Republic of China: Guandong Ginseng King

Chapter 107 Building a House and Reclaiming the Land

The next day after Qu Shaoyang and his friends arrived home, they led people into the mountains to cut wood.

These seventeen or eighteen people cannot live in Qu Shaoyang's house all the time. They need to have separate accommodation prepared for them.

Originally, Liu Dongshan meant to let these people build a horse-frame house or something like that to live in. That would be easy and could be done in three to five days.

But Qu Shaoyang thought about it over and over again, and felt that something was wrong.

The stable house is too small and can only accommodate two or three people. If these people are left to their own devices, they will build the house anywhere, which will make it inconvenient to manage.

It would be better to build a bigger house together so that they can all live together, which will save them a lot of trouble.

In the future, when these people have accumulated enough land of their own, they will move out and find ways to make a living on their own.

After discussion, the master and apprentice decided to build three more wooden houses to the west of Qu Shaoyang's house.

This way, since we are close to each other, we can take care of each other if anything happens, and it is also convenient to manage them.

A log house is easy to build. You just go into the mountains and choose a tree of similar thickness and cut it down. Then peel off the bark and carve grooves on both ends with a pick and an axe.

Then they were fastened together one by one and fixed with eight rivets, and the frame of the house was completed.

The gaps between the wood were filled with Ula grass mixed with yellow mud, and then a thick layer of yellow mud was applied to the inner and outer walls to prevent drafts and keep warm.

The house does not need to be built too high, as it will not be warm if it is built too high. The roof should have a ridge, and eight boards should be nailed on it. Then it should be covered with grass and pressed down with wooden poles.

This is basically the same as the big house in the mountain field. The door is on the east end of the house, and there are two big pots in the kitchen right at the entrance.

The two rooms at the west end have large north-south kangs, so not only these dozen people, but even if a dozen more come, there would be enough space for them to live.

Put a turtle stove in the middle of the ground. When it is too cold in winter, light the stove to keep warm.

The wooden house is simple, and with so many people, the house was built in ten days or so.

A kang was built in the house, a stove was set up, and the walls inside and outside were all covered with yellow mud. The next step was ventilation and fire. When the house was almost done, people could move in.

Coincidentally, it was already the end of August.

Across the Kanto region, the bitter autumn wind blew, the leaves fell, and the weeds turned yellow.

The grass on the wasteland has long been dry and yellow, and can be easily ignited by lighting a fire. It is time to reclaim the land.

After breakfast in the morning, Qu Shaoyang and Liu Dongshan took more than a dozen men to the vast wasteland in the west.

The gnarled old grass that had been growing on the wasteland for many years was now as tall as a man, dense and thick.

At this time, everything was dried up by the autumn wind. When a fire was lit, thick smoke rose and the flames quickly spread far away.

In the flickering light of the fire, large areas of dead grass and small bushes turned to ashes.

The ashes were still warm, and there were even sparks in some places. Qu Shaoyang and his men threw off their tattered jackets, picked up their belongings, and rushed towards the large wasteland in front of them.

People either carried pickaxes to dig or used plow poles to plow. No matter which method they used, they had to turn the land over.

Then use rakes and other tools to dig out the grass roots and tree roots in the ground, pile them together, dry them, and burn them.

The two families had a total of four horses and one mule.

This horse can't actually catch up with the old cow in terms of plowing the land. The old cow plows the land slowly but turns the soil deep, while the horse works fast but turns the soil shallowly.

At this time, they didn't care about that anymore, they all put on the plows and went to work. With the help of animals, the work was much easier.

Everyone worked from dawn to dusk to open up the wasteland, and every day they came home exhausted and sore all over. It was just like the old saying, they wished they could grab a cat's tail and get on the kang.

Often after dinner, everyone would lie down on the kang, and it wouldn't take long before the snoring started to deafen the sky.

Fortunately, the hard work of everyone from dawn to dusk was effective. When the first snow fell, the large piece of wasteland had been cleared for the first time. Of course, this was just a rough turn, mainly to clean up the remaining grass roots, tree roots, and large stones.

When the land is turned over, insect eggs hidden in the soil will be exposed.

After a severe winter, the insect eggs will be frozen to death, which will greatly reduce diseases and insect pests.

In the spring of next year, the land needs to be carefully turned over again to clear away the remaining grass roots and small stones before it can be cultivated.

The black soil in the Northeast is fertile. It is just like what people say, if you grab a handful of it, it will ooze out oil, and if you sow a few seeds, they will grow.

The growth potential of wasteland is actually not bad, but grass seeds and grass roots are difficult to eradicate, and it takes several years of careful care before it can be turned into cultivated land.

"Everyone, it's snowing, so this year's land reclamation will come to an end.

I estimated that we have opened up more than 50 mu of land, and half of it is what I promised you.

The exact amount will have to wait until next year when the government officials will survey the area and determine the grade and amount of mu.

Don't worry, I will definitely give you nothing less than what I promised."

In early October, the first snow fell on the ground, and the land reclamation work had to come to a temporary halt.

So, that morning, Qu Shaoyang called all the guys together to hold a small meeting for them.

Although the area was set at about 500 acres when the formalities were handled at the government office, in reality the area expanded significantly after the burning.

This is normal. No one can do all the work. If there is an opportunity, who wouldn't expand?
In other words, the population in Maoer Mountain is still small, so the phenomenon of land grabbing is not serious.

For example, in places like Changchun and Jiutai, which are close to Mongolian land, you have to rush to open up the land; if you are slow you will miss out.

"It's winter now. If anyone wants to go back to my hometown in Shandong, I can give them some travel expenses.

If you don't want to go back and stay here for the winter, then you can't just sit around doing nothing. There's plenty of work to do at home. Don't get lazy when winter comes.

I will provide you with food and drink, and you must do the work you are supposed to do. Whoever does a good job will be rewarded at the end of the year."

How can you have free time when you live at home? For example, if so many people are to eat, a lot of food is needed every day.

In the past, there were few people in the family, and Liu Dongshan felt sorry for his wife, so he bought ground grain from outside.

With so many people now, it would cost a lot more money to buy ready-made ones.

So people buy sorghum or millet with shells, grind them to remove the shells and cook, or buy corn and grind it into cornmeal.

There were no machine mills back then, only stone mills, and everything depended on manual labor.

After a busy day's work, there is only enough food for the people at home.

Besides, there are four horses and a mule at home. Don’t these animals need to eat grass?

Since the Qu and Liu families didn't farm, they had to get some corn stalks and other things from other families.

The corn stalks cannot be fed to the horses as a whole; they have to be chopped into small pieces with a guillotine.

In addition, it is cold in winter, so if you want to keep the house warm, you have to burn more firewood.

You need firewood to make a fire, so you have to go up the mountain to get it.

There are plenty of forests around Maoer Mountain, so there is no shortage of firewood, but firewood cannot grow legs and enter the house by itself.

Wouldn't it be necessary for someone to go up the mountain to cut down the trees, drag them back, and then saw and split them before using them for firewood?
This is because the Qu and Liu families did not farm or raise pigs this year, otherwise, they would have lived longer.

Someone has to do all the visible and invisible work, otherwise how can we say that farmers have no idle time?
(End of this chapter)