asked Wang Fan to find Muramasa and said that he wanted to find someone to clean up the woods. Unexpectedly, Muramasa said: "The guests don't know, this forest has deep roots and leaves, and it is not easy to clean up, and it takes a lot of time to dig deep to get rid of the roots to become fertile fields, not to mention that there is no water source around, and it is necessary to dig wells for irrigation. ”

Ji Xinyu looked at Muramasa and said with a smile: "Thank you for reminding the old man, it's just that I only need a four-zhang wide passage to clean up here, not all of which will be cleaned up, please rest assured that the old man." As for wages, I don't know if it's okay for me to pay two taels a month? ”

"Two or two months of money!" The old village is a little out of shape when he hears the monthly money of two taels, you know, in this era, it is only five to ten taels to sell a maid, and the guys in the city only have one or three to one or two five cents a month.

"Yes, two or two months' money, including three meals, because we don't know how long it will take to open up this land, we are ready to follow the work division system, 1 work per person per day, 30 work points is a month, less than a month to settle the wages on a daily basis. I need 20 laborers first, I don't know if your village can arrange it? Ji Xinyu said his thoughts, which is equivalent to hiring temporary workers, and then considering long-term employment after the clean-up.

"Yes, yes, our village is small but there are 76 households, of course 20 people can be arranged, even if we don't, there are still many villages in the north and south, and there are also a lot of laborers." Muramasa immediately replied excitedly.

Then he added: "You said that it includes three meals?" Isn't it two meals, why are there three meals? "Now the poor people in Zhongzhou only have two meals a day, and it would be good to be able to eat two meals, but three meals are unthinkable.

"It's three meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, your village is not small, I think there are many villages in the north and south, some have hundreds of families, and you are planting fertile land by the Nandu River, why are you still short of grain and rice?" Ji Xinyu asked the doubts in his heart.

"The guests don't know, we here every year in June and July to levy the summer tax, November and then the autumn grain tax, many years ago was collected is ten taxes three, a few years ago and what Liao tax was added, it is going to be ten taxes four, in recent years and said to add water foot money, car foot money, mouth money, as well as library money, pu basket money, bamboo basket money, along the river god and Buddha money and so on add up to ten taxes and five more. After handing over the imperial grain, we will not have much left, and if we encounter bandits and robbery, we will be unable to continue. "The village is telling the suffering of its village, which is also the norm for the people of Qiongzhou. Qiongzhou is located in a remote area, and the imperial court is unable to supervise it, and the magistrate is the sky, and there is no way to impose taxes and miscellaneous taxes.

The village relented and continued: "A few years ago, there were people in the village who escaped, and the last one who fled should pay the grain, and we who didn't escape should make up for it. Later, some families in the southern villages began to dedicate their land to the gentry in the town or city in order to pay less food, and they helped the gentry to farm the land, and only had to pay forty percent of the grain to the gentry every year, which could be regarded as a better life. But in this way, we, the common people who are reluctant to pay our own fields, will pay more grain, and we can't afford to pay the imperial grain. ”

"In addition to these, every year in May, June and November, when the rice is harvested, Li Man on the mountain will go down the mountain to grab grain, no one knows which county, which township and which village will be the turn this year, if we are robbed, then we will have no way to live, they not only grab grain, but also kill people." Muramasa said, and he choked up a little.

Hearing Murazheng's words, Ji Xinyu thought of the dilapidated village where he stayed a few days ago, and it was also bad that the pirates were killed a lot of people, so he moved the village to other places, and it was very difficult for the people of this era to resist.

Sighing, Ji Xinyu thought about his father in this life, for the sake of the people's little land to become what it is now, but the people here are willing to dedicate the land to the gentry, just to live a better life, it is really worthless for his father, now he is powerless to change anything, wait for himself to gain a foothold first and then take his time.

Seeing that the village was returning to the village to arrange manpower, Ji Xinyu himself took the guards of the guard department to deal with the grass outside the forest first, first cut the grass from the edge of the forest to the middle, cut out a vacuum belt without grass, and then set fire with the wind, and burned this large area of barren grassland. The half-human-high wild grass is really spectacular when it burns, the fire is blazing, the smoke is billowing, fortunately, the width of the mowing is enough, otherwise it may even burn the woods, then Ji Xinyu will be distressed, after all, the trees here are not small, and there are still many uses.

