Sending Lord Guo back from Xizhou, the two pastoral supervisors Yue and Lu, as well as the Mo County Commander of Liuzhong County, got up and said goodbye. Jiaohe County Commander Liu Wencheng took Gao Jun's hand before leaving, and said in his heart, "Brother Gao, I have the heart to be a close friend with my brother, I don't know if you are willing or not, brother?" ”

At the banquet just now, Gao Jun's seemingly unintentional joke just interrupted Guo Xiaoke's harsh rebuke to Jiaohe County on the matter of fixing a household. If it weren't for Gao Jun's joke, it would be very likely that Guo Dudu would say something about playing the board next. Therefore, Liu Wencheng knew Gao Jun's intention to relieve himself of the siege, and he did not leave a trace, and he was very grateful to Gao Jun in his heart.

He knew that the only people who could interrupt Guo Dudu's conversation at today's banquet were Gao Shenxing and Gao Jun, whether it was Liu Zhongmu's two pastoral supervisors or Mo County's order, they did not have such courage.

From this, Liu Wencheng also saw that the status of the Gao family's uncle and nephew in the eyes of Guo Dudu was definitely not comparable to people like them. In addition, not long ago, Jiaohe County's oolong incident against Gao Jun may have been in the minds of ordinary people, and Gao Jun was able to skillfully relieve his embarrassing situation, doesn't it just show the breadth of people's minds? So before going out, Liu Wencheng said these words, most of them from the heart.

Gao Jun said, "Lord Liu, you have seen outside, my brother has thought that Lord Liu is a person to make friends with since the first time he saw the adult, and the last incident had nothing to do with the adult, please don't take it to heart." ”

"Okay", Liu Wencheng said sincerely, "When I prepare a banquet for my brother one day, I will definitely have a drunk with my brother." With that, the two waved goodbye.

Gao Yu did not go to Xizhou with the sixth uncle this time, and the plan to expand the scale of the ranch that Gao Jun told him last night made him feel moved at that time. As soon as Master Guo came back, he hurriedly told Gao Jun about it.

Gao Jun asked, "Second brother, looking at your anxious monkey appearance, don't you think you're going to start today, right?" ”

Gao Yu said, "Why not? If you think about it, you have to do it, and you can't do anything if you hesitate. As if he remembered something, he said to Gao Jun, "I know what day today is you, and I shouldn't force you like this, but I can't help it, your brother is such an anxious person." ”

What kind of day is today, as soon as he heard this, Gao Jun was stunned for a while. I didn't remember how today's day was different from another. I just felt that I had asked the sixth uncle to practice that set of rituals one by one, and I was just a little tired.

Gao Jun thought that everything he did today was just to hide people's eyes and ears, and it was a compensation for the hasty picking up Liu Yuru to go home a few days ago. If he doesn't, all his plans will be in vain, and he and Liu Yuru will return to the miserable situation when they first arrived in Xizhou, with no support, no food and clothing. No!! This must not be allowed to happen.

Gao Yu's words made him suddenly think of Liu Yuru at home. Yes, they took the marriage certificate signed by Governor Guo Xiaoke, what will they do in the future? Gao Jun was a little scared. said, "Okay, it's rare that the second brother is so attentive, I will give up my life to accompany the gentleman!" ”

The two did not go home, but returned to Liuzhong Ranch together, found a room, and called Liu Wu in to discuss things. Gao Jun said, "I don't mean to make Liuzhong Ranch a scale of upper pasture within two years, but things have to be done step by step, what do you think, second brother?" ”

Gao Yu said, "To raise horses, you must first have a stable, and you can't throw those horses in the open field, right?" So the first step is to build a stable...... It's easy to say that the wood is everything, but the bricks are not very good to be transported from outside, Gao Jun, I don't know if the hillside I went to with you yesterday is terra nullius? ”

"You mean you want to make your own bricks?"

"That's exactly what I mean."

