A boatload of mulberry leaves might be bought for a few dozen coins, but sold for hundreds of gold; or a boatload of mulberry leaves might be bought for a few dozen gold, but sold for a few dozen coins. The thrills and excitement involved make the gambling-loving merchants unable to put down the game.
Qi Pei went to Hangzhou, Jiaxing and Huzhou this year. He originally wanted to go and see the world and visit his father's old friends. After learning about the huge profits of mulberry leaves, he did not rashly intervene. Only his uncle got involved.
Several leaf boats were hired, and this year a living god appeared. This living god predicted the rise and fall of leaf prices in the past two years, and every prediction was accurate. Many people followed him and became rich. This year he was even more praised, and many people followed him. His previous predictions were also accurate, but then he suddenly disappeared.
At this time, countless merchants hoarded large quantities of mulberry leaves, just waiting for the price to rise further, but they received the news that the silkworms had badly damaged their numbers. The harvest was bad, and the silkworms could not need any mulberry leaves at all. The price of mulberry leaves suddenly plummeted to the ground.
Many merchants have invested all their fortunes in this venture, and receiving such news is like a bolt from the blue.
This was the case with Qi Pei's uncle. It was a matter of mutual consent, so no one else could be blamed. The merchants were extremely anxious, seeing that some people were dumping the mulberry leaves to burn as firewood. A wealthy family in Wuzhen stood up and said that they had united many other merchants and offered a very low price. They said that they were the local county magistrate and county governor and asked them to eat the mulberry leaves in order to give those who gambled on the leaves a way to live.
Although the merchants are heartbroken, it is better to have something than nothing.
When the incident happened, Qi Pei had already left the area by boat. After three days of sailing, he arrived at another place. When he left, he took with him a basket of mulberry leaves given to him by his uncle. However, when the local silkworm farmers saw the mulberry leaves, they fought over them.
When Qi Pei learned the reason, he immediately felt something was fishy. Although there was no large drop of mulberry leaves in front when he left, he saw a lot of mulberry leaves. It seemed that under the instigation of the living immortal, all the merchants gathered their leaf boats in one place for him. This place was three days' water journey away from the neighboring county, but they seemed to be completely unaware of this.
He immediately ordered the two guards assigned to him by Shen Xihe to take him back day and night, only to find out that it was the local county magistrate and unscrupulous merchants who had set up a shocking scheme, which had been planned three years ago.
They used the profits from the previous two years to create a living god, attracting people to flock to them, monopolizing the mulberry leaves, and then broke the news that the silkworms were in bad condition, so that these merchants could buy the mulberry leaves at high prices and sell them to them at low prices, and they then sold them at sky-high prices.
The profit from this round trip was enough to make the people who set up the scheme rich. In order to stop it, Qi Pei took out the one hundred gold given by Shen Xihe, and tried his best to raise the price of the leaf merchants a little. He also transported mulberry leaves over and tried his best to suppress the merchants' sky-high prices.
During this period, he was constantly hunted down, and he became a rat crossing the street that everyone wanted to kill in the entire Hangzhou, Jiaxing and Huzhou area. He was framed by local officials as the mastermind of the conspiracy. He got the money, wrote this letter, and handed it to Shen Xihe to let Shen Xihe know the seriousness of the problem.
He has been trying his best and can still make ten times the profit. One can imagine how much profit those merchants who cheat both sides and don't have his help can make.