The notice posted by County Magistrate Yang was only in the villages and towns under his jurisdiction. The notice only said that everyone could allocate a few acres of land to plant some, or plant one or two in the yard, and harvest no matter how many fruits there were after they ripened.
Within a few days, the news spread to other villages and towns, and Shunxi Village heard about it.
The two brothers of the Wan family in Shunxi Village who sold milk to Xu Qinyu originally made a living by working with oxen, and their life was prosperous. Since Xu Qinyu bought milk from their family every month, the two brothers could get an extra two or three taels of silver each, which made up thirty taels a year.
Not every household can afford to buy a cow, and there are relatively few families who buy oxen for plowing. Sometimes they may only sell one or two cows a month. After deducting the cost of feeding the cows, they don’t make much. Instead, the milk has become a stable source of income for them.
Knowing that grapes were being grown near Yuanbao Town, the eldest brother of the Wan family also wanted to allocate a small half-acre of land to plant grapes.
Wan's parents disagreed, saying that even if the family could earn an extra sixty taels of silver a year, the farmland could not be touched because it had to be used to grow crops.
The eldest son of the Wan family took a back seat and asked his younger brother to join him in buying some grape seedlings and planting them in the corner of the yard. The second son said, "I have to take care of so many young cows all day long. Who has the energy to care for these precious things? Big brother, you are so foolish. I heard that these grape seedlings are not cheap, about a hundred coins each. If they don't grow well, I will lose hundreds of coins. You can do it yourself."
Before the Wan family split up, the two brothers had to hand over all their earnings every month. However, since they started selling milk, Wan's parents would openly give each brother 500 coins every month, so the eldest brother of the Wan family had some money in his hands.
Seeing that his parents and brothers were unwilling, the eldest brother of the Wan family was honest and said nothing. He went to buy three seedlings and planted them in the backyard.
Xu Qinyu also wanted to buy some land. Once she had money, she could stockpile some land, using half to grow grapes and the other half to grow grain. Even if she didn't want to grow grain herself, she could give it to the tenants to grow.
She discussed her plan to buy land with her family.
Wen and Ning Jie'er naturally agreed. Even the nobles in the capital liked to hoard land. Almost everyone had dozens or hundreds of acres of land, and some even had thousands of acres. The land could be given to daughters as dowries, as family property, and could also be used for farming by tenants, killing two birds with one stone.
Now that Yu Niang has earned some money, she can buy some land to support herself so that she won’t starve when collecting rent in the future.
Everyone in the family agreed, so Xu Qinyu asked someone to find out where there was land for sale. It would be best if the land was connected and not too scattered.
This kind of land is not easy to buy, so Xu Qinyu just asked Feng Ge'er to inquire about it first.
Now Cheng Ge'er has started to cook fish, so most of the errands for Xu Qinyu are done by Xu Feng.
After running for two days, Xu Feng actually found a large piece of land for Xu Qinyu.
It was a family of a wealthy man. At the end of the year before last, the new emperor had just ascended the throne and held a special imperial examination. The son of the wealthy man passed the imperial examination and became a Jinshi last year. The whole family moved to the capital, leaving behind more than 100 acres of land.
Although these fields are not connected together, they are scattered in two villages, with more than ten acres connected together. Originally, the man had no plan to sell the fields, and he thought it would be nice if he could come back in the future. However, the southwest is too far away from the capital, and he has bought a lot of fields near the capital, so he planned to sell the fields in the southwest. He asked someone to start selling them after the New Year, and the news came out in the past few days.
The official's family has a lot of land, hundreds of acres, and they don't want to sell it separately, otherwise it will be too troublesome. They have to buy at least one piece of land at a time. One piece of land is more than ten acres, which is unaffordable for ordinary people. The better land is ten taels of silver per acre, the worse ones are five or six taels, and some are seven or eight taels. Ten acres of land is almost a hundred taels of silver, so no one is buying it for the time being.
Xu Qinyu asked Xu Feng to help her negotiate with the family of the wealthy man. She wanted to buy all the nearly 100 acres of land in one go.
Xu Feng asked and found out that all these fields were worth about 800 taels of silver. If he wanted them all, the family would ask for 800 taels of silver.
Xu Qinyu naturally agreed and took some time to go to the government office to transfer the ownership. After writing the documents, the family of the official handed over the title deed of the hundred acres of land to Xu Qinyu.
Holding a thick stack of land deeds, Xu Qinyu felt very satisfied. This was probably what a landlord's wife was like.
