Traveling through troubled times to escape famine and cultivate crops as a grain merchant

Chapter 913 1 Ma Pingchuan's Nanhe Mansion

Zhou Guo took Erpang and two other men with him, got on a carriage, took a horse and a cart of luggage and left.

The family's carriage was driven to Yunzhou and parked at the house.

Erpang drove back the newly built carriage, pulled by two horses.

As soon as he came back, he said excitedly: "Master, this carriage is much bigger than the one in the backyard. It is very comfortable inside. You can even lie down and sleep. It is not so bumpy when you sleep in it."

People kept looking at the carriage during the Great and Lesser Heat periods. It was the first time they had seen such a new carriage.

Zhou Guo lifted the curtain and went in. He could sit or lie down, and there was a small table fixed above it, as well as a secret compartment where he could put quilts, food, and books. When he went to bed at night, he would pull out the secret panel, spread out the quilt, and sleep comfortably inside.

Zhou Guo was very satisfied with the carriage.

This carriage took several months and cost 1,200 taels to build. Although it is a bit expensive, it has its reasons.

Compared with the one at home, this is like a thatched hut and the other is a large house with five courtyards.

There is also a heater in the carriage, so you don’t have to be afraid of going out in winter anymore!

Zhou Guo felt that the money was well spent. His uncle was right. When you are away from home, you should do whatever makes you feel comfortable.

She sat in the carriage and let Erpang drive her around for a few laps. The road was not bumpy at all.

He opened the curtain and said to Dashu Xiaoshu: "Move the things upstairs, we are leaving."

The two of them started moving things with laughter excitedly.

Erpang jumped down to help.

There wasn't much in the car, just some clothes, shoes, and food prepared by Li. They loaded them into the car and left.

Things like rice and flour will not go bad. If you can't find ready-made ones, you can set up a pot and make them yourself. It doesn't require much.

Erpang rode a horse, Dashu and Xiaoshu drove a car, and Zhou Guo sat comfortably in the carriage. On this road, you really didn't feel any bumps at all.

I leaned against the wall of the car and watched the pedestrians coming and going on the street. There were still few pedestrians on the street early in the morning.

Seeing the steaming buns on the roadside, she knocked on the carriage and it stopped.

Er Pang walked closer and asked, "Master, what's the matter?"

Zhou Guo pointed to the steamed buns on the roadside and said, "Go buy a few baskets."

"Oh, I got it." Erpang walked over leading the horse.

Zhou Guo lowered the curtain and pulled out a secret compartment from the small table. It was a drawer with many small compartments of different sizes.

Take out a food box from the one prepared by Li, put melon seeds, candied fruits, candies and various dried meats in it. When you get bored along the way, you can just pull it out and eat it.

She took out a piece of dried meat, put it in her mouth and chewed it slowly, then picked up a book on the table and flipped through it.

Erpang came back after a while with nine paper bags. He handed four to Zhou Guo and the three of them ate the remaining five.

Dashu and Xiaoshu sat on the edge of the cart, eating buns while driving the cart. Erpang led the horse out of the city and got on the horse after leaving the city. The road was still long, and if he kept walking like this, his legs would break.

Zhou Guo took out a steaming bun and took a bite. The soup almost flowed out. He quickly leaned over to sip and chewed it.

The buns have thin skin and rich fillings, and are very fresh and fragrant. The skin is soft and delicious.

No wonder the business is better than other places early in the morning. She has never eaten the buns from this restaurant.

Compared to riding a horse, a carriage is much slower.

It took the carriage sixteen days to reach a place that would normally take eight or nine days for a fast horse to reach.

Zhou Guo stood on the slope and looked at the city below. It was flat and endless. He sighed and said, "This is the fief of the King of Chu. It is indeed a rich place."

Unlike Yunzhou, it is very difficult to find a piece of flat land. Even if there is a rare piece of flat land, it is mostly saline-alkali land. Even in the saline-alkali land, there is a small hill from time to time, a big rock here and a big rock there, and the land is very barren.

It was the first time that Er Pang had seen such land. After being surprised, he was only happy. "Master, if we buy a few hundred hectares of land here, we can plant crops directly. We don't have to spend so much money on land improvement like those in Song County. If we buy this kind of land and plant wheat in the winter, we can harvest it in the summer of next year. How much grain can we harvest?"

It just so happened that the several caves in the house had been emptied out.

Dashu and Xiaoshu did not dare to say a word. They had never seen such a place before. They used to live in places where there were mountains outside the door. When they went to the north, there were mountains everywhere. They never knew that there was such a flat place in the world. They also didn't know whether it was comfortable to live there.

Zhou Guo didn't say anything and just calculated the money in his hand.

Li gave her 40,000 taels, and she still had 100,000 taels in her hand, a total of 140,000 taels. Even if the land was 8 taels per mu, 140,000 taels could not buy more than 200 hectares of land.

But now it is wartime and a time of chaos, everyone has fled, so eight acres are definitely not needed. The government will probably also sell four acres of less fertile land, which would be more than three hundred hectares.

Zhou Guo smiled slightly, turned around and said, "Let's go into the city."

The fief of the King of Chu was called Nanhe Prefecture. These three characters, which had been passed down for who knows how many years, seemed ancient and remote.

There are not many people in the city right now, with only a few people scattered on the streets, which is even worse than Lu County.

There were only a few shops open on both sides of the street, and most of them were closed.

Fortunately, the streets are relatively clean, otherwise it would be like a war had just happened.

Zhou Guo called Erpang over and said, "Go find a human trafficker and buy a small house. It's inconvenient to live in an inn."

Erpang was capable of this job and the house was bought in just half a day.

It was a small house with two entrances, and there were pots and pans everywhere. There was a thick layer of dust in the house, and no one knew how long it had been since anyone had lived there.

There were few people in the city at that time, let alone where to find people to work.

They had to do it themselves. Zhou Guo was not idle either. After Erpang and others cleaned up the kitchen, she started cooking.

I have been on the road for so long and haven't had many proper meals, just dry food and barbecue. I really miss white rice.

It took an hour to prepare the meal. Erpang and the other two also cleaned up the house. At least they had a place to stay at night. The room where Zhou Guo lived was especially bright and tidy. The three of them put in a lot of effort.

Zhou Guo brought out the food and shouted, "It's time to eat."

The three of them ran out covered in dust and dirt, washed their hands and faces, and busied themselves with serving the rice, then sat down to eat.

Zhou Guo didn't do anything. There were two pheasants in the car, which he stewed with sheep mushrooms and cooked a pot of wild vegetables. That was his meal.

She said, "We just got here, and I'm too lazy to go out to buy food. There's still some in the carriage, so let's just eat. After we finish eating, let's go out for a walk and see where the food shop is. We can also find out where Manager Wu and the others are. We've been here for so many days, and I don't know how things are going."

The shop and other things must have been purchased almost completely, and even the house is easy to buy, so Zhuangzi should not be difficult either.

It's this land. Wu Jiang only has 80,000 taels in his hand, and he doesn't know how much land he can buy.