454: C454 Soaring Food Prices

C454 Soaring Food Prices

However, Lin Qiyu could also tell that these people of Jilin Castle Yeh Ka did not have any good impression of her, a Barbara from the south.

It was easy to defend a city, but difficult to do so. Lin Qiyu had already experienced the true meaning of this.

After walking forward for a while, Lin Qiyu suddenly saw a large group of people standing on the side of the road right in front of her. At this moment, they were pointing at a shop by the road as they discussed amongst themselves.

Lin Qiyu brought her janissaries and quickly walked to the periphery of the crowd.

At this moment, Lin Qiyu saw everyone gathered in front of a shop called "Chi Feng granary", loudly questioning the shopkeeper of the granary.

A well-dressed middle-aged man was standing in front of the entrance of the granary, looking like the granary manager, he said, "It's not that I don't want to lower the price, but the rice and noodles in my granary, when shipped here from Tiangong Empire and Fran Empire, will cost seven hundred gold coins. I will add three hundred gold coins to the price and sell it for one or two silver coins, which is not excessive at all. "My shop still has to pay rent and my shop assistant has to pay his salary. A bag of rice or a bag of noodles can be sold for a tael of silver. I have already done my best."

As soon as the shopkeeper finished his sentence, the crowd clamored again.

"The grain price was only 400 gold coins a few days ago, how did it rise to 1 tael of silver from yesterday? I think you're just trying to raise the price."

"How could all the food be brought here from Tiangong Empire? Don't tell me that Oca Empire doesn't produce food? "

The shopkeeper's expression was urgent, and said with an anxious face: "It's not like you guys don't know, our Oca Empire lost in the war with the Tiangong Empire, and our Yeh Ka's Jilin Castle has been taken over by the Tiangong Empire. This spring, there was already a drought. At first, it was not serious, but once the war started, when a part of the farmers heard that Tiangong Empire's army had entered the country, afraid of being affected by the war, they threw down the land and escaped. In May, the drought will become even more severe and the harvest will be even worse in the country. I will not hide this from you all, we are all neighbors in the city, and I have given my all to tell everyone that this year's food shortage will be severe. Everyone should quickly think of a way to store the food, once the autumn and winter comes, I'm afraid many people will starve to death. "

As soon as these words left his mouth, the crowd became silent.

Tens of thousands of years ago, People of Oca was just a nomadic people who did not need much effort to produce. After a few thousand years of breeding, he gradually grew to the current state with the largest area of the country. However, due to the climate, the production of food had always been in a low level. Every time the entire country failed to accept food, they could only rely on Tiangong Empire s or the Fran Empire s to import food, and only then would they be able to get through this difficult situation.

A few days ago, a large scale war had occurred between Oca Empire. The Oca Army had been annihilated and the Tiangong Empire Army had already entered the territory. Now, they had even taken over Yeh Ka and Jilin Castle, causing the originally insufficient food production to worsen the situation.

Most likely, what Manager Chi Feng said was true.

Thinking of this, the people who had some money did not say anything else and took out their silver coins to buy food. However, there were even more poor people who could only look on helplessly as they could not afford to buy food even with the hundreds of coins they had.

At this moment, some of the women and children of the poor families couldn't help but start crying.

Lin Qiyu frowned, unable to continue watching him. He then lifted his foot and pushed his way through the crowd to arrive in front of the shopkeeper, saying, "Without food, those poor people would not have been able to survive. Could it be that the storekeeper couldn't be merciful and take care of these poor people?"

With a bitter face, the shopkeeper spread his hands and said, "If I show mercy to others, who will show mercy to me? I had to pay six hundred silver coins for this grain before it could be transported back from the Fran Empire far away. I borrowed six hundred silver from him and paid the interest on it. "If I don't sell these grains as soon as possible, exchange the silver for them and pay them back, they would tear apart my bed and tear out my tendons."

Lin Qiyu frowned again and asked, "Who did you borrow the six hundred taels of silver from?"

"Of course it's Baron Wood." The shopkeeper said.

Lin Qiyu's heart moved. She then remembered that this Baron Wood seemed to be a noble in the Jilin Castle of Yeh Ka. He was also a distant relative to the former governor of Ye Castle, Fanderle Jin.

After a brief moment of thought, Lin Qiyu nodded her head and took out six hundred taels of silver from her pocket, handing it over to the granary manager.

The shopkeeper was stunned. He looked at Lin Qiyu suspiciously and asked, "Miss, what are you doing?"

Lin Qiyu said, "Six hundred taels of silver is equivalent to one silver tael per bag of rice noodles. There are at least six hundred bags of rice noodles. Please give them to these commoners."

The shopkeeper took the silver from Lin Qiyu's hand and looked back and forth. After confirming that it was a common currency silver that was acknowledged by both Tian Gong and Oca, he squinted his eyes and laughed. "Since young miss is so generous, I shall thank you on behalf of these neighbors here."

Lin Qiyu nodded, turned around, and quickly left with her janissaries.

Even though Lin Qiyu didn't say her name, there were still people in the crowd who recognized her.

A few soft sounds of discussion began to spread through the crowd.

"She is the commander of Tiangong Empire. I heard she is Military Affairs Minister Lin Chengzhou's daughter, her name is Lin Qiyu."

