Great Power Technology.

Chapter 318 The Eve of the Crisis

Yindu, Punjab.

After entering the second half of July, the wheat in the field has begun to be fully harvested, and the purchase price of wheat has risen again by 7% compared to when Ricksh sold it a month ago.

This is a terrifying number, because it means that the price of wheat in Yindu has risen by nearly 4% in just 100 months.

The farmers around him cheered, but Ricksh saw something deeper.

This is very wrong.

Because the price of flour has barely risen.

The price of wheat has risen, but the price of flour has remained the same. What is the flour made of?Could it be the low-priced wheat in stock last year?
But if there is still low-priced wheat in stock, why do these merchants buy this year's wheat at a high price?
This is not logical.

Looking at the day laborers who came and went to carry the wheat for the merchants, Rekesh frowned more and more.

Something has to be done.

According to his own plan, it will take another two weeks for his own wheat to start harvesting, which means that it will take at least two weeks before he can get enough money to buy flour.

However, according to the current trend, he does not think the price of flour can be maintained at the current level for more than two weeks.

So, he has only two options.

Either harvest the wheat early, or borrow money to buy flour and food.

However, no matter what the plan is, it is not an easy task for him. There are indeed big families in the village who will lend out loans, but the interest on those loans is horribly high, and each one is calculated on a daily basis. Unless it is on the verge of life and death, absolutely no one is willing to borrow it.

But the irony is that in this country, there are too many poor people who are on the verge of life and death every day, so their business is also ridiculously good.

After a long silence, Ricksh still made a decision.

Harvest the wheat!

Even if the current harvest may be more than 10% less than two weeks later, compared with the interest on the loan, this is still a figure that is almost negligible.

He stood up and walked into the house to call out his wife and daughter, and then they went to the small wheat field of their own house together with tools.

On the way, his wife tentatively asked him the reason for harvesting wheat now, but he couldn’t explain the logic himself, so he could only tell his wife that this was God’s will for him.

However, this reason seems to be more convincing than scientific logic. In the subsequent work, the wife did not ask any more questions.

Human labor is naturally inferior to machines, but after working continuously for three days under the scorching sun, they still harvested all the wheat and sold it at an unprecedented high price on the same day.

Afterwards, Rekesh took the surprisingly thick banknote, hired a donkey cart non-stop into the city, and purchased a cart full of flour and food from the grain store, and the food was enough for his family to eat for a day. half a year.

It cost him 70 per cent of the money, and from the rest he used some to buy new shoes for his daughter, a sari for his wife and an ax for himself.

He didn't know why he needed an axe, but the moment he saw it, he immediately felt that he had to buy it.

Maybe it will come in handy someday?

But what is the purpose, Rikesh can't think of the answer for the time being.

All he knows is that his family won't go hungry for at least the next nine months.

……

However, far-sighted farmers like Rekesh are rare in this place where the per capita literacy rate is less than 10%. With the exception of a portion left in savings for food prices, most of their income goes toward paying off debts, buying consumer goods, or other necessary but less urgent activities.

In this month, there are more weddings held in the small village where Ricksh lives than in the whole of last year.

The whole village is thriving, and some merchants even began to sell electrical and electronic products in trucks to the village—even though the village has power outages for at least 9 months of the year.

However, this does not affect the farmers who suddenly have a lot of money in their hands to satisfy their vanity with consumption. When Reksh was still dressed in rags and went out to work, none of his friends laughed at him .

"It's time for you to change, Ricksh, your clothes are old enough to make a bed for my dog."

"You should take care of yourself and get a haircut—maybe at least wash your face?"

"It's the latest phone, why don't you buy it? Is all your money stashed under your bed?"

"You're not going to give the money to your wife, are you? Is that so? Why don't you ask her for it back? Beat her hard!"

……

For such words mixed with veiled malice, Rekesh ignored them all.

He can fully understand the psychology of these people. When everyone is doing the same thing, a different person becomes a different kind.

But now, the so-called "scrooge" of himself has naturally become an outlier.

They don't know that their money has been spent on cheap food, and they will never reveal this secret.

It was a pessimism buried deep in his heart.

From the laughing crowd, he vaguely smelled some corruption.

And this kind of smell, when he was still very young, he had actually smelled it once --- it came from the corpses that died of starvation and died on the side of the road.

After returning home, Reksh closed the yard door and continued his digging.

He wanted to dig a cellar, a cellar that could only be opened from the inside after it was closed, stored enough water and food, and had air circulation.

This is all he can do, the final preparation.

……

As Ricksh expected, the inversion of the prices of raw materials and finished products did not last long. On a certain day in early August, as if some kind of order was suddenly received, the prices of flour and food in the Yindu market suddenly started to rise. skyrocketed.

On August 8 alone, the price of flour suddenly rose by 1%.

Subsequently, the price of 500g white bread, which is the most consumed basic food in the entire Yindu market, soared to 37 rupees from 49 rupees the day before.

Immediately after rice, the price has changed from 54 rupees per kilogram to 65 rupees per kilogram.

Subsequently, the price increase effect was further transmitted, and the prices of milk, eggs, meat, potatoes, and even drinking water all ushered in a comprehensive increase. According to the official news released by Yindu, within this month, the national consumption index rose to 9.2 %, once again refreshed the highest level in the past 10 years.

A terrible inflation is about to come, but what is even more frightening is that even with such a price increase, the supply of food is still in short supply, and the price increase has no tendency to slow down at all.

Until this moment, the bloated and slow bureaucratic system in Yindu finally realized the danger belatedly.

They are not afraid of inflation, because every inflation will make them a lot of money, but they are afraid of famine.

After just a few days of discussion, Yindu officially promulgated the policy of prohibiting the export of flour and wheat, but by this time, it was too late.
-
In other words, even if this policy is promulgated at the beginning, it does not make any sense.

Because a considerable part of the wheat purchased at a high price still remains in the country.

As for the reason?

It's just a deal with some international grain merchants.

The purpose of those companies is not in Yindu at all, so they don't plan to invest too much money here. If that is the case, then give part of the market to the local grain merchants in Yindu, and let them act as this hoarder. Role.

After all, it is for making money. As long as someone takes the lead, the actions of these local grain merchants will be even faster than international grain merchants.

And their methods are of course more vicious.

Can't collect food?Farmers unwilling to sell grain?
That's great, let's open up and grab it.

Officials want to check?
More than 28 counties in 600 states across the country are all our people, what do you use to check?
Even the official core institutions have nothing to do with them.

Therefore, under such a complicated game of forces, the situation in Yindu became worse and worse.

A famine sweeping over more than one billion people in Yindu is already brewing, and on the eve of this crisis, the entertainment venues in the streets and alleys of Yindu are still brightly lit.

(End of this chapter)