I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 242 Blockade
Everyone came to their senses. They had originally thought that they were about to finish harvesting the salt produced by Changlu Salt Field this year. As long as they had purchased all the salt from the Changlu Salt Field, the price of salt could be controlled.

But the move of reducing the price to ten cents per catty was the Royal Group's declaration to them: Buy as much as you can. We are not afraid of you buying salt even if I reduce the price to ten cents per catty!

This move directly broke down everyone's psychological defenses, making them realize that simply purchasing the sea salt released by the Royal Group would not solve the problem, and they didn't want to continue collecting salt. They had already collected 13 million kilograms of salt, plus the 5 million kilograms of salt that they had purchased from salt merchants at a high price but had not sold yet. They now had 18 million kilograms of salt in their hands. If they couldn't sell the salt, their four or five families would eat it to their heart's content, and according to conservative estimates, they could eat it for four to five thousand years.

And they also realized that this is this year's salt! This year they can collect more than 10 million kilograms to control the price of salt, but what about next year? They also realized that the efficiency and cost of Royal Group's salt production were beyond their imagination.

"What should we do now?" Mr. Li said with some trembling.

Everyone was silent. If the price of salt was lowered to ten cents per pound, their losses would be too great.

"We can't let the price of salt go down! We can't!" Mr. Shen's eyes turned red.

Mr. Shen stood up suddenly. Behind him were the two words hanging in the study: "Farming and reading pass down the family, poetry and books continue the world."

"Now all hope lies with those salt merchants. As long as they can deal with the Royal Group, all problems will be solved and everything will return to the way it was before." Mr. Shen said while panting. He always stubbornly called the Royal Group "Royal Store" before, but now he has changed his words unconsciously.
"Then what can we do? We dare not even buy it! We can only let the Royal Group sell salt. Those peasants will buy the low-priced salt and will not buy our salt." Master Zhou covered his face in pain.

"No! We still have a way. We are a family of great reputation in Shunde Prefecture. Farming and studying are our family tradition, and poetry and books are our legacy. As long as we spread the word and tell everyone not to buy salt from the Royal Group, I don't believe anyone would dare to buy it!" Master Shen said viciously.

Everyone stared at Master Shen in a daze. They were surprised to see Master Shen like this. Under normal circumstances, Master Shen would be considered to be in a state of disgrace. But in their eyes, Master Shen looked so pleasing to the eye.

"If someone is not sober and does not listen to our advice, then we will help him to sober up." Master Shen said gritting his teeth.

Out of respect for the imperial power, they do not dare to attack the Royal Group's stores directly, but they still have the courage to stop the people from buying salt from the Royal Group, and it is very courageous.

All the masters were suddenly enlightened by what was said. Yes, this might offend the royal group, but compared with the loss of so much silver, they chose the lesser of two options. This degree of offense was completely acceptable to them. Moreover, they had recently figured out that the salt war took place in various prefectures and counties in the four northern provinces of the Ming Dynasty, involving so many local clans and vassal states. Even if the emperor wanted to punish them, he had to stick to the principle of not punishing everyone.

"Okay! Let's do it! We have one prefecture and nine counties in Shunde, and there are only nine branches of the Royal Group. Let's gather the servants and some thugs to surround these nine stores! No one is allowed to leave but not enter! Let's see how these branches sell salt!" Master Li stood up and said.

"Brother Li said it well. We should not only block the shops, but also block the news. We should also actively spread false news to disrupt people's attention, so as to prevent more ordinary people from knowing the news," Mr. Zhou also added.

"We also need to use our connections with the government and relatives." As the masters talked about this, the plan gradually became more complete.
Fatty Ding is a resident of Shunde City. He was one of the first people to see the price tag of sea salt hung in the branch. At first, he didn't believe that sea salt would be sold at ten cents a pound. Although there had been rumors for a while that the branch was selling salt at twenty yuan a pound, when someone really came into the store to buy salt, he couldn't help but go into the store to take a look out of curiosity. As a result, he found that the store was really selling salt at ten cents a pound.

However, there were too many people entering the store at this time, so he had to queue up under the guidance of the clerk. Fortunately, the line was moving forward quickly, but he only brought 5 coins with him today, so he only bought kilograms of salt in the end, but this already made him overjoyed.
Just as he was leaving the shop and preparing to go home to get some money to buy more salt, he suddenly found that the store was tightly surrounded by fifty or sixty people, preventing anyone from entering the store.

When these people saw him leaving the store, they directly carried him out of the encirclement. They did the same to other people who came out of the store.

The people outside the encirclement stretched their heads to look at the price tag at the door of the branch, and they looked eager to move, but when they saw the group of people blocking the door, they became hesitant.

Everyone knows that the leader is Shen Da from the Shen Mansion. Every citizen in Shunde City knows the power of the Shen Mansion.
"Dear fellow villagers and neighbors, please go back if you have nothing to do! Don't stand here to watch the fun!" Shen Da crossed his arms and shouted to the people outside the encirclement.

Shen Da is tall, with a thick beard, a dark complexion, and a scar on his face. He looks very intimidating.
The people looked at the price tag and the people who had just bought salt and were very unwilling to give up. Someone shouted in the crowd: "We want to go in and buy salt at ten cents a pound."

"Which bastard is shouting? Come out!" Shen Da shouted with his eyes wide open, "Coward! Don't you dare to come out and speak!" After saying that, he took a few steps forward.

The onlookers were so frightened that they kept backing away, fearing that they would offend this evil star.

Shen Da looked at the people who were scared and retreated, and his expression became more contemptuous. "How can salt be sold for ten coins per catty? There is a 'nine' written on the price tag, but it is too small for you to see. The actual price of salt is ninety coins per catty."

There was anger flashing in the eyes of the onlookers. Some of them had already bought salt and came out, but Shen Da was still treating them as fools.

"Then why are you blocking us from entering?" Another shout came from the crowd.

Shen Da became even angrier, and he started to show off his might to the people again. The people didn't want to offend him, so they all hurriedly avoided him.

After scaring the people enough, Shen Da said, "The salt sold in this store is 90% soil and 10% salt. I stopped you because someone died of poisoning after eating the salt in this store. So I stopped you out of kindness to prevent you from endangering your life after buying it, so please leave quickly."

(End of this chapter)