Chapter 140: More Land

Can’t hide anything from the owner! Li Qing and Wu Xiao Mao looked at each other and smiled with embarrassment.

Together, they explained everyone’s thoughts.

After so much time, Lian Fang Zhou had noticed how hardworking and dependable these workers were. She was naturally happy to hear their suggestion. After thinking about it, she nodded and said: “Okay! It’s good to hire people you are familiar with, I also think this is a good plan! Just tell Uncle Zhao Liu about this. You don’t have the mention that you discussed it with me first, just let him arrange everything!”

Although Li Qing and Wu Xiao Mao didn’t understand her thoughts, they quickly agreed. They had been worried that Lian Fang Zhou would reject them and now they were very pleased.

After Ah Jian had finished transporting charcoal twice to the city, he and Lian Fang Zhou delivered the meals to the workers and another three charcoal trips in the afternoon.

Later, Lian Fang Zhou mentioned a few words and followed Ah Jian into the city with Lian Ze to finishing paying for the land.

When they arrived, Ah Jian went on with the charcoal, leaving Lian Fang Zhou and her brother to head towards Liu Jia’s house.

Liu Jia had done their family a great favor, so of course she could not go empty-handed. She would need to do the same when she went to visit Zhao Liu in a few days.

Lian Fang Zhou and Lian Ze bought two boxes of high-quality dim sum for the dim sum shop, ordered two pieces of new silk from the silk and satin shop, and cut a square of about four kilograms of pork belly from the meat stall. She also bought several kilograms of dried persimmons and put in a few silver coins before they reached Liu Jia’s house.

Upon seeing the gifts, Liu Jia bluntly said that they were too expensive! Lian Fang Zhou and Lian Ze smiled and thanked him for his help the day before, saying that he shouldn’t have gone through the trouble to run over before buying the land.

Lian Fang Zhou spoke frankly and sincerely and showed the gratitude in her heart. Liu Jia was also a generous person, so he accepted happily and ordered his wife to put it away.

Liu Jia’s wife had a good impression of Lian Fang Zhou and her brother. She spoke a few polite words with a smile, and then took out the best tea in the house to make tea, and was busy preparing a snack box.

 After sitting down for a while, it was time to start talking about business.

Liu Jia handed Lian Fang Zhou the accounts and explained them one by one. In the end, the sum of the land, including the intermediary fee and the cost of the official least was 3,362 taels. Liu Jia accepted the money she handed him and gave her a receipt, smiling: “The land is now yours. You can start building after two day, when the official lease is completed. I’ll let you know when it’s ready!”

Lian Fang Zhou smiled and thanked him, asking a few small questions, and then left with Lian Ze.

It happened that Ah Jian had finished selling the charcoal so Lian Fang Zhou and Lian Ze went to buy some big bones and meat for the soup before reunited with Ah Jian and going home together.

At the end of the day, Ah Jian had made five trips and Li San He had made three. Tomorrow, one person would make one more trip and all the charcoal accumulated at home would be delivered.

In the future, it would be delivered immediately after each batch exited the kiln.

Lian Fang Zhou and Ah Jian discussed what to do next. After finishing the ground on the Shi Touping side tomorrow, they could go to San Chakou the day after tomorrow. They only needed to burn the wasteland before tidying up.

The wasteland on the San Chakou side was only about 680 acres, and compared with those on Shi Touping, there were basically no small trees or shrubs, just some grass. It was much easier to clean up than Shi Touping! That mountain was a little troublesome.

Lian Fang Zhou planned to burn the mountain again, eradicate the shrubs and miscellaneous trees, dig holes to plant fruit trees, arrange a flat land on the top of the mountain, and build a house.

It wasn’t convenient to transport bricks and stones to the mountains, so they would just build a wooden house, similar to a stilt building, which was more unique.

When spring came next year, they could put a barbed wire fence around the foot of the mountain to raise chickens inside.

 Although the wasteland was easy to clean up, it turned out that the land next to the wasteland had belonged to several different families. Now that she owned them all, they would need to break down the fences and reconnect the plots.

The next morning, Ah Jian and Li San He loaded up the charcoal and delivered it together.

Li San He was so happy that he said ‘it’s easy’*. If it weren’t for Liu Jia’s help, he didn’t know how many days it would have taken them to sell out the charcoal!

“Fang Zhou, my father and my mother said you should come to our house in the evening. Our two families will divide the money for selling charcoal this time, we can do this every time we sell a load!” Li San He smiled.

It was good that he mentioned it early and Lian Fang Zhou didn’t reject him, responding with a smile. After selling the last load, they had made a total of 4623 coins, which was enough to cover all of next year’s expenses. Lian Fang Zhou was very happy!

There wasn’t anything happening today and Lian Fang Zhou had planned to go to San Chakou to take a look. She wanted to make some plans on how to arrange manpower and organize it effectively.

Lian Fang Qing and Lian Che also wanted to see the land that they ‘owned’ and so the siblings went along with her and Ah Jian.

Lian Fang Zhou took a few looks around and after discussing it with Ah Jian, she felt that she had a good idea of what she wanted. The small group climbed up the small hill.

 “Uncle Liu said that this mountain is nearly 70 acres, which could be considered as a gift. When the fruit trees are planted in early spring, we will have an orchard and many fruits to eat!” Lian Fang Zhou said with a smile.

 “That’s great! Sister, will we eat fruit next year!” Lian Fang Qing smiled crookedly, looking forward to it, as if the weeds on this mountain had become fruit trees.

Lian Ze chuckled and said, “How fast do you think trees grow? If you buy a fruit tree seedling next year, it will take three years to eat the fruit at the earliest, right?”

“So long!” Lian Fang Qing was inevitably disappointed.

Even Fang Zhou felt that this was a long time and her heart moved. She smiled: “That’s not necessarily true. Maybe we can still eat better next year!”

“Yes, yes,” Lian Che said with bright eyes, “Let’s plant big fruit trees!”

Lian Fang Zhou smiled and said, “That’s right, we can grow big fruit trees!”

However, what she was thinking about was grafting.

She didn’t know about other places but on Xianteng Mountain and the mountains close to Xianteng Mountain, she had seen a lot of wild fruit trees, such as wild loquats, persimmons, bayberry, dates, orange trees, chestnuts, cherries, and peaches. Trees, pears, plums, etc. were all available. As long as you pick the branches from the ones that had already born fruits and grafted them to the stumps, they could eat fresh fruit next year.

After the land was organized and the new trees planted, it was easy to go to the mountain to look around.

In Yuhe County, it was said that even in the coldest winter, the temperature never went negative. The wild fruit trees could be planted as soon as the soil was turned and covered with straw.

The small group talked and laughed and looked at the area for a while, and then went home.

Lian Fang Zhou also went to Zhang Li Zheng’s house along the way to see how many kilograms of cotton seeds had been received.

Zhang Li Zheng couldn’t help laughing when she saw her coming: “I was about to send someone to find you, but by coincidence you are already here!”