When cleaning up the weeds, the village had already brought twenty people to work, and Ji Xinyu arranged for Zhu Mu, a professor brought by the palace, to help register and start working together.

The professor mentioned here is not a professor in the university in the previous life, but a teacher who teaches the royal family to read, similar to the private tutor in the later life, the children over ten years old in the royal palace have to be sent to Professor Ji Shanhe to learn etiquette and scriptures, but now he can only be reduced to a registrar.

After a morning of clean-up, it was basically on the right track, and everyone paved a small stone road more than ten meters wide on the 50-meter distance from the woods to the main road and rammed it hard. Some of the guards began to camp on both sides of the road, after all, it is not good to always gather at the end of the village, and after this road is considered their own territory.

The villagers heard that the salary was two taels, and the work was also very attentive, for fear of losing this "high salary", Ji Xinyu asked the carpenters and stonemasons of the Gongzheng Institute to guide the villagers to cut wood, leaving as much wood as possible, and it was necessary to build a house behind.

The sun was slanting in the west, Ji Xinyu felt that it should be more than four o'clock in the afternoon, and he also wanted to help in the afternoon, but he was pulled back by He Xingwang. After all, he really doesn't know much, the more he helps, the better he sits and rests, he can only take Liuqin to drink tea under the makeshift shed.

While he was drinking, a guard ran out of the woods and reported: "Young master, the woods have been opened, there is really a large area of land in it, and there are two hills to the north. ”

"It's fast, take me to see ......" Ji Xinyu finished speaking and was about to run into the woods.

The guard hurriedly stopped and said, "Young Master, the trees cut down inside are still sorting out the branches, and the roots left behind after the felling have not been cleaned up, so you better not go in yet." ”

Ji Xinyu stopped helplessly, and the guard bowed and ran back to continue working.

Ji Xinyu called Aiden in his mind, and asked eagerly: "Aiden, these two are mines, how is the output?" ”

Aiden replied: "After calculation, these two mountains can meet your needs in the early stage of development, these two mountains do not occupy a large area, but they are 56% rich in iron ore, the sulfur and phosphorus content of the coal mine is very low, and it is an open-pit mine, which is very convenient to mine." ”

"No wonder you ran so many places yesterday and finally chose this as the development site." Ji Xinyu seems to understand Aiden's choice a little.

"These two mountains are surrounded by woods, located at the tail end of the tributary to the north, and just block the tributary, and the mountains can be used both as a barrier to the northwest of the base and for mining minerals, which can be used for many purposes." Aiden's tone was a little proud, it seemed that there was a little less machinery, but Ji Xinyu didn't care, he just cared about being excited, he couldn't wait to see these two mountains and the situation inside now.

"Aiden, you're really amazing, you chose such a good place after walking around like this." Ji Xinyu was overjoyed for a while, and praised him.

"Three miles to the north, there is another mountain, which is a limestone mine, and there is a gypsum mine next to it, so I suggest you send someone to rebuild it into a material base first." Aiden reminded.

Ji Xinyu's mood is very comfortable now, he naturally wants to listen to the advice given by Aiden, and the road to self-reliance, which he originally thought was difficult, seems to have become less difficult.

Ji Xinyu called Song Xing, the leader sent by the craftsmen of the palace, he was originally the deputy of the Gongzheng Institute, equivalent to the second-in-command, this time the King of Shu sent him to lead some craftsmen to follow Ji Xinyu to Qiongzhou, and now he wants to start again, and the craftsmen naturally want to provoke the beams.

Ji Xinyu asked Song Xing to gather a few craftsmen and villagers to go to the limestone mine that Aiden said, and walked three miles northwest along the road to see several bare hills on the side of the road, all of which were gray-white stones. Ji Xinyu stepped forward to check the nearby terrain, found a place at the foot of the mountain and began to let carpenters and stonemasons build a simple temporary shed, and let the porcelain head build a vertical kiln in the shed, ready to burn lime, these craftsmen are good at lime firing, so Ji Xinyu did not stay here anymore.