Yang Haiyan said: "Well, I will tell Niu Da, if Niu Yi is in good health, let him report to the military camp tomorrow."
Qin Fang: "Okay. The barracks can be built in half a month. When will the barracks manor start?"
Yang Haiyan: "I don't know about this. You have to ask Niu Da to see what he has arranged. At present, the soldiers eat food from the countryside. Not to mention, the people in Yunxiang County eat a lot of food. Some are swallowed year after year, and if they are not eaten, they are dried in the sun." Sun-drying can save a lot of time, such as dried sweet potatoes and dried potatoes.
Qin Shoucheng listened to them and interjected: "Then the military camp purchases grain this time, can't it buy back all the grain accumulated by the common people?"
Yang Haiyan said: "Yeah. But it's only a year, and in the second half of the year, the crops in the barracks manor have been harvested, and no one will buy the food for the common people."
Qin Shoucheng was curious: "Then we can buy the food of the common people and use the manor for other purposes?"
Yang Haiyan smiled and shook her head: "Your idea is good, but it's cheaper for us to grow our own food than to buy it. And it's not a day or two, or a year or two. In the long run, it's not worthwhile to buy it. Besides, they For the food that they can't sell, they have to figure out their own way. It is in their own interests. They can't wait for others to figure out a way for them. After all, they live their own lives, the food is their own, and the money they receive is also theirs. their own." So, you can't expect others to figure things out for them.
Qin Siya was puzzled: "Brother, why do you think so much? This is not our family's business." Qin Siya doesn't want to think so much. She is a very easy-to-satisfy person, as long as she has food.
Qin Shoucheng didn't speak. He was a man, and of course his thoughts were different from Qin Siya.
Qin Fang glanced at Qin Shoucheng: "If you want to change this situation, it's not impossible."
Qin Shoucheng hurriedly asked, "What can I do?"
Not to mention Qin Shoucheng, even Yang Haiyan looked at Qin Fang curiously. It was a bit rare, and he would think about it too.
Qin Fang said: "when you have the ability, you can change this situation. You don't have the ability now, you can only rely on others to change, but why should others help them change? So you can work hard yourself, when you have the ability Once you have the ability, you don't have to rely on others, you can change yourself. You study hard, take the exams for talents, candidates, and jinshi, and then become a local parental official. When you become a local parental official, you will have the responsibility and ability to change for everyone.."
Yang Haiyan understood that this was Qin Fang's method of education.
Qin Shoucheng nodded heavily: "Well, I will try my best."
After dinner, Qin Fang called Niu Da, and the two discussed the matter of the barracks manor. It was now the end of April, and the barracks manor could not be dragged on, so after discussion, a pair of 800 soldiers from the barracks went to the manor to work.
In a blink of an eye, a month passed, and it was the end of May.
Not only has the military camp in Yunxiang County been built, but the thousand-mu military camp estate has also been planted with crops. Because for the soldiers, food is more important, vegetables and the like appear second, so in this thousand mu of land, in addition to the two hundred mu of high-quality land, the remaining eight hundred mu are planted with sweet potatoes and potatoes. Potatoes in May can be harvested in August. Sweet potatoes in May can be harvested in October. And these two hundred acres of high-quality land, because of the location, have been converted into paddy fields by Niu Da, which is just right for the cultivation of rice in May. Rice in May will have a bumper harvest in October.
Counting one thousand acres of paddy fields, hundreds of soldiers from the military camp were responsible for it. It only took three or four days to complete the work. I have to say that this speed is fast enough.
In addition to Niu Er's family living in the barracks manor, soldiers also took turns to guard the thousands of acres of land. Each large group was guarded for ten days, and a large group consisted of 100 people.
Although no one dared to be presumptuous in the barracks manor, they also needed people who worked, so while the soldiers took turns to guard, they also took turns to work.
Niu Er is in charge of the barracks manor, and Niu Da is in charge of the manor of the General's Mansion. There were more than 160 apple trees and pear trees when they were transported to the General's Mansion, but after a month, only more than 120 trees were planted, and more than 40 trees died. In addition to apple trees and pear trees, watermelons are also planted in the General Mansion Fruit Garden. This time, the watermelon seeds were divided into two batches. One batch was provided by Yang Haiyan, and the remaining ones were planted last year, that is, platform seeds, falsely claiming to be wandering merchant seeds.
There is also a batch collected by Niu Da himself. Whether it is watermelon, cauliflower, broccoli, or tomato, Niu Da has collected seeds. No one knows whether these seeds can be successfully planted, but the seeds do need to be collected and then slowly pondered..
Otherwise, Yang Haiyan can't always use travel business as an excuse. They didn't go to the Yongzhou Market this year, but they couldn't come up with other seeds.
Eastern Suburbs Barracks
"General, 100 people have been arranged, and we can set off immediately." Yang Xiaowei gathered 100 soldiers. Today, Qin Fang is going to go up the mountain to investigate the situation. Every winter, the beasts will come down the mountain. If this situation is not resolved, the city wall of the county will be repaired in vain.
