From Chief to Ball

For a while, many industries in Mincheng could not operate normally, but the people in the city had no idea what happened.

There were problems in the market, especially after the normal life of some wealthy businessmen and workshop owners was first affected, the officials of Mincheng began to get busy.

Shi Ming, the business officer, thought that these businessmen were planning to speculate and drive up prices again, and was extremely dissatisfied.

One is that the ass of the orchid trend has not been wiped clean. He is now in danger and has bribed a lot of money from above, but it is still unknown whether he will pursue it. It is said that the capital has sent people here to investigate secretly.

There are well-known censors, secret inspectors, wind collectors, etc., as well as black-clothed guards sent secretly. So far, it has not been clear how to deal with them.

Furthermore, according to the unspoken rules in the past, even if it is to drive up prices, you must first discuss it secretly with him, the business officer. Put yourself in perspective.

With the two kinds of anger intertwined, he found a big businessman in the city who had the ability to control, and asked what was going on.

But the merchants were also at a loss, and kept saying that they really didn't know. It wasn't that they were driving up prices, but that Minhe didn't bring any coal at all these days.

Mincheng is a county that sells coal. Even though the internal transportation costs are not low, it is still profitable to ship to other counties and counties by sea at the pier. The cost of sea transportation is ultimately lower than that of land routes that have not built large-scale canals. .

This also determines that there are almost no coal ships coming to Mincheng. Even if there are those who try to make this money, they will find it difficult to gain a foothold under the pressure of the previous coal industry association.

All the coal is transported along the Min River. At first, the merchants thought that there was something wrong with the upstream, but the nearby coal yards did not arrive. The commercial officers found them again, and these people finally realized that something was wrong. up.

When the sent people brought back the news that the mines near Min County were on strike, it was already December [-]th, and many things happened in Min City, and finally the root cause was found.

On this very day, the Central Party Headquarters of the Mexican Party published a tabloid, officially announcing the occurrence of the joint petition of the miners, and the entire city of Fujian was shocked.

For so many days, no coal has entered Fujian City. With terrible organizational and control capabilities, the Mexican Party, as a non-charitable and good person, is the first time to send a message to the entire Fujian City, the capital city and the entire China that will get news in the near future. Coastal counties declared their own existence, and announced that the hired class began to enter the political arena, and they must and must have a place in it.

By the time the Mincheng officials got all the news, it was too late, and they missed the opportunity to split and disintegrate from the source-this was the last time that it was possible to split and disintegrate from the source, and if it was missed, there would be no more.Once the Mincheng coal mining industry was monopolized by the coal-iron shipping union with the canal in Nan'an as its hub, a more concentrated workforce would make organization easier.

The officials of Mincheng who were at a loss and flustered, on the one hand, asked the garrison to rush to Mincheng immediately, and on the other hand, asked the sheriff to organize a team, plus a small group of troops nearby, to stop the hired workers who were rushing towards Mincheng.

However, there are still differences of opinion among the officials. No one wants to take responsibility. This matter is too big. Once the time comes, no one knows whether they will be criticized.

So the officials cleverly thought of a way: hand it over to the sheriff and the nearby garrison to act cheaply and deal with it on the fly.

These eight words have a lot to say, and it is also clear that they are not going to blame the sheriff and the garrison.

Handled properly, it is the officials who strategized.Mishandling is the mishandling of the sheriff and the garrison.

What is appropriate?What is inappropriate?There is no way to define.

If these people rushed into Fujian City and caused chaos in the city, it would be mishandled.

If there is a bloody conflict and many hired workers die and cause an uproar in public opinion, it is also improperly handled.

When the team of hired workers came outside the city, the garrison was at a loss, and the officers didn't know what to do.

On the one hand, he shouted with emotion from a distance, and left the garrison a hundred steps away in a very disciplined manner, leaving room for the garrison to shoot.

On the other hand, the pickets in the city brought out all kinds of comfort items and meat, saying that if the garrison is here like this, they will definitely be hungry, so let's eat some together and wait slowly.

The garrisons did not receive a clear order, this is not a battlefield, and although the garrisons in Min County are not from Mincheng, most of them are citizens and refugees, not self-employed farmers. They sympathize with the suffering of these hired workers.

After a stalemate lasted for about an hour, people from the Mexican Party went to the army to contact them, and both parties were satisfied with the results of the discussion.

As long as Mincheng is not chaotic, the garrison has no responsibility, so the garrison does not move outside the city, and the people organized by the sheriff, together with the picket team, maintain the order of Mincheng. There is no responsibility, and being able to keep Mincheng from chaos in such a big incident is not only innocent but also meritorious.

These thousands of people, together with the dock workers in the city, entered the city of Fujian in a mighty way.

If the merchants in the city faced this situation in the past, they would definitely be afraid.This situation will definitely lead to more robberies and the like.