Gao Jun didn't know, so he asked Liu Wu, and Liu Wu said, "On the slope of the kind you said, no one likes to farm in that kind of place, and it is too tiring to carry water to water the land, and it is generally terra nullius." However, sometimes when you meet a diligent person, you open up the wasteland by yourself, and you also grow and harvest by yourself, which is not included in the scope of property of the fixed household. No, the next official will go to Liuzhong County to inquire. ”

The matter was agreed, and Gao Yu said, "Your small village is too cramped, and you don't even have a place to eat and entertain guests. Gao Jun said that this is true, because it is far away from Liuzhong County and Jiaohe County, and it is forty miles away. Almost all of the big and rich families in this place have moved away, and those who remain are poor. Some of the houses were originally empty, but they were still the owners who moved them, and the poor people who remained still living in the original low huts. Last time there was a heavy snowfall, most of the people who fell were like this.

"Can we re-plan the houses in the village, and those ownerless houses can be left behind, or I will collect them at my expense, or sell them to those whose houses are dilapidated and where they are quite dangerous; When the poor families vacated the old houses, I planned to invest another sum of money, tear down the old houses, and then plan the building as I wished. ”

"Listening to what you said, second brother, you can't do it without tens of thousands of taels of silver...... Do you have that much money? Gao Jun asked.

Gao Yu said a little smugly, "You don't know this, your second brother and I have no intention of making a name for myself, and I don't need to take the silver out to pay some filial piety from time to time, plus I have been in business for seven or eight years, this money is not difficult for me." ”

The ranch village is dilapidated, and Gao Jun has a deep experience as soon as he arrives here. The village is located at the mouth of the valley that enters the willow pasture, and dozens of families are all low-rise houses made of thatch and adobe, except for a few houses that still look like them. The remaining families are scattered in the valley mouth, and a few have built their houses on the hillside, and from a distance the whole village looks like a pile of cow dung thrown on the hillside.

Gao Jun nodded immediately, "Second brother, you have a good idea, I agree with it very much." We can't just think about the pasture, and on the basis of doing this well, we can bring the mountain village into another better situation, which is one of the things I have been thinking about recently. ”

Hearing Gao Jun's words, Gao Yu unconsciously raised his hand excitedly and slapped his palm with this cousin of his, "This is a great plan!" It's really the same thing that heroes see! ”

Liu Wu listened to the conversation between the two and agreed. In the afternoon, he told Gao Jun about the move, and Gao Jun had sent Feng Zheng to set up an ox cart and bring a few people to move Liu Wu's family to Ranch Village, which was also the vacant house of the village Zheng's house that Liu Yuru had found for them. He didn't go back to help the Wu family clean up the new house, thanks to the help of Feng Zheng and his subordinates, so his gratitude to Master Gao increased a little.

At that moment, Liu Wu said to Master Gao, "It's still early, Xiaguan will ride a horse to Liuzhong County and ask about the land, if it is indeed terra nullius, it is the best." If there is an owner, I will take back the details of the other ownerless plots to the two of you. Gao Jun nodded, and Liu Wu hurriedly went.

After Liu Wu left, the two brothers discussed it again, thinking that the relocation of the village houses was definitely not something that the two brothers could do, and even Liuzhong County had no authority to do this matter, so they had to go to Xizhou in person after a few days to get the support of Lord Guo.

Thinking about it this way, the most important thing in everything is the matter of building a brick kiln, Gao Yu was obviously in a state of excitement, and he didn't want to be idle, so he proposed, "Why don't we go to the village to have a look, but also have a general plan in our hearts." Gao Jun just didn't want to go home, so the two of them came out of the pasture, rode two horses, and walked to the village.

The topography of the ranch village looks like a "Ya" shape from the top, with two forks on the top, one leading to Liuzhong County in the southeast, one leading to the direction of Xizhou, and the other leading to the direction of the pasture, and then the boundary of Jiaohe County; The place where Gao Yu fancied to build the brick kiln was on the hillside between the two forks above.

Elsewhere, there are village houses built along the slopes. And where Gao Jun lives now is at the bottom left of the word "Ya", where the village is located, across the street from them, just diagonally opposite. Only the place that Gao Yu fancied was uninhabited.

As the two walked, they discussed where to build a restaurant, where to build a hotel, and where to build the residence of those villagers. Gao Yu thought about it, and maybe set up a tall building on the side of the road to the West Hotel, Gao Jun asked him what he was doing, but he didn't say.

