To achieve immortality, I cultivate using Qi Luck

Chapter 701: Chapter 313 Grain Price Famine_2

It was said that when King Su Xuan Ge heard about the news of the locals fleeing, he was furious in the palace, and several officials were punished in a year.

Subsequently, he dispatched a large army to various prefectures and counties to capture the fleeing people.

Once they were found, they would be punished on the spot, even executed directly, and the corpses were hung in public places to intimidate the people.

However, such actions not only failed to curb the tide of fleeing but also caused more people to flee in fear and panic.

Some of the soldiers sent to hunt for the fleeing people even joined in the flight themselves.

Among those who fled were many family members of the Su Country’s army.

Now that their own families want to escape, can the Su Country’s army be ruthless enough to destroy their own families for loyalty?

Not to mention whether Su Xuange has such great charisma, but the treatment Su Country gave to those soldiers was not worth it.

Forty wen for one catty of rice was unbearable even for the soldiers of Su Country.

Many Su Country soldiers’ families were on the verge of poverty due to skyrocketing grain prices.

Under such circumstances, one could not expect their loyalty to Su Country to be high.

Under wave after wave of flight, the foundation of Su Country seemed increasingly shaky, and the signs of collapse became even stronger.

However, whether Su Country would fall was something for Su Xuange to worry about.

For Chu State and Lu Yuan, it was a great opportunity to make a profit from their current predicament.

In previous years, Su Country’s attack on the southwest was not fruitful in terms of territory, only gaining one county and four prefectures, which was less than half a county in size.

But in terms of wealth, Su Country gained a lot.

This was because of Su Xuange’s strategic approach to the newly acquired Tonghai County and the Dali Yingsheng area that the Su army had attacked before.

Su Xuange’s strategy was similar to that of Li Xiong in Xichuan County before, completely ignoring the future and purely plundering resources.

Specifically, regardless of status, territory, or life, all the property and grain of the local people in the area where Su Country’s army passed were plundered.

Such harsh measures not only provoked a lot of resistance from the Yi People but also contributed to the significant wealth acquisition of Su Country.

With Su Country’s poor national strength, they could maintain a large army of over 100,000 troops in the southwest for several years, thanks to such predatory tactics.

Although they had been fighting for several years and a lot of the plundered money had been consumed, there should still be a lot of silver left in Su Country’s hands.

Initially, Li Xiong could plunder billions of silver taels worth of property in Xichuan County.

Although many parts of the southwest are poor and Su Country had only plundered half a county, it is estimated that Su Xuange’s war had brought at least a hundred million silver taels worth of property.

Although many of these riches were spent on the war effort, Su Country still had tens of millions of silver taels left, which was already a huge sum of money.

Nowadays, Chu State needs money everywhere. According to the Ministry of Household’s statistics, after six years, Chu State can achieve a fiscal surplus, accumulating 12 million silver taels a year.

But that’s only six years later.

At present, Chu State is still in a financial deficit, and every year, it has to subsidize expenditures of 10 million silver taels from the national treasury. The gap is huge.

Although the current national treasury can support Chu State until the fiscal surplus situation six years later, any changes in Chu State’s financial situation during this period could pose a risk of insufficiency.

Therefore, taking advantage of this opportunity to make more money is a good thing for Chu State.

And the target for making money is Su Country, which is short of grain.

Su Country is short of grain but has money; Chu State has grain but lacks money. The two sides complement each other perfectly.

At present, the main supplier of grain to Su Country is Nanhai Country’s grain merchants.

Those greedy fellows, in order to make money, have raised the price of grain in Su Country to an unbearable level, thirty wen per catty of rice.

This can be described as bloodsucking and ruthless.

Su Country, Chu Country, and even Song Country, which had been exploited before, were all gnashing their teeth with hatred.

It’s just that now, Nanhai Country’s situation is special. It is related to the game between Chu, Su, and Ning Countries. Lu Yuan and Su Xuange are not good at teaching Nanhai Country a lesson, so they can enjoy for the time being.

But now, Chu and Song countries have ended their war against the southwest and do not have large armies consuming food and fodder. Thus, the pressure on Chu State’s grain supply is greatly relieved.

With the large amount of grain in the country, it can be saved and stored or sold abroad.

For Chu State, which can harvest surplus grain every year and will soon exploit the Xichuan Plain, as long as there is no large-scale crop failure, the grain produced each year is sufficient for its consumption.

Storing grain is not a necessary task given the current lack of money.

Therefore, it is more cost-effective for Chu State to sell the surplus grain for money.

After consulting with his ministers, Lu Yuan dispatched messengers to Su Country to communicate the preconditions.

Chu country is willing to sell the surplus grain to Su Country at a price lower than the current “market price”.