Chapter 3 She Became a Landlord
"Grind the wheat grains to let the bran fall off, sift them several times and then grind them again." After Zhao Yuanxi demonstrated it once, he let You do it.
You was a smart one. After watching it once, he was able to get the hang of it and quickly ground the wheat grains into wheat flour.
However, the wheat flour at this time was still mixed with a lot of wheat bran. Zhao Yuanxi asked You to pour the wheat flour into a winnowing basket and throw it into the wind. The wheat bran was lighter than the wheat flour, so it could be separated initially. Finally, it was sieved several times with a silk sieve, and the fine flour that the ancients often talked about was ready.
Zhao Yuanxi planned to make dumplings with pork and green onion filling. He chopped the green onion into small pieces and mixed it into the meat filling, then added two eggs and mixed them well, and then added some simple seasoning.
The onions in ancient times were more fragrant than the onions today, and Zhao Yuanxi couldn't help but smile with satisfaction.
The dough has been kneaded and the filling has been prepared, all that’s left is to wrap the dumplings.
Zhao Yuanxi just pinched a few fingers and a dumpling with thin skin and big filling was wrapped.
Although there are no dumplings in Qin State now, things similar to dumplings have appeared outside Qin State, so Zhao Yuanxi is not worried about attracting attention.
Soon the aroma of dumplings filled the air. Zhao Yuanxi smelled the taste and his stomach growled. You, who was standing beside him, also kept swallowing.
The dumplings toss up and down in the boiling water, looking plump and white, which makes people very hungry.
Zhao Yuanxi filled a bowl for himself and gave another bowl to You.
Seeing You about to kneel again, Zhao Yuanxi supported her in advance, "You deserve to eat after working. Besides, if I didn't grind the wheat flour for me, I wouldn't be able to make these dumplings."
"Empress Dowager!" You sniffed and cried bitterly.
What a lovely little girl! Zhao Yuanxi couldn't help but feel itchy and touched the back of her head.
In an instant, You's face flushed red and she stammered, "Empress Dowager—Your Majesty!"
Zhao Yuanxi withdrew his hand angrily, as if nothing had happened.
She originally wanted to invite You to have dinner together, but You disagreed, so she didn't force it.
Being too close to her is not necessarily a good thing for You.
What's more, she didn't want to promote the idea of equality for all in this era. People in every era have their own way of living. If you live out of touch with the times, you are destined to be miserable.
Zhao Yuanxi doesn't think she has the ability to change the world. All she can do is make life better for the people around her.
Around midday, the guard who went to Xianyang finally returned, and there were eight other people with him.
"All these people belong to me?" Zhao Yuanxi was surprised and happy. She didn't mind that these people were King Qin's men. Anyway, the more people were sent over now, the faster the land could be cultivated!
Gao Sheng carefully looked at the imprisoned empress dowager. To his surprise, there was no trace of depression in the empress dowager's eyes. Instead, there was a blazing fire in her eyes, like an eagle about to fly into the sky.
He had seen the Queen Mother from afar before. At that time, the Queen Mother only had eyes for Marquis Changxin. She was a stupid woman who didn't realize it.
At that time, Gao Sheng felt disdainful in his heart. The Queen Mother of Qin was just a woman blinded by love. He thought that the King of Qin was also short-sighted. However, when he really met the King of Qin, he knew what a towering mountain was. It was so awe-inspiring that he could not have the slightest desire to overstep his bounds.
But now he actually saw the courage of the King of Qin in the Queen Mother.
Zhao Yuanxi was thinking about how to use these people, not knowing that someone was secretly plotting against him.
"Can any of you read?"
There were eight people in a row, and only two stood up, a man and a woman, both of them were young and looked pleasing to the eye.
Zhao Yuanxi asked the eunuch in dark brown robes, "What's your name and how old are you?"
"My name is Gaosheng, and I'm eighteen years old." Gaosheng suppressed his excitement, clenched his hands tightly under his robe, and lowered his eyebrows to hide the ambition in his heart.
"What about you?" Zhao Yuanxi asked the palace maid beside him.
"My name is Jang Geum, I am fifteen years old."
Dae Jang Geum?
Zhao Yuanxi was slightly embarrassed and coughed lightly, "From today on, you two will serve me."
"promise!"
"promise--"
With the permission of the King of Qin, the guards no longer stopped Zhao Yuanxi from leaving the palace, but only sent a team of people to follow her.
The interior of the Qin Palace was luxurious, but when one walked out of the palace wall and passed the city wall, one saw only a desolate scene.
It was the spring plowing season, and people in the fields were busy working, but the seedlings in the fields were growing sparsely.
Zhao Yuanxi saw an old farmer with gray hair bending over to plow the soil. Perhaps due to years of hard work, his body was hunched in an abnormal posture. Behind him, a young child was taking small, unsteady steps, burying the seeds in his hand one by one into the ground.
"There is no idle land in the world, yet farmers still starve to death." This sentence seemed to be concretized in front of Zhao Yuanxi.
The Qin people were few in number but had a lot of land. An ordinary first-class official could get 100 mu of Qin land, which was equivalent to about 30 mu today.
Having a lot of land does not mean that the Qin people are rich. On the contrary, due to the limitations of farming technology and seed quality problems, one mu of land can usually only produce 100 kilograms of grain, which is only one-tenth of the current level. The taxes in Qin are extremely high, and one-third of the harvest must be handed over to the government, and in special circumstances even half of it must be handed over.
If a family of five has a hundred acres of Qin land, they can only get two thousand kilograms of surplus grain a year. If they want to have enough food, they can only find a way to grow more land to feed themselves.
This was not just a problem in Qin. The common people in the other six states, except for the nobles and gentry, all lived like this.
Zhao Yuanxi felt like something was blocking her throat. If she had come here with the mentality of completing the task before, now something seemed to be sprouting in her heart.
She wanted to do something, she urgently needed to do something!
"Empress Dowager, we've arrived." Gao Sheng lifted the curtain and helped Zhao Yuanxi get off the carriage.
"Don't call me Queen Mother outside, call me Madam!"
"promise."
Most of the land around Yongcheng is in the hands of the Qin royal family. The land Zhao Yuanxi owns now was originally allocated to her by her adopted son.
But she seemed to have underestimated the size of the land!
This piece of land has not only hundreds of acres, but even tens of thousands of acres.
Zhao Yuanxi's eyes seemed to be shining. Although her adopted son was irritable, he was really generous!
I feel like I have become a big landlord.
Bah, bah, bah - what big landlord, just hearing him sounds like he is not a good guy.
What's more, she only owns the right to use the land, and the landlord is her adopted son.
Zhao Yuanxi grabbed a handful of brown soil from the ground and squeezed it into a ball.
The soil is good, but unfortunately, due to too many cultivation times, the soil has begun to show signs of degradation. If the same planting method is used this year, the harvest is expected to be poor.
Even if she planted corn, the harvest would definitely not reach 1,000 kilograms per mu. It really was not an easy task!
However, she is a doctor of agronomy from two thousand years later, so it is not difficult for her to improve these ten thousand acres of land.
After she grows the corn, she will give it to her son to please him. Given his clear-cut personality of rewarding and punishing, her land will probably increase in value several times over.
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