Chapter 1639 Buying Meat
Yes, officials can make requests through the Ministry of Households and the tenants of their official land. For example, some officials like to eat white rice and dislike wheat, so they will specifically request to grow more rice and less wheat.
But Guanzhong is best for growing wheat. After all, they don't farm the land, and they don't rely on the official land to make a living. They have all kinds of requirements, so everyone hates being told to farm.
Knowing that all the 1,000 acres of land were cultivated by them, Manbao felt relieved and immediately said with a smile, "That's perfect, it will be easier to manage. How much do you each want to rent and cultivate? Just come forward and tell me."
There are hundreds of families in one mile. More than ten years ago, when Putian Village was moved here, it was moved directly according to the one-mile pattern. In the past ten years, no matter whether the elderly in the family passed away or not, no one has split up the family.
Life is hard enough, why make yourself uncomfortable by dividing the family?
Even if they quarreled, they would never split up in order to save one family from labor, so now Putian Village still has a neat 100 households.
Manbao thought that if each of the 100 households rented 10 mu of land, the land would be divided up. Then he could persuade those with larger families to rent more land to cultivate. Then the 200 mu of land that the gentleman had would be settled. How great!
Then she spread out the paper, and while grinding the ink, she looked up and asked the man in the first line, "How much land do you plan to rent?"
The man hesitated for a moment and then asked, "Are you sure you want to provide us with new wheat seeds?"
Manbao nodded.
The man gritted his teeth and said, "Then I'll rent twenty acres."
Manbao was stunned. He glanced at the people behind him and said with a troubled look, "Isn't it too many? There are so many people behind us."
The man said, "I have a large family, and this year we were all allocated 15 mu of official land. We also rented another 10 mu of land from Mr. Fang, so we can handle it all."
Manbao raised his eyebrows slightly, glanced at the green grass field behind them, and thought to himself: No wonder the official fields are so abandoned.
Manbao thought for a moment and then asked, "So, are you renting my land as well as Master Fang's land?"
The man smiled a little awkwardly and said, "Since we are tenant farmers of your family, we will not rent land from other families. If you have any questions in the future, just tell us."
Tenant farmers don’t just need to farm. Sometimes when the employer needs them, they have to work for free. This is why wealthy families prefer to employ tenant farmers.
If you own a tenant farmer, you may own a household of tenant farmers, long-term workers and short-term workers, which is particularly cost-effective.
Manbao didn't quite understand this at the moment. After all, she had only employed long-term workers, and her brothers had only worked as short-term workers, so they didn't know much about it.
If she is like this, let alone Bai Shan and Bai Erlang.
However, the three of them had a lot of plans in mind, so they needed a lot of manpower. Naturally, they were very happy that the tenant farmers could focus all their attention on the official fields.
So Manbao agreed with a wave of his hand, and then wrote down their names.
Sure enough, he was the person who rented the most land, and the people behind him could not rent so much, ranging from twelve acres to seven or eight acres.
Manbao and Baishan Baijilang divided people into three teams, with each person recording for each team, and after the recording was completed, they began to calculate.
Because this is just their wish, whether they can rent so much depends on their decision.
The three of them calculated and found that the total was 1,283 acres, 83 acres more than they had.
Manbao and Baishan compared the labor force reported by each household, and then selectively deducted some acres from some families.
Most of them reduce one acre, but some families do not reduce it at all.
After calculating the total to be 1,200 mu, he went to the village head and said, "Let's rent it out based on this number of mu."
The village chief took a look at the extra two hundred acres and was a little surprised. "This is..."
"This is my husband's official land. The village head should be familiar with it. It's right on the edge of Hecun Village, connected to my official land. That piece of land should have been rented by someone from your village before, right?"
The village head laughed embarrassedly, "It's true, nothing can be hidden from the adults."
Manbao handed him the final list and said, "Fill out the rent form. We will come over in two days to stamp it and divide the land."
The village head agreed and asked, "What about the wheat seeds..."
"Someone has been sent to pick it up. It will be delivered in four days at most."
The village head breathed a sigh of relief, took the list and wanted to send Manbao and the other two away.
Manbao glanced at the bustling crowd and, remembering that today was Mid-Autumn Festival, he took out a piece of silver from his purse and gave it to the village headman, saying with a smile, "Today is Mid-Autumn Festival, and I don't have anything good to give everyone. I'll ask the village headman to buy some meat for them."
This piece of silver is about two taels, enough to buy a pig.
The head of the village was slightly stunned.
Manbao stuffed the silver directly into his hand. One pig was divided into 100 households, and each household only got a small piece of meat. Manbao stood up and said goodbye with Bai Shan and others.
The village head hurried out of the door, and when he saw them getting on their horses and about to leave, he stopped and bowed to them.
Manbao's words just now were not spoken quietly, and he said them while sitting in the yard, so some farmers also heard it and everyone was shocked.
To be honest, they have been cultivating official land for the court for more than ten years, and the people in charge of the land have changed seven or eight times, but none of them has given gifts to them, the tenant farmers, during festivals. Zhou Man is the first one.
So when the village head bowed, the farmers who heard it finally reacted and followed suit.
Manbao was a little surprised and waved his hand immediately, saying, "You're welcome."
The farmers behind didn't know what was going on and followed the chaotic salute with confused looks on their faces.
Manbao had already smiled and rode away on horseback with Bai Shanbai Erlang and others, and Daji followed with his guards.
There were only six of them here today, the others went into Yongzhou.
Today is Mid-Autumn Festival, and we agreed to go to Yongzhou to see the lanterns.
Madam Liu and the others packed up their things early in the morning and went there early. Manbao and the others also ran there after they finished their business here.
This place is not far from Yongzhou City, and it takes less than half an hour to get there by horse.
The official road is very spacious and easy to drive on.
It was the first time for several of them to come to Yongzhou, and it was already past noon when they arrived at the city.
They were a little hungry, so they just looked up at Yongzhou City, which was the third largest city gate they had ever seen.
The secondary capital looks similar to Yizhou City.
The three of them only looked for a while before dismounting and queuing up to enter the city. Because it was Mid-Autumn Festival, there were a lot of people entering the city today.
The three of them were not very tall, so they were almost drowned when they followed the crowd in. The people that Madam Liu sent to wait at the city gate almost couldn't see them.
Fortunately, Daji was tall, and the three young masters were different at first glance, so when they walked a distance into the city, they were still seen. The servants immediately waved and shouted, "Master, Miss Man, Master Tang, here..."
See you at 9pm
(End of this chapter)
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