newbobooks Chapter 903 Mysterious Letter
Chapter 903 Mysterious Letter
Li shook his head.
Zhou Guo calculated for her, "This piece of land is the largest in our family, more than 400 hectares. Even if one household rents 20 mu of land, it is still not enough. The rest of the land is untenanted, so we have to farm all this land ourselves! I'm worried about where to find people to farm the land, but you're worried about not having land to farm. We don't lack land now, but we lack people to farm it."
Li didn't expect this to happen. She opened her mouth for a long time before saying, "You didn't tell me, so I don't know how much land the family has."
Zhou Guo was startled, and touched his nose guiltily, "Didn't I tell you?"
Li looked at her like this and laughed, "Alright, I won't ask anymore. You can tell me if you want to. I just want to know that our family has a lot of land."
He sighed, "Oh, I didn't expect this piece of land to be so large, four hundred hectares! I never dreamed of such a large piece of land. If it were in my hometown, I guess the whole county wouldn't have so much land. There's still more land in the north."
Zhou Guo nodded, "Yes, the land is big, but there are few people. I have almost taken over all the permanent and temporary workers nearby, and there are fewer refugees recently."
Some were also taken away from other prefectures and counties.
Since knowing that the salty and bitter land could be reclaimed, many counties in the north began to follow suit, just like Lord Yao, accepting refugees and reclaiming the land.
Although I can't spend as much money as Zhou Guo, can I still afford to unclog my groins?
It just happens to be a work-for-relief program, killing two birds with one stone.
Therefore, there are even fewer refugees for her to share.
She originally thought that the number of refugees given to her was too many, but now she realized that it was too early to say that. Fortunately, each county was still able to recruit many temporary and long-term workers, otherwise even if she had great abilities, it would be useless if she couldn't find people.
Seeing how worried she was, Li asked, "How about finding some long-term workers from somewhere else?"
Zhou Guo shook his head. "We have a lot of land, not only in Yunzhou, but also in Chengding. We need people for each farm, but fortunately we still have enough land now."
There are also many families in the north who do not have land. They make a living by working as long-term or short-term laborers, with no food to eat. Otherwise, they rent land from other people and farm it. Many of them have come to them over the years.
Chengding's land has not been planted yet, and there are many livestock, so it is barely enough for the time being.
Li stayed in Song County for three days and then went back. There were a bunch of children in the family who went to school, and she couldn't just leave Wu Ya to take care of them all by herself.
The old man came back the next day after she went back.
Zhou Guo laughed and said, "Master, why are you willing to come back?"
The old man was full of energy and his complexion was darker. He said in a clear voice, "I was just worried that you wouldn't be used to being alone here, so I came back to grow vegetables with you. I even asked for more vegetable seeds."
Zhou Guo accompanied him in planting, clearing the land, spreading fertilizer, sowing seeds, covering with soil, and watering.
The old man remembered halfway through watering and said, "Don't you need to breed seeds when you grow wheat or rice? Don't you mix this paste with the vegetable seeds?"
Zhou Guo: "...Master, those pastes are not cheap and take a lot of effort. Don't bother with the vegetable seeds. If they don't grow well, just plant something else. Rice and wheat are grains, and there aren't that many varieties that can be substituted, but there are a lot of vegetables."
The old man said, "I've seen you eat it a lot, and you have to have it at every meal, so why do you look down on food so much?"
“What are you talking about? Are you my master? You haven’t been replaced by someone else, have you? Who are you? Come out of my master’s body!” He put his hands together and chanted to the old man, “Om Mani Padme Hum, demons and ghosts, get out of my master’s body…”
The old man couldn't stand it anymore, so he picked up a clod of dirt from the ground and threw it at her head, "You've gone crazy at such a young age?!"
Zhou Guo laughed and gave way.
The master and his disciple sowed the vegetable seeds, and it was time for dinner.
There was braised duck on the table in the evening, cut into pieces.
The old man tasted a piece of meat and found it a little different from the usual meat. He asked in surprise, "What new dish is this?"
Zhou Guo smiled and said, "This is my new braised duck. It's already on sale in the braised food store. It's selling pretty well. What do you think?"
"Mm, it tastes good." The old man ate a few pieces. "It's hot in summer and it's best to eat this when you don't want to eat hot dishes or hot meals. The taste is not strong and it goes well with rice."
The taste of braised duck is much lighter than that of braised duck heads and duck wings, so you can eat more of it.
It was too lonely for the master and his disciples, so Zhou Guo called Hu Zi and others over. They all sat together to eat, which made it much more lively.
Zhou Guo would go to Chengding once a month. There was a lot of land there, including the land rented to her by Mr. Wu. Although they were all managed by the village head, she also had to go and take a look.
Several pieces of salty and bitter land are now under the management of the deputy village heads, and the alkali wormwood is growing vigorously. The salt layer content is also recorded in real time every once in a while.
The deputy village head handed her the account book and said, "These are recorded according to what the village head taught me."
Zhou Guo took it and opened it. There were several horizontal lines below every few days.
The village head was very shy. "I can't read either. I can only do as he says. Draw lines. Draw more lines where the salt layer is high, and fewer lines where the salt layer is low. Boss, look, this is the land. It is indeed a little less than when I first started..."
Zhou Guo took the account book and asked him to take her to find these plots of land one by one.
Although it is not particularly obvious yet, there has been an effect since the beginning of spring, and the alkali artemisia has not grown up yet, so at least two crops can be planted this year. Maybe next year this piece of land will not be worse than the one in Song County. After all, this piece of land is more than half smaller.
The results on several plots of land are pretty good, and the bad ones aren’t too bad either.
She was running back and forth between Chengding and Yunzhou, and had no time to go home.
Seeing how nervous she was about these lands, the old man didn't quite understand. "The family doesn't lack food, why are you so concerned about whether these lands can be renovated next year? If they can't be renovated next year, then the year after. Wouldn't it be better if you work one more year? Haven't you always opposed taking big steps? You immediately stopped the escort agency when it was a few days ahead of others. Now you're not allowing it to go too slowly?"
Zhou Guo: "...How can they be the same? That's the escort agency, this is the land. If we plant it one year earlier, we can have a harvest one year earlier. I came here as a refugee, I'm afraid of starvation, so I hope to grow food for my family on my own land."
The old man looked at her in a puzzled manner, and after a while he said, "The root of your illness is too deep. The mountains and piles of grain at home can't cure your illness. Do you have to grow food from your own fields to cure it?"
Zhou Guo nodded without changing his expression.
The old man almost choked, "This problem is too strange!"
Time flies and summer is here.
The seedlings in Song County are growing vigorously, the rice fields are green, and cicadas are chirping from somewhere, stopping here and starting over there, endlessly.
It was at this time, on an ordinary night, that Zhou Guo received a letter.
A wax letter.