Qin Fang snorted: "Everyone is ready, follow me." After speaking, he got on his horse, "Let's go..."
He has a horse, but a soldier does not have a horse. Qin Fang set off from the Yongzhou Barracks in March, and there were only fifty ordinary horses allocated to him, so it was very important for the horses to be in the barracks.
An ordinary horse costs 60 taels of silver, and if a thousand people are matched, it will cost 6,000 taels of silver.
"Drive..." Tao Shan followed behind Qin Fang.
Yang Xiaowei led someone to run behind him: "Everyone is ready to go."
"Set off."
The remaining 900 people stayed behind in the barracks, watching Qin Fang and others get farther and farther away.
Colonel Lu said: "Everyone stand on guard, even if there are no enemies here, but you can't relax. The general said that if they come back with a big harvest, everyone will drink the broth."
"Drink the broth…..drink the broth..."
The soldiers were excited.
Beast mountain
He don't know why, the closer they got to the beast mountain, Qin Fang felt a flustered feeling. He felt the foot of the beast mountain, as if being watched.
There is actually a large field at the foot of the beast mountain, and these fields were originally owned by their owners. But now it is deserted, because the owner does not have the guts to come here to plant, because he is afraid that wild animals will run down the mountain and eat people.
Just when Qin Fang was about to dismount, Wu Shuai cried out uneasy. Qin Fang patted its head:
"don't worry, I won't go up the mountain, I'll check it out nearby, you'll walk further away later, I'll call you and come back."
Wu Shuai called a few more times before he stopped.
Qin put down his horse: "go, go farther, and come back later."
Wu Shuai called out a few times, rubbed his head against Qin Fang, and refused to walk away.
Tao Shan: "Wu Shuai is really smart."
Qin Fang snorted, grabbed a handful of soybeans from the bag, put it on a plate, and put it on the ground: "Eat it, eat it and stay aside. When there is corn in the second half of the year, I'll give you corn."
Wu Shuai is usually raised very well, because the horse's digestive system is not good, so he is very particular about its food. Not only Wu Shuai, but in fact, in the military camp, all the horses are raised more delicately than people. It is better to be hungry to people than to be hungry to horses.
Wu Shuai sniffed the soybeans, then opened his mouth to eat.
Qin Fang began to investigate nearby. During this investigation, he found some clues. The excrement of some animals can be seen at the foot of this mountain, which shows that these animals often go down the mountain. Then, Qin Fang approached the mountain again. The grass on the mountain was very dense. Such dense grass could easily hide dangerous beasts, so Qin Fang did not rush up. He drew his knife and chopped down the grass in three or two strokes.
Seeing this, Tao Shan also took out his sword and started to cut grass: "General, this grass is so lush, this beast mountain has really been away for a long time."
Qin Fang said: "Yes, if people came here often, the grass and trees at the foot of the mountain would have been picked up by the common people as firewood. It's just that it's not important, the important thing is that since this beast mountain has not been touched for 20 years. Now, there are so many prey here, why would beasts attack the county town in winter instead of eating this weak animal? Isn't that supposed to be the case for these beasts?"
Tao Shan smiled naively: "The generals made sense. Why didn't I think of it at first? The generals, there must be a reason for them to do this."
Qin Fang stopped talking and chopped down all the lush grass in the vicinity.
"General..." Captain Yang arrived with a hundred soldiers.
Oin Fang said: "Take them to check at the foot of the mountain. I found that there are beast excrement around here. Judging from the dry and wet conditions, it should have been left in the past few days.
Therefore, there will be beasts going down the mountain at any time, so be careful about them. will attack you."
Captain Yang: "Yes."
Captain Yang divided the 100 people into 10 teams. Every 10 people was in a team. If something happened, they would send a signal flare. The soldiers were trained separately and went to patrol.
On the first day, everyone didn't find anything special except cutting grass, because the weeds taller than people blocked their sight too much, and they heard a little movement in their ears. When they passed by, they found nothing.
The fast-moving soldiers shot blindly at pheasants and hares, and some even found a lot of wild eggs, but nothing else.
At the end of the day, they chopped down a large area of grass nearby, and the foot of the mountain looked clean.
The fast-moving soldiers shot blindly at pheasants and hares, and some even found a lot of wild eggs, but nothing else.
At the end of the day, they chopped down a large area of grass nearby, and the foot of the mountain looked clean.
Captain Yang: "General, it's getting dark. Shall we spend the night here?"
Qin Fang said, "No, bring some hares here."
Yang Xiaowei was puzzled, but brought a few bleeding hares over.
Qin Fang said again: "Make a few traps nearby and go deeper."
Captain Yang immediately called the soldiers to make a trap nearby. After the trap was done, Qin Fang threw the hare into the trap. He threw several hares in total, and some of them were dusted with powder.
Yang Xiaowei couldn't help but ask: "General, what is this?"