CHAPTER 46: CHAPTER 46: OUTRAGEOUS RICE PRICES

During the break from ordering dishes, Lu Shouyue asked Lin Wanwan, "Why were you arguing with someone? Who were those two people? Do you need my help?"

Lin Wanwan’s mood had already calmed down. She didn’t suffer any loss, although stepping in dog poop was rather disgusting, but she couldn’t keep dwelling on it, would that not be even more disgusting?

So she said lightly, "It’s nothing, just a scumbag and a vain woman covered in branded clothes, seeking a sense of presence here. I’m not indulging them. I want to enjoy a good meal and forget the unpleasantness! Mr. Lu, don’t feel bad, I’m ordering dishes."

Lu Shouyue laughed, "Just go ahead and order, as long as Jie Yuting, the boss, is willing to serve more dishes to our table, I won’t go bankrupt over a meal."

After dinner, once Lin Wanwan was sent back to her apartment complex, Lu Shouyue parked the car at the entrance and dialed a phone number, "Ar Cheng, help me check a person, the license plate number is xxxx."

For someone like Lu Shouyue, who has found studying effortless since childhood, remembering a string of numbers was easy. He just glanced at it and memorized it.

When Lin Wanwan and the two other people were at the parking lot, Lu Shouyue had noticed them, thinking they were just acquaintances. It was only when he approached that he realized it was an argument. He wanted to know why they were arguing.

He was indeed very curious about Lin Wanwan. But his principle was not to casually investigate his customers (their business was deep in water, and investigating others casually could easily lead to uncontrollable dangers), yet he had no psychological burden in investigating the shallow males and vain females around her, whose depths could be seen at a glance.

Lin Wanwan didn’t know about these matters behind the scenes. After enjoying a fine meal, she had returned to the Great Tang.

The Jiaowei Guqin was still brought back by Lin Wanwan to the Great Tang, such a good zither she of course needed to keep it by her side to feel at ease.

Lu Shouyue also seemed quite obsessed with the ancient zither, had the chance to buy a good zither in the Great Tang and bring it back to sell to him, estimated to earn quite a lot.

Even if it wasn’t a masterpiece by a master like Cai Yong, as long as it was by a famed person of the Great Tang, it was worthwhile to collect, among the Gate Valves surely there were experts in making zithers.

Sadly, now it was the Zhen Guan Year, the famous Sichuan zither-making masters from the Lei Family and the Jiangnan Zhang Family hadn’t appeared yet. Otherwise, just by reselling one ancient zither from these timeless masters, she could probably achieve complete financial freedom in modern times.

Lin Wanwan’s harvested rice this year, after paying the tax, all was well stored in her family’s granary.

In Xiao Chong’s view, given Lin Wanwan’s field and yield, the rice seeds sold to him nearly cleared her inventory. But actually, what Lin Wanwan sold to Xiao Chong was all brought over from modern times.

Xiao Chong took the rice and left, of course, he wouldn’t keep track of how much Lin Wanwan had left. Nor did the Lin Clan Leader know how many rice seeds Xiao Chong took from Lin Wanwan.

Therefore, Lin Wanwan had room to maneuver, she told the Clan Leader to sell the excess rice to the clan at a price much lower than the market, at 20 coins per dou. She specifically pointed out that these rice couldn’t be used as seeds, she had already kept those and would bring them out to sell to the clan at the proper time next spring.

The Lin Clan Leader naturally rejoiced at the opportunity of purchasing cheap grain, who wouldn’t like it? But he also understood this was Lin Wanwan’s care for the clan’s people, hence he convened a meeting with all the men in the clan, deciding to only buy internally, prohibiting purchases for external relatives.

When Lin Wanwan set the grain price, she had checked the records, initially when she saw the grain price of Zhen Guan Year three in modern times, she was stunned.

The "New Tang Book" recorded that the grain price in Chang’an in Zhen Guan Year three was 4 to 5 coins per dou of rice.

Lin Wanwan couldn’t quite believe it, with such cheap grain, why was everyone still starving with sallow complexion? So she went to inquire at the major grain shops in Wanghai County, the result was that even the worst rice was priced at 70 coins per dou!

And the purchase price by grain merchants in the countryside was at least 30 coins.

So it’s no surprise that when Lin Wanwan said she’d sell the rice at 20 coins per dou to the clan, the clan went into a frenzy, even the poorest families gathered money to buy grain.

How could the market price in Chang’an be lower than the purchase price offered by Mao County grain merchants?

Knowing this year around Chang’an, there were droughts and locusts, now still deep in the disaster of floods, so how to supply as the land’s yield was inherently low this year and likely lower?

Thus the rice in Chang’an’s market surely was transported in from elsewhere via canal shipping.

If so, the spread of transportation costs certainly wouldn’t be 4 to 5 coins. How to sell rice at 4 to 5 coins on the market? Would grain merchants sell at a loss? Surely merchants wouldn’t have such high awareness.

There’s a historical saying, "Buying extremely expensive hurts the people; too cheap hurts the farmers. When people are hurt, they scatter; when farmers are hurt, the nation becomes poor," if it’s 4 to 5 coins per dou of rice, how would farmers live?

This 4 to 5 coins per dou is surely absurd pricing.

Therefore, Lin Wanwan had to think of a possibility—altered history!

Li Shimin had the habit of altering history, in order to craft his prosperous era, altering grain prices seems normal. Anyway, Lin Wanwan absolutely doesn’t believe the current rice price in Chang’an is 4 to 5 coins per dou.

This also made Lin Wanwan feel quite misled, initially she thought she had prematurely insight as the Tang Dynasty’s prophet, but all this had to be based on correct historical facts. Nevertheless, she time-traveled to the Tang Dynasty Zhen Guan Year and encountered Li Shimin, the emperor who pioneered history alteration.

Fortunately, she lived in the Jiangnan Road Mao County area, far from Chang’an.

Let whatever Li Shimin alter be altered, after all, the general directions would not be wrong. For things like prices, why bother reading records, stroll through the towns and you’ll know.

With the low-priced rice sold by Lin Wanwan, the Lin Clan was entirely beaming with joy. Especially those households that originally had food shortages, now had smiles on their faces. In previous years, people from Lin Family Manor hadn’t died of hunger, this year with Lin Wanwan’s low-priced rice, certainly none would either.

As winter began, with each rain, the weather became colder.

Lin Wanwan had already begun preparing the autumn and winter scholars’ uniforms for the children, she picked a red and black style Hanfu online, round-neck robe with narrow sleeves, paired with cotton-linen pure white undershirts and pants, absolutely neat, suitable for both boys and girls.

The whole set of autumn and winter scholars’ uniforms was three times the price of the spring and summer set, but for Lin Wanwan, it was nothing.

From the yellow croaker and fish glue and other marine goods she bought from the clan and sold to Jie Yuting, she earned enough to buy countless sets of good Hanfu—the fishing industry was all tax-free, whatever was earned went entirely into her pocket.

This time to motivate the children, Lin Wanwan also rewarded some who could fluently recite sections of "Three Character Classic" and "Thousand Character Classic" and excelled in arithmetic; besides those with good studies, the ten group leaders who assisted with management received the same treatment.

For these children, Lin Wanwan prepared windproof rabbit fur cloaks.

This thrilled the children immensely, creating an unprecedented competitive atmosphere, you could hear kids reciting everywhere.