novelden Chapter 101 Do They All Belong to the Government?
Chapter 101 Do They All Belong to the Government?
The restaurant will have its trial opening the day after tomorrow, and there are only two days to prepare the dishes. Time is pressing, so Yang Biao has temporarily put aside the issue of who will come during this period and appointed Liu Yue, who is in his thirties, as the head chef, who will be in charge of managing the restaurant's kitchen in the future.
These chefs raced against time to enrich the restaurant's menu. They came up with new ideas and tried to make them. They also studied which dishes and flavors were most popular in the city, hoping to make the restaurant famous during the free tasting period and gain a place in the city.
The first floor of the restaurant has not been renovated yet. Taking advantage of this period of time, Yang Biao decided to settle more than a dozen young couples who moved from the farm south of Wenchang County in several newly purchased farms.
"Fugui, you will be responsible for brewing wine and farming with the people you brought with you. Let them all move to the farm." Qin Xiaoran will be specifically responsible for dyeing cloth and engraving patterns, while her personal safety will be protected by Ding Yan and Gu Yuan. The house on Xingning Street will still be used as a dyeing workshop.
"Master, what should we do with these wine-making tools and the sorghum that has not been fully fermented?" Those semi-finished products were all placed in more than 20 large vats waiting to be fermented. It was not easy to move heavy objects. Fugui thought that after the sorghum was fermented, he would steam it and make wine to sell. In the future, he would only need to move the wine-making tools to the farm, so he could do less work.
"Let's move all these to the farm!" In addition to four carriages, he also had six horses. Not brewing wine at home would free up space so that he could expand the dyeing workshop.
Two large vats can be put into a horse-drawn carriage to transport these semi-finished products to the farm. Although it is a bit troublesome, it is just a matter of making a few more trips. It is also possible to move them to the farm for fermentation and then steam them.
"Yes, sir!" Fugui replied. He had other ideas about this, but he still had to obey his master's orders.
"Yang Biao, the land you bought still has rice that has not been harvested. Do those belong to the government?" The Gu family was caught off guard by the confiscation of their property and extermination of their clan. There were still unharvested crops in the land, but Yang Biao bought them. Qin Xiaoran didn't know to whom the crops on the land belonged.
"We are responsible for finding people to harvest the rice, but we have to hand over half of the grain to the government." That is to say, according to the laws of the Shang Dynasty, he can get half of the rice in the field, and the government will take the other half.
"Oh, but there is so much land, and we only have 28 people, scattered across five farms. It will take a while to harvest so much rice." The largest farm Yang Biao bought had 2,300 acres, so how to harvest it was a problem.
"Master, why don't you go to other counties and buy some people to harvest the crops while the restaurant is not open yet?" Seeing their sad faces, Jiang Sheng suggested.
"Yes, I am obsessed. Jiang Sheng, are you familiar with other counties?" There is a shortage of manpower to harvest rice at the moment. Yang Biao thinks that Jiang Sheng's suggestion to hire people is a good way to solve the problem.
"I handled a case in Lishui County a few years ago. Most of the people living there are descendants of those who fled famine from the north. They are tall and good at tending crops." Jiang Sheng thought it was more cost-effective to go to Shuili County to hire people to farm the land.
"Well, then you and Guandong go to Shuili County and buy people who are around 20 to 30 years old." No one too old, the restaurant is still in trial operation and the dishes have not been decided yet, he really can't leave, so he decided to let Jiang Sheng go to Shuili County to buy people. He took out two silver notes with a face value of 100 taels from his purse and handed them to Jiang Sheng, letting him take full responsibility for this matter. "The number of people will be around 50."
"Yes, thank you for your trust, I will definitely do it!" Jiang Sheng was a little surprised that Yang Biao didn't go to Shuili County in person, but he didn't ask why. He took the banknote and bowed with Guan Dong. "But how can I buy so many people?"
"You and Guandong select four more people to set off immediately. Go quickly and come back quickly," Yang Biao waved his hand and asked the six of them to ride to Shuili County on horseback. Then they would buy six carts, harness their respective horses, and bring the people they bought to the provincial capital.
As my business grows, I never have too many cars. I can use these cars to deliver goods in the future.
Yang Biao was not afraid that these six people would run away secretly. In ancient times, escaped slaves were severely punished. Besides, Jiang Sheng was very skilled in martial arts. If he really wanted to escape, he would not be able to stop him.
"Xue San," Why didn't Jiang Sheng choose Xue San to go with him? Seeing that the three people who stayed behind were all tall and strong, Yang Biao couldn't figure it out, so he asked him, "Why are you still leading the horse?"
"I'm going to feed the horse." Xue San held his own horse tightly, and he didn't want to let anyone else ride it.
"Oh, then don't feed the horses yet. Feed them when we get to the farm." He now understood why Jiang Sheng and the others didn't bring Xue San with them. "Fugui, go take a look at our largest farm."
"Master, this farm is so big!" Seeing such a large area of land planted with rice, Fugui, who was driving a horse-drawn carriage, was a little dazed.
"Are you the owner of this farm?" A man in his twenties dressed in brocade clothes pointed at Yang Biao who had just got off the car and asked.
"That's right! I was the one who bought this farm." Yang Biao felt a little unhappy as he looked at the person who was pointing his index finger at him.
"That's good. Master, I've taken a fancy to your piece of land." The man saw that the buyer was a teenager, and thought that he would definitely get the farm today, so he arrogantly made a request to Yang Biao. "I won't let you suffer a loss, I'll give you five hundred taels of silver."
"What if I don't sell it?" Yang Biao laughed angrily. Wanting to buy this farm for 500 taels of silver was really a foolish dream. Including the purchase tax, it cost me a full 200,700 taels of silver.
"You don't want to sell it? Then young master, I will let you know what the sky is high and the earth is vast." This man is the nephew of Ji Chengwei, named Ji Runze. He has long had his eyes on this farm of more than 2,000 acres, but the government's offer was too high and he did not have enough money to purchase it. He heard from Judge Cao that the farm had been bought by someone, so he has been waiting here for the past few days to see who the buyer is.
"Go up and teach this brat a lesson." Ji Runze waved to his men and found a cool place to rest.
"Fugui, come and play with them." Yang Biao saw more than a dozen thugs rushing towards him. He was not worried at all about the other side's large numbers. In the face of absolute strength, all conspiracies and tricks are in vain.
The man who was fighting against Fugui was obviously quite skilled. After a brief exchange of moves, each of them was hit by a punch from the other.
Seeing that Fugui was not easy to deal with, the other party somersaulted onto the roof. Seeing this, Fugui also jumped into the air, and the two started fighting again.
Fugui had practiced martial arts for many years and soon found the opponent's weakness. He took the opportunity to grab his shoulder and then grabbed his wrist. However, the opponent was no pushover either. He kicked Fugui aside with a sweeping kick and then another flying kick came at him, but Fugui avoided it in time.
Just when the two men were fighting fiercely, Xue San and his men had already knocked the dozen or so people to the ground.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Ji Runze quickly ran away.
"Hey, don't run!" Yang Biao shouted at him, "Xue San, stop him, don't let him run away!" This farm was sold by the government. He wanted to see which rich young master would be as blatant as Sun Xuanli and rob in broad daylight.
"My Lord, he's dead!" Ji Runze suddenly fell to the ground while running and lost consciousness. Xue San hurriedly stepped forward and touched the artery on his neck, and found that he was dead.