newbobooks Chapter 887: Spring Ploughing Time Again
Chapter 887: Spring Ploughing Time Again
They are just small landlords, and their family property is accumulated over several generations. They don't have much left to begin with, and now half of it is directly confiscated. How can they bear it?
Open your mouth and burst into tears!
The onlookers applauded!
Many of them were cheated by the two landlords. Originally, each household was given one or two acres of land. How could they accept the fact that their grain seeds were gone? Now that the culprit was punished, they knelt down on the spot and called out to the Lord, "Judge."
The county magistrate was also stunned as he did not expect such an unexpected effect.
Zhou Guo smiled and left. The matter was resolved, which also served as a wake-up call to the people who were silently watching this matter.
She didn't know why these people were in such a hurry. In four years at most, or two years at the shortest, the seeds would be available in large quantities, and then they could be bought properly. Why take the risk?
There were no other problems with the grain seeds in various places, so when most of them were sold out, she went to Chengding.
The two thousand acres of land that the Wu family master rented to her have now begun to be cultivated. The farmers on the farm are driving oxen and leaning on plows to work in the fields.
This farm does not sell any fertilizer except for its own use, so it is much quieter than other farms. It does not look so messy and even has a rural peacefulness.
She liked the atmosphere here very much, and the old man thought it was good, "It looks like a village. During the spring plowing season, everyone is busy in the fields. Your village is a real village."
As for other Zhuangzi, he didn't speak.
Zhou Guo said, "What's wrong with other farms? Except for the busy spring farming season, aren't they all pretty good? What's available here is available on those farms, and what's not available here is also available on those farms. There are fruits, crabs, fish, turtles, and lotus ponds. Whatever you want is available. What else does this farm have besides land?"
The old man said with a smile: "It sounds like you don't like this place, so why are you willing to rent it?"
Zhou Guo said: "I didn't say I looked down on this. Although there is nothing else here, there is plenty of land, it is fertile, and the land is flat. It doesn't need hilltops or fish ponds to embellish it. It is a perfect manor in itself."
Looking at this busy man, he suddenly had an idea and said, "Master, do you think I can find a way to buy it from Old Man Wu? They have so much land, they can afford one or two thousand acres."
The old man shook his head. "Didn't you say that Master Wu particularly likes this piece of land? To have lived to such an old age and still have such a large family business, he must be a shrewd person. You are a little fox, and he is an old fox. If you want these lands, who knows what he likes in your hands. It's not worth it."
Zhou Guo thought so too. It was not so easy for Liu Bei to borrow Jingzhou. "Forget it. Anyway, our salty and bitter land that no one wants can be used to grow crops this year. After two years of planting, the land will be much larger than this one. We don't need this land. It's only a few dozen hectares. My smallest piece of land is at least 80 or 90 hectares."
The old man said, "Now that we are done with things here, should we go to Song County?"
Zhou Guo said, "Yes, we will leave in a few days. Erliuzi is good at farming. I also transferred someone from the village. He has been in charge of dozens of acres of wheat fields at home all year round. He has learned how to grow wheat from me in the past few years. In addition, we have enough manpower, so everything is ready. I don't need to keep an eye on this place."
But it was not possible in Song County. Few people in the north grew rice, let alone such large fields of rice. She had to go and look after it.
This is the first year. If the crops are planted well this year, she won't have to worry about taking care of the land later and can harvest a lot of grain every year.
After looking around the farm, she went to the salty and bitter lands that had just been connected to water last year.
Now that Tanghe is gone, there is naturally a village head.
The village head said, "Boss, after the spring thaw, the ditches have been filled with water, and as you instructed last year, all the fields have been sown with alkali wormwood. This stuff can be eaten by humans, cattle and horses, it is a good thing!"
Zhou Guo looked at it in the field and nodded, saying, "This stuff is good. Dig a few places every half a month to see if there are any changes in the soil underneath. Remember to enter it in the account book. I will check it later."
The village head made a bitter face, "Boss, it's okay for me to dig a few places to see, but as for the account keeping... you know, I can only recognize my own name, how can I keep accounts?"
Zhou Guo said, "I'm not asking you to remember it in detail. Don't you know how to count the salt layers? One horizontal line like this means 10% salt content. The more horizontal lines you write, the more salt there is. Don't you know how to do this?"
Zhuangtou suddenly realized, "I know what this meeting is."
Zhou Guo looked at several plots of land. The seeds had already been transported here and now they were starting to level the land. Once the land was leveled, the grass seeds could be sown.
If she plants rice this year, all these places will be planted with rice by next year. By that time, even if she is not the largest grain merchant in the north, she will be able to rank at the top.
After thinking for a while, he instructed several village heads, "When you are done with this, let the deputy village heads take over and find a day to go to Song County Village. They are planting rice this year. You can also go and learn from them, so that you won't be in a rush next year and won't know how to do anything."
Several village heads were delighted and agreed immediately.
……
Song County will be busier than any other year!
In addition to making compost, the land must also be prepared. Such a large piece of land that stretches as far as the eye can see requires more than a hundred cows to work in the fields every day.
This does not include those used to pull out night-blooming scents and dead branches and leaves.
We also have to deliver fertilizer to every household, especially to wealthy families who buy a lot and it is impossible to deliver all of it in one or two trips.
There was no other choice, Zhou Guo could only call these family heads over and have a meal together.
"I'm sure you all know that my Zhou family is small, and now is the spring ploughing season. You are all big customers of my Zhou family. You buy thousands of stones of fertilizer at a time. My Zhou family is very grateful! But my family is small and my ability is limited. My small farm doesn't have that many trucks. Can you go to the farm to pull it yourself? But don't worry, I won't let you suffer a loss. I will convert the freight into fertilizer for you. Do you think it's okay?"
In fact, wealthy families have no shortage of vehicles, and they request a lot each time. Instead of delivering the vehicles to them one by one, it would be better for them to come to their house and tow the vehicles away themselves.
She can use the saved vehicles to deliver goods to the people faster. Spring ploughing season is the critical period for fertilization, and it will be bad if it is too late.
Many families nearby came to buy and the whole family came over to carry the goods on their backs, hoping that the work in the fields of those far away would not be delayed.
Originally it could have been enough, but this year the farm was doing spring plowing and a lot of oxen were used up, so now it is not enough.
It’s impossible to buy so many livestock in a short period of time.
The wealthy families were still very happy. The Zhou family now had a lot of reputation in the North. Although many of them did not know about the lawsuit between the Zhou family and the Wang family last year, they still knew that the Zhou family was being flattered by so many people.
Many people want to send gifts to others but are unable to do so because the other party refuses to accept anything. They want to curry favor with the other party but are not able to do so.
After hearing what Zhou Guo said, everyone was so happy that as soon as she finished speaking, they all said, "What's wrong with this? Master Zhou should have said it earlier. We just happen to have a lot of livestock, so we'll give you a few!"
"Yes, yes, yes. We have plenty at home, too. Just take as much as you want, Mr. Zhou."
Everyone donated generously.