Unlike the previous year, this time, as soon as the refugees appeared at the city gate of Huaishan County, they were immediately arranged to be kept under centralized guard in the wasteland north of the city. It is said that Luo Xian saw the arrangement in the prefectural city and wanted to follow suit.
The people of Huaishan County actually had a decent year, especially in the summer. Not only were they not affected much, but many of them even made a small fortune from selling ice cream and cold drinks. So, there were quite a few people who occasionally came out to distribute porridge, and the refugees' lives were not too bad at the beginning.
Although it is already the Cold Dew season, the temperature has not dropped significantly in recent days. The sun is still very strong during the day, and people can only feel a slight chill after sunset.
As early as after the autumn harvest, Cheng Ruyi began preparing for a new round of expansion projects for her villa.
According to the plan, the wasteland on the west side of Lishan Mountain, which faces the official road, is intended to be used to open shops. This location is close to the official road and is some distance from the county town, making it very suitable as a transit point and supply station before or after entering or leaving the city. It would be even better if it could be developed into a shopping street in the future.
She only plans to run two or three of the shops built here herself, and rent out the rest. However, she estimates that they may need to serve as temporary accommodations for the workers before they are successfully rented out.
Ruyi had already planned what to sell in these shops. The first one was a snack shop, selling the same things as the snack shop in Chenglijia in the county town.
In the past few months, with the addition of cold drinks and ice cream, the snack shop's business has been getting better and better, and its income is almost surpassing that of the furniture shop. This has led to a serious shortage of manpower in the shop, so Ruyi had to pull people out from the other courtyard to help. In this way, Xiaoman, Yun'an and Yunle can focus on making food, while Steward Tao's wife, Wenshi, and their two daughters are in charge of the main hall, and the snack shop is finally able to cope.
Once the shop here is open, Ruyi plans to hand it over to Wen Shi to manage. In the past few days, she has found that although Wen Shi's cooking skills are average, she is quite interested in running the shop and can learn anything quickly. It seems that it was a waste to have her stay in the kitchen all this time.
Tao Fei also expressed his full support for this matter. Anyway, the shop was not far from the villa, and he could go over to check on it at any time. As for his two daughters, their performance in the shop was just average. The two girls were more skilled in the affairs of the inner courtyard of women, so Ruyi did not plan to continue to let them help. She could try to select people from the Ding family, but this would make the villa short-handed again. It was estimated that she would still need to recruit some experienced or skilled refugees.
The shop at the foot of Lishan is quite large and can be used as a main kitchen. All the food will be prepared here every day and then transported to the city, so there won't be a need for someone to watch over it day and night in the city.
Besides the snack stall, the other place to open is naturally a furniture store. However, strictly speaking, it should be called Cheng Family Wood Products Specialty Store. It sells furniture created by the Cheng family. It is a bit like a specialty store, which is convenient for merchants who pass through Huaishan County but do not stop there.
Ruyi planned to entrust the shop to Ding Laohan's second son, Ding Tiechui. Ding Tiechui was very talented in carpentry and was quite famous in the village. After coming to the Cheng family, he was amazed by the children's stroller made by Cheng Yan and begged to become his apprentice. So, a few months ago, he joined the furniture shop in the county town as an apprentice and has already learned quite well.
After observing him for a while, Ruyi discovered that Ding Tiechui was quick-witted, loved innovation, and genuinely loved the woodworking industry, which was quite rare. So she couldn't help but want to nurture him properly.
As for the last shop, Ruyi hasn't decided yet. She originally wanted to open a local specialty store to collect and sell the produce grown by the villagers in the nearby villages. This would boost the economic income of the nearby villages and improve relationships among them. However, since this involves a lot of people, she simply handed it over to the village chief of Lishan Village to handle. If it doesn't work out in the end, she can just rent it out; that wouldn't be a big problem.
The construction requirements for these shops are not too high. They are just ordinary courtyards with shops. They are not difficult to build. If there are enough people, they can be completed in about half a month. The real big project is still on Lishan Mountain.
She had always felt that it was a waste to leave Lishan empty. It was a rare place with gentle slopes and a superior geographical location, making it an ideal place to build vacation villas!
Ruyi had already discussed this matter with the old craftsman who built Lishan Villa last year, and had pre-ordered the time and materials. As long as the money and manpower were in place, they could start construction immediately.
The Lishan Holiday Villas are designed to be small but exquisite. Considering the time and money constraints, they plan to build four villas for the time being, each themed around spring, summer, autumn and winter. Each villa will have a different style of decoration and landscape, and they will be scattered across the three hills of Lishan.
The old craftsman was very interested in this, and the two of them revised the blueprints dozens of times. They haven't finalized everything yet, but Ruyi didn't expect to finish it all at once, so she wasn't in a hurry. After all, slow and steady wins the race.
