Chapter 348 (1/2)

Even a wildfire couldn't completely destroy gra.s.s; it grew again when the spring breeze blew. Weeds had the most tenacious grip on life. Even though it was just the start of spring, in the front and back of the village and all over the mountain, there were wild weeds and herbs growing. The village kids were all able to cut a basket of them without much difficulty.

There weren't enough people in the Yu Family but there were plenty of village children that had nothing to do! If they set the price at one copper coin for two baskets of fishwort, there would probably be many children who were willing to do a little bit of work to earn some snack money.

After Yu Xiaocao a.n.a.lyzed the situation, the rest of the Yu Family also thought that it wouldn't be difficult to raise a hundred or so pigs. Her three maternal uncles continued to help with buying and catching piglets in the other villages. Before long, construction on the piggery had finished. It had tall and st.u.r.dy walls and s.p.a.cious pig stalls neatly laid out in a row. They transferred water from a mountain spring using bamboo tubes and filled a pond in the piggery that was constructed out of stone...everything was just about ready.

The little piglets had been moved into their new home. Each pig stall had five fat and noisy little piglets. Out of the twenty pig stalls, there were still half that were empty!

Xiaolian, Eldest Maternal Aunt and her daughter had all come back from the docks. Last year, their business at the docks had been heavily affected by the locust plague. First of all, their braised food business had to stop as none of the butchers in the area had any pigs to slaughter. Thus, they only occasionally encountered pig heads and offal.

Although the Yu Family didn't lack grain, everyone else in the area wished they could break one copper coin into two. How could a worker at the docks buy a bowl of noodles to enjoy if his wife and kids were all starving at home?

Eldest Maternal Aunt and older cousin Liu Feiyan had already returned back to Xishan Village. However, once Eldest Maternal Aunt heard from her husband that the Yu Family was making a piggery and wanted her to help manage it, she was just waiting for their summons. Once the piggery was finished, she quickly packed her things with her youngest daughter and the two of them went to the piggery and set up their living s.p.a.ce.

Currently, the piglets were still small and didn't need a lot of food. Eldest Maternal Aunt and her daughter, Xiaocao and her sister, and Old Yu, who was becoming more energetic with each pa.s.sing day, all went out every day with sickles and baskets on their back to cut fishwort in the area around the piggery. Furthermore, they also had the Liu Family's three cousins coming around to help from time to time, so there were enough people gathering food for the piglets for now.

In order to guarantee the pigs would grow fast, feeding them only fishwort was not enough. The Yu Family had a bunch of coa.r.s.e grain stored from the winter that they pretty much hadn't touched. With white rice and wheat flour around, who would want to eat coa.r.s.e grain? They also had the sweet potatoes they had harvested from last year that had been turned into dried sweet potatoes.

Other than the corn set aside for seed, they also had around a thousand catties of corn which had been ground into cornmeal. The family left a portion to be used to make porridge while the rest was used to feed the pigs. If that old fellow, the Minister of Revenue, found out Yu Xiaocao had used corn to feed pigs, he'd probably be so infuriated that he'd have an aneurysm and then be reborn!

They also had a lot of bean flour, millet and other coa.r.s.e grains stored in the granary. Old Yu fretted over the stored grain as he was afraid that when summer arrived the grain would attract pests. Thus, he sighed and lamented constantly about this.

Yu Xiaolian and Eldest Maternal Aunt and her daughter were in charge of preparing the food for the pigs. In the corner of the piggery was a small building crafted of bamboo that had a stove with five large burners. Five large pots were on those burners and were currently cooking. The three of them were very used to doing work in the kitchen, so preparing enough food for fifty to sixty little piglets wasn't considered a difficult task.

Yu Xiaocao also came over every day to help. The most important task she had on hand was to make sure that the water cistern had mystic-stone water added to it. By using water with a very low concentration of mystic-stone water to cook food for the pigs, it created food that the pigs not only liked to eat but it also kept them healthy and growing quickly!

Zhu Junyang, who was in the capital, somehow found out that she was raising pigs in a piggery. Thus, he sent someone over to bring over a few dozen piglets and a few carts full of rice bran, wheat bran, millet, and other coa.r.s.e grains to feed them. The piggery now had around a hundred and twenty little piglets.

Yu Xiaocao calculated after receiving the pigs. If they sold one pig a day, then by the time the first pig they caught left the gates, then it'd be around the New Years celebrations. Thus, she had her maternal uncles stop buying piglets.

With a hundred and twenty piglets now, they needed a considerable amount of fishwort to feed them every day. Xiaolian and her Eldest Maternal Aunt and cousin had enough work on their hands preparing the food for these piglets, so they definitely didn't have enough time to gather fishwort. They ended up hiring the twelve year old Liu Yaner to help them.

The family also had to move up the plans on buying fishwort from other people. Yu Xiaocao found her good friends Zhou Shanhu, Qian Yafang and Liu Huifang and told them that they were planning on buying fishwort at a price of one copper coin per two baskets. The three girls, who had nothing better to do, all proclaimed that they were willing to do this.

In the past, when circ.u.mstances permitted, all hard working folks would catch a couple of piglets at the start of spring to raise until the New Years. Then, they could either slaughter them for meat or sell them for money. The three girls' families had all done this before, so they were all very used to gathering fishwort. In one day, they could gather at least four baskets of fishwort while working leisurely.

When they found out that the Yu Family was planning on buying at least thirty baskets of fishwort a day and that the number would increase, the three girls negotiated between themselves. They decided that the three of them would work on gathering fishwort first. If they got to the point that they couldn't handle it, didn't they also have brothers and sisters at home? Once the pigs got larger and needed even more fishwort, then they could find other people to also help.

They did as they promised. That same day, Zhou Shanhu and the others all received a bamboo basket from the Yu Family and went out with sickles to gather fishwort at the foot of the West Mountain. Qian Yafang brought along Qian Wu, who wasn't very willing, while Liu Huifang brought along her younger brother and sister too. Only Zhou Shanhu had no one else to bring with her, but there was nothing she could do. Her older brother had gone off with her father to peddle goods on the street and her sister had already gotten married. Her mother needed to take care of a flock of small chicks, so she was the only one with nothing to do at home.