Linjiang, Xishan Villa.
Dong Shulan has been here for exactly fifteen days.
She went to the fields, met almost all the tenant families, and also had a meal at Wang Er's home.
She went to see the thing called sweet potato. It grew very well, with long vines. Wang Er had always been curious about what this thing would grow into, how much it could produce, and whether it was as magical as the young master said in the letter.
Chunxiu used the sack of sweet potatoes that he brought back to grow seedlings according to the method written by Fu Xiaoguan, and then he found that the seedlings had covered more than ten acres of land!
Although the young master asked Chunxiu to bring a message that he would be given additional subsidies for the land occupied by this thing, but if the yield of this thing is not high, or the fruit grown is of no use, wouldn't the young master be at a loss?
So he took good care of the more than ten acres of sweet potatoes, hoping that the young master would be satisfied when he came back.
The young mistress came this time and said that the young master was very busy and couldn't get away. This sounded normal to everyone in Xishan. Only Chunxiu felt very uneasy.
She wanted to ask the young mistress, but she knew the rules. Young Mistress Dong was a very serious person. Since she said that the young master was very busy, she had no right to question him.
Chunxiu's uneasiness comes from the young lady's window every night.
The young mistress lived in the young master's room, and the light in front of the window was turned off very late at night.
If it was the young lady who was checking the accounts, when Chunxiu went to clean the young lady's room the next day, she saw that the paper of the account books was clearly wet with tears.
The head of the family hasn't returned yet, the young master hasn't come back yet, and the young mistress has been crying again... Chunxiu has a worse premonition - I hope nothing happens to the master and the young master!
The young lady would get up very early the next day and walk in and out of the yard, seemingly aimlessly, but Chunxiu discovered something strange - the route the young lady was taking seemed to be exactly the same route the young master had taken during his morning exercises.
Could it be that something really happened to the young master?
It was late at night. Chunxiu looked up at the light still on in the window on the second floor opposite. After thinking for a while, she walked towards the kitchen.
The young mistress has only been here for half a month, but she has already lost a lot of weight. I have to make some midnight snacks for her. I seem to have become a little lazy, but I can't do this, Chunxiu reminded herself. I have to serve the young mistress as well as I used to serve the young master.
Dong Shulan sat at the desk under the window.
She was indeed looking at Xishan's account books.
This year's wheat has been stored in the warehouse, and apart from taxes, the harvest is not much different from last year.
She had no intention of selling the wheat again. Although the three major grain merchants from Linjiang came to her twice, she still refused because this wheat could be used to make wine!
The value of wine is far greater than the profit from selling wheat.
She had been to the Xishan Winery, the perfume workshop, the soap workshop, and the papermaking workshop. She did one thing - she turned all the workers in the workshops into slaves of the Fu Mansion!
Of course, the price paid was giving these workers higher wages and allowing their children to study at Xishan Academy.
Xishan Academy opened at the beginning of the year, but the teachers there were rather casual, as they only invited old men from Xishan who could read and write.
In Dong Shulan's opinion, this was just the ability to teach these children to read and write. It was too far from being a real academy, and it was far from meeting the requirements that Fu Xiaoguan had mentioned.
So she decided to write a letter to Mr. Qin, not to ask him to come here to teach these children, but to ask him to help her find some better teachers, and the salary would of course be much higher than Jinling.
The Fu family is not short of money!
After returning to Jinling from the Wu Dynasty, Empress Shang summoned her and Wen Yun to the Dieyi Palace and personally handed over all the original assets of the Shi family to them. It was an extremely huge fortune, enough to offset the grain sent to the east by the Fu Mansion and the dozens of red cannons.
She hasn't had time to go to Yao County yet, but judging from the account books, Yao County's expenditure has reached its peak, which means that the preparations for the construction of the workshops set up in Yao County have been basically completed.
I guess the construction will start soon, so I have to take some time to go and have a look.
Although the magistrate of Yao County is Yan Xiwen, Dong Shulan still feels that she needs to take a look in person to feel at ease.
I haven’t been to Fenglin Mountain yet.
She still knows Fenglin Mountain through accounts.
That place swallowed up a huge amount of silver, and now its only output is the red cannon.
Fu Xiaoguan once told her that Fenglin Mountain should not care about the output, it has more important significance. Dong Shulan didn't know what the significance was until she met Qin Chengye in Xishan Research Institute. She realized that the iron of Fenglin Mountain is unparalleled in the world!
The iron smelting industry of the Wu Dynasty was considered top-notch, and the iron from Fenglin Mountain, Qin Chengye assured her with confidence, was 20% better than that of the Wu Dynasty!
Therefore, the red cannon will not explode, but the Ministry of Works cannot solve the problem no matter what.
Qin Chengye said that there is not only a cannon manufacturing bureau in Fenglin Mountain, but also a weapons and armor manufacturing bureau.
It was only then that Dong Shulan realized that Fu Xiaoguan had a militia team of 4,000 people. According to Qin Chengye, this team was simply invincible!
They have strong armor and sharp swords, but now they lack flintlock rifles.
This thing has gone through hundreds of experiments and is now very close to being finalized and put into mass production.
The flintlock rifle production bureau has been built in Fenglin Mountain, and mass production is just waiting for the research institute to complete the drawings.
So...what does Fu Xiaoguan want to do by tinkering with these things?
Dong Shulan raised his head and looked at the bright moonlight outside the window, thinking that if he were here, if he knew the current news about Xishan, he would definitely be very happy.
He once said that he wanted to go to Pingling to suppress bandits.
I didn't understand what he said to Yu Chunqiu about mountain warfare in the southern border army before, but now it seems that he had planned all of this in advance.
Last May, it was in this Xishan Villa that I first saw Fu Xiaoguan seriously.
Now, one year and three months have passed, and my understanding of him still seems to be just the tip of the iceberg.
Qin Chengye's admiration for him was simply overwhelming. All the tenants in the Fu Mansion respected him more than anyone else, not to mention the poems and essays he wrote in Hanling Temple, which had already spread throughout the world. In the vast Yu Dynasty, everyone admired him.
But...where are his people?
Where are you?
How great would it be if I didn’t go to Wu Dynasty?
We should have been married, maybe even pregnant.
You go to court every day, and I prepare your clothes and meals for you when you come home. How nice!
Her tears couldn't stop falling again, and Chunxiu walked in with a bowl of fried eggs.
“…Young Madam!”
"Oh, nothing, just remembered something."
"Young Madam, please have some midnight snack."
"Chunxiu,"
"Um."
"Will you miss the young master?"
“…I dare not!”
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