Chapter 298 (1/2)

There were also people who noticed that there was more than enough grain to be had and remembered that Royal Prince Yang had promised there would be a second and third s.h.i.+pment of reasonably priced grain...thus they only bought enough grain to last their family two months.

The Yu Family still had a lot of grain back home, so Yu Hai and Liu Hu took out the horse and donkey carts to help their fellow villagers transport grain back to Dongshan Village.

Because Royal Prince Yang had a connection to Tanggu Town, the first fleet of grain s.h.i.+ps stopped at Tanggu Town first. However, there were a total of three prefectures and nineteen villages that were affected by the locust plague. For the past two months, the commoners who lived in these prefectures and towns all had to tighten their waistbands. By now, most of their stores of grain had been almost exhausted. The villagers who lived closer to Tanggu Town all hurried over to the docks and town to line up to buy grain.

For the next few days, the twenty or so reasonably priced grain shops in Tanggu Town and the docks had ma.s.sively long lines in front of them. Even when the grain shops closed for the night, the lines waiting for grain did not disperse. The people stayed overnight to sleep as they were all afraid that they would have to line up again the next day. They were also afraid that the reasonably priced grain would be sold out.

Every morning, County Magistrate Zhao of Tanggu Town would take his people from the yamen and punctually opened up the grain shops at six in the morning. The shops only closed their doors at around eight in the evening every night. The grain shops at the docks also had the same operating hours. The people at the shops were busy for five whole days until all of the reasonably priced grain had reached the other towns and prefectures. Only then did the pressure lighten a lot on the grain shops in Tanggu Town and the docks.

When the first batch of grain was almost sold out, the second fleet of s.h.i.+ps had already arrived. Furthermore, when the first fleet of s.h.i.+ps had finished unloading their stores of grain, they had gone back to the south to pick up more. When the commoners of the disaster stricken areas noticed that the supplies of grain were coming in on time, they also didn't feel the need to frantically stock up on food anymore. Thus, the days of winding long lines in front of the grain stalls became history.

As for the other grain stores that had tried to profit from the disaster, there was only dust at their thresholds. The grain stores opened by the government all sold new grain harvested from the south, while these grain shops only had grain that was saved up from last season. In addition, since the reasonably priced grain stores had fair prices, only idiots would go buy the overpriced grain from the other stores. These shops had already made a fortune from the locust plague, so in order to not let their grain sit for too long, these places also cut down on their prices. Some of the shops were even selling their grain for less than what the government run shops were selling for.

Thus, the pressure on the reasonably priced grain stores had lessened again. Before long, the twenty or so reasonably priced grain shops were cut down to two in Tanggu Town, one on the west side and one on the east side. The docks also had two shops remaining. Everything slowly came back to normal in the disaster stricken areas.

Word finally came out among the wealthy families in Tanggu Town about the Yu Family's vegetables. All of them expressed their desire to reserve these high-priced vegetables in advance. After the locust plague and drought disasters, these so-called rich families had not been able to eat fresh vegetables for a long time.

On this particular day, there were more than a dozen stewards who were crowded around the Yu Family's gates. They were all heatedly arguing. Steward Yao had already been promoted to the head steward of the estate. He righteously proclaimed, ”Our Yao Family was the first family from town to purchase vegetables from the Yu Family. And we had never stopped buying from them for the past two years. The patriarch had already said, no matter how expensive the vegetables, we need to get the contract to buy vegetables from them.”

The a.s.sistant steward from the Zhuang Family curled his lip, ”Esteemed Brother Yu, please tell them that our Zhuang Family was the first to arrive here and the first to ask to buy vegetables from you, right? You absolutely cannot favor one and discriminate against the other ah!”

The w.a.n.g Family's steward also aggressively interjected, ”You cannot forget about us. Since we have already come, you can't let us go home empty-handed, right?”

All of the other stewards and servants started talking at once to proclaim that they too wanted to buy vegetables from the Yu Family. Yu Hai didn't know who to listen to anymore and felt his head hurt from all of the ruckus.

”Please calm down, everyone please calm down!” Yu Hai hollered at the top of his lungs for a bit until everyone stopped arguing. Only then did he continue, ”Everyone here knows that all of the vegetables in the courtyard have been reserved by Zhenxiu Restaurant! We only have a few vegetable fields open in the back courtyard by the pond. We can only harvest around two hundred catties of vegetables every day, so there are not enough vegetables to go around to everyone. Thus, we absolutely are unable to make everyone happy. Therefore, the most important thing right now is that everyone comes to an agreement about what we are to do now!”

”What is there to negotiate? Let money do the talking ah!” The person who spoke up was the rich and imposing steward from the Zhuang Family.

Steward Yao didn't back down one bit, ”Okay! Let money do then talking then! Everyone can yell out a price, whoever's price is the highest will be able to buy the vegetables! We will give fifty copper coins a catty!”

The a.s.sistant steward of the Zhuang Family sneered in disdain and yelled, ”Eighty copper coins a catty!”

Everyone in Tanggu Town knew that the Zhuang Family and Yao Family were the families other than the Zhou Family that had the deepest pockets. At first the other family's stewards also bid, but as the price climbed higher, those other stewards and servants couldn't keep up. They could only watch as the Zhuang Family and the Yao Family bid with gusto. Finally, the price of the vegetables had climbed up to one tael a catty.

Yu Hai felt as if his head was going to explode. They had only sold their vegetables to Zhenxiu Restaurant for thirty-some copper coins a catty, yet these two families had bid up to one tael a catty. He felt very uneasy about this!