The notice posted by Yang County Magistrate was only in the villages and towns under his jurisdiction. The notice only said that everyone could plant some crops on a piece of land, or plant one or two in the yard, and then harvest no matter how many fruits there were when 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The two brothers of the Wan family from Shunxi Village who sold milk to Xu Qinyu originally made a living by raising oxen for farming, and they lived a prosperous life. Since Xu Qinyu bought milk from them every month, the two brothers could each get an extra two or three taels of silver, which made up thirty taels a year.

Not every household can afford to buy a cow. Few families buy oxen for farming. 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 piece of land of half an acre 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 food.

The eldest son of the Wan family gave up and asked his younger brother to buy some grape seedlings with him and plant them in the corner of the yard. The second son of the Wan family said, "I have to take care of so many young cows all day long. Who has the energy to take care of this precious thing? Big brother, you are also a believer. I heard that these grape seedlings are not cheap, about a hundred coins each. If they don't grow well, you will lose a few hundred coins. You can do it yourself."

Before the Wan family split up, the two brothers had to hand over all the money they earned every month. However, since they started selling milk, the Wan family'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. With money, she could stockpile some land and use half to grow grapes and the other half to grow grain. Even if she didn't want to grow grain, she could give it to the tenants to grow.

She discussed her plan to buy the 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 their daughters as dowries, as family property, and could also be given to tenants to farm. It was a win-win situation.

Now that Yu Niang has made some money, she can buy some land to support herself, so that she won't have to 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.

Xu Feng ran for two days and actually found a large piece of land for Xu Qinyu.

They were a family of a wealthy man. At the end of the year before last, the new emperor had just ascended the throne and held an imperial examination. The son of the wealthy man passed the examination and became a Jinshi. The whole family moved to the capital, leaving behind more than a hundred acres of land.

Although these fields are not connected together, they are scattered in two villages, with dozens of acres connected together. Originally, the official had no plan to sell the fields, and he thought it would be good if he could come back in the future. However, the southwest is too far away from the capital, and he has purchased 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 has a lot of land, hundreds of acres, and he doesn't want to sell them separately, otherwise it will be too troublesome. He has to buy at least one piece of land at a time, and one piece of land has 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 costs 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 went to ask, and found out that all these fields were worth about 800 taels of silver. If he wanted all of them, the gentleman's 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 some paperwork, the official's family handed the title deed of the hundred acres of land to Xu Qinyu.

Holding the thick stack of land deeds, Xu Qinyu felt very satisfied. This was probably the landlord's wife.

Most of the people here have fields and land, so they are not worried. Xu Qinyu found that she was in the same situation. With fields, she would not lack food or drink. As long as it was not a year of disaster, the fields were a kind of guarantee.

These fields had previously been cultivated by nearby tenants, except for a few acres of land that were not in a good location and whose soil was not fertile enough, so nothing was planted there for the time being. Xu Qinyu planned to plant grape seedlings on all of the land and use them to grow grapes.

The land rented to tenants is split 50-50. In fact, 50-50 is considered a good split. Some unscrupulous people would even split it 30-70, with the tenants taking 30% and the landlord taking 70%.

Even if it was a 50-50 split, Xu Qinyu felt embarrassed, as she felt that she didn't even have to provide the seeds, nothing at all. The seeds were provided by the tenants, and it was also these tenants who took care of the crops on a daily basis. When the crops were ripe and ready for harvest, she would get half of them. What was 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.

She would be willing to take 30%, 70%, 20%, but Wen Shi told her, "Yu Niang, this is not possible. 40% to 60% is already very kind. If it is really 30% to 70% or 20% to 80%, these tenants will think you are too nice and easy to bully, and they may cheat you. You have to know that this is not a disaster year. Even if it is 60%, after deducting food and drink, they can still have some left, so 40% to 60% is just right. Most families will only take 40% to 60% when there is 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 face full of kindness.

She really likes Yu Niang very much, and it would be great if Yu Niang could really become her daughter-in-law.

But she could see that Yu Niang and her son got along like siblings. Yu Niang called her son "Fourth Brother" and she probably really treated him as a brother.

