In recent years, the Central Plains Business Brigade has entered Liaodong to do business in a big way, basically controlling the commerce of Liaodong.

Liaodong people can buy what they need locally, so basically no Liaodong people will leave Liaodong to go elsewhere.

Even if there were, it was "inadvertently" informed by the Central Plains Business Travel, saying that the Central Plains had been pacified, and the days had returned to stability.

Therefore, the immigrants from all over the Central Plains who learned the news were homesick and decided to give up their lives in Liaodong for more than ten years, and chose to return to their hometowns no matter what, or the kind that will never return.

Over time, not only was the population of Liaodong slowly decreasing, but even most of the people doing business in Liaodong were foreign merchants, and it was rare to see local merchants doing business other than medicinal herbs and animal husbandry.

The locals all grow medicinal herbs and engage in animal husbandry, and then make a lot of money, life is very good, there is no need to take care of other things, and now life has made them very satisfied, they don't want to change the status quo.

As a result, some daily necessities are even shipped from Qingzhou and Youzhou, and they are not produced locally, and many locally produced things are no longer produced.

Although he had not made accurate estimates, Gongsun Kang vaguely knew that the number of farmers and land still growing grain in Liaodong was very small, and he could no longer be self-sufficient.

Although Liaodong was originally a bitter cold land, no such thing happened, and Liaodong's grain was only self-sufficient.

In recent years, everyone has gone to grow medicinal herbs and engaged in animal husbandry, so the agricultural production population will naturally be relatively small, and it will be difficult to be self-sufficient, and this is even more true now.

Now that the issue of food is involved, Gongsun Kang can't help but think of some very bad consequences, thinking of the chaos that may occur in Liaodong's eyes, and the outcome is unpredictable.

So Gongsun Kang thought for a moment, felt uneasy, and decided to send people to various places to officially count the price of grain, and then visit various places to count the amount of local grain in Liaodong.

This matter will be handed over to Liu Yi to be responsible, and Gongsun Kang will stay in Xiangping in case of emergency.

Gongsun Du is not in good health now, in case Gongsun Du dies immediately, Gongsun Kang will take over his position in time.

Gongsun Du is not the only son of him, he also has a younger brother Gongsun Gong.

Although this younger brother is weak and does not seem to have any possibility of fighting for power, if he is not in Xiangping when Gongsun Du is seriously ill, he will also feel uneasy.

There's no way around it.

Gongsun Kang gave the order to Liu Yi, and Liu Yi immediately took the order and immediately began to act.

He sent officials from the Pingzhou Pastoral Government to various places to investigate the specific situation, and asked them to rush back to Xiangping within a month at the latest, report the news to him, and let him know the specific situation.

In order to speed up the efficiency, Liu Yi personally took over the task of going to Zhongliao County to investigate.

In early September, with the aggregation of a large number of statistical news, looking at these news together, Liu Yi and Gongsun Kang came to a conclusion that shocked them very much.

Food prices are continuing to rise, and over time, this price is rising.

The number of peasant households still growing grain in the five counties of Liaodong is less than 20% of that in the early Ping period of the former Han Dynasty, and if Liaodong leaves the grain of Qingzhou and Youzhou, it will be completely unable to be self-sufficient, and a grain shortage will break out in a very short period of time, and there will be no grain at all.

When the time comes, everyone will flock to the mountains to eat animals, grass roots and tree bark, or flock to the river and the sea to catch fish and eat.

This will completely destroy the social order in Liaodong.

This is a fact that they have been ignoring all along, a fact that they have completely ignored by indulging in false exuberance.

All in order to earn more five-baht money, indulging in false prosperity, looking at money everything, and as a result, they actually ignore the conclusions that have always existed objectively and can be reached with a little investigation.

For such a conclusion, Liu Yi and Gongsun Kang can hardly speak.

They had no idea that things they had never cared about would suddenly be counted to such a terrible level.

At the same time, officials who investigate food prices have discovered a fact that is not easily taken seriously.

All the Wei merchants who were engaged in the grain trade disappeared.

These Wei merchants who were engaged in the grain business basically lived in Liaodong for a long time.

They will do business in Liaodong locally, hire some Liaodong locals to help, set up warehouses, and do grain business.

These grain merchants come and go every year, to buy goods, and then to Liaodong to sell, or by land, or by water, so it is normal to go back and forth, and no one thinks it is strange.

But this time, they went, but did not come back as usual.

The guys who are local to Liaodong all think it's strange why the owner hasn't come back yet.

But because those Wei merchants who were engaged in other businesses were still there, still doing business as usual, and even complaining with them about the rise in food prices, they did not panic, but only regarded it as an accident.

But as time went on, and the rice in the warehouse became less and less, some local guys began to have ideas, so they took it upon themselves to increase the price of grain.

At the same time, they also felt that something was not right, why the owner had not returned, and anxiously, explained this fact to the officials who came to inquire about the price of grain.

These grain merchants were the first people to come to Liaodong to do business, and they were a group of people who bought local medicinal materials and livestock at high prices, and then sold the grain themselves, thus transforming the entire production system in Liaodong.

They have abundant funds and abundant food sources, stabilized local grain prices, controlled sales channels, and allowed the people of Liaodong to eat cheap grain, so that more people in Liaodong began to engage in the cultivation of medicinal herbs and animal husbandry instead of growing grain.

Even Gongsun Du changed his tax policy, no longer collecting grain or other things from the people, but directly collecting five baht as a tax, and then directly ordering grain from the grain merchants for military supplies.

Gongsun Du himself also felt very convenient, and he never had any doubts.

Later, with the arrival of this group of merchants, more and more Wei merchants also came to Liaodong to do business.

Farm tools, fishing gear, clothes, cloth, daily necessities and the like, there are all imaginable, so Liaodong's commerce began to bloom and prosper.

To be honest, the people of Liaodong have not lived such a good life.

With five baht money, you can buy all kinds of goods from all over the world, when has this kind of good thing ever happened?

They did live a relatively comfortable life.

But now, this original group of merchants is gone, and the merchants of Wei who brought them prosperity are gone.

They disappeared en masse and returned to the state of Wei, and then they did not return.

In previous years, about three months was enough for most owners to dispatch grain back and forth several times, and the granaries were piled to the brim, so that people could feel very relieved and comfortable when they saw it.

As a result, this time, I haven't come back once in three months.

Calculating in this way, Liu Yi suddenly remembered that the first time he noticed that the price of food had risen was three months ago.

Liu Yi suddenly felt that something terrifying was happening.

"Childe, I think the situation is a little bad, we have to prepare in advance, this may not be accidental."

Gongsun Kang frowned and nodded slowly.

He felt that this was not an accident, if it was an accident, it could not have happened all this year, and there should have been such things in the past.

But now there is none.

Is this normal?

Abnormal.

Completely abnormal.

So, what's going on here?