"Go, go!"
From time to time, one or two deliberately lowered voices could be heard in the dark alley. Four or five men pushing wheelbarrows were looking at the empty street ahead with their heads stretched out, not daring to take a step forward.
"What's wrong with you? Do you still want money?" a man with a scar on his face said viciously, but he didn't dare to speak too loudly, so the threat was discounted.
"There are people patrolling the street ahead. What if we get caught by the government?" someone asked. It was curfew now, and there was no one else on the street except the night watchman and the patrolling government runners.
"We can get there just by crossing that street. How could such an unlucky thing happen? I'll take the responsibility if anything goes wrong!" said the scarred man. He supported the sack on the cart, looked around outside the alley, and finally glared at the group of cowardly people. He was the first to push the cart out. The wheels made a tiny sound when rolling on the ground, which sounded very harsh in the silent night. Fortunately, it was late at night, and the sleeping people on both sides of the street were not awakened by the sound. The patrolling yamen runners were nowhere to be found.
Seeing this, the others felt relieved and followed carefully, pushing the cart with their backs hunched. After walking for a while, they found that no one had discovered them, so they became bolder and straightened their bodies a little.
They had to transport the grain they had bought from Fengshou Grain Store to Datong Grain Store. Before, when there was no limit on the quantity, they had to buy four dou at a time in order not to attract attention. Later, when the purchase was limited, they found some idle people and bought five liters at a time. At the end of the day, they bought a lot.
However, the yard here was not a good place to store grain, so they thought of transporting the grain here to the warehouse of Datong Grain Store. However, there were many people and eyes during the day, and it would be easy for people to find out that there was something wrong if they transported so much grain out at once, so they decided to transport it quietly at night. Datong Grain Store was also in the east of the city, and the two were not far apart, so they could deliver it quickly.
After walking anxiously for a while, they turned a corner and saw the sign of Datong Grain Store. Everyone's tense expressions relaxed, thinking that today's mission was finally accomplished.
Unfortunately, the unexpected always happens, and accidents often happen in an instant. As soon as the scarred man turned the corner, several people rushed out from the alley in front of them and blocked them. The group of people felt nervous and instinctively wanted to throw away the wheelbarrow and run away, but they didn't expect that several people also came out from behind and blocked them in the middle of the road.
I don't know who lit the torches. In the dark night, the flickering light of the flames reflected on the faces of the people in yamen runners' uniforms, making them look particularly ferocious.
The people were taken away, and the food on the wheelbarrow was naturally confiscated as well.
The next morning, when the people woke up, they heard a commotion in the street. They went out curiously and saw a group of people in shackles being paraded through the streets.
They walked down the street with their heads drooping like wilted eggplants, while the yamen runners beside them kept reading out their crimes.
"These people violated the night walking ban and should have been punished with 50 strokes of the cane. However, the prefecture commuted the punishment to 45 strokes of the cane because they were first-time offenders and paraded them through the streets as a warning to others. I hope all of you will take this as a warning and not break the law."
The people around could not help but sigh at the kindness of the prefect. After fifty strokes of the cane, the weaker ones might have died immediately. Although it was humiliating to be paraded through the streets, at least they had their lives saved. Although they would have to go back to the government office and receive five more strokes of the cane, they only suffered minor skin injuries, which was a great bargain.
It was rare for Cangzhou to have such a lively event, so the people did not even have their meals and followed the leader all the way until they arrived at the prefectural government office. In front of the office, a wide bench had been set up for them to be punished. They only had to lie on it, and the board would hit their waists and hips again and again.
The group was frightened at first, then locked up for most of the night, and then dragged out to parade in the morning, to be criticized by everyone. After five beatings, they were physically and mentally injured, and they couldn't hold it anymore, and they screamed like ghosts and wolves.
In the crowd, a short man looked at the scene with a look of fear, and was horrified. Others only knew that they were convicted for violating the night travel ban, but he knew that this was a warning from the prefect. Yesterday, he hid in the Datong grain store and saw what happened through the cracks.
This group of people were not discovered by them when they were patrolling the streets. Instead, they had been lying in ambush here before, waiting for them to fall into their trap.
The prefect must have known their intentions, and it is even possible that they were exposed when they first bought rice at Fengshou Grain Store. Now they were caught red-handed, the rice was sent back to the grain store, and the people were paraded through the streets and beaten. It was simply a loss of both the wife and the army.
On the other side, Jiang Miao looked at the full of rice in the shop and grinned. If he wanted to trade, he would have to see if he agreed. He was still racking his brains to find a solution, but they killed themselves. What's more hateful is that Jiang Miao thought they were just ordinary scalpers, but he didn't expect that they were sent by the grain shop. They really are not good people. The grain shop has only been open for one or two days, and they have come up with such a despicable method.
