When he arrived in the town, Xiao Ding looked around and found that the town was not big, not as prosperous as the county seat, but it was also small and complete, with daily necessities, grocery stores, teahouses, wine shops, pawn shops, and all kinds of shops.

Village Chief He took Xiao Ding to Wang Baozheng's house. In this era, towns and villages below the county seat did not have yamen. Bao Zheng (town mayor) and Bao Chang (village head) are only responsible for some errands such as land management, household registration management, and tax collection. Occasionally, civil disputes can be resolved on the spot, and those that cannot be resolved are all sent to the county yamen.

Wang Baozheng happened to be at home, and he was very happy to see that Village Chief He had brought people to buy wasteland.

In fact, the government encourages farmers to open up wasteland, and wasteland is also idle, and it can be sold to the people to collect some land taxes. If it is used for farming, agricultural tax can also be collected.

The wasteland in the west of the village belongs to Luoxia Village, and the small hill is borderless land and is not under the control of Luoxia Village.

The division of land in this era was not so strict. The land administered by each village is generally agricultural land and residential land. The rest of the barren mountains and mountains are basically unmanaged borderlands. Whatever county seat these borderless lands are zoned in, even if it is the territory of that county.

If a person from a village cultivates a field or builds a house on an ownerless wasteland, he can go to the government office and register it, spend some money, and the land will be allocated to an individual, and then it will be included in the land area of the village where the person belongs.

If you don't go to the government to register after clearing the wasteland, it is a private occupation of land.

Generally, the village chief will take the initiative to persuade him, because after the land is registered, it will be returned to the village, which can be regarded as expanding the land area of the village, and it is also a performance for the village chief. If you don't agree to be included in the register, once you are reported to the county, the county government will send someone to arrest you and ask for the crime.

In fact, there were many cases of private occupation of land in this era. If the people don't raise officials and don't hold them accountable, no one reports it, and if they occupy it, they will occupy it, anyway, it's all ownerless barren mountains and wasteland. In particular, when the powerful occupy the land, no one cares about it, and the general public does not dare to take care of it.

However, most of the land occupied by powerful people is valuable or worthy of development, and they are too lazy to occupy those barren mountains and mountains.

Unlike the powerful and powerful, those thieves who have no money and no power like to go to the barren mountains and mountains to occupy the mountains and become kings. As long as the county does not send troops to crusade, no one in the towns and villages below will dare to provoke them.

Xiao Ding spent eighty taels of silver to buy the wasteland and the small hill. He also gave Wang Baozheng two taels of silver, saying that he wanted him to buy tea to drink.

Wang Baozheng was very happy, and happily helped Xiao Ding enter the book. In fact, it is to register, on a certain day, in a certain year, month, and in a certain village, to whom and so on the land was sold.

At this time, the wasteland was not valuable, and no one among the people wanted to open up the wasteland, and no one bought it if the government wanted to sell it.

This is because: first, relying on manpower to open up the land is too laborious, and it is not possible to open up much land in a month; Second, there is not much harvest from farming after land reclamation. Even if you raise land, you don't know how many years it will take to fatten.

Ordinary people have a problem eating, and where else do they have the heart to engage in such a thankless task.

For wasteland and barren mountains, the government actively encourages the people to buy in line with the principle that selling a piece is a piece. Anyway, if someone buys it, even if it is partial foreign wealth, and after selling it, it can still collect taxes, why not?

After being included in the register, Wang Baozheng drafted a title deed, and Xiao Ding did not only write his own name. He only attributed the little hill to his name. The remaining 37 acres of wasteland were placed under the name of Tian Xiaofu.

He originally wanted to put the thirty-seven acres of land under Tian Dabao's name, but after thinking about it, if Tian Caishen and the Zhou family heard that Tian Dabao had bought the land, and they came over to insist on it at that time, with Tian Dabao's foolish and filial piety, they would definitely not refuse.

And Tian Xiaofu is young now, and he will listen to his own words, put the land in Tian Xiaofu's name, and still be under his control. This can also be regarded as a family business prepared for Xiaofu in the future.

The title deed is in triplicate, one for the county, one for the town, and one for Xiaoding.

But Xiao Ding can't get the title deed yet. It is necessary to report the materials of the land registration to the county, and after the county order approves it, the official seal of the land deed can be stamped before the land deed can officially take effect.

Xiao Ding secretly thought that obtaining land legally is much more troublesome than a thief occupying the mountain as the king privately!

Fortunately, Wang Baozheng of Luoxia Town is not the kind of corrupt official who holds chicken feathers as an arrow, if he encounters a corrupt official and then comes to rub some oil, then I don't know how long it will take to buy this land.

Bidding farewell to Wang Baozheng, Xiao Ding drove the donkey cart to the market.

bought twenty catties of lean meat and gave ten catties to Village Chief He as a thank you, and Village Chief He accepted it happily after a few excuses.

In fact, the situation in the village chief's family is much better than that of ordinary villagers. After all, his family has nearly 10 acres of fertile fields in the east of the village, and more than 10 acres of thin fields in the south of the village. The family is already full of children and grandchildren, and the people are thriving. Every year, he can also receive a few taels of silver, although it is not much, but it is stronger than ordinary families.

Xiao Ding deliberately thought about buying a lot of rouge gouache and some simple jewelry.

Most of the jewelry in the town is wooden, and there are many gold and silver, and there are fewer jewels, because pearl and jade jewelry are more expensive. However, gold and silver jewelry in this era was very common and not very expensive.

Xiao Ding only chose a few pieces of gold and silver jewelry and wooden hairpins and combs, and did not buy more expensive jewelry and jade jewelry. Even so, it cost him more than twenty taels of silver.

There were still more than 100 taels of silver on his body, and Xiao Ding planned to go back and start building a house.

As for the style of the house, he had a rough plan in mind, and the details needed to be carefully finalized, so he went to the ink studio to buy some pen, ink, paper and inkstone.

When he walked into the Ink Shop, Xiao Ding suddenly thought that his younger brothers and sisters were not literate, should they be sent to school?

It's just that in this era, boys can go to school, but girls can't. Alas, feudal thinking kills people! It seems that I can only wait for the house to be built, and I will hire a gentleman for my younger brothers and sisters.

When he returned to Luoxia Village, Xiao Ding saw the big mansion on the edge of the east end of the village. I heard Village Chief He say that this is Landlord Xue's home, but Landlord Xue's entire family has moved to live in the town. This huge mansion is only watched by Steward Xue, and there are many long-term workers living in it.

Every year during the Spring Festival, Landlord Xue will take the whole family back to Luoxia Village for the New Year, one is to come back to worship the ancestors, the second is to check the accounts of the current year, and the third is to plan the next year.

When he left the village, because he was in a hurry to go to the town, Xiao Ding didn't take a closer look at the house. Now that he came back, Xiao Ding took a closer look and found that this house gave him the feeling that it was big, with high walls and courtyards, blue bricks and green tiles, and an estimated area of more than 20 acres.

In this era, it is obviously not an ordinary family to have such a large house.

Back at home, the little wolf Gray Gray was the first to run out and cheered around Xiao Ding.

Xiao Zhu'er ran out from behind, and when she saw Xiao Ding, she shouted: "Brother fool, brother fool, I have something good for you to see......"

Xiao Ding was stunned for a moment, and said in her heart what did she get?