The crowd didn't reject the six hundred silver taels worth of food from Lin Qiyu. Instead, they looked at her back with complicated expressions.

Lin Qiyu was naturally aware of this fact. She also didn't hope to be able to subdue the hearts of the people in the city in such a short period of time.

Even after dozens of years had passed, the gap between the Liaodong and the Liaodong was still extremely deep. If he wanted the people of Oca Empire to acknowledge the rule of Tiangong Empire from the bottom of their hearts, it would be impossible without hundreds of years of experience.

Walking on the street, Lin Qiyu heaved a long sigh. It's easy to take over a city, but hard to defend it.

At that moment, Lin Qiyu suddenly noticed that a young waiter, who seemed to be in his twenties, was standing in front of another shop in the periphery of the crowd. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but hesitated when he saw Lin Qiyu walk past.

Lin Qiyu only glanced at him once before fully seeing the appearance of this young man. It was very obvious that this young man was not People of Oca. His appearance looked more like someone from the Central Plains, and it was very likely that he was someone from the Tiangong Empire.

Thinking of this, Lin Qiyu whispered a few words to the personal guard beside her. After that soldier received the order, she left Lin Qiyu's group and turned around, heading towards the shop where the young man was.

When they returned to the Sherry Palace, Lin Qiyu was still reminiscing about what had just happened.

The matter of food was the bottom line of the commoners. A city, a county, a province, or even a country, if it was unable to solve the food problem, it would inevitably face the challenge from the people at the bottom.

Historically, the peasant uprisings and the popular uprisings all happened for the same reason. That is, there was no food to eat and no way to live.

However, Lin Qiyu knew clearly that the reason Yeh Ka's price of food had skyrocketed was probably not that simple. He recalled what shopkeeper Chi Feng said earlier. Although it was most likely true, Yeh Ka's Jilin Castle's grain import channel and the food stored in the city were not so little. It could actually increase the price of grains by three times.

When she thought of this, Lin Qiyu's heart stirred, and she once again thought of the system of governance and social structure of Oca Empire. Oca Empire was a typical three tier system. One tier was the royal family, one tier was the aristocracy, and one tier was the commoners.

The royal family was actually selected by many nobles after they reached an agreement. Therefore, the royal family and the aristocrats were actually the same thing. In the entire Oca Empire, from top to bottom, there were only two classes, nobles and commoners.

Just now, what Manager Chi Feng said was that the silver he borrowed for the transportation of grain was borrowed from Baron Wood. Baron Wood was a well-known aristocrat of Jelin Castle Yeh Ka.

In addition, according to the list of aristocrats that Lin Qiyu had seen after she entered the fortress, there were at least more than 20 that had inherited the nobility.

And the reason why Fanderle Jin was able to become the governor of Ye Castle, was because these twenty odd nobles had chosen him.

Therefore, the status of these nobles were very important.

Thinking of this, Lin Qiyu suddenly had a feeling that the soaring price of food in Yeh Ka's Jilin Castle could be the result of the combined efforts of these nobles.

They were using the lives of the common people in Ye Castle as a bargaining chip and a wager, to force an outsider like her to leave this place as soon as possible.

Lin Qiyu frowned as she felt the seriousness of the situation.

At this moment, a personal guard's report came in from outside the door.

"My lord, I have brought this young man here."

Lin Qiyu said, "Come in."

The young man was obviously a bit restrained. After entering Lin Qiyu's palace, he didn't know what to do.

Lin Qiyu smiled and said, "Looking at your appearance, you don't look like a People of Oca. Are you from the Central Plains?"

The young man bowed, then replied nervously: "I dare not hide this from sire, I am a citizen of Tiangong Empire."

Lin Qiyu nodded with a smile and said, "Do we do business at Yeh Ka Jilin Castle?"

The young man nodded and said, "Father has been doing furs business here all year round, so he opened a shop here."

"I saw you looking at me just now. It seems like you have something to say." Lin Qiyu said.

Hearing Lin Qiyu's words, the young man raised his head and looked left and right, seeming to be worried about something.

Lin Qiyu continued, "You should know that right now, the entire Yeh Ka Jilin Castle has been occupied by us. Moreover, you have probably heard that we are directly subordinate to the Tiangong Empire, the Divine Weapon Camp. This is my temporary palace. There are no outsiders here, so there is no need for you to worry.

The young man nodded and said, "I also heard from my father that the twenty-seven nobles in the city held a secret meeting at Governor-general's mansion last night to discuss how to hoard the food and raise the price to force the citizens to rebel."1

After her initial guess was verified, Lin Qiyu frowned and said, "Then according to your idea, is there any good solution to this matter?"

The young man shrugged his shoulders and said, "These nobles hoard grain and raise the price of it. Naturally, they use undercover methods and are hard to find. "Without evidence, how can the Lord be so careless?"

Lin Qiyu narrowed her eyes and said, "I have powerful troops with me. At most, I can lead people to copy the homes of these aristocrats and distribute the stored food to the citizens of the city. It shouldn't be hard."

The young lad shrugged his shoulders again and continued: "It is obvious that Sir does not understand the People of Oca very well. To the ordinary citizens of Oca, these nobles are practically their belief, and the common people basically trust these nobles unconditionally. "

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