However, after these days of publicity and advance preparations, merchants turned a blind eye to this and continued to operate normally.

There are security forces patrolling the street together with pickets wearing red armbands to keep the streets stable.There was a warning from the leader of the rogue in the dark that things like robbery, theft, and forcible solicitation of customers to gamble on the streets are not allowed to happen in the past few days.

Some people who are not suitable for hooligan gangs want to do something. The picket team rushed over and beat them away with a few sticks. Some places are orderly, even better than the original law and order.

The magistrate looked surprised, and the officers of the garrison were even more envious of the discipline of these pickets, knowing that if these people became an army, these people under their command would never be their opponents.

The petitioning team sat quietly in front of the council, handed in petitions, and in the evening they retreated quietly and orderly to the red brick building, where food, tents, and sorted out houses were prepared.The local support workers went back to their homes to rest as usual, and gathered tomorrow morning when they listened to the sound of spoons, and then went together.

Mincheng has been in chaos before, and now these people have arrived, but there are more people on the street, other than that, everything is as usual, and it is even much better than before these people did not come.

In the more than ten days when there was no definite news and the chaos had already appeared, all kinds of ugliness were staged in Fujian City, and people had become accustomed to it, and it was impossible to be more ugly than it.

Chapter 152 Time Difference

As early as ten days ago, the chaos in Mincheng had already appeared. At that time, no one knew that it was the collective strike petition of the miners, but everyone knew that the prices in Mincheng were in chaos, and various rumors spread everywhere.

Some said that the Qi people came back and even broke the capital; some said that the pirates attacked and plundered the neighboring provinces; some said that the severe drought in the upstream this year caused the prices to soar...

Rumors can't be groundless, they are naturally instigated by someone with a heart.The speculators didn't know what was going on at first, but their keen sense told them something must have happened.

Civilians are afraid of accidents or even wars or bandits and droughts. For speculators, these disasters are their best stage.

On the one hand, they quickly inquired about the news, on the other hand, they just bought out some grain stores overnight, driving up prices quickly.

What cities are most afraid of is food fluctuations. These speculators don't need to buy all the food, they just need to spread rumors to cause panic and buy a batch of food appropriately.

Such a small grain merchant will naturally smell the problem and link the rumors together. Even if there is still grain in the store, they will not sell it, but wait until the price continues to rise.

Merchants can do some good deeds at times, but they will never let go of this opportunity to hoard goods and raise prices.

Even though the big speculators were manipulating behind the scenes, these small traders also played a role in fueling the flames.

In just two days, food prices have quadrupled and look set to continue rising.The speculators had already got the news, they probably knew about the hired workers' petition, and they were very excited.

According to their assumptions and past experience, this kind of thing will definitely kill people, even if they don't die, it will be a mess for a while.What's more, when these people entered the city, things like robbery and theft would happen frequently. People were afraid and uneasy, and they would definitely think about buying more food and dare not come out.

What's more, speculators imagined that it would be best if these people launched a riot, so that they could make a bigger profit. Anyway, the riot will definitely fail, and the soaring prices brought about by the riot are simply Give them a gift.

Even if an official figure comes forward, it is still a debt to these speculators, and there are many officials' dividends in it.

Under their control, food prices fluctuate day by day.The civil class has been in peace for a long time, and they don't have the habit of storing large amounts of food. Moreover, it is unlikely that the real civilian class has the money to store large amounts of food.

The officials were in a mess. They didn't know what happened at the time. In terms of their control and their own will, they couldn't even sell food prices. On the contrary, a large number of people wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to make a fortune.

Under such circumstances, the speculators think that their chance to make a fortune has come—even if the price of food rises, it is not their responsibility, but the hired workers should be blamed.At that time, it will be completely pushed away, and the official will pay money. This reason itself is also valid, and it will not cause big trouble for myself.

However, speculators are not the only ones who want to take advantage of the chaos to make money, there are also people who are secretly staring at these speculators like poisonous snakes and have been prepared for a long time.

On the day when the price of grain rose extremely fast, the grain of the four ships arrived at the dock and was immediately bought out by speculators.Calculating the speed at which the news spread, the speculators felt that they still had at least one and a half months to make a fortune—it would take time for merchants from other places to transport grain here on a large scale to make money, and what they earned was this early smell Time difference for business opportunities.

The price difference earned by the four ships' grain made up for the expenses of this party property activity. As for the dividends of some dry stocks, they were Chen Jian's private property and were not included.

Later, the grain purchased by Chen Jian's private property was also quietly transported from the safe haven in the north to Mincheng by ships that were not his fleet.

The quantity is not large, and every time they arrive, they are bought short and hoarded. Of course, speculators want to make a time difference. They think they have a keen sense of smell, but they don't expect that the time difference has already been calculated by others.