Gao Jun said, "No matter how you design, I can't get any money for the construction of the village, I only take care of my ranch." ”

Gao Yu said, "I don't want you to think of it, otherwise there will be a profit when the time comes, how much I will score you, and you don't look like a bottom pit." The two of them also went to the householder's house to have a look, and saw that many men in the village were idle at home, and when they asked, it was the middle of winter, and the crops in the field were all harvested, and there was nothing to do at home. Gao Yu's heart lit up again when he heard this.

By the time it was almost evening, the two of them had almost finished wrapping the entire mountain village. On the hillside further north of the tavern in the north of the village, there stood a few lonely thatched houses, and this was the last one they were going to visit today. The two saw that it was inconvenient to ride a horse, so they tied their horses down the slope and walked up steeply.

It was almost evening, and every household had cooked their meals, and the chickens and dogs had been fed, and it was the time to blow out the lights and rest after dinner. Chickens don't fly, dogs don't bark. In the quiet of the night, the sound of a quarrel was suddenly heard.

The two followed the sound and found that the movement was coming from the house on the hillside.

There are a total of six thatched houses, two of which are arranged on a flat ground on the hillside. The outside is surrounded by a fence. In the courtyard inside the fence, there were a few people who looked like a family, and they were surrounding a woman, as if arguing about something, the woman was wearing coarse cloth clothes, and she looked like she was not in her twenties, and her originally somewhat attractive face showed a layer of sickness.

A little girl of three or four years old was standing at her feet, hugging her legs, as if she was a little frightened by the scene before her, but she was still strong enough to hold back her tears.

And the family that surrounded the woman, a man in his forties, a woman who looked like his wife, and a young man of seventeen or eighteen stood next to them, and the two next to them seemed to be bystanders.

I only listened to the man of the family, "Sister, you also know, our family doesn't have many houses, and your second brother's children are still young, but the eldest brother has to say goodbye to your nephew right away, you say, there is no place to live, who will send his daughter here?" ”

His wife's face was full of unhappiness, and said, "Sister, it's not that you are a sister-in-law, originally, you said that you are a big girl's family, and suddenly you have a child, I didn't say anything, after all, your Xie family's face is not good-looking, what does it have to do with me?" But if my own son marries, I can't tolerate you anymore, can I? ”

The woman who was questioned by the two coughed a few times and said, "Big brother and sister-in-law, where are you going to let me go?" Even if my sister did something wrong before, but this female girl is your niece after all, and my sister is sick again, so can't I feel sorry for this child? ”

An old man next to him also persuaded on both sides, and when Gao Jun heard it, it was Muramasa. When I first arrived, I didn't see it was him in the night. Hearing this, the mother-in-law ignored the two newcomers, shook her arm and pulled away her husband's hand that had been stretched out to stop her from going on, and became louder and louder, as if she wanted the newcomers to judge Gao Jun:

"I feel sorry for this girl, no matter how I say that she is also my niece. But I also have to feel sorry for my own son? Your parents don't hurt, who do you want to hurt? Doesn't this kid have a father? asked you to take your children to look for it, but you refused, and wanted to find you a family to rely on, but you still refused, can't it be, you will rely on our family? ”

The seventeen or eighteen young man also said, "Auntie, what if you go to my uncle?" His family is so rich, he rides a high-headed horse in and out, and makes slaves and maids, even if he doesn't recognize you, he asks you to be a laundry mother, you have food and drink! ”

Xu was an outsider, and the young mother was told this by her nephew, and her mouth opened and she couldn't speak anymore, but she covered her face and cried. When the girl holding her leg saw her mother crying, she no longer held back the tears that had been held for a long time, and she cried out loud. Gao Jun couldn't stand it, straightened up, and said to the three people, "You are still a family, why are you so unreasonable?" If you have to bully other mothers and daughters, you can't do this in front of your children. ”

Seeing that the people who came did not speak to her, and she couldn't see the color of Gao Jun's clothes clearly in the dark, she changed her face, "Where are you from, to take care of our family affairs, even if we throw out their luggage and quilts, what does it matter to you!" As she spoke, she motioned to her son and bowed to a thatched hut, "It's difficult for a Qing official to cut off family affairs, and the village can't take care of it, and it shows you!" ”。

Her ignorant son, seeing his mother's eyes, stepped a few steps to the door of a hut, and as soon as he lifted his foot, he picked up a roll of luggage from the ground, and walked out of the fence with his hand. This volume of luggage is supposed to belong to the mother and daughter, and it has long been rolled out by these three people.