Chapter 1743: Transferring the Pressure

After entering the Kaibao era, the various grain and material supplies imported into the Eastern Capital from outside each year remained basically stable at around seven million dan, and even if there were fluctuations, the changes were not significant. In his early years, Emperor Liu had suffered greatly from grain shortages, and thus developed the habit of storing grain.

Throughout the entire capital region, in those granaries of various sizes distributed at the ferry crossings and major thoroughfares, the court consistently maintained a grain reserve of approximately twenty million dan. This amount was not small—it could at least meet the needs of the capital's populace for three years, and in fact, it would last even longer.

According to Emperor Liu's original plan, the requirement was to store at least ten years' worth of state consumption, and for a time this goal was pursued. However, it was later discovered that the management costs were somewhat high, forcing the requirement to be lowered. At the same time, grain was allocated annually from the official granaries and released to the market for the purpose of rotation.

Therefore, with the resources held in the court's hands, no matter how high grain prices rose, they could be stabilized and adjusted at any time—this was also the confidence behind having sat by and watched grain prices climb all along.

Starting from the fourth month, in the Eastern Capital alone, the court released grain supplies including rice, millet, and wheat in batches, totaling two million dan. The effect was immediate: the grain prices that had hung over the heads of the Eastern Capital's scholars and commoners for months were suddenly suppressed, falling like mercury pouring to the ground—within half a month, the price dropped from sixty wen to thirty-one wen.

However, under the court's deliberate control, the price could not be pushed down any further. Clearly, thirty wen was the grain price the court considered appropriate. For the vast majority of the Eastern Capital's populace, this was still not a low price—after all, compared to the original, it had risen by nearly double—but when set against sixty wen, it no longer seemed so hard to accept.

But regardless, after the court took the initiative to stabilize prices, the people's hardships in the Eastern Capital were finally alleviated. The people of the Great Han, whether townsfolk or rural peasants, had always been docile and easily satisfied with their harvests. As long as they could still get by, they would muddle through; as long as they were not pushed to the brink, no major problems would arise.

In this wave of soaring grain prices, those who suffered were naturally the people represented by the scholars and commoners of the two capitals, but for farmers across the realm, it was nothing less than a blessing. At least, in the past half year, the same amount of grain could be exchanged for more money. Under this premise, their lives could indeed improve—the grain used to pay taxes decreased, so naturally more remained for their livelihoods.

However, in this trend, those who seized the vast majority of the benefits were clearly not the farmers, but rather the exploiting classes pressing down on them: nobles, officials, and merchants.

At least, those merchants engaged in grain trade, transport, and related industries feasted well, raking in profits hand over fist. Over the past twenty years, commerce in the Great Han had grown increasingly prosperous, but the status of merchants had not fundamentally improved. Coupled with the court's periodic squeezing and exploitation, many merchants, while painstakingly seeking profits, also had to add a measure of caution.

Of course, this referred mainly to those renowned, wealthy grand merchants; ordinary small vendors and peddlers attracted no attention. And regardless of whether they were large or small merchants, in certain trades, they were extremely careful about their commercial reputation and conduct.

Especially in a business as vital to the nation's livelihood as grain, few dared to act recklessly. After all, too many people throughout the court were watching—not to mention the Wude Office, the Palace City Office, and the various bureaus, even the censors of the Censorate would submit remonstrances and rap their knuckles whenever they found the opportunity. And the grain merchants of the Great Han were able to maintain that docility only because, under the court's truly harsh punitive measures, they had no choice but to restrain their greed. In the Eastern Capital alone, several hundred merchants had been arrested, had their homes confiscated, or been executed in the past for driving up the prices of daily necessities.

But this time was different. The court's attitude of leniency, even indulgence, was practically out in the open. Ordinary people found it hard to detect, but how could those merchants steeped in the trade fail to understand?

Though it could not be called "price increases by imperial order," the grain merchants of the Eastern Capital, large and small, all seized this opportunity to boldly raise prices. Otherwise, given the normal grain supply on the Eastern Capital's market, even with objective factors such as war and reduced harvests, prices could not have shown such a soaring trend.

All along, under the court's suppression, the low grain prices had allowed grain and oil merchants to reap only modest profits. Even the large grain merchants could only survive by relying on scale.

The meager profits had once driven many grain merchants to switch trades. The twenty-year rise of five wen per dou of rice was itself a relaxation adopted to boost the merchants' enthusiasm.

And the harder the suppression had been in the past, the more frantic the release was when it came. The fluctuations in grain prices over the past half year had already proven this point. The court's deliberate indulgence, combined with the gluttons along the profit chain frantically devouring their gains, together ignited this "grain price breakout."

Of course, grain prices were only one aspect; accompanying them was the rise in prices of various daily necessities—oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar all followed suit. And compared to the rise in grain prices, the performance of salt prices was even more pronounced.

By the fourth month of the twenty-second year of Kaibao, the salt price in the Eastern Capital had already climbed to ninety-five wen per dou. And unlike grain prices, which still had subsequent stabilization and suppression to come, salt prices, once risen, seemed to have no intention of coming back down.

In the mid-Tang period, there was a saying that salt profits accounted for half of the realm's tax revenue. Now, the Great Han court had truly begun to wield its sickle, mercilessly reaping the benefits brought by the salt trade.

Pressured by these circumstances, the capital region inevitably erupted in a frenzy of panic-buying. This certainly placed enormous strain on the supply of goods, but at the same time, it also allowed the court to recover a large amount of copper coinage.

No matter how much clamor, there is always a day of calm. As the court promulgated guided pricing for various essential daily necessities, this wave of price increases finally receded. Thereafter, many scholars and commoners in the capital region keenly felt the sharp rise in their cost of living—especially the petty townsfolk, whose days began to grow difficult.

This "price reform" was carried out largely under the leadership of the Hall of State Affairs and the Finance Bureau. Emperor Liu had been paying attention throughout, but he never expressed his views, maintaining a tacit approval the entire time, never intervening from start to finish, simply letting them act as they saw fit.

When problems arise, solutions must be sought, and the new problems generated in the process of resolving old ills could only be left for later. In weighing immediate advantages and disadvantages, one always chose to pursue benefit and avoid harm, or adopted the approach where benefit outweighed harm—this was what Emperor Liu had always advocated.

If one could say that the Great Han's prosperity in the past was built upon a vast agricultural system, with the court maintaining the splendor of the Kaibao golden age by bleeding the farmers dry, then from this point forward, for a long time to come, the spearhead would be turned toward the merchants, petty scholars, and small handicraft workers in the cities. A portion of the pressure that had once weighed on the farmers would now be transferred onto the urban populace.