As for her son's thoughts, she could never figure them 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 among tenants, and keeping accounts. She is usually busy with the restaurant business and certainly cannot take care of these things herself. She can only find a manager, and she only needs to look at the accounts 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 the fields. He could just take a look at them every month and then check on them during the harvest, and keep a record of the accounts 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 the land and given them a reward, so he would only collect 40% of the rent. However, this was only for the first year. If they planted well and had a good harvest in the future, it would not be a bad idea to continue to collect 40% or 60% of the rent.

The tenants were usually those who were poor and could not afford to buy land. When they heard this, they were very grateful and worked harder to tend the land, hoping for a better harvest so that they could share the profits 40% and 60% in the future.

There were still a few acres of land that had not been planted by tenants, so Xu Qinyu asked Xu Feng to help buy a few hundred grape seedlings and hired someone to 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 the grape seedlings.

The area near Yuanbao Town is where the most Xuqin jade is grown.

The land itself should still be used mainly for growing grain, as was also written in the notice issued by Yang County Magistrate. Everyone really grows grain and is reluctant to plant too many grapes. Some people who believe in Xu Qinyu have allocated one or two mu of land for planting, and most people buy one or two plants or two or three plants and plant them in the yard.

Xu Qinyu knew in her heart that if grain production was high and everyone had enough food, it would be okay to grow more grapes.

But in this era, grain production is too low, and few people grow fruit in large quantities. Food production must be guaranteed first, otherwise there will not be enough food.

We can take our time with this, there is no rush. It would be great if we could have high-yield grains like potatoes and sweet potatoes.

…

Over the past half month, with Zhen Wu keeping an eye on the winery, everything went smoothly.

Mrs. Lu didn't have to worry about anything. She just came to Xu Ji every day to have breakfast and dinner.

Xu Qinyu's focus also continues to be on restaurants.

After the beginning of spring, the weather gradually warms up and people take off their thick winter clothes and put on lighter ones.

There are fewer people eating hot pot, and more diners eating stir-fried dishes.

Xu Feng has been busy these past two days buying grape seedlings and looking for someone to plant several acres of grape seedlings. He has been running around outside and not in the restaurant.

This day was just like any other day. At the end of the You hour, Xu's Restaurant stopped receiving diners. After serving the last table, Xu Qinyu returned to Guihua Lane.

After washing up in the evening, I counted the bills and went to bed early.

At night, when yin and yang were in harmony, Baiyu came out from under Xu Qinyu's bed. The bed under Xu Qinyu was usually clean and covered with oilcloth, with her wallet underneath. She would go to the bank to deposit money only once every ten days or half a month, so Baiyu would stay by the wallet under the bed most of the time. It liked to sleep and would sleep anywhere, and Xu Qinyu let it do that.

Baiyu felt that the time had come, so he went out and prepared to go to the small workshop to take over the shift of looking after the ham from Moyu.

When it came out, Xu Qinyu and Ning Jie'er were sleeping soundly.

Baiyu is now more than two meters long. He stood up and rubbed Xu Qinyu with his head. Seeing Ning Jie'er sleeping beside him, he looked at Ning Jie'er with his red snake eyes and rubbed her slowly and gently. In his eyes, Xu Qinyu, who fed him for three months when he was a child, is his mother. The other people in the Pei family are probably brothers and sisters to him. They can be friendly, but his mother is still the closest to him. He wants to rub and kiss her every day.

After rubbing against Ning Jie'er, Bai Yu rubbed against Xu Qinyu for a while. When it saw Xu Qinyu mumbling something, its snake body stiffened. Probably realizing that it had disturbed Xu Qinyu, it did not dare to move anymore and slipped away quietly.

All the doors and windows in the house were closed, but in order to facilitate it and Mo Yu's entry and exit, the wooden door of the main room was left ajar and only the courtyard door was locked.

Although its body is more than two meters long, it is only as thick as a 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 out of the courtyard with a light leap.

At midnight, Yuanbao Town was completely silent, without 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 way to the small workshop.

