Chapter 72

Gu Daniu hesitated for a moment: "You don't want the pickle shop either?"

"Then you can ask restaurants and taverns about it. It's a good side dish. If they don't want it, forget it. Ask Second Aunt and First Aunt to ask when they sell potatoes." Gu Xinxin didn't care much. "If they can sell it, then sell it. If not, we'll just eat it ourselves. Also, I want to make sausages. Dad, do you know any butchers in town?"

Gu Daniu nodded. Of course he knew him. Sometimes when he hunted a wild boar, or didn’t want to go to the county town, he would send the prey to the butcher nearby.

"Then ask how much the pig intestines cost. The more the better. Buy as much as you can." Gu Xinxin said. Gu Daniu frowned: "To make sausages? We can't eat that much at home."

They also have the habit of making sausages locally. In the cold winter, they stuff the sausages and dry them so that they can be stored for a longer time.

Gu Xinxin waved her hand: "Just buy it, don't make sausages, make something else."

Gu Daniu was silent for a moment, then stopped asking. If he didn't tell her, why bother asking? Anyway, when it came to making money...he really wasn't as smart as Gu Xinxin.

There was a market for spicy five-spice strips, so Shopkeeper Qian ordered five pounds a day, intending to test the waters. Shopkeeper Su asked for ten pounds, and Gu Daniu, thinking that since he was already there, he simply followed Gu Xinxin's advice and went to the pickle shop to ask. The pickle shop not only sold pickles, but also various soy products. After trying them, he also decided to order ten pounds to test the waters.

That’s 25 kilograms today.

Gu Xinxin went to the village chief to ask for people: "This time we need women again, twelve please."

Let Chen's two nephews be the ones to grind the beans. They are idle anyway, so I will build a mill specifically for them to work. This will also save them from hanging around in front of me, either giving me stones or grass.

If the two brothers knew what Gu Xinxin was saying, they would definitely feel wronged. What stones and grass? Those were treasures that they had painstakingly found on the mountain. Could that round stone be just an ordinary stone? Could that grass with flowers be just an ordinary grass?

If their aunt hadn't said that most girls like this kind of thing, would they brothers have to stare at the ground and go to great lengths to find stones and flowers after finishing their work?

As a result, it was never given out. Gu Xinxin would always take a look at it, shake her head, say she didn't like it, and then leave.

Now, Gu Xinxin is annoyed and wants to send them away to grind beans.

The most important ingredients in making spicy strips are chili oil and powder, both of which are handled by Gu Xinxin herself. The woman she asked to come is only responsible for the four steps of picking the bean skin, drying it in the sun, frying it, and finally cutting it into strips.

Because there are so many people, we can still produce about 50 kilograms a day.

As for the extra food, she followed her original plan and asked the second and first aunts to each take five kilograms to sell for retail, in order to enrich the variety of the snack stall.

The remaining ones were either kept for home or given to Gu Xiangrong and Gu Wenshu as a side dish to take back to the school. The market for spicy strips is primarily for children and adolescents between the ages of eight or nine and twenty-eight or twenty-nine. Older people probably can't handle the strong taste, or perhaps they might enjoy it occasionally as a curiosity, but won't eat it too often. Therefore, if possible, the school could also develop this market.

Soon the autumn harvest began in full swing in the village.

The autumn harvest here mainly consists of four kinds of grain crops: potatoes, sorghum, soybeans, and sweet potatoes.

Potatoes and sweet potatoes need to be dug out, while soybeans and corn need to be harvested and pounded.

The first two are relatively easy to do, as harvesting early or late can make a difference, but it's not a huge one. However, soybeans and millet are not as easy to harvest as they are. If you harvest them too late, the pods will burst and the beans will fall to the ground, so you need to be quick.

Furthermore, after the autumn harvest, we must quickly clean up the land, apply fertilizer when necessary, and plow the land when necessary.

If Gu Xinxin's sugarcane crop had progressed quickly, she could have caught up with the year-end crop, which would have been planted in July and harvested at the end of December. However, she wasn't quick enough, so she couldn't catch up this year. Therefore, the village continued to plant wheat as usual. Before planting wheat, the land had to be left empty for a while, allowing the fertilizer to ferment.

The Gu family didn't have much land, so Gu Daniu discussed with Gu Xinxin: "If we had money, we could buy a few acres first. Land is a good thing that can be passed down. With land, you won't starve..."

Gu Xinxin interrupted him: "Where are you going to buy it? I didn't hear the village chief say that we sell it in our village."

Everyone knows that land is a valuable commodity, so who would be willing to sell their own land if there were no other options? Moreover, it was the prime of life, with only buyers and no sellers.

Gu Daniu said, "How about we find a few people to open up the wasteland?"

He pondered for a moment and said, "Those plots of land at the foot of the mountain are large enough to develop dozens of acres. We might as well buy them all. They're cheap now."

After all, it's at the foot of the mountain, and wild animals might come down and destroy the crops. Also, it's quite far from the village, so working in the fields is all by myself, and if something happens, others won't be able to catch up.

But as Gu Daniu said, there is one good thing, it is a large piece of land. If you want to buy 20 acres, you have 20 acres. If you want to buy 30 acres, you have 30 acres. It is easy to manage when they are connected together.

Gu Xinxin's heart moved, and she nodded: "Okay, we can build a yard at the foot of the mountain later."

Gu Daniu frowned: "Who would live at the foot of the mountain? If something comes down from the mountain, you won't be able to escape."

Don't think that you are safe at the foot of the mountain. In winter, the wild animals in the mountains have nothing to eat. Wild boars alone can take your life, not to mention wolves and bears.

Gu Xinxin waved her hand. "I'll just tell you. First, ask the village chief how the land reclamation fee is calculated. Isn't the autumn harvest just over now? We're looking for men from our village to reclaim the land. Each person will get 20 copper coins a day, and lunch is provided."

Gu Chen quickly said, "I can't cook by myself. It's too much. There are forty or fifty people in the workshop now."

She doesn't have to knead the dough. She can just tell the people in the workshop and they will do it for her. So at noon, people in the workshop either eat noodles, steamed buns, or pancakes. They grow wheat for one season in winter, so most people eat noodles. Of course, there are also people who grow rice and upland rice. It's not just that they eat a certain thing, they eat all kinds of food.

Neither completely north nor completely south.

Gu Xinxin frowned and asked, "I'll ask Auntie later to see if Second Cousin's wife is busy. If she isn't, I'll come and help you."

As for Auntie, since business is now done by men, if they can spare some people to work, they can also earn more money. Moreover, there is no need to worry that Gu Chen will bribe Auntie and her mother-in-law.