Chapter 526 Spend Other People’s Money and Do Your Own Business
Xu Minghui rubbed his itchy nose, not understanding the subtlety in Jiang Yu's words. He paused and said, "I'll be able to get started soon. Has the young prince prepared all his men?"
Before arriving in Lingnan, Xu Minghui had heard people talk about Lingnan's climate.
Different from the bitter cold of the northwest and the dry sand of Kyoto, Lingnan is known for its four seasons of spring. According to legend, it is a strange place with lush vegetation but full of miasma, snakes and insects.
In addition, the people here are tough and mostly live together with other ethnic groups. The customs are very different from those in the Central Plains. It also has a reputation for being extremely xenophobic and fierce. It doesn't sound like a good place where people would feel comfortable. It seems that there is unspeakable mystery and weirdness everywhere.
Xu Minghui was prepared to deal with everything before he came, but when he arrived at the place, he was so shocked by what he saw that he forgot to speak for a while.
The saying that it's spring all year round is not an empty statement...
It is clearly winter, the sun is high in the sky, and the winter wind still carries warmth. Wild flowers and grasses are everywhere, surging like waves, and everything you see is full of vitality.
Xu Minghui had never seen such a scene anywhere else except in Lingnan.
In a place without the invasion of wind, sand and bitter cold, all kinds of unknown vines grow wildly.
Xu Minghui's ears moved and he caught a subtle rustling sound. His eyes turned cold and he threw a cold light towards the place where the sound came from.
The blade was firmly inserted into the tree trunk, and the handle was shaking.
And along the sharp edge of the knife, trickles of blood were dripping down the tree trunk, and what was pierced was a snake with dazzling colors.
Jiang Yubai squinted his eyes and looked at it, then clicked his tongue and said, "It's poisonous."
"That's new. I've only been here three days."
Xu Minghui withdrew the flying knife from the tree trunk with an expressionless face and said calmly: "I have never seen a snake that is not venomous."
Not only are snakes highly poisonous, even flying insects and ants are not to be trifled with.
On the first day Xu Minghui arrived, he was careless and did not take the anti-malaria pills he brought with him in time. He was accidentally bitten by several ants, and the bites are still burning, swollen and painful.
If you get bitten by a butterfly-like snake like this...
Xu Minghui quickly closed his eyes and said, "If we want to accomplish anything here, we must first find a way to dispel these annoying poisonous creatures."
Xu Minghui carried a lot of treasures with him, some of which came from the extra luggage that Sang Zhixia gave him before he left.
Sang Zhixia learned that there were countless snakes, insects, rats and ants in Lingnan, and that poisonous creatures were rampant, so she simply asked Qi Laoduo to prescribe some detoxifying pills and a lot of powder to repel poisons.
If it weren't for these things protecting him, Xu Minghui would have had a hard time getting through the first few days after arriving.
After all, these little creatures in Lingnan are all colorful in appearance. They will not be bothered by the severe cold in winter and will not be frozen to death. A bite from anything will not be fatal, but it will be very painful.
It is not enough to protect Xu Minghui alone. Even if he works hard, he cannot build a farm on the wasteland.
In order to dispel people's natural fear of countless reptiles and make them willing to come here to reclaim wasteland, we must find a way to ensure the safety of these people.
No poisonous substances should remain where people are.
Jiang Yubai casually waved the long curved knife in his hand, cutting off the vines blocking his way. He took a few steps forward and said, "I've asked someone to prepare the insect repellent powder. It will be ready soon."
"Are you sure this is okay? Do you want to look somewhere else?"
"This is fine."
Xu Minghui suppressed his nausea and ignored the ants scurrying out of a nearby nest. He stepped forward and said, "My sister-in-law said that the terrain in Lingnan is different from that in the northwest. It's less flat and more bumpy, with dense jungle and winding farmland. We can't just pursue flat and wide land; we need to adapt to local conditions."
The cultivated land in the northwest is connected in patches, flat and level, with no end in sight, but most of them have no visible bumps.
Such places are very suitable for reclaiming wasteland and farming, and can also save a lot of effort.
However, Lingnan is completely different from the Northwest.
There is very little flat land here, most of it is down the hillside, and the arable land is scattered in all directions.
If the endless hillside is a chessboard, then the large and small cultivated fields are like chess pieces scattered on the board, very scattered.
In this case, it would be a fantasy to think about filling the mountains and cultivating them again.
Even if we can really rely on manpower to make up for the defects of the terrain, the manpower and material resources consumed in the process will be a terrible waste.
Besides, there is time.
Once the storm starts, everything becomes urgent.
Xu Minghui didn't want to wait, and they couldn't afford to wait either.
Jiang Yubai admired Xu Minghui's courage and said with a smile, "If you are sure there is no problem, then the person you want can be in place within three days at the latest."
"I will allocate 10,000 people to you. These people are at your command. You can ask them to do whatever you want."
"but……"
Jiang Yubai crossed his arms and smiled: "When can you let me see the approximate scale?"
Ten thousand people...
Xu Minghui took a deep breath at Jiang Yubai's generosity and said calmly, "One month at most."
It would take a month to dig canals to divert water, reclaim land and loosen the soil, and build pens and houses if there were sufficient manpower and materials.
Jiang Yubai was quite satisfied with the timing. He nodded subtly and said, "By the way, I promised your sister-in-law before that all the farmland I have will be transferred to her name."
"Those things are now your sister-in-law's things, but she hasn't come yet, and she hasn't sent anyone to hand them over to me. I think she has told you before, so should I leave them to you temporarily?"
"The stewards are waiting outside. When do you want to see them?"
Jiang Yubai is a man of his words and will never go back on his word.
And what he gave was no small amount.
If Lingnan has five parts of fertile land in the mountains, forests and insect-infested areas, then Jiang Yubai, as the only son of the King of Lingnan, holds at least two parts of Lingnan in his hands.
Xu Minghui didn't seem very interested in this part. He hummed and said, "Tomorrow."
"I'll take some time tonight to go over the ledgers. I'll see you tomorrow."
Jiang Yubai didn't bother asking about the things he had given him. He followed Xu Minghui a little further in, stepping on the crackling branches under his feet and saying, "I thought you would focus on those manors after you arrived, but I didn't expect you to come looking for a barren mountain."
Instead of seizing the existing bargains, they cling to the useless barren mountains. What is their calculation?
Xu Minghui cut off the vines blocking his way and said lightly, "Because of manpower."
"Young Prince, I've just arrived in Lingnan and I'm really short of people."
"But the young prince has many, many people at his disposal."
The farms that Jiang Yu gave away for free had been cultivated for many years and had stable production.
All Xu Minghui could do after taking over was to check the accounts over the years and make some small changes to the things planted in the farm.
These are not big things.
It doesn't take much effort to cultivate a mature farm, and nothing will go wrong if you ignore it for a while.
So Xu Minghui didn't target those manors at the beginning.
What interested him were the unowned and undeveloped wild mountains and wild lands in Lingnan.
These uncultivated places are the real treasures hidden among the green mountains and clear waters.
To discover such treasures, human resources are indispensable.
Spending a lot of money can indeed recruit strong laborers to do the work. The job can be done without spending any money, so why spend money?
Isn't it better to spend other people's money and do your own business?
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