Most people here have fields and land, so they are not worried. Xu Qinyu found that she was in the same situation. As long as she had fields, she would not lack food or drink. As long as it was not a disaster year, the fields were a kind of guarantee.
These fields had previously been cultivated by nearby tenants. Only a few acres of land were in poor locations and the soil was not fertile enough, so no crops were planted there for the time being. Xu Qinyu planned to plant grape seedlings on all the acres of land and use them to grow grapes.
The land rented to tenants is divided into 50-50 profits. In fact, 50-50 is considered a good split. Some unscrupulous people dare to divide it into 30-70, with the tenants getting 30% and the landlord getting 70%.
Even if it was a 50-50 split, Xu Qinyu felt embarrassed, thinking that she didn't even have to provide the seeds, nothing at all. The seeds were provided by the tenants, and it was also the tenants who took care of the crops on a daily basis. When the grain was ripe and harvested, she would have to collect half of it. What's the difference between this and Zhou Paopi?
She planned to find a manager and tell the tenants that the grain would be divided into 40% and 60% from now on.
Even if it was 30%, 20%, or 80%, she would be willing to do it. But Wen Shi heard it and told her, "Yu Niang, that's not possible. 40% to 60% is already very kind. If it's really 30%, 70%, or 20%, these tenants will think you're too nice and easy to bully, and they might even try to cheat you. You have to know that this isn't a disaster year. Even if it's 60%, after deducting food and drink, they still have some left over. So 40% to 60% is just right. Most families only do 40% to 60% when there's a natural disaster."
Xu Qinyu finally understood and said with a smile, "Thank you, mother, for teaching me this."
Wen looked at Yu Niang with a kind face.
She really likes Yu Niang very much, and she wishes Yu Niang could really become her daughter-in-law.
But she could see that Yu Niang and her son got along like brother and sister. Yu Niang called her son "Fourth Brother" and she really treated him as a brother.
As for her son's thoughts, she could never figure it out.
Now that she had the land, Xu Qinyu still had to find someone to manage it.
The manager of the fields is responsible for collecting rent, distributing rent to tenants, and keeping accounts. She is usually busy with the restaurant business and certainly cannot take care of these things personally. She can only find a manager, and she only needs to check the account books at the end of the year.
Xu Feng volunteered to take care of the fields, because he didn't have to go out every day to take care of them. He only needed to take a look at them every month, and then check on them during the harvest, and keep a good account on weekdays. He could do it during his monthly rest time.
Xu Qinyu thought about it and agreed.
Xu Feng went to tell the tenants that the landlord had just bought these fields and given them as a reward, and would only collect 40% rent. However, 40% was only collected in the first year. If the crops were planted well and the harvest was good in the future, it would not be a bad idea to continue to collect 40% to 60% rent.
Tenant farmers are usually those who are poor and cannot afford to buy land. When they hear this, they not only thank you profusely, but also work harder to tend the land, hoping for a better harvest so that they can share the profits 40% to 60% in the future.
There were still a few acres of land that had not been cultivated by tenants, so Xu Qinyu asked Xu Feng to help buy hundreds of grape seedlings and hired people to help plant them in these acres of land, which cost another few dozen taels of silver.
Several days have passed since we started working on these fields and grape seedlings.
Near Yuanbao Town, Xuqin jade is the most common.
The fields themselves should still be used mainly for growing crops, as was written in the notice issued by County Magistrate Yang. Everyone indeed grew crops and was unwilling to plant too many grapes. Some people who believed in Xu Qinyu did allocate one or two acres of land for planting, and most people bought one or two or two or three grapes and planted them in the yard.
Xu Qinyu also knew in her heart that if the grain yield was high and everyone was not short of food, it would be fine to plant more grapes.
But in this era, the grain yield per mu is too low, and indeed not many people grow fruits in large quantities. Everyone has to ensure grain production first, otherwise there will not be enough food.
Take your time with this, there's no rush. It would be great if we could have high-yield crops like potatoes and sweet potatoes.
…
Over the past half month, with Zhen Wu watching over the winery, everything went smoothly.
Mrs. Lu didn't have to worry about anything and just came to Xu Ji every day for breakfast and dinner.
Xu Qinyu's focus continues to be on the restaurant.
After the beginning of spring, the weather gradually warms up and everyone takes off their thick winter clothes and puts on lighter jackets.
There are fewer people eating hotpot, and more diners eating stir-fried dishes.
