Chapter 32: 奸诈的粮商

The Treacherous Grain Merchant

He looked at her askance, but did not make it any more difficult for her and quickly signed it, “Remember, this has my imperial signature on it, so don’t ever lose it.”

“Yes, yes, yes! This servant understands!” No need to say, she will keep it well. It was three thousand taels of silver, it was her hope of getting out of the palace!

Putting the note away, she then wrote another slip of paper folded into a square shape, “Your Majesty, this is the first step of this servant’s solution to the drought, please open it again in two days and read it.”

The first step?

Besides that, it would not be read until the day after tomorrow.

He frowned, wondering what kind of medicine she was selling in her gourd.

“Your Majesty, Little Prince Rui and Prince Chen are here.” Cao Zhong Quan came in to report.

Prince Chen?

Ji Wu Jue suddenly raised his eyebrows as he looked at Lu Yun Luo, “Announce it!”

That glance made Lu Yunluo’s heart strangely skip a beat as she looked at him. 

She didn’t do anything wrong ah!

Why is he looking at her like that?

“If there’s nothing else, this servant will leave first!” Lu Yunluo still knew how to be polite, since he still had business to attend to, she should hurry up and run away.

“Stop there!”

A displeased voice rang out slowly behind her, “Did Zhen (I) tell you to step down?”

“Come here and serve me by my side.” This is a command that would not allow any rejection. 

Lu Yunluo had to turn around and stay behind.

Within a few moments, two men dressed in luxurious clothes walked in at the doorway.

One of them, whose appearance looked like he was only about 16 or 17 years old, was very clean looking, this must be the youngest in line, Little Prince Rui, but his expression did not look too good at the moment.

The other man, aged about twenty-four or twenty-five, had a gentle and jade-like temperament but his handsome pale face seemed to carry a hint of being sick throughout the year. 

Lu Yunluo frowned.

This person, she seemed to have seen him somewhere before.

She didn’t know if it was her misconception, however, this Prince Chen seemed to freeze for a moment when he came in and saw her, but only for a moment, yet when she looked again, he had already returned to his original noble appearance.

“Pay respect to Your Majesty!”

“Please be at ease! Take your seat.” Ji Wu Jue waved his hand and four palace maids came up and carried two chairs in.

As soon as the young prince came in, he said in great anger, “Second brother, these grain merchants are so treacherous!”

“What’s wrong?”

The little young prince Rui seemed to be very angry. He took the tea cup handed to him by the palace maid and drank it down in one gulp, calmed down a bit, and then said, “Not a drop of rain has fallen in three months this year and my fiefdom, Shang Yuanzhou (Shang Yuan Prefecture), has only one lake in the entire Prefecture. The people have no way to irrigate their crops, and even if they dig a well, they have to dig hundreds of meters to get the source of water. This year’s harvest in Shang Yuanzhou was hopeless and those treacherous grain merchants have taken this opportunity to hoard grain maliciously, buying up all the grain in the entire state. Now, they are selling it at a sky-high price of ten taels of silver for a bucket of rice!”

He was simply furious to death when he received the briefing from the fief in the morning!

He was obviously the fiefdom’s lord, but he could not do anything about those treacherous grain merchants.

The whole state’s grain was in their hands.

They could not be killed or arrested.

If they are not allowed to sell, many common people will starve to death.

If they are allowed to sell, many people,  sooner or later, will starve to death too. 

Lu Yunluo couldn’t help but feel shocked when she heard that a bucket of rice cost ten taels of silver, knowing that ten taels of silver in this dynasty was almost five or six hundred yuan in modern times.These grain merchants were really trying to make a fortune out of the national tragedy.

“Second brother, you’d better hurry up and help me think of something, I’m afraid that in a few more days, there will be chaos in Shang Yuanzhou.”

This is the last condition that he wanted to see.

Shang Yuanzhou is on the border with Bei Cang Empire. Once there is a riot in Shang Yuanzhou due to famine, the consequences can not be predicted by anyone.