In 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 swam very quietly, but the black ears of the black jade in the small workshop still moved and heard the sound of the white jade swimming.

Mo Yu immediately stood up and went to the door of the small workshop.

The small workshop was usually locked. The leopard had a very strong jumping ability. Even though the wall of the small workshop was much higher than that of Pei's house, almost as high as two people, it could still easily jump onto the wall. So when entering and leaving the workshop on weekdays, Bai Yu still drilled through the gap at the bottom of the door, and Mo Yu jumped over the wall.

Mo Yu knew that Bai Yu was coming, but he would not leave for a while. He waited for Bai Yu to come in from under the door. Then he immediately raised his front legs and jumped like a dog, and jumped in front of Bai Yu, wanting to play with her.

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's side, 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 around Moyu so tightly that Moyu cried out pitifully, and then Baiyu let her go.

After 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 a short memory like when he was a child. When Bai Yu let go of him, he jumped up again.

Bai Yu was annoyed, and was about to pester Mo Yu, but suddenly he stopped moving, stood up like a snake, and looked towards the gate of the workshop.

The same thing happened to Mo Yu, with his two ears raised and his deep beastly eyes staring at the gate of the courtyard without blinking.

And there were indeed people trying to pry the lock at the gate of the courtyard. They were the three rascals who had seen Xu Qinyu and Madam Lu leaving the workshop more than half a month ago.

The three men were all from North Street in Yuanbao Town. They came from poor families and were idle all day long. Two of them were about seventeen or eighteen years old, and the other one was in his early twenties. But his family was poor and he had a bad reputation. He was a thief and had not 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 had given up on them. They had a quarrel with their families, and they were also angry with their families. They hadn't been home for several days, and they had no money and had been hungry for several days. Two days ago, they passed by the workshop again during the day and started to have some ideas.

Half a month ago, I passed by the workshop and smelled a little bit of bacon inside. I knew there might be bacon in the workshop, but this is a workshop and people can't live in it, so I don't know why the bacon was placed here.

Later I found out that this workshop belonged to the owner of Xu's Restaurant.

Xu's Restaurant is very famous in Yuanbao Town. Everyone knows it. Xiaodong's family is very nice and the food they cook 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 would definitely need a lot of bacon, so they stored the bacon here.

They were hungry for a few days, so they turned their attention to the bacon in the workshop. They even made a special visit two days ago and found that no one went in or out of the workshop during the day and no one was guarding it at night. So they discussed and decided to steal some bacon, not too much, just a few pieces and sell them to be enough for them to eat for two days.

I took advantage of the midnight to come here on purpose.

At this moment, outsiders couldn't even see a ghost, but they were not afraid and pried the door lock of the workshop recklessly.

After prying for a long time, I finally pried it open.

The young man who had pried the door lock smiled happily and turned around and said, "It's opened."

The sound was a bit loud, and the other two hurriedly whispered, "Stop shouting, be careful not to be heard by others, and hurry in."

The three of them entered the workshop and did not forget to turn around and close the gate.

There were about ten rooms in the workshop, and they didn't know where to put the bacon. They started from the first room, which was empty and had nothing in it.

In fact, after entering the yard, they looked around and found nothing except the brilliance of the moonlight.

Several people started checking each room one by one. When they came to the seventh room, they saw that the door was open. There were bacon legs hanging under the beams inside. Each bacon leg seemed to weigh at least ten or twenty pounds. Only then did they realize that the door of the room with bacon hanging was not closed.

The room needs to be ventilated, and the door and windows should be open.

In fact, before they even walked in, they could smell the rich aroma of bacon, which was completely different from the aroma of ordinary bacon and even more fragrant. They couldn't help but swallow their saliva after being hungry for several days.

The three looked at the pig legs hanging in the room and smiled happily. "Let's go in and take a look. There are about 20 kilograms of bacon. One leg can be sold for several hundred coins. It's 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 as soon as they entered the room, the wooden door behind them was closed with a bang.

The three were startled and turned around to look. They actually saw a pitch-black leopard inside the door, half-bending its body and preparing to attack. The wooden door behind it had already been closed by it.