Xu Feng has been busy these two days buying grape seedlings and finding someone to plant several acres of grape seedlings. He has been running around outside and not at the restaurant.
This day was the same as usual. At the end of the You hour, Xu Ji Restaurant stopped accepting diners. After serving the last table, Xu Qinyu returned to Guihua Lane.
After washing up and settling the bills in the evening, I went to bed early.
At midnight, when yin and yang meet, Baiyu crawled out from under Xu Qinyu's bed. The bed was usually clean and covered with oilcloth, with her cash box underneath. She would deposit money in the cash box only once every ten days or half a month, so Baiyu would stay by the cash box under the bed most of the time. It liked to sleep and would sleep anywhere, and Xu Qinyu let it do that.
Bai Yu felt that it was time, so he went out and prepared to go to the small workshop to hand over the shift of guarding the ham to Mo Yu.
When it came out, Xu Qinyu and Ning Jie'er were sleeping soundly.
Baiyu, now over two meters long, stood up and rubbed Xu Qinyu vigorously with his head. Seeing Ning Jie'er sleeping next to him, he glanced at her with his crimson snake eyes and slowly and gently rubbed her. In his eyes, Xu Qinyu, who had fed him for three months when he was a child, was his mother. The other members of the Pei family were more like brothers and sisters to him. They could be friendly, but his closest friend was his mother, and he wanted to rub and kiss her every day.
After rubbing against Ning Jie'er, Bai Yu rubbed against Xu Qinyu for a while. Seeing Xu Qinyu muttering something, its snake body stiffened. Probably knowing that it had disturbed Xu Qinyu, it did not dare to move anymore and slipped away quietly.
The doors and windows of the house were all closed, but in order to facilitate it and Mo Yu's entry and exit, the wooden door of the main room was ajar, and only the courtyard door was locked.
Although its body is more than two meters tall, it is only as thick as its calf and can squeeze out from the large gap under the courtyard gate. Mo Yu is even more powerful, with amazing jumping ability. It can jump onto the courtyard wall in one leap, and finally jump lightly out of the courtyard.
At midnight, Yuanbao Town was completely silent, with not a single person in sight.
Indeed, no one would be active at night at midnight, except for scoundrels.
Bai Yu slipped out of the house and walked along the road to the small workshop.
Under the moonlight, its scales are smooth and clean. The moonlight shining on the scales makes them sparkle and look very beautiful.
The white jade quickly arrived at the small workshop. It made very little noise when it swam, but the black ears of the black jade in the small workshop still moved and it heard the sound of the white jade swimming.
Mo Yu immediately stood up and walked to the door of the small workshop.
The small workshop is usually locked. The leopard has a strong jumping ability. Even though the wall of the small workshop is much higher than that of the Pei family, almost as high as two people, it can still easily jump onto the wall. Therefore, when entering and leaving the workshop on weekdays, Bai Yu still drills through the gap under the door, and Mo Yu jumps over the wall.
Mo Yu knew that Bai Yu was coming, but it would not leave for a while. It waited for Bai Yu to come in from under the door. It immediately raised its front legs and jumped like a dog, jumping in front of Bai Yu, wanting to play with Bai Yu.
But Bai Yu just glanced at it and continued to swim with her beautiful snake tail towards the doors of the rooms where the hams were hanging.
Mo Yu followed happily, jumping up and down.
When it jumped to Baiyu, it jumped on Baiyu with its front legs just like when it was a child, wanting to hold Baiyu and play with it.
Baiyu was a little angry, and suddenly rolled up her body and wrapped it around Moyu, wrapping it a little too tightly. Moyu howled pitifully, and then Baiyu let her go.
When Baiyu grew up, her temperament became calmer than when she was a child. She didn't like to play with Moyu when she was a child, and she is even more unwilling now.
But Mo Yu still had no memory like when he was a child. When Bai Yu let go of him, he pounced on her again.
Bai Yu was annoyed and was about to wrap around Mo Yu, but suddenly he stopped, stood up his snake body, and looked towards the gate of the workshop.
The same was true for Mo Yu, with his ears erect and a pair of deep animal eyes staring at the gate without blinking.
And there was indeed someone trying to pick the lock at the gate of the courtyard. It was the three little rascals who had seen Xu Qinyu and Madam Lu leaving the workshop more than half a month ago.
The three men were all from the North Street of Yuanbao Town. They came from poor families and were idle all day long. Two of them were seventeen or eighteen years old, and the other one was in his early twenties. However, his family was poor and he had a bad reputation. He was a thief and had not yet married in his twenties.
