Chapter 298 Crazy Prices

The women gathered together, and the more they discussed it, the more they felt this plan was highly feasible. Yang Xin, in particular, felt a surge of humiliated anger after being deceived, realizing that those supposedly compassionate bald donkeys were actually of that sort.

Gao Yuan was also happy to see this situation develop. Seeing the women so excited and agitated, he didn't say a word, sitting to the side and quietly reading a book on military strategy.

In truth, it was no big deal. Even if they messed up, there was a powerful army to back them up. Since that was the case, it was better to let the women play freely; if they happened to make a huge profit, it would be fantastic.

The women moved quickly, producing a complete action plan in less than five days, and then they began to pool their funds.

It was unclear who leaked the news, but soon the families of Liu Rengui, Xia Luqi, Zhao Meng, and others also sent money, claiming they wanted the ladies to lead them to fortune.

Gao Yuan knew that these fellows simply wanted to draw closer to him. Tying everyone's interests together would make their relationships more intimate, wouldn't it?

If they knew this was a business venture with a ten-thousand-fold profit, one wondered what they would feel.

Since everyone was so interested, Gao Yuan naturally wouldn't stop them from making money. After all, if everyone earned money and felt good, they would work more diligently and exert more effort.

In essence, this business required no capital; it was just that many places needed money to grease the wheels.

These women pooled a total of fifty to sixty thousand strings of cash as capital, then dispatched several groups to various places. They used this money to bribe officials and buy off local authorities, quickly obtaining legal identities.

Soon, they borrowed over a million strings of cash from various regions, naturally agreeing to repay the loans with white sugar, refined salt, or furs.

Actually, Wu Xu had originally suggested simply converting the money into goods and shipping them away, then vanishing without repaying a cent, but Zhao Xi Yao ultimately rejected this.

Because if they did that, it would give others an excuse to launch a campaign against the Nanyue Kingdom, which would be detrimental to the state.

While the current plan earned a bit less, it wouldn't leave them open to criticism. In the end, even if those people knew they had suffered a loss, they would have no legal recourse on the surface.

As soon as this borrowed money was in hand, it was quickly converted into silk, tea, and even beautiful women—specialties of the Jiangnan region—and then transported back via merchant ships.

Once these goods were shipped back to Nanyue, they were quickly snatched up by merchants. The profit of over a million strings of cash filled everyone's pockets to the brim, and the Maritime Trade Office also received substantial tax payments. It could be said that everyone benefited, and naturally, all were happy.

As this wealth was dumped into the market in a short period, the Great Gan's fragile market system quickly began to loosen, and the prices of many goods started to rise.

It was like opening Pandora's box; once this trend of rising prices began, it could no longer be stopped. The first to react was the Trading Firm, where the price of young and beautiful maidservants rose by fifty percent in just one month.

Subsequently, silk and grain also began to rise in price. It was as if everyone was in a race; as one finished, another began, and the purchasing power of the zhibai coin rapidly declined.

Across the entire Great Gan, the wave of price hikes was like falling dominoes, quickly transmitting from a few industries to all sectors of society.

Meanwhile, to maintain their luxurious lifestyles, Zhao Changluo and the Powerful Families continuously minted new coins and dumped them into the market, further exacerbating the rise in prices.

By May of the fourth year of the Jianan era, the price of rice in the Capital City had skyrocketed from twenty wen per dou at the end of the third year of Jianan to two hundred and fifty wen per dou, and this trend showed no sign of stopping.

When the women first borrowed money from across the Great Gan, a bolt of cloth was worth about two hundred wen; over a million strings of cash could be exchanged for seven or eight million bolts of cloth.

But now, a bolt of cloth had risen to nearly two thousand wen, a price increase of more than tenfold. The value of those loans had naturally shrunk by over ninety percent.

At this point, some people finally realized that the value of the loans they had issued was depreciating wildly. They immediately sought out the people who had borrowed the money, hoping for an early settlement, even if it meant losing some interest.

How could those people dare to agree privately? They could only use the excuse of needing to prepare the goods to brush them off.

Looking at the intelligence in her hands, Wu Xu laughed so hard she trembled, huddling in Gao Yuan's arms and clutching her stomach.

“Hahaha, those people are really slow to react; they only just realized it now. Sister, what do you think we should do?”

Zhao Xi Yao did not answer but instead turned her gaze toward Gao Yuan and Yang Xin. After all, those two were the masterminds behind this.

Gao Yuan didn't speak either, rubbing Wu Xu's stomach with one hand while looking at Yang Xin.

“Xin Xin, you should be the one to decide.”

Yang Xin had already made up her mind. She calmly took a sip of tea and said,

“Our goal has been achieved. Dragging it out further won't bring much more profit and might easily drive those people to desperation, forcing them to take risks.”

In less than five days, the people in the Capital City received instructions via carrier pigeon. They immediately replied to those temples and Powerful Families, agreeing to their terms.

The settlement could not possibly be done with cash; it was all settled with goods. However, after a delay of about half a month, prices had changed once again.

During those days, prices rose several times over. In the final settlement, they only spent over ten thousand bolts of cloth and twenty thousand catties of white sugar to clear everything.

At the original prices, these goods would have been worth at most ten thousand strings of cash. Yet, those temples and Powerful Families could not even muster any resentment toward them at this moment; no one would have thought that one of the culprits behind the skyrocketing prices was this group of borrowers.

The upper class might not have felt it strongly yet, but the lives of the common people at the bottom were becoming unbearable.

A dou of rice was five hundred wen, and a catty of coarse salt was six hundred wen. The wages earned by everyone's hard labor for a whole year were only enough to buy two or three dou of rice and a catty or two of salt. How could they go on living like this?

Soon, the staple food of the common people shifted from dry rice to congee, and the congee became thinner and thinner. Eventually, almost no grains of rice could be seen in the bowls of women and children.

They couldn't even afford rice, let alone side dishes. Not only did meat disappear from the commoners' tables, but even vegetables began to go unsold.

Soon, someone noticed something was wrong. Various memorials began to pile up like snowflakes at the Department of State Affairs and on Emperor Zhao Changluo's desk.

Now everyone was stunned; how had they ever dealt with such a situation?

Song Yehong and Zheng Ting were also somewhat dumbfounded by this matter. They specifically wrote a letter to Gao Yuan asking how to break the deadlock.

Gao Yuan did not hide anything and told them the correct method: have the imperial court and the Powerful Families stop minting new coins and release goods to stabilize prices.

But such a plan was equivalent to asking the court and the Powerful Families to cede their interests to the common people. Gao Yuan knew these people would certainly be unwilling.

As expected, after Song Yehong and Zheng Ting proposed this plan, it was immediately met with opposition from everyone. Asking them to give up a large amount of profit was the same as killing them.

To prevent this turmoil from spreading into the Nanyue Kingdom, Gao Yuan immediately ordered that foreign trade must strictly use gold for settlement while also strictly controlling the outflow of goods.

The goods sold to the Great Gan were always primarily luxury items like white sugar, refined salt, rare timber, or furs. As for strategic materials like grain, not a single grain of rice was allowed to flow out.

However, Northern Liang and Northern Yan to the north were naturally not so lucky. Their reactions were a step slower, and they were soon affected as well.