Chapter 1637 Persuasion
The three mounted their horses and rode away, leaving behind a group of people in deep thought.
As soon as their horses ran away, the villagers could not help but surround the head of the village, asking for advice. "Head of the village, what do you say? Should we rent her family's official land, or should we rent the land from Mr. Fang's family?"
"Forty percent, after all, that's ten percent less than Master Fang's, and he gave me all the wheat seeds."
"That's true, but we have to let her handle all the land matters. What if she doesn't know how to farm?"
This is what everyone is most worried about.
The village headman reached out to silence the discussion and said, "Didn't you hear what Lord Zhou and Mr. Bai were saying? They know the farming seasons, so they shouldn't be far off."
The village head was obviously smarter and more knowledgeable than the villagers. He said, "After all, they are nobles from the capital. They won't stay here to watch over us forever. They will probably send someone to look after us. That Mr. Zhou looks like a farmer. We are all farmers. We all know that farming this way is easy as long as we know the right time and do the right things."
Everyone thought the same thing, "Then let's rent her house?"
"Let's rent her place. I think this gentleman seems easy to talk to. He even gave my boy some candy."
"Don't be too happy. If she really wanted to be easy to talk to, she wouldn't have said we had to obey her in everything. She only gave us such a low rent just to make us obey."
However, with the first person's agreement, the rest of the people can quickly make up their minds.
Manbao and his companions rode back towards the manor in the sunset. Bai Erlang caught up with them and asked, "Are you still planning to take charge of the manor yourself?"
Manbao said: "We just need to make a plan, and my father and eldest brother are here."
She said, "As you can see, nearly 800 acres of land are all in this area. There are only a few missing pieces in the middle, and the rest are basically connected. Such a large piece of land is all cultivated land. If it is well managed, the profit will definitely be considerable."
Bai Erlang said, "You are not short of money now. For example, the money Lijun earns from selling the whitening cream in three months is enough for you to earn in a year from working on the land."
Manbao said unhappily, "I'm not just doing this for the money. Don't you think it's a very happy thing to see the land produce something?"
Bai Erlang fell into deep thought while beating his horse.
Bai Shan said, "Erlang, we can't measure everything with money. You have to know that food is the most important thing for the people, and grain is the foundation of the country. Look at the Putian Village we saw today. This world is made up of thousands of Putian Villages."
"If everything in this world is measured by money, I'm afraid no one will want to care for them, and no one will be willing to work hard in the fields. What will people eat and drink then? Even if you have money, you can't buy a grain of rice, and the world will collapse."
Bai Erlang thought for a moment, then shouted back, "So you're going to become a parent official ahead of time?"
Bai Shan laughed and said, "Why not?"
Manbao rode his horse past them and galloped straight towards the sunset in the sky, laughing: "Managing a village is different from governing a place. If you become local officials in the future and manage the county as if it were a village, the teacher will be so angry that he will disown you. Hahahaha..."
The three of them were chasing each other on the road. Daji and his two guards followed behind them, eating dust without saying a word.
Six people and six horses returned to the village in just over two quarters of an hour.
Manbao reined in the horse, jumped off Chiji, touched its neck, pulled it to the stable, fed it some beans, and then ran to find her parents.
The people in the farm were still preparing their dinner. Although it was late for dinner, no one felt hungry. Old Zhoutou and Zhou Dalang were planning how to farm such a large piece of land.
"...If those people don't want to rent the land, we'll have to look elsewhere for long-term workers."
Manbao ran in and said with a smile, "Dad, I've already talked to the villagers and asked them to think about it overnight. Tomorrow we'll go to the other two miles to check out the remaining 100 acres of land. We'll also have to find someone to rent the 200 acres that the gentleman has."
Mr. Zhuang, standing by, smiled and put down his teacup. "How did you convince them? We saw today that they weren't very willing to rent the farmland, but now you've managed to get them to consider it."
Manbao said: "I told them I want 40% of the rent."
Old Zhou didn't react much, because Mr. Bai also charged 40% rent for the land he rented to tenants in Qili Village and Dali Village. However, no one was short of land, so most of them just rented a few acres of better land as a token of their appreciation.
Compared to renting land and having to bear the profits and losses themselves, they prefer to do short-term work for Mr. Bai. No matter whether the weather is good or the harvest is good, Mr. Bai has to pay them for the work. It is a business that is sure to make a profit.
But now that it's Lao Zhou's turn to be the landlord, he is not very willing to hire temporary workers.
It would be such a huge loss to give out so much money before seeing any benefits.
It is better to rent the land. They only provide the land and then supervise the tenants to plant the land well, remove the weeds, apply fertilizer and ensure water. After a year, they can get 40% of the rent for free. This is a sure profit.
So he is very satisfied with the 40% score.
Anyway, this land is not theirs, it belongs to the imperial court. They can collect one year's rent for every year Manbao serves as an official. How great is that.
"Forty percent, forty percent. But we have to make it clear that we have to take care of the land and the tenant farmers have to listen to us. Look how lazy they are. They have made such good land overgrown with weeds. It's such a waste of work."
Manbao hoped that they could get along well in the future, so he spoke up for them, saying, "It's not their fault. The court collects fixed rent from them. In addition to rice and flour, they also have to pay for food, harvest and dry grass for the adults, and even have to share half of the chickens and ducks they raise with others."
Old Zhou couldn't help but open his mouth wide, "This, this sounds like a chaotic army?"
Mr. Zhuang couldn't help but cough lightly and whispered, "Brother Zhou Jin, it's not easy to say such things."
Qian glared at him, and Old Zhou immediately stopped talking.
Madam Liu smiled and said, "It's okay. We are all family members. No one will spread the news."
It wouldn't be a big deal if word of this got out, it would just make it easier to offend people. Of course, offending the emperor was secondary, the main issue would be offending the big men who owned official land.
Old Madam Liu glanced at Manbao and smiled, but the young adult was obviously not among them.
Manbao still agreed with her father's words. She also felt that the management of the official fields was very chaotic and very unfair to the people who rented the official fields. No wonder they were unwilling to rent the official fields.
"So, Dad, let's be kind to them. When the time comes, buy a few more cows and share them with them for farming. We can improve our relationship and the crops we get will be better."
Old Zhou grumbled, "We still need to buy cows..."
Cows are very expensive.
See you at 4 p.m.
I also want to update more, but my energy and hand speed are limited, so I can only try my best to update more
(End of this chapter)
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