The three of them ran into Xu Qinyu more than half a month ago. When they smelled the bacon in the room, they didn't think much of it.
But they hadn't found any work in the past half month, and their families disliked them. They had a quarrel with their family, and they were also angry with their family. They hadn't gone home for several days, and they had no money on them. They were hungry for several days. Two days ago, they passed by this workshop during the day and started to have some ideas.
Half a month ago, I passed by a workshop and smelled a hint of bacon inside. I knew there might be bacon in the workshop, but this is a workshop and no one can live there, so I don’t know why the bacon was put here.
Later I found out that this workshop belonged to the young owner of Xu Ji Restaurant.
Xu's Restaurant is very famous in Yuanbao Town. Everyone knows it. Xiaodong's family is very nice and the food they make is said to be very delicious. Anyway, they have never eaten it.
Since it was the workshop of Xu Ji Restaurant, they understood that a restaurant must need a large amount of bacon, so the bacon was stored here.
After being hungry for a few days, they turned their attention to the bacon in the workshop. They even made a special check two days ago and found that no one entered or left the workshop during the day, and no one was guarding it at night. So they discussed stealing some bacon, not too much, just a few pieces, and selling them would be enough for them to eat for two days.
I took advantage of the midnight to come here today.
At this moment, outsiders couldn't even see a ghost, but they were not afraid and pried the door lock of the workshop unscrupulously.
After prying for a long time, I finally managed to pry it open.
The young man who had picked the door lock was delighted and turned around and said, "It was opened."
The sound was a bit loud, and the other two hurriedly whispered, "Stop shouting, be careful not to let anyone hear you, and go in quickly."
The three of them entered the workshop and did not forget to turn around and close the gate.
There are about ten rooms in the workshop, and they don't know where the bacon is. They look in the first room first, and it's empty, with nothing in it.
In fact, once they entered the yard, they looked around and saw nothing but the glow of the moonlight.
Several people checked room by room. When they came to the seventh room, they saw that the door was open. There were cured pork legs hanging under the beams inside. Each cured pork leg weighed at least ten or twenty pounds. Only then did they realize that the room with the cured meat hanging was not closed.
The room needs to be ventilated, and the doors and windows are not closed but left open.
In fact, before they even walked in, they smelled the rich aroma of bacon, which was completely different from the aroma of ordinary bacon and was even more fragrant. They couldn't help swallowing their saliva after being hungry for several days.
The three looked at the pig legs hanging in the room and their faces lit up with joy. "Let's go in and take a look. There are about 20 kilograms of cured pork. One leg can be sold for several hundred coins, enough for us to eat for a few days. Just take one."
The three of them walked into the room, but they didn't expect that the wooden door behind them was closed with a bang as soon as they entered the room.
The three of them were startled and turned around to look. They saw a pitch-black leopard inside the door, half-bending its body and making an attacking gesture. The wooden door behind it had been closed by it.
When the three of them came in, they only had eyes for the bacon and didn't even notice the black panther lying behind the door.
"Why, why is there a leopard?"
The three of them panicked.
Another person stammered, "Okay, it seems the owner of Xu's Restaurant raised it. I, I heard that the owner raised a leopard. Everyone on South Street knows about it. No wonder no one comes in or out of here on weekdays. It turns out he keeps it guarding the place."
"I was saying, how could a workshop with bacon be left unattended?"
"Hurry up, this leopard looks tough, don't let it slap you to death. Let's go through the window, it's still open." Now the few of them didn't care about stealing things, they just wanted to run away quickly.
As the three of them spoke, they immediately rushed towards the large open window. However, they stopped abruptly halfway because they saw a giant white python at least two meters long and as thick as a calf crawling out from behind a nearby tank and blocking the window.
Moonlight shone in through the window, and the white snake was spitting out its tongue, and its pair of dark red eyes stared at them coldly.
This thing is even scarier than a leopard. It makes me tremble all over and get goosebumps.
"Oh my God, why are there snakes in here?" It was such a big one, the biggest and longest snake they had ever seen. Even in the wilderness, it was normal to encounter one or two snakes, but they were only as thick as fingers, and the thickest was only two or three fingers. Who had ever seen a snake as thick as a calf, and it was white. Although this white snake looked more beautiful than other snakes, it was also a cold-blooded animal. It was a snake and would attack people.
"Ahhhhhh." One person who was rather timid was so frightened that he wet his pants and collapsed to the ground.
The other two were also trembling, standing still and not daring to move.
