Chapter 115: Keep Making Trouble
For several days, Shen Zhidu led his men to work hard in the sand, trying not to delay the planting season for too long.
In the past few days, the officials of the Ministry of Agriculture have not appeared again. I just heard from Liu Zhuangtou that these officials have been locked in the yard and have been torturing them. Sometimes they ask them to go out to buy silver charcoal, sometimes they ask them to buy Dongji's buns, and when they come back, they ask them to pack a meal at Wangxianlou. They are just making trouble all the time.
Shen Zhi rolled his eyes in silence. These five masters brought five servants with them. They didn't use their own servants, but instead took advantage of the people in the farm. It was not enough to take advantage of two people, so there were four or five people waiting to listen to their orders. Now was a busy time, and Shen Zhi wanted to split one person into two people. But they were hiding in the house and torturing people.
Shen Zhi suppressed his anger and said, "Leave five people to serve them. Let them do whatever they want. The rest of you go to the fields and plant potatoes. All the potatoes must be planted within two days."
Fortunately, Liu Zhuangtou and his men actively cooperated with their servants and finally completed the planting of all the 100 acres of sand within the remaining two days. Shen Zhi also formed three patrol teams to take turns on duty every day. One was to prevent sabotage and the other was to keep a close eye on the detailed growth of the potatoes and keep good records.
Shen Zhi is not a farmer in modern times and does not understand the key points of potato cultivation. Fortunately, she has a space cheat and can check relevant videos and documents on the space computer at any time. In addition, she and her third uncle planted a batch of autumn potatoes last fall. The two of them planted a season with both theoretical and practical experience, and the results were good. At least the yield was extremely high, far exceeding the yield of other crops in the Great Xiao Dynasty.
Shen Zhi took out time to train everyone many times. Everyone knew that this was an experiment ordered by the emperor. All the civil and military officials in the court were paying attention to it. It was related to whether the people could have enough food to eat in the future, so everyone was fully alert and invested in it with great enthusiasm.
At this moment, almost every household in Shitou Village has planted potatoes. Shen Zhi had trained the villagers on planting methods before going to Baiyun Villa, and potato seeds had been distributed. Those who have spare money at home can just pay for them, and those who don't can just wait for the potatoes to mature and return the corresponding number of potatoes. Fortunately, the price offered by Shen Zhi was very low, almost half selling and half giving away, so most people paid. A few people owed money, so they wrote IOUs and pressed their fingerprints on them.
This time, Shen Zhi specially sent the potato seeds to Erdan's family, and Shen Zhi planted them personally. Erdan's grandmother was extremely grateful.
Similarly, Old Man Qin also planted two mu of land. After all, the villager was also named Qin, so he advised him to plant more. However, when Qin Lian was pulled out by Old Man Qin to help, she cursed Shen Zhi in her heart. If Shen Zhi hadn't suggested planting potatoes, why would she need to go to the fields now?
After Third Uncle finished planting Shen Zhi’s family’s land, he hurriedly transported the potato seeds to Shenjia Village with Shen Changlin, who was driving the ox cart.
The head of Shenjia Village also heard that the emperor was very interested in potatoes, and asked Shen Changlin in advance to help the village get some more potato seeds.
There were plenty of potato seeds in Shen Zhi's space. She took them out in advance and placed them in the cellar, waiting for people from Shenjia Village to come and pick them up. The price was the same as that of Shitou Village, both at a preferential price.
So when we arrived at Shenjia Village, the villagers were waiting at the entrance of the village. Everyone helped unload and weigh the goods and sell them to the villagers. Uncle San also gave them planting training and told them not to eat the sprouted ones. Everyone was a farmer, and they understood immediately and thanked the Shen family sincerely.
After Shen Zhi and others had some free time at Baiyun Villa, they led people into the mountains of Baiyun Villa again. This time they were lucky and not only caught wild boars, but also a lot of rabbits and pheasants, and also shot a deer.
After returning home in the evening, everyone helped to kill chickens and rabbits. In order to give those who had worked hard for the past few days a good meal, Shen Zhi personally cooked and set up several large pots in the yard. He boiled chicken soup, stewed rabbit meat, and started two braising pots to stew pig heads and offal. He also stewed a lot of pork and stewed a large pot of braised pork. The venison was cut into small pieces and marinated, and someone cut bamboo sticks to string them together, and then put them on the charcoal stove to roast, and finally sprinkled with Shen Zhi's own soul barbecue seasoning, and the whole yard was immediately filled with fragrance.
The courtyard where Lord Sun lived was not far from here, and they were disturbed by this fragrant smell all night. After sending a servant to ask, they found out that Yixiang Jun personally led people to the mountains to hunt game and cooked delicious food in order to reward the people who had worked hard to grow potatoes these days. At this time, I'm afraid everyone has already started eating.
Lord Sun was so angry that he threw the teacup in his hand. "This damn girl is so arrogant. She doesn't respect the elders. She didn't even think of honoring us when she had food and drink."
Mr. Sun has loved food since he was young, and his obsession with food is like a cat's obsession with a mouse. When he was young, he missed several important events because of his greed. When he was taking the imperial examination in the autumn, he heard that a new roast duck restaurant had opened on the way, so he had to queue up to eat roast duck before going to the examination hall. As a result, he missed the exam by a narrow margin, and waited for three years before he could go to Beijing again to take the exam.
Now the fragrance filling the yard made him feel restless and anxious, but he was too embarrassed to go over and get a bite to eat.
At this moment, on Shen Zhi's side, the dishes have been taken out of the pot and served on the table, the braised dishes have been cut and served on plates, and more than a dozen tables are filled with wine and food.
Shen Zhi went to the sand to change back the patrol team, and asked them to go back quickly to eat and have a good rest. She would be on guard today.
The patrol members had seen Shen Zhi's skills when they followed her up the mountain to hunt, so they were not worried about her safety here alone.
Shen Zhi leaned against a tree alone, enjoying the quietness of being alone.
There were already two tents next to the sand, with two folding beds inside. They were secretly taken out by Shen Zhi from the space and provided a place for the patrol team to rest in turns.
Shen Zhi bought a set of single-person outdoor tent from the space, which was fully equipped with a folding bed, a folding reclining chair, and a table. Shen Zhi had strong hands-on skills. In his previous life, he had built tents a lot during combat training, so he quickly set it up.
Shen Zhi had brought a marinated pheasant with her before she left, and she had just ordered a fresh lotus leaf when she placed an order on her space. She wrapped the pheasant in the lotus leaf, found some new mud by the Dacao River, covered the lotus leaf with a layer of mud, and buried it in the soil, and placed burning firewood on top.
While the beggar's chicken was being roasted, Shen Zhi was making tea on the folding table. He made a pot of fruit tea, roasted two handfuls of peanuts and longans, and then lay in the rocking chair and swung a few circles, looking at the starry sky. This kind of life was really comfortable.
As for the crops in the sand, she was not worried at all. She had released two snow wolves from the space a long time ago and let them lie dormant in the grass beside the sand.
"Humph."