Dad, don't be greedy! My brother climbed into the emperor's bed, and I became famous overn

Three days later, the shopkeepers, having learned the news, returned looking dejected.

I heard that Pujitang sent Manager Wen and Manager Yan to the Southern Border to prepare for the establishment of a branch there, and they have already opened up the grain supply route to the Southern Border.

We currently have hundreds of thousands of bushels of grain in stock!

At this point, who can't see things clearly?

The Cui family was framed and murdered by the emperor!

Inside the study of the Cui family mansion.

Cui Ming looked at Cui Yuan, who sat silently in the main seat, his eyes bloodshot.

"Brother, what should we do with all that stored grain we have? Should we sell it or not?!"

The Cui family's initial scheme to hoard grain did not require much cash.

But in just the past two weeks, the market price of grain has inexplicably skyrocketed.

In their quest for complete dominance, the Cui family went to extreme lengths, spending a staggering fifty to sixty million taels of silver to frantically buy up goods and seize grain on the market!

The grain currently piled up in various granaries is being bought at an average price of between 100 and 150 wen, leaving people trapped at high prices!

If the current grain price falls back to the original eighty coins, the Cui family's ambition to dominate the market will not only become a joke, but they will also have to swallow huge losses.

The most critical thing is that grain is not like gold or silver; it cannot be stored for a long time!

If stored for too long, these expensive grains will become moldy, infested with insects, and rot.

At that time, let alone eighty coins, even if it were given away for free, no one would want it.

Cui Yuan braced himself on the sandalwood desk with both hands, the veins on the back of his hands bulging.

He did not answer Cui Ming's question.

For the first time in his life, his mind went completely blank, and he couldn't think of any answers.

That night, the lights in the Cui mansion burned all night long, but they could not dispel the atmosphere of decay within.

……

The next morning.

A commotion arose outside the Cui family's gate.

The head steward scrambled into the inner courtyard, his hat askew, his voice trembling with tears: "My lord! Something terrible has happened! All three gates of our mansion are completely blocked by debt collectors!"

"There were at least a hundred or so people, each with their own armed guards; it was a frighteningly large force!"

"They're holding up the newly posted notice from the imperial court, 'Application for Delayed Payment of Final Balance for Commodity City Purchases,' and they're outside shouting and cursing!"

"They've made a threatening statement, demanding that the Cui family return the money within three days! If we don't give them a definite answer, they'll risk everything to report us to Prince Qi and the Censorate for fraud!"

Cui Yuan closed his eyes helplessly, his temples throbbing.

It's the King of Qi!

I've actually fallen into King Qi's trap!

What is the status of the Cui family? Within the aristocratic class, they are the undisputed local emperors!

In the past, who would dare to question the Cui family even a single word?

Even if they are temporarily short of cash, the promise of "the Cui family as guarantor" will have many people vying to give them money.

But who could have imagined that when the wall falls, everyone will push it down?

These minor nobles who used to fawn over the Cui family like dogs have now seen the wind and are determined to break ties with the Cui family and bleed them dry.

Cui Yuan schemed and plotted, scheming against the imperial power and against the entire nation.

The only thing they never expected was that the prestigious Cui family would one day be harassed by a bunch of ants demanding repayment of debts.

First, there was the desperate crisis of collapsing grain prices, and then there were creditors besieging the company and demanding refunds.

On the left is King Qi chasing after the final payment for the commodity city with a knife, while on the right is the imperial court's blatant declaration that "the grain shortage has been resolved."

Every gap, whether up, down, left, right, east, west, or north, was sealed off.

Cui Ming's eyes were bloodshot as he paced anxiously back and forth in the room.

"Brother! Say something!"

"If we let them continue like this, and they take it to the imperial court, the emperor won't just refuse to sit down and negotiate with us; he might even go along with it and order the Censorate to raid our Cui residence!"

Cui Yuan then slowly opened his eyes and stared at the carved beams for a long time.

Finally, he let out a long sigh and managed to squeeze out three words.

"Let's distribute the grain to appease those minor nobles and keep them from leaving our camp."

Cui Ming was completely stunned, as if struck by lightning.

"Wh...what?"

"I said, throw the grain away!"

"Sell your grain as soon as possible before prices completely plummet!"

"Whatever amount of cash we can get back, we'll take it. In this round... Xiao Ye has won."

Cui Ming's face turned deathly pale in an instant, and his body swayed violently twice.

"Brother! You mustn't! That's grain we bought with seventy or eighty million taels of real gold and silver!"

"If we sell it now, how much will we recoup? Twenty million? Thirty million?! How will we cover that huge gap in the profits?!"

Cui Yuan's voice was dry and weak.

"It's better than letting it rot in the warehouse and not getting a single penny."

With trembling hands, he grabbed the "Da Yong Min Bao" newspaper from the desk.

The finger pointed to the bold black headline, "Potato and Sweet Potato Production Shocks the World."

"Look what this says! Potatoes and sweet potatoes can be grown in Jizhou, and they can be grown in other places too!"

"Once next spring, with the program being rolled out across the country, there won't be a shortage of food anywhere in the world!"

"The grain we hoarded at exorbitant prices is depreciating in value with every incense stick's time! Every day we delay is like tightening the noose around the Cui family's necks!"

Cui Ming ultimately couldn't utter a single word of rebuttal.

He knew better than anyone that his brother was right.

However, with an investment of seventy or eighty million taels, only twenty or thirty million taels were returned.

The fifty or sixty million taels of silver that were lost in the process...

While that wouldn't kill the Cui family, it certainly hampered their business.

This devastating loss is enough to cripple this century-old aristocratic family and knock it out of the ranks of top-tier clans!

Cui Yuan seemed to have aged ten years in an instant, and waved his hand dejectedly.

"Where there's life, there's hope."

"Starting today, eighty coins per dou! Ship immediately, sell as much as you can!"

After receiving the patriarch's death order, the managers of the Cui family's grain stores across the country didn't even have time for lunch and started frantically shipping out goods that very afternoon.

New wooden signs were neatly replaced on the doors: 80 coins per dou, the same price as Pujitang.

Cui Yuan sat in the armchair, still calculating his last escape route.

He had a very clear plan.

As long as the price is equalized with that of Pujitang, people will have two channels to buy grain, which will greatly increase the pressure on Pujitang.

The Cui family's granaries are enormous. As long as they hold out for a few more days and bleed the market dry, once Pujitang's low-priced grain reserves are depleted, the Cui family will naturally be able to dictate the market price of grain again.

As long as they can hold out until that day, the Cui family will still have the right to sit down and renegotiate with the imperial court.

Even if they can't get back the privileges of canal transport and iron smelting, at least they can still maintain the Cui family's status as the number one aristocratic family in the Great Yong Dynasty.

However, Cui Yuan ultimately underestimated the young owner of Pujitang, thinking he was too simple and too kind.

The grain shops in various places owned by the Cui family had just put up signs that read "Eighty coins per dou," and the ink on them wasn't even completely dry yet.

In less than half a day.

The huge price sign at the entrance of Lingzhou Pujitang Logistics Station was taken down and replaced in full view of everyone.

Fifty coins for a bushel!