The leopard behind him also let out a deafening roar.
Bai Yu glanced at Mo Yu, probably wondering why this stupid leopard could actually make such a sound, as it usually meowed when talking to its mother.
The three of them became even more frightened, as there was a wolf in front of them and a tiger behind them.
But doesn't the owner of Xuji Restaurant have a leopard? Why is there a white snake here?
Was this white snake actually raised by the young cook at Xu's? How could a snake and a leopard be raised together without them attacking each other?
If they were not raised together and the white snake was wild, why didn't the black panther attack it but stared at them?
The three of them even expected that the two might attack each other, but unfortunately, neither the white snake nor the black panther moved. They just stared at the three of them coldly.
In the end, the three of them couldn't help but looked at each other and rushed towards the window.
Baiyu and Moyu also moved. Moyu pounced over almost instantly, and while flying over, he spread his forelimbs and knocked the two people to the ground in an instant. The two people let out a shrill scream and felt a lightness on their backs. They thought the leopard had let them go, so they quickly turned over. The leopard actually pressed their chests with its forelimbs again, and its sharp claws were exposed, making them dare not move at all.
When one of the men rushed over, Bai Yu slipped over and wrapped around the man's legs. The man fell to the ground with a thud, his face bruised and swollen, and blood was flowing from his nose.
Mo Yu held the two of them down and meowed at Bai Yu.
Bai Yu glanced at it.
Finally, Mo Yu let go of the two people, bit their clothes and pulled them to Bai Yu's side, and threw the three of them together. As long as the three dared to move, it would roar and slap them with a claw. The three of them dared not move at all, and Bai Yu passed through their waists like a rope and directly wrapped them up.
The three men's faces were pale. They were entangled by a white snake and didn't dare to move at all.
When Mo Yu saw that Bai Yu had tied up the man, he rushed out of the workshop and returned to Guihua Lane.
When Mo Yu returned to his home in Guihua Lane, he saw Xu Qinyu still sleeping. After hesitating for a moment, he squatted beside the bed and watched Xu Qinyu sleep.
Xu Qinyu slept until the hour of Yin, and when she woke up she saw Mo Yu squatting beside her bed.
Normally, Moyu and Baiyu would lie on the ground and sleep after their shifts. This was the first time she saw it squatting beside her with its eyes wide open. She couldn't help but laugh and said, "Why isn't Moyu going to sleep? What are you doing squatting here?"
Mo Yu meowed at her and waited for Xu Qinyu to put on her clothes and cloth shoes before it went over and bit the corner of Xu Qinyu's clothes and dragged her out.
Dragged to the door and continued walking towards the courtyard gate, Xu Qinyu was at a loss whether to laugh or cry at first, thinking that Mo Yu was going to play a game with her. Seeing Mo Yu still biting the corner of her clothes and walking towards the courtyard gate, she finally reacted and asked intently, "Mo Yu, is there an accident at the workshop?"
Mo Yu loosened the corner of his clothes and called out to her.
Xu Qinyu understood. Something really happened in the workshop. Could it be that a thief had gone there to steal the ham?
Xu Qinyu didn't care about anything else and drove the donkey cart to the workshop, while Mo Yu ran behind the donkey cart.
When they arrived at the workshop, Xu Qinyu got off the donkey cart and saw that the workshop gate was open.
After entering, Mo Yu led her directly to the room where the thief was.
As soon as she entered and saw the scene in front of her, Xu Qinyu was at a loss whether to laugh or cry.
The three men fell to the ground side by side, one next to the other, almost overlapping.
The white jade was tightly wrapped around the waists of the three people.
Bai Yu looked at Xu Qinyu and felt a little aggrieved. It had been pestering him here for two hours.
The three were very scared at first. After the black panther left, they still wanted to struggle, but they found that the more they struggled, the tighter the white snake wrapped around them. Later, they didn't dare to move around anymore. After they found that if they didn't move, the white snake would not do anything to them.
But being entangled by a thick white snake for two hours was not pleasant, and both the body and mind were filled with great fear.
Seeing the person coming, the three of them also recognized that it was the owner of Xu Ji Restaurant and immediately begged for mercy, "Boss Xu, we were wrong. We will never dare to steal your bacon again. In fact, we didn't intend to steal too much. We just didn't eat properly in a few days. More than half a month ago, we ran into you coming out of the workshop and smelled the bacon inside, which made us want to do it. We will never dare to do it again. Please, Boss Xu, forgive us."
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