However, after killing the chicken today, the monkeys dared not act rashly. Today's account was very normal. Those who came to buy grain were all ordinary people who heard the news and rushed from the countryside. The countryside is far away from the state capital. If you can only buy five liters per visit, it would be a bit too little. Jiang Miao thought about it, crossed out the five liters, changed it to two dou, and asked someone to post it.
The people who heard the news were very happy. They had just sighed that fewer people came, but they didn't expect that to change in the blink of an eye. The happy people had a strong desire to buy. Almost everyone bought two buckets and shared some among the families in the village when they returned.
Those who have sold once are very calm, while those who have not sold yet are standing on tiptoe to look in from the queue, wanting to see if the purchasing method here is really the same as what is said outside.
With such an uneasy mood, it was not until the copper coins were in their pockets and weighed heavily on their chests that everyone believed that this was not a scam.
The people thought the best way to spend the money from selling mountain products was to buy, buy, buy. It was already December, and the Chinese New Year was just 20 days away. In previous years, they didn't have much money, but now they had money in their pockets, and they were unwilling to spend it. Otherwise, what if the price of rice went up again
In addition to buying rice, other shops on the street were also visited by these customers who had made money. The originally half-dead street market seemed to be injected with vitality, and everything came alive.
The man who brought such changes to Cangzhou was now sitting in a room in the backyard of the grain shop checking accounts. In the past few days, they had purchased more than 2,000 kilograms of mountain products of various qualities. Even though they only paid a few hundred coins each time, they had spent a lot of silver.
"Manager Chen, you will set off from Cangzhou today. When you arrive in Liangjing, it will be the time when the people in the capital are buying New Year's goods. In previous years, things were in short supply at this time. We will definitely be able to sell this batch of mountain products at a good price." Jiang Miao roughly calculated the price and became excited.
Manager Chen nodded and said, "Yes, in previous years, no caravans would enter the capital at this time of year. It's just right for us to go back."
Jiang Miao continued, "These high-quality products are sold in the shops in the inner city, the mid-quality ones are sold in the east of the outer city, and the low-quality ones are transported to the Jiang family shop in the west of the city and asked them to sell them on our behalf." As Jiang Miao spoke, he wrote the addresses and signboards of the other two shops on a piece of paper and handed it to Manager Chen.
These shops were given to Jiang Miao by Pei Che as a betrothal gift. Jiang Miao was embarrassed to accept them before, but after he and Pei Che established their relationship, he no longer felt embarrassed.
Manager Chen took the note and left. He was originally the second manager in Pei's shop. When he heard that the master intended to send someone to the south to buy tea seedlings, he became interested and took the initiative to find the head shopkeeper to say hello. Although he did not buy tea seedlings, he also established good cooperative relations with many merchants in the south. He bought the rice from a big businessman who owned thousands of acres of fertile land. In the future, they will continue to go to the south to purchase things and use Cangzhou as a stopover to open up a new trade route from the south to Liangjing.
Without being constrained by others, the ambitious Chen Guanshi was full of energy every day. His mind became clearer when doing business.
After Manager Chen left, Jiang Miao took out a book from the bottom drawer and looked through it. He had borrowed it from a local pawnbroker. He wanted to buy a house and move out.
For some unspeakable reasons, they were no longer suitable to live behind the government office. When they first arrived, they decided to squeeze into the same courtyard with other officials in order to better manage the prefectural government office. After more than half a year of running-in, the three classes and six rooms of the prefectural government office were all in Pei Che's hands, so naturally there was no need to force them to squeeze into the half courtyard and listen to a few sour words from time to time.
The pawnshop had many houses, and Jiang Miao looked for a long time before finally selecting three of them. These three houses were very close to the prefectural government office, and they were all of similar size, with three courtyards, which was more than enough to accommodate their large group of people. In this way, those who were crowded in the grain shop could also move in.
The only difference between these courtyards is their layout and price. Jiang Miao has not seen them in person yet. He plans to ask the people from the dental clinic to take him there this afternoon and make a decision after the on-site inspection.
In the afternoon, Jiang Miao went to the pawnshop. The owner of the pawnshop personally went out to greet him. He was naturally willing to make friends with this new nobleman from Cangzhou, otherwise he would not have lent the booklet to him.
"Mr. He, please take me to these three places. If everything is suitable, we will go to the government office to sign the contract today."
"Okay, okay, Mr. Jiang, please wait a moment. I'm still negotiating a business deal here. I'll take you there as soon as the deal is done. Please have a cup of hot tea and take a rest."
Jiang Miao sat for a while, and soon, He Yaren came out. He was smiling, and it seemed that the deal had been concluded.
He Yaren took him to the three houses. After Jiang Miao walked around the houses, inside and out, he decided on one of the houses that had a lotus pond.
In Jiang Miao's opinion, this house is much better than those with gardens. Not only can fish be raised in the lotus pond, but also lotus pods can be eaten in summer, lotus leaves can be used for food, and lotus roots can be dug in autumn. Just thinking about it makes me happy.
(End of this chapter)