Chapter 230 Why didn’t you tell us!
Compared to medicinal herbs, Shen Qing is more concerned about building houses, mainly workshops.
This was their first year here, and most of the herbs they found were in large patches. It was naturally great that they could be harvested directly without any effort. However, after a few years, the herbs in large patches would basically be gone. If they were not planted manually, they would end up with just a few plants here and there. There was also a high possibility that the herbs would not be of good quality due to insufficient age, so it all depended on luck.
The harvest period for plants as short as Astragalus membranaceus takes two years, while for plants as long as Coptis chinensis, it takes six or seven years. The harvest period is concentrated in just two months in autumn, and the other months are mostly free.
Including the Lei family, the entire village has a population of about 200 people. It would be a waste if so many people were idle for at least eight or nine months a year. We need to use them and work together to earn money.
Things are also going more smoothly than expected for Mr. Jiang.
The main reason for the smooth progress is that the family is the unit. There are strong and weak people in the family. The strong ones do the work with high scores, and the weak ones do the work with low scores. Overall, it is the same and they do not suffer any loss.
If that’s the case, what’s there to argue about?
Besides, they only need to do some physical work, such as record keeping, selling goods, hiring people... The village chief, Shen Qing and several elders have arranged everything, so they don't have to worry about it. If they were to do those jobs, even scratching their bald heads might not be able to complete them, which is really terrible!
So after each household returned home with the silver and grain they had received, they began to discuss the division of labor among their family members.
Seeing that his part of the mission was almost complete, Mr. Jiang found Shen Qing and asked, "I plan to let Qingshan take Datao, Xiangxi, Zhou Dashan, and Zhao Bao, and ask Dafu to accompany them. What do you think of this arrangement?"
Of course Shen Qing had no objection to the selection!
Especially since Xie Qingshan is knowledgeable and experienced, the people he chooses are all calm and steady. Coupled with the local Lei Dafu, what else can be wrong with this combination?
However, "Second Uncle, how many bricklayers are you going to invite?"
Except for her and the Guan family, everyone else in the village built their houses with adobe bricks. A large adobe brick could hold the weight of several bricks, so it was much faster to build. The Guan family only had three houses in total, so even if only Guan the carpenter and Xiangxi were left, they had already completed half of the work.
On the other hand, at home, Xiangdong, Xiangnan, Xiangbei, Xiangzhong, Ah Bing, Xiaoyu and Xiaoshui helped from time to time, but because the house was so big and had so many rooms, they were only able to lay the foundation and build the house less than half a meter high.
There is also a brush workshop... Originally, she planned to invite whoever had built a brush workshop in the village to come over, so that the later it was, the faster it would be.
But there is an additional task of collecting medicinal herbs, and it is impossible not to hire people, but hiring too few people is not enough either.
After thinking for a moment, Mr. Jiang said, "I'll try to get at least thirty. I'll give you twenty when the time comes. First, finish building the house and workshop. Then you can look for additional tools. While there's no rain or snow and you can go out, quickly buy everything.
The village leader will draw lots for the remaining ten people, and they will come in order."
The adobe bricks were all ready-made and could be stacked quickly. The foundations were also laid early on. Today, each family's house is almost as tall as a person. The preparatory work and the most difficult part have been completed.
The remaining companies will definitely leave people behind to help when it is their turn. With more than ten to twenty people working, it will probably take two or three days to complete the task of one company.
Hearing that twenty people could be allocated to his family, Shen Qing, who had been worried for several days, finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Once the workshop is built and tidied up, you can add things to it.
Cuihua and the others have already tanned a lot of leather, and Carpenter Guan has selected several suitable types of wood. Once the medicinal material harvesting period is over, they can start making brushes.
If the bricklayers were quick, once all the houses in the village were built, maybe they could build three more houses. She would have other uses for them...
Mr. Jiang looked towards the other side of the river, thinking about the brushes he had been making all winter long, which he would be able to ship out and sell after the thaw in the spring.
Others earn nothing in winter and have only expenses but no income, but they, who stay in their mountain dens, can turn their time into money.
The family fortune was accumulated bit by bit, and wealth was earned day by day through hard work. It is really not easy to have a business that can lead the whole village to make money.
Nothing else matters, he must ensure that the brush workshop is built first.
*
On the hillside, Mrs. Cao led her two grandsons and the servant Cao Da to look at the former wasteland. At this moment, there was a lot of noise coming and going with donkey carts.
"Grandma, they are much richer than we originally thought! Not only do they have houses with adobe tiles, but I heard from Xiaoman that there are two families who have built houses with bricks and tiles!" Cao Qingzhu said sourly.
The Cao family's house was covered with mud tiles, which was much better than the thatched roof of the Lei family, and Lei Xiaoman was extremely envious.
But the victims who arrived now, the worst off ones were just like them, and even had two brick houses, which made them look much worse than them.
He added with a hint of blame, "Grandma, you originally said they bought bricks and tiles to save face, and that they'd have to live a tight life when their money ran out. But Xiaoman also said they hired craftsmen to build stoves and kangs, and yesterday they hired craftsmen to dig wells. It's said they're digging one for every household!"
There was still money to hire craftsmen, so it didn't seem like the money had run out. Besides, if there really was no money, why would every family dig a well? I'm afraid they would just want the whole village to share a well.
Mrs. Cao's face was gloomy. After a long pause, she turned to her second grandson and asked, "Second brother, did you find out anything useful?"
The little grandson only knows how to envy others and compare with others, and never thinks about where those people's money comes from.
How much wealth could a group of refugees who had fled to the mountains have? Especially during this period of time, they had been digging and picking, washing and drying all kinds of things in the mountains. They must have found some valuable herbs!
Her Cao family came here first, and it would have been fine if these disaster victims had discovered the treasures in the mountains first, but they actually didn't tell the Cao family and secretly made money on their own. How dishonest.
If it were the original Cao family, she would not look down on the hard-earned money from climbing up and down, but the current Cao family has to spend money every day as soon as they open their eyes, but they have no source of income, so she has to find another way to make money.
If the price of the herbs is reasonable, it can barely be an income for the Cao family...
Cao Wenzhu shook his head and said dejectedly: "Those guys from the Lei family used to tell me everything, but they kept silent about things like medicinal herbs;
Every time I go up there to look for them, the Lei family avoids me. They've mostly been staying in the village down there lately, and when they come back they never say a word about what they've been doing."
In the past, even when hunting, the Lei family never hid anything from the Cao family!
I never thought that they would be guarded against just a few medicinal herbs like thieves.
The more he thought about it, the more aggrieved he felt. He complained indignantly, "They discovered this herb, but we who live in the mountains also have a share. Why didn't they tell us?"
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