Zhou Yin, however, somehow got wind of the news and specifically sought out Ruyi to say that he also wanted to get involved.
He felt that a simple scenic villa wasn't very appealing, so he suggested combining it with Lingyun Pavilion to create a hot spring spa resort villa, which would be more attractive.
However, Cheng Ruyi felt that this would not only conflict with the spa in the county town, but she also did not have enough time and materials to support so many hot springs. In addition, her original idea was that these villas were mainly for leisure and vacation, a place where her family could stay or invite relatives and friends to gather.
In the end, neither of them would back down, and the matter was temporarily left unresolved. However, their attitudes and ideas toward the refugees were basically the same: to offer them amnesty.
There was no time to lose. With the high temperatures and drought showing no signs of abating, the wealthy households in the county town were gradually running out of manpower and resources to do good deeds. As a result, the lives of the refugees outside the town were becoming increasingly difficult. If left unchecked, chaos would soon ensue.
Cheng Ruyi's task was the same as last year: to recruit people and hire refugees. The difference was that this time she was recruiting people in conjunction with the Zhou family. Zhou Yin said that although the wasteland in the north of the city was difficult to cultivate, it was a waste to leave it vacant. He suggested that they tidy it up and set up a few workshops.
So recruitment on both sides proceeded in an orderly manner. Since both were large-scale projects, they recruited almost all the healthy and able-bodied migrants at once.
The men were responsible for carrying bricks and doing heavy work, while the women were responsible for cooking, cleaning, and other chores. Those with professional skills and experience could even get very good pay. In just a few days, various simple thatched huts and wooden sheds appeared on the wasteland north of the city. In an instant, the area outside the city became full of vitality, and life was full of hope.
On this day, Zhang Hui brought some of the finished fur coats, cotton-padded jackets and quilts to Lishan Villa. In addition to delivering the goods, he had something else to discuss with Cheng Ruyi.
Because Ruyi's order volume is really large, if he wants to complete it all before winter this year, he estimates that he will not have enough manpower. However, the competition among other cloth shops in the city has always been quite fierce, and with his connections, he really can't find any more people.
After listening, Cheng Ruyi said that this was not a problem. There were so many refugees outside the city, half of whom were women. There must be many people with relevant experience among them. They could just recruit people from among them!
After thinking about it for a while, Zhang Hui also felt that the idea was feasible. So, after discussing some details, the two set up a stall on the wasteland in the north of the city early the next morning to recruit people.
As luck would have it, when they arrived at the wasteland, they discovered that someone had already gotten there first to recruit people.
To be precise, the other party is not recruiting, but buying people.
On the dilapidated and filthy wasteland, there was a very luxurious and exquisite mule cart parked at this moment, with several fierce-looking burly men and servants standing next to it, which looked out of place no matter how you looked at it.
Two middle-aged women were sitting in the carriage. They were dressed in fine silks and satins and had gold hairpins all over their heads. They were obviously not ordinary people. However, the heavy foundation on their faces could not hide the traces left by the years, and their every move made it even more difficult to hide a strange sense of incongruity.
A fierce argument was taking place directly in front of the mule cart. A thin, scruffy man with a full beard was pulling a similarly thin girl who looked no more than ten years old toward the luxurious mule cart. The little girl was resisting desperately, her beautiful big eyes filled with resentment as she stared at the man.
"Liar! You promised my mother! You swore you would never sell me, and that's why she agreed to go with those people! You big liar!"
Upon hearing this, the man kicked the little girl to the ground, then angrily pointed at her and yelled, "You worthless brat! I've wasted so much food raising you, and you dare talk back! What kind of place is Yixiang Courtyard? You'll be living the high life there. It's your good fortune that they even noticed you!"
After saying that, he ignored the little girl's desperate cries and grabbed her braid, dragging her mercilessly to the luxurious mule cart...
There were several similar scenes, mostly involving a man dragging his wife or children to sell, and in a few cases, a whole family dragging a woman there to sell. These scenes suddenly cast a shadow of sorrow and despair over the wasteland that had been peaceful and stable for some time.
Cheng Ruyi had been observing silently when she suddenly sensed a fierce hostility. She turned her head and saw that it was the two women on the mule cart who were looking her up and down. Their eyes were like those of someone assessing a piece of merchandise, full of malice, mockery, and a deep warning.
Ruyi glanced at it and then ignored it. Their stall was already set up, and there were quite a few people who came with her today, including Zhang Hui, Tao Fei and his wife Wen Shi, as well as the Meng family father and daughter.
As the steward of Lishan Villa, Tao Fei was in charge of almost all the recruitment work this year. Therefore, he was a regular visitor to the wasteland. Many people knew as soon as they saw him that it was the Cheng family, who had high salaries and good benefits, recruiting people. So, as soon as he set up his stall, it was already surrounded by people.
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