noffsinger Chapter 121 Using homestead land as collateral to reclaim wasteland
Chapter 121 Using homestead land as collateral to reclaim wasteland
Qin Shen spoke uncertainly, "I am Master Qin from the county government. You can tell me what you need."
Upon hearing this, the village chief's eyes lit up, and he quickly stepped forward. "Oh, it's you, Master Qin! Master Qin, we'd like to buy some wasteland!"
Master Qin raised an eyebrow upon hearing this, then glanced at the dense crowd.
I felt ashamed, thinking that the commotion was to seek justice.
He quickly pressed his hand down to quiet the restless villagers. "Well, buying wasteland is fine. You want to buy land, right? Come in with me."
No sooner had Qin Shen finished speaking than Jiang Shi stood up excitedly and shouted, "Master Qin, it's not just the village chief who wants to buy, it's all of us who want to buy!"
Master Qin was startled by Jiang's shout. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was Aunt Lin.
Qin was deeply shocked. "Aunt Lin, you're here too! Are all these people from your village?!"
Jiang patted her chest proudly, "Of course! These all belong to our village, and we're going to buy all the wasteland!"
Qin Shen was overjoyed to see the large number of villagers. "Alright, then you line up and I'll transfer the property to you one by one."
However, at this moment, the village chief looked at Qin Shen Shen with some embarrassment and helplessness, "Master Qin, it's like this, we all want to buy wasteland, but... but we don't have any money!"
"Yes, we have no money!" a villager quickly shouted in agreement with his village chief.
Upon hearing this, Master Qin nearly stumbled and fell.
This is the first time I've seen someone so "proud" even when they're broke.
Are you kidding him? If he has no money, what kind of land can he buy?
What if I become a deadbeat?
Qin Shen Shen quickly waved to the fat constable, asking him to go and find Dou Weiyi.
He couldn't make that decision; no matter how much he tried, he couldn't solve the problem of the villagers having no money but wanting the wasteland.
The fat constable ran to the Dou residence and dragged Dou Weiyi, who had just arrived home and taken a sip of water, out.
Dou Weiyi was in a great mood, but the fat constable's interruption immediately put her face down. "Pang You, can you please stop asking me to do things every time I'm in a good mood?"
The fat constable, with a bitter face, wiped the sweat from his forehead: "Oh dear, I have to ask the righteous official."
I didn't want to either, but this time I really had no choice.
The villagers of Wangyue Village all went to the government office, saying they wanted to collectively buy the wasteland…
"What?! Buy wasteland?" Dou Weiyi exclaimed in surprise before the fat constable could finish speaking.
This is great news!
For every acre of wasteland sold, the government can take 10% for public use. What a great thing!
He quickly rubbed his hands together, then leaped into the air and ran out as fast as he could.
"Hey, sir, sir, please let me finish!"
The fat constable put one hand on his hip and quickly reached out the other, trying to persuade his master to stay.
To everyone's surprise, Dou Weiyi disappeared without a trace a few breaths later.
He stood there panting, wiping the sweat from his forehead, and muttered, "Sir, are you in such a hurry to be reborn? Let me finish. Damn, I'm exhausted."
The fat constable, hands on his hips, back hunched, dragged his heavy steps and hurried toward the county government office.
Dou Weiyi rushed into the county government office in a great hurry, and his eyes lit up when he saw the group of villagers.
He excitedly ran forward: "Fellow villagers, I have heard that you want to buy wasteland. Don't rush, line up one by one!"
When Qin Shen saw Dou Weiyi approaching, she looked at him with mixed feelings of excitement and unease, and simply stood aside without saying a word.
With a half-smile, she maliciously watched him suffer a setback.
When the village chief saw their official approaching, he quickly surrounded him with a smile, "Sir, we want to buy wasteland, but... but we don't have any money!"
"What?"
Dou Weiyi thought she had misheard. She scratched her ear and looked at the village chief in disbelief. "If you don't have money, what kind of land are you going to buy?"
The village chief scratched his head and looked at Dou Weiyi with an honest expression: "Sir, although we don't have any money in our pockets right now..."
However, we have residential land that we can use as collateral for credit.
"Let's clear this wasteland and cultivate it first. After the autumn harvest, we'll collect the money and pay you for the wasteland, okay?"
Upon hearing this, Dou Wei's lips twitched slightly.
Buying on credit?
Return the mortgage?
Although this was something he often did, he found it so hard to accept that his role had changed.
Damn it, his money...
Dou Weiyi inwardly groaned, but had to maintain a calm facade.
He cleared his throat and looked at the village chief. "You're the village chief, right? Why did your village buy so much wasteland?"
Moreover, the harvest from barren land in a year cannot even cover the cost of the land itself.
Even a small plot of wasteland is worth at least 3 taels per mu. If you plant some vegetables and sorghum, it will take four or five years to make up for the cost of the wasteland.
When he goes to the prefectural city to report on his duties at the end of autumn, his public accounts will be short of land tax again. Will he still be able to relinquish his title of "first"?
Dou Weiyi pouted, her expression clearly showing her disagreement.
The village chief wasn't in a hurry. To kill a snake, you have to strike its vital spot. To control a person, you have to control their interests.
He usually runs a bamboo weaving business and is also the village head; when he starts to swindle, most people can't resist.
"Sir, others may not know about our Wangyue Village, but surely you do!"
Lin Xi and his wife are going to open an oil mill in the village. We can plant sesame, peanuts, and sunflowers and harvest them in the fall.
"If you sell it to the oil mill, won't you pay the money for the wasteland on time?"
If they really wait for their sons to earn money to buy land, that would take forever; by then, the land would be rotting.
Besides, keeping up with the Lin family's main branch has always been the village's guiding principle.
Whatever they want, their village will grow it!
They cannot afford to miss any link in this chain.
After the village chief finished speaking, he rubbed his hands excitedly and looked at Dou Weiyi, who had a pout.
“Wangyue Village? You mean Gao Mengli and Lin Xi are from your village?” Dou Weiyi frowned as she looked at the village chief.
He hadn't paid attention to which village the two people lived in.
But after hearing the village chief's calculations, he was moved.
The village chief wants to "use now, pay later"!
Lin Xi and Gao Mengli's oil mill has now solved the problems of raw materials, transportation, and sales.
He can just order the packaged ceramic jars from the pottery village later.
The remaining issue is building an oil mill.
Making money, of course, is a given.
Dou Weiyi couldn't help but look at the village chief with new respect. This old man had a very far-sighted vision!
Little did the village chief know what Dou Weiyi was thinking.
He only heard Lin Xi and the others talking about mortgaging their homesteads to acquire land yesterday, and then using the money they earned to pay the oil mill's land.
Inspired by this, I brought the villagers to the government office to try mortgaging their land in exchange for wasteland!
Dou Wei saw that it was the village of those two people, so this "use first, pay later" approach was not impossible!
"Alright, you all line up while I pull out a map of your village."
"Hey, hey! Good, good!" The village chief was overjoyed and led the villagers in expressing their gratitude repeatedly!
Pingyao is mostly mountainous with very little flat land; the barren land consists mostly of riverbank mud and sand, as well as hills.
So, all things considered, each family can only allocate one mu of sandy land and three mu of hilly land.
Each household had four mu (approximately 0.33 hectares) of land, which was at the end of autumn. Each household had to pay 14 taels (approximately 66.5 tons) for the wasteland.
56 households, that's 784 taels of silver.
Dou Weiyi could take 78 taels of silver for the county government's public use.
However, these were all IOUs written for Dou Weiyi.
I put them together with the land deeds given to me by the villagers, and collected a whole box full of them.