Chapter 650: Hopes Shattered

As soon as Song Mo returned to the palace, he said to Liang An, "Go, send an order to Lin Ran and ask him to personally take people to Qingzhou and inspect the cities along the coast around Beihai again! I want to know what this piece of shit like Xie Zhan is. Dead or alive!"

"Yes." After Liang An responded, he immediately went out to do errands.

Not long after, Liang An came back. He served Song Mo and took Hanshi Powder. Seeing that his expression soothed, he said, "Your Majesty, after you issue an order to interrogate Zhao Minglou, which master are you going to send to Zhuozhou?"

Song Mo kowtowed and said nothing. He was thinking about who should be sent and who had the ability to stabilize the situation in Zhuozhou. Yes, he no longer thinks about who can solve Zhuozhou's problem, he only has this request.

"Your Majesty, please forgive me for speaking frankly. Zhuozhou is now a dangerous place, and no minister wants to go there." They felt that Zhao Minglou should bear the blame for his sins.

Hearing this, Song Mo sneered, these ministers, they keep shouting about sharing the worries for the king all day long, but when it comes time to share the worries with them, each of them hides faster than anyone else.

"Your Majesty, I think it's better to keep Zhao Minglou and give him a chance to make amends. We can settle the matter when the matter is settled." Liang An said tentatively.

"Did the Zhao family ask you for mercy?" Song Mo looked at Liang An.

"I really can't hide anything from the Emperor." Liang An said in a cowardly manner.

"What did the Zhao family say?"

"The original words that the Zhao family handed to the slave were that no one is willing to take over the mess in Zhuozhou, and that he should continue to be in charge of Zhuozhou. Afterwards, Zhao Minglou will be beaten and punished as he pleases."

Zhao Minglou was not stupid. He naturally knew that submitting his memorial would make Long Yan furious. He immediately asked his family and sister to find connections to intercede for him. Using the procrastination technique, he could only bet on his brother-in-law Xie. Zhan is not dead. As long as he waits until his brother-in-law shows up, he might have a chance of survival.

"Then let's leave it like this for now." After the excitement, Song Mo felt trapped and didn't want to think about such unhappy political affairs.

Zhuozhou

During this period, the donkey market in Zhuozhou has been in a stalemate.

The common people are also struggling to support themselves, and they are waiting for the court's support.

There have been rumors in Zhuozhou recently that the imperial court will not ignore them in Zhuozhou. As long as they hold on, they will be able to wait for the dawn.

This news was naturally spread by Zhao Minglou's people, in order to appease the people of Zhuozhou.

After Wang Dong learned about it, he further added fuel to the fire and spread the news throughout Zhuozhou.

The governor said that the despair after dashed hope is the craziest thing. Because Lu Songli did not think that the imperial court could handle the Zhuozhou issue well.

During this period, the price of donkeys in Zhuozhou remained firmly at seven or eight taels of silver per head. Whenever the price rose a little, they would be beaten down.

Although Jiang Shaoyan, Ning Jiran, Liao Ying and others withdrew from Juyang to Changli, Ji Wuyin, Wu Ren, Gu Huaisheng and others came and brought countless amounts of money.

They are based in Juyang.

Ji Wuyin once manipulated the price of grain in Nanyang. This time, he took the lead, assisted by Wu Ren, Gu Huaisheng and others.

Pingzhou had purchased a lot of donkeys at high prices before, and this would be a good way to suppress the donkey prices in Zhuozhou.

Anyway, they monitor the donkey market in Zhuozhou. If the donkey price falls too much, they buy a little bit, and if the donkey price goes up, they sell a part of it.

In short, before the time comes, and before big donkey owners like the Cai family take action, the price will remain stable here.

If ordinary people dare to cut off their tails to survive at this time, they can escape even if they suffer a small loss, but many people are holding on, waiting for a hope.

There are businessmen from other places who want to buy at the bottom and take advantage of the opportunity to make a fortune, but they discover the fact that they can’t buy them all, they can’t buy them all at all. And if you don’t buy it today, you won’t buy it tomorrow, and the price will be reduced by two hundred the day after tomorrow.

The balance of all this was broken the moment the affordable food from the court arrived.

The idea of ​​the Dali court to allocate a batch of affordable grain to Zhuozhou was good, but they misjudged the corruption in Dali from the top to the bottom.

This batch of affordable grain had been exploited and overweighted at all levels. When it arrived in Zhuozhou, the situation was completely different.

Although the price of the cheap grain allocated by the imperial court to Zhuozhou was fixed by the higher-ups, it was one hundred and twenty cents per dou. Compared with the current price of grain, which is as high as 156 cents per bucket, this price is indeed quite affordable.

But he couldn't stand it. The grain was first replaced with old grain on the way, and then mixed with sand. A bucket of grain was actually mixed with more than a pound of sand. In the end, this cheap food is not much cheaper than the food outside. It really can't be called a favor from the imperial court.

This is cheap food that they cannot afford.

Bah, with this kind of food, you still want to exchange for their donkeys?

The people were extremely disappointed, and all their persistence was like a joke. As soon as the anger in my heart was released, I could not help but have the thought of breaking the jar and smashing it.

On top of that, a lot of debt is coming due. They had borrowed debt before and almost all promised to pay it back when they sold the donkey.

Now that the time has come, many people have begun to sell their donkeys reluctantly in order to pay off their debts.

Donkey prices started to fall again.

At the same time, under the operation of Ji Wuyin and others, Pingzhou raised food prices again. This time the increase was only a slight adjustment.

But the grain merchants in Dali, who couldn't stand it, seemed to have obtained Shang Fang's sword, so they also raised grain prices, twice as much as in Pingzhou.

Businessmen are seeking profits, so it was completely unexpected for Dali grain merchants to raise grain prices.

And even if the grain merchants in Dali don’t increase their prices, they will still spend money to buy it! Directly spend money to raise food prices.

purchase! In short, they are not short of money in Pingzhou! There is so much silver!

Ji Wuyin and his men were extremely glad that they had taken refuge in Pingzhou, because the governor's next move was enough to make the merchants in Dali suffer.

For a time, the grain prices in Dali were going to rise to the sky.

This instantly caused panic among the people, who were worried that if they kept the donkey, they would be able to buy even less grain.

For the donkey market in Zhuozhou, wasn't this an alternative price reduction?

So, after a brief period of reluctance to sell, the people of Zhuozhou began to sell their donkeys one after another.

This led to the Zhuozhou donkey market, where people trampled on each other and rushed to sell.

Xie Zhan saw this and learned that the emperor had sent people to search for his traces on the seashore, so he sent a letter to Fan Yang, who found a way to send the letter to the emperor.

Later, Song Mo issued an order prohibiting the grain merchants in Dali from raising prices at will.

There are policies from above, and countermeasures from below.

For the grain merchants in Dali, Dali was suppressing the grain prices and not letting them rise, right? Well, I can mix something in, right?

The common people will complain to the government? Okay, I won't sell it then! The common people have so many problems, if they don't sell it to the common people, they can sell it to others, right? Anyway, they are all making money, they don't necessarily have to make money from the common people.

In short, under the manipulation of Pingzhou, the donkey market in Zhuozhou kept falling, and soon fell to five taels per head.