When the three of them came in, they only had their eyes on the bacon and didn't notice the black panther lying behind the door.

"Why, why is there a leopard?"

The three of them panicked.

The other person stammered, "Well, it seems that the owner of Xu's Restaurant raised it. I, I heard that the owner raised a leopard. Everyone in South Street knows about it. No wonder no one comes in and out of here on weekdays. It turns out that he keeps it here to guard."

"I was wondering, how could a workshop that makes bacon be left unattended?"

"Hurry up, this leopard looks like it's not easy to deal with. Don't let it slap you to death. Let's go through the window. It's still open." Now the guys didn't care about stealing anything anymore and just wanted to run away.

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 tank nearby and blocking the window.

Moonlight shone 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 shiver all over and gives me goosebumps.

"Oh my God, why is there a snake here?" It was such a big one. It was already the biggest and longest snake they had ever seen. Even in the wilderness, it was normal to encounter one or two snakes, but their sizes were only as thick as fingers, and the thickest was no more than two or three fingers. They had never 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 it would attack people.

“Ahhhhhh.” There was a man who was rather timid. He was so scared that he peed 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.

Baiyu glanced at Moyu, probably thinking that this stupid leopard could actually make such a sound, since he and his mother usually meowed.

The three became even more frightened, as there was a wolf in front of them and a tiger behind them.

But didn't the owner of Xu's Restaurant keep a leopard? Why did a white snake come here?

Is this white snake really raised by the cook at Xu's? How is it possible that a snake and a leopard are 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 even expected that the two might attack each other, but unfortunately the white snake and the black panther did not move, and just stared at the three coldly.

Finally, the three of them couldn't help themselves, 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 men to the ground in an instant. The two men let out a miserable scream and felt a lightness on their backs. They thought the leopard had let them go, so they quickly turned over, but the leopard pressed down on their chests with its forelimbs again and exposed its sharp claws, making them dare not move at all.

When one of the men rushed over, Bai Yu slid over and grabbed the man's legs. The man fell to the ground with a thud, his face and nose were 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, and knocked the three of them together. As long as the three dared to move, it would roar and slap them with a claw. The three people did not dare to move at all, and Bai Yu passed through their waists like a rope and directly entangled them.

The three men's faces turned pale. They were entangled by a white snake and dared not move at all.

When Mo Yu saw that Bai Yu had tied the person up, he rushed out of the workshop and went back to Guihua Lane.

When Mo Yu returned to his home in Guihua Lane, he saw that Xu Qinyu was still sleeping. After hesitating for a moment, he squatted beside the bed and watched Xu Qinyu sleep.

Xu Qinyu slept until the morning, 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 beastly eyes wide open. She couldn't help but laugh and said, "Why doesn't Moyu go to sleep? What are you squatting here for?"

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.

After dragging him to the door, he continued to walk towards the courtyard gate. Xu Qinyu didn't know whether to laugh or cry at first, thinking that Mo Yu wanted to play with her. Seeing that Mo Yu continued to bite the corner of her clothes and walked towards the courtyard gate, she finally reacted and asked intently, "Mo Yu, is there an accident in the workshop?"

Mo Yu loosened the corner of his clothes and called out to her.

Xu Qinyu understood. Something must have happened in the workshop. Could it be that a thief had stolen the ham?

Xu Qinyu didn't care about anything else and hurried the donkey cart to the workshop, while Mo Yu ran behind the cart.

Arriving 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 didn't know 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.

Baiyu looked at Xu Qinyu with a bit of aggrieved feeling, as it had been lingering 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 entangled them. Later, they dared not move rashly. After finding that if they did not move rashly, the white snake would not do anything to them.

But being entangled by a thick white snake for two hours was not pleasant. Both the body and the mind were filled with extreme fear.

Seeing someone coming, the three recognized that it was the owner of Xu's 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 want to steal too much. We just didn't eat properly for a few days. More than half a month ago, we ran into you coming out of the workshop and smelled the bacon inside, so we had the idea. We will never dare to do it again. Please forgive us, Boss Xu."