Chapter 349 - An Old Topic Comes Up Again (1/2)
The Zhou Family’s factory continued to buy chicken eggs from the nearby villages to create preserved eggs, so they didn’t have to worry about not being able to sell their eggs. There was also a good market for the chickens too. Didn’t the Zhou Family, who lived next to Brother Dahai, become rich from raising chickens? Fortune favored the bold, leaving only scraps for the timid. Liu Shuanzhu thought that raising chickens was a very good idea.
Shuanzhu’s wife still wasn’t completely convinced and had her oldest daughter, Huifang, go ask Yu Xiaocao. In her heart, Yu Xiaocao was a golden grass [1] that knew how to make money. If she agreed, then raising chickens was truly a risk-free method to earn money.
When Liu Huifang got to the Yu Family’s residence, Yu Xiaocao was currently pondering on what to do next. If they opened a braised food shop, only selling braised pork was not enough. They also needed to prepare some other dishes, like chicken, duck, and vegetables to sell. Vegetarian dishes were easy enough. Her family grew vegetables and then, in a while, the markets would also have plenty of vegetables for sale. Ducks were also easy to get. Their neighbor, Madame Mao, had bought and bred over a few hundred ducklings to raise this year. Every day they herded the ducks into the pond behind the house to free feed and at night they were fed some wild grasses, so they didn’t have to use much grain to keep them.
However, the Zhou Family’s chickens were not as easy to keep. Luckily, Zhou Shanhu’s father and older brother peddled goods, so they traveled quite a bit. They were able to bring back some cheaply priced rice husks and wheat stalks back. Even with this, the Zhou Family still couldn’t raise too many chickens. They only had a hundred or so chickens. Let alone Zhenxiu Restaurant, even Yu Xiaocao’s braised food shop needed a larger supply of chickens than this!
When Older Sister Huifang came over to tell her that they wanted to raise chickens, Yu Xiaocao naturally applauded their plans wholeheartedly. Furthermore, she promised Huifang that they would buy her family’s chickens at two copper coins above the market price, so they had to only sell chickens to them.
Liu Huifang was finally able to relax. She smiled and then leveled a look at Yu Xiaocao, “Our two families have a good relationship, so there’s no need to be so polite. When the time comes, just buy our chickens at the market price. We can’t always take advantage of your family, right? I can’t chat anymore, I need to go back and tell my parents to start getting chicks.”
The days passed and the Yu Family’s vegetables had been pretty much sold out. In a blink of an eye, their dozen or so mu of watermelon fields had reopened. Although they planted a lot more watermelons this year, a lot of people came by from the nearby towns and the prefectural city to discuss doing business with the Yu Family. They didn’t need the Yu Family to ship the watermelons as they were willing to come get them themselves. The watermelons would be sold to these people at a wholesale price.
Liu Hu’s whole family continued to sell watermelons in town. Those who could afford watermelons definitely didn’t lack money. Although last year was a disaster year, it didn’t affect the blazing popularity of watermelons one bit. In about a month’s time, Liu Hu’s whole family had earned several fold more than they did the previous year; they received two hundred taels in profit!
Last year, the royal prince had transported a few carts of watermelons and caused a sensation in the capital. Fang Zizhen was inspired by this. He privately negotiated with Xiaocao’s three maternal uncles. They were in charge of transporting the melons while he would be in charge of finding a market in the capital. The profits would be split fifty-fifty.
The watermelons sold in the prefectural city were priced higher than the ones sold in Tanggu Town. Thus, if they went to the capital, the price would go up even more. With such profits in front of them, they’d be lying if they said they weren’t tempted. The Liu Family’s three brothers calculated it out and decided it was worth it! The Fang Estate provided the horse cart, while the three brothers hired a few guards from a business that provided escorting services for merchants. They transported the melons to one of the dowry shops of Xiaocao’s godmother. From spring to the start of summer, the Liu Family’s brothers had gone back and forth to the capital five to six times and earned almost a thousand taels for their efforts.
In the blink of an eye, it was now midsummer. The spring crop of corn was now ripe. Although there wasn’t a lot of rainfall until now, the corn was not affected one bit as it was a drought-hardy crop. In addition, Yu Xiaocao had emphasized that the crops only be watered with the best water from the wells. Thus, the corn on the Yu Family’s farmstead grew very well.
Now that it was ready to harvest, Yu Xiaocao accompanied her father to keep an eye on the town’s farms. For the past two months, Royal Prince Yang had been busy with something, so she hadn’t even seen him once. Right before they were going to harvest, he finally came over in a hurry.
“Oh ho! Looks like you’ve enjoyed the easy life so much in the capital that you were reluctant to leave eh?” Yu Xiaocao couldn’t help but crack a joke when she saw Royal Prince Yang, who had gotten thinner and tanner since she last saw him. Despite these changes, he was in good spirits.
Zhu Junyang narrowed his beautiful phoenix eyes and indifferently scanned her, “Do you think I am like you? Always looking for ways to slack off and enjoy life instead of getting ahead?! This prince had gone to Tuolai Mountain to clean out some bandits!”
A band of violent bandits had formed at Tuolai Mountain and slaughtered and burnt out villages indiscriminately. All of the commoners in the area suffered immensely. Taian Prefecture had sent up a report, asking for help from the court. Zhu Junyang recommended himself and took a group of elite soldiers out. They entered the depths of the mountain and completely defeated that group of bandits. The prince was highly skilled at martial arts and talented at commanding troops. Although he didn’t bring a lot of men with him, he managed to defeat a large group with a few men and completely caught the whole group of criminals in one swoop!
Yu Xiaocao listened to Head Steward Liu’s detailed descriptions about the campaign against the bandits. Her pair of eyes immediately started shining with delight. Wow! A young hero with incredible skills. She had finally met a true expert!
“Young Royal Prince, are you able to traverse a river in one step and go across the snow without leaving prints? Are you able to use leaves as throwing knives and kill a person? Are you able to perform earth-shattering feats and sweep everything in your path? Are you…”
“Stop, stop, stop! What sort of nonsense are you talking about? It sounds like you think martial arts experts are like gods, but that’s not possible! From what you’re saying, a few experts would be able to destroy a whole city, right?” Zhu Junyang really wanted to crack open the little lass’s head and figure just what was in there. How could she have such ridiculous ideas?
Yu Xiaocao thought and decided he was right. Martial arts experts weren’t gods. Those who had the skills to dominate the skies were likely only found in wuxia novels, right?