Chapter 306: Dividing the Land
Editor: Atlas Studios
Magistrate Fang paced around the study excitedly and asked Qi Haoran with bright eyes, “But even if she managed to raise the oxen, no one would have the money to buy it?”
“Ah Ling said that she can rent it to them.”
Magistrate Fang clapped his hands and threw out compliments as if they were free. “Wonderful person! General Qi, You have a wonderful person under you!”
The corners of Qi Xiuyuan’s lips twitched. “Magistrate Fang, Ah Ling only has 300 acres of land. Even if she wants to raise oxen, she can’t raise much…”
“It’s fine. Isn’t it just land? I’ll give it to her.” Magistrate Fang said generously, “But after she succeeded in raising the oxen, she has to rent 100 oxen to our government office first. Don’t worry, I won’t bargain down the rent. I’ll pay as much as the others. Also, commoners have the same rental rights as military households. You can’t be biased towards military households just because she belongs to a military household.”
The corners of Qi Xiuyuan’s mouth twitched. “You’ll have to ask Ah Ling for her opinion on that. However, I can help you agree to the 100 oxen for the government office.”
Seeing that Magistrate Fang was still not satisfied, Qi Xiuyuan said with a smile, “Since Magistrate Fang can find out that Ah Ling is my subordinate, you should know that that child has always been soft-hearted and can’t bear to see others suffer.”
When Magistrate Fang heard this, he immediately felt relieved. When he came to office last autumn, there were many things waiting to be done. Although business in the Hanzhong Prefecture was thriving, the commoners outside the city were living a different life.
Although Magistrate Fang was not an upright and honest official, he still had compassion. However, Qi Xiuyuan had moved away everything in the treasury before he came. Of course, Qi Xiuyuan had said that the Jin soldiers had moved the things away when they retreated, but he didn’t quite buy it. It would be strange if the Jin soldiers had the time to move all the rice in the granary in the midst of escaping.
Of course, he could not find any evidence.
Since he could not find any evidence, he could not ask Qi Xiuyuan for grains. He could only force the merchants to pay more taxes or bribe him. Then, he would use the money to buy grains from the merchants to help the people.
However, there was only so much money. Considering there were 12 counties and 32 towns under Hanzhong Prefecture, how could he save them?
Just as Magistrate Fang was certain he was going to get fired, Mu Yangling came to buy the sheep. Of course, he didn’t realize it at first. By the time he realized it, Mu Yangling’s business had already grown to the scale of 10,000 taels per deal.
The people under Hanzhong Prefecture had safely survived that winter, so Magistrate Fang wanted to establish a long-term cooperation with Mu Yangling. However, when he sent someone to look for her, he realized that she was not a commoner, but belonged to a military household instead. Also, she had a good relationship with Brother Qi Xiuyuan. Therefore, he temporarily suppressed his plans.
At that time, he didn’t know Qi Xiuyuan well. His intuition told him that Mu Yangling was doing this on behalf of the Qi brothers. After all, how could a military household fork out so much money?
Since Qi Xiuyuan planned to do a good deed anonymously, there was no need for him to express his gratitude.
However, after a year, he had more or less figured out that the young lady was conducting the business alone. Therefore, Magistrate Fang planned to continue working with her, hoping that Mu Yangling would continue to buy sheep for another year.
She was a soft-hearted girl. Previously, she had steeled her heart and lowered the price to 1 tael 500 copper coins. However, after seeing the living conditions of those commoners, she actually raised the price.
If it were him, Magistrate Fang felt that he would definitely take the opportunity to lower the price to less than 1 tael 200 copper coins. Therefore, the not-so-noble Magistrate Fang liked the noble Mu Yangling very much.
Hearing Qi Xiuyuan’s answer, Magistrate Fang nodded and thought to himself, ‘If it doesn’t work out, I’ll get those commoners to beg her at the cattle ranch in tattered clothes. I don’t believe she can be so hard-hearted as to not rent the oxen to them.’
On the other hand, Qi Haoran was more concerned about how many acres of land Magistrate Fang planned to give Mu Yangling. The corners of Magistrate Fang’s mouth twitched as he said, “Little General, I didn’t say that I would give it to her. I’m renting out the land to her.”
Qi Haoran was unhappy. “How much will that cost? Ah Ling spent all her money buying the calves. If she has to spend more money to rent land, how many oxen will she have to raise? Magistrate Fang, you just said that you are very supportive of farming. So you were just paying lip service. If you really support it, you should give the land to her directly.”
Magistrate Fang said seriously, “That won’t do. What if Miss Mu sells the land or uses it for other purposes?”
Qi Xiuyuan hurriedly said with a smile, “That’s simple. Raising oxen isn’t something that can be done overnight. Why don’t we do this? Magistrate Fang will let Ah Ling use the land for free for 20 years, but she can only use this land to raise oxen. Once it’s used for another purpose, the government office can take it back. What do you think, Sir?”
Magistrate Fang lowered his head in deep thought.
Smiling, Qi Xiuyuan said, “Sir, how many families in Hanzhong Prefecture have oxen? Once this cattle farm is built, it will benefit the people and become a splendid thing in the future. How many people in this world are willing to spend their energy, money, and time to do this?”
Qi Haoran sighed and said, “Don’t we know how important plowing oxen are to agriculture? However, the situation of the plowing oxen remains the same after ten years have passed.”
Magistrate Fang gritted his teeth and asked someone to bring a map over. He looked at the grassland and drew a circle with his eyes closed. Then, he looked straight at Qi Xiuyuan and said, “General Qi, I’ll give you face. This is a total of 500 acres of land which she can use for 20 years.”
Qi Xiuyuan did not expect Magistrate Fang to be so generous. Hearing this, he laughed and stood up. “I’ll be the guarantor.”
Magistrate Fang heaved a sigh of relief. Then, he saw the roster beside him and was a little vexed. They were here to talk about labor. Why did it end up with him paying out 500 acres of land?
Magistrate Fang immediately shouted, “General Qi, you brothers have tricked me. No, you have to give me 6,000 people. 5,000 people is too few.”
Without thinking, Qi Xiuyuan nodded and said, “Alright, I’ll give you 6,000 people. The roster is here. Those from the same family are all connected with a line. Sir, you just have to mark it with a blue pen.
Magistrate Fang, who was originally worried that Qi Xiuyuan would not agree, immediately regretted it. Geez, he should have suggested 6,500 instead…
After choosing people, they naturally had to split the land. Not only did they have to allocate a portion of the land to Qi Xiuyuan as military fields, but the new citizens of Hanzhong Prefecture would also be given land.
Magistrate Fang was overjoyed to suddenly have an additional 6,002 people under his rule at once. Although he had to give up a large area of land, he didn’t feel heartache for it. Since there was no one to farm those lands anyway, he might as well allocate them. Otherwise, in two years, those lands would completely become wasteland.
As Qi Xiuyuan and Qi Haoran walked out of the Fang residence together, Qi Xiuyuan had a smile on his face and was clearly very happy. “Even though Magistrate Fang looks slick and sly, he can be considered a good official.”
“Big Brother, I’ll go tell Ah Ling this good news. I’ll accompany her to the government office tomorrow to settle the procedures so that the people in the government office won’t bully her for being young.”
Qi Xiuyuan glanced at his brother and saw that his mind was elsewhere. He patted his head and said, “I’m talking to you about serious matters. You can go to Ah Ling’s place in the afternoon.” Qi Xiuyuan asked seriously, “Let me ask you, what’s going on with Tang Jing and Yuan Hui?”