yunfa, and others, carried a large amount of silver to the south. Several of their businesses went to one place each, and even went as far as Guangzhou. The Qing Dynasty purchased materials.

Nanjing's implementation of the policy of uniting the captives and suppressing the bandits is not entirely the opinion of the bigwigs in the DPRK and China, but actually has a certain basis of public opinion.

As far as the gentry and landlords in the south were concerned, they still didn’t know how cruel and barbarous the Qing army was. The Qing army did not harm their interests, but Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong’s generation. They will cut off their heads and take away all their property.

Therefore, they did not realize that the contradictions among the world had changed from land conflicts to ethnic conflicts.

At this time, in their minds, trespassers were more terrifying than the Qing army. In addition, the Nanjing court rejected officials who returned from Beijing to the south. As a result, most of the officials in the court were from the southeast, and their eyes were naturally limited to the southeast. Ping Kou has a big market and the support of the vast majority of Nanjing officials.

Before the Qing army went south to the south of the Yangtze River and showed its ferocious minions, both the Nanjing court and the local gentry and landlords had a somewhat insufficient understanding of the Manchu Qing, and they did not deliberately guard against them. On the contrary, they were very strict in guarding against thieves.

Of course, this is the inevitable result of class attributes.

Yuezhou is an important node in Huguang, connecting Hunan and Hubei. Fan Yongdou was ordered to come to Yuezhou to preside over the purchase of grain for the Qing army.

His people went to Changde, Changsha, Hengzhou and other places to buy grain, then bought a boat, shipped it to Yuezhou, changed to a large ship, went down the Yangtze River, went straight to Yangzhou, and then shipped it to the north through the Grand Canal.

Naturally, such a long transportation distance is not an easy task. The government and the army along the way need to manage and maintain relationships. This is a matter that consumes a lot of energy and money.

However, the Qing Dynasty was not short of money, what was lacking was supplies, and as long as he could buy things with money, Dorgon was willing to pay.

Give you the money first, and bring the things over first. When the iron cavalry goes south, isn't the silver still the Qing Dynasty's silver?
In April, Huguang is the rainy season.

Next to the shipping pier outside Yuezhou City, green willow trees hang down with green branches, and the drizzle falls from time to time. Drops of water drop along the branches and drop on the water. A few wild ducks are in the rain, quacking Playing around, full of the atmosphere of a land of fish and rice.

On the pier, coolies in coir raincoats were pulling oilcloths to cover the grain bags piled up on the pier.

At this moment, Fan Yongdou was standing by the window on the second floor of a restaurant by the pier, looking at the pile of grain below, and frowned, "Why is there so much less grain shipped to Yuezhou in recent days?"

Behind Fan Yongdou, a shopkeeper bowed immediately, "Master, the price of grain in Huguang has soared recently, from two taels of silver per stone to six taels of silver, that's why the grain received has decreased."

When Fan Yongdou heard this, he frowned, "There is no shortage of grain in Huguang, so how could it rise to six taels? Now it's April, and after a while, it will be the summer harvest, when there will be more grain, and there will be no people hoarding and living together. Even if the food price is going to rise, it shouldn't go up to six taels, it's outrageous!"

Fan Yongdou has been in business for decades and has rich experience.Generally, if grain merchants want to drive up grain prices, they will choose specific times, such as a famine, or a long period of time before the harvest, to carry out hype.

At these times, there is little grain on the market, and new grain will not enter the market. Grain merchants can raise the price of grain without much money, and the risk is relatively small.

Now that the north has fallen, the heavy burden of the north has been thrown away, and the Ming army has blocked the Chuang army. A large amount of grain is stranded in the south, and grain prices are showing a downward trend.

At this time, there is already a lot of grain on the market, and new grain will be added to the market, so the price of grain will only go down, not rise.

Choosing this time to raise the price of grain is basically an act of asking for death. Now that you buy at a high price, once the new grain enters the market, you will definitely lose your life. Therefore, Fan Yongdou is a little puzzled, why the price of grain suddenly soared at this time.

"Boss, according to the news I received, it seems that there is a group of merchants from Nanzhili who charge high prices for grain. As soon as they came, they raised the price to three taels, and within two days it rose to four taels, and then mentioned Fifty taels. People in every city, seeing that the price of grain is one day a day, fearing that it will continue to rise, they stockpiled grain one after another, and when they saw each other, they raised their prices accordingly, so the price of grain suddenly skyrocketed!" replied the shopkeeper. .

This group of businessmen from Southern Zhili is naturally Ma Hongshan and his group. Their purpose is to create panic and take advantage of the panic of the people to drive up grain prices. Once grain prices rise, the local grain merchants in Huguang will see If it is profitable, it will naturally join in.

Relying on the strength of Ma Hongshan and others alone, it is difficult to leverage the grain price in Huguang, but the situation is different when the common people and local grain merchants are involved.

As a businessman, Fan Yongdou is naturally familiar with this hype technique, and he has done similar things before.

Generally speaking, the people in the city don't have much food in stock, and they basically buy it after they have eaten enough.

At this time, the merchants only need to increase the price of food step by step, day by day, and the common people can survive for three or four days. After the price reaches a certain high level, the merchants can make a lot of money by throwing away the grain they bought before. However, the common people just found that the price of grain has plummeted and their wealth has been harvested.

Fan Yongdou's face twitched a few times, and he couldn't help cursing, "A bunch of profiteers!"

This group of businessmen from Nanzhili undoubtedly affected his plan of getting enough food.

Fan Yongdou suddenly narrowed his eyes, showing a murderous look, "How much food do we have?"

(End of this chapter)