Flowers in full bloom

Chapter 259: At the Bottom

Mrs. Pei had been paying attention to this matter because of Hualei's reminder. On the third day after the official news was released, she saw the opportunity and acted decisively, spending 1,300 taels to buy a 300-acre manor in a swamp, right next to Hualei's Yuanying Manor.

What Hualei didn't expect was that Lord Bai also acted quickly and acquired a 200-acre farm. Although Gui Jijiu also got the news, after careful consideration, he gave up the purchase of the water hole and focused on his paper mill.

The renovation of the puddle area has finally officially begun after a not-so-small turmoil. Whether those who really want to renovate or those who are forced to do so are now on the same line.

The Ministry of Justice released all the prisoners in Shangjing City who were imprisoned but whose crimes did not warrant the death penalty. They all rushed to the puddle and began to weed the puddle, dig canals, and turn the soil. For a while, the puddle was bustling with people.

In fact, Hualei's job was very easy. Before the renovation of the puddle, officials from the Agriculture Bureau took the puddle renovation book written by Hualei to Yuanying Village for an on-site inspection.

They are professionals who know the fields very well. After looking at the layout of Yuanying Village and the plan, and asking Hualei about the original intention and conception before transforming the puddle land, as well as the implementation and results after the transformation, they were already confident.

Therefore, they seldom come to see Hualei on normal days. They only attend the regular meetings to summarize the situation every ten days, and occasionally go to the puddle to check it out and answer some questions they raise.

Moreover, the transformation of the puddles also brought Hualei an unexpected revenue, because many owners of the puddles were not optimistic about vegetable planting and poultry farming, and chose to dig soil and fill the puddles at the foot of Caiyun Mountain in the northern part of the city to transform them into fertile fields.

Because the north and south urban areas are far apart, it is not realistic to use people to carry the soil. One person can carry a full basket of soil twice a day at most, which is not much faster than Yugong moving mountains or Jingwei filling the sea.

It is possible to use mule carts or horse carts to pull the goods, but there are not so many mule carts at the moment. There are horse carts, but they are basically used by family members. Forget about using them to pull dirty mud. So it is best to use boats to transport the goods. After the transportation, just rinse them with water.

Therefore, the boat that Hualei's family had just brought back from transporting books for the imperial examination was requisitioned by the Ministry of Agriculture for a fee and began to transport soil. Every day, they made money by sailing around the moat around Shangjing City. Of course, the owners of the puddles paid for it.

Later, Hua Lei still had too few ships to transport the goods in time, so Hua Lei recommended Liang Xiangyi's fleet. For a while, the moat was full of ships going back and forth, helping Hua Lei and Liang Xiangyi to make money.

However, Liang Xiangyi didn't care much about how much silver she could get. She cared more about the government's requisition. Although it might not take three or four months to complete the transportation task, Liang Xiangyi could brag about it in front of her uncles for three years.

In order to cope with the impact and possible business opportunities that the transformation of the puddle land will bring to his farm, Hualei is slowly adjusting the types of vegetables planted on his farm.

More vegetables that can be pickled and are relatively easy to make are planted, such as beans, cabbage, radish, etc. Winter melon, pumpkin, and sweet potato, which can be stored for a period of time and can be dried if not eaten, are planted in the second largest area. Vegetables that have a short shelf life and are not suitable for pickling are planted in a relatively small area, and only the amount supplied to the Imperial College and restaurants is enough.

Hua Lei estimated that after the puddle next door was renovated, the vegetables most affected would be fresh vegetables with a short shelf life, such as leeks, spinach, and loofah. There were no refrigerators or cold storage here, so these vegetables could not be transported to faraway places and would then be concentratedly supplied to Shangjing City.

As a commoner, I can't compete with those aristocratic families. The Imperial College's right to distribute food may be retained, but the restaurant's right may not be. However, there is no guarantee that others will do the opposite, so Hualei only relies on her own judgment to make some small changes.

After all, pickling sour beans doesn't require any technical skills, just a few attempts, and sun-drying vegetables is even easier, and others will learn it after just one look. There are already many imitations of egg yolk crisps, roast duck, and stewed food in Shangjing, and the taste of some of them is almost the same as that of Hualei Zhuangzi.

Therefore, our roast duck and braised food business has been much worse recently than before. Of course, it may also be because we just celebrated the Chinese New Year and there are fewer banquets.

The breeding of chickens, ducks, geese and pigs on his own farm has been rotated. He doesn't know what other farms raise, and Hualei has not made any major changes for the time being.

However, when it comes to the production of sausages, fermented bean curd and cured meat, Hua Lei is more strict in screening personnel. No one without a contract is allowed to wander around these workshops. Hua Lei thinks that she is not a selfless person. She is not yet able to make her skills public. She is at the bottom of this dynasty and does not have too much ambition to change the world and go down in history. She also does not have too much saintly heart to help others and have the idea of ​​common prosperity.

Tian Xiaocheng, who went to Liaodong City a year ago, returned to Shangjing City in the middle of the first lunar month and brought back several kinds of seeds for Hualei, including cotton and corn seeds. The cotton seeds were brought to Fudong City by merchants from another prefecture. The corn seeds were said to have been brought to Liaodong Prefecture by a foreign cargo ship.

As early as when the fleet first left the capital, Hua Lei asked the crew to bring back any fresh items they saw in the local area. Therefore, Hua Lei's warehouse now has many various items brought back from various places.

There was cotton in the Great Sheng Dynasty, but it was rarely planted in Shangjing City, so Hualei had never planted cotton. If he could grow cotton himself, he could use it to supplement the duck and goose down he produced, and produce more finished products.

Corn seeds were rare, and they had never appeared in the Great Sheng Dynasty. If he could grow them, he would be rich, as corn was very useful. So when Hualei saw the corn seeds, he was overjoyed as if he had found a gold ingot.

The wheat in Baihuazhuang and Huayingzhuang is about to be harvested, and the next round of planting of cotton and corn is about the same.

In order to plant corn earlier, Hualei prepared to concentrate the corn seedlings first. He went to Baihua Village, picked a piece of land for corn seedlings, crushed the soil finely, mixed it with fertilizer, dried it for three days, and then ground it into fine particles.