Madam didn’t say much, but she actually felt that he lacked experience.
He wasn’t someone to manage an estate, yet he had hired those who had previously worked as long-term workers in Ye’s Mansion. As workers, their main task was management, but he truly lacked agricultural experience.
To properly manage the estate, he rode here every day to oversee the construction of the house, resulting in him not only becoming darker but also thinner than before.
Housekeeper Meng couldn’t make sense of it all, and the rich man in the village was even more baffled.
In the last two years, seeing the fruits and rice harvested by Ye Manor, they could only feel envious, unable to gain a share of it.
They even thought about sabotaging it, but it seemed that the other houses were strictly guarded. There were no longer any riffraff in the village, and even when they hired people from outside the village to do it, they fled at the barking of the estate’s dogs before they could even reach it!
The rich men also secretly visited Ye Manor to observe that everything other people grew made money — seeing Ye out-earning them and watching their family prosper made them wish to destroy Ye’s resources.
With no other strategies available, they could only manage their fields better. They noticed that the poor in the village were becoming richer, the wages demanded by the workers were going up, and they were earning less money, which led them to harbor resentment towards the Ye family in their hearts.
If not for the Ye family bringing so many people here to invest, if not for the increasing wages of the long-term and part-time workers hired by the Ye family, and such generous benefits awarded to them,
would their yields decrease?
The Tang Family was aware only of their estate’s produce, which seemed better than that of other rich men’s estates in the village. They thought it must be because it was near Ye Manor, believing it must indeed be an auspicious place.
Regrettably, Ye Manor was not cultivating rice. At the roadside, their estate was not planting rice or fruit like another estate.
It was said that next year, they would plant fruit on the mountain and start raising fish in the pond, and they had also built many fishing spots at the edge of the pond.
There were even inquiries whether the Ye family, having earned money, preferred not to live in the village but rather enjoy the leisure and elegance of the estate, coming here to fish in the pond every day?
With people guessing, some asked Hongji, and Hongji mysteriously said that once everything was fully established, everyone would know what his estate was for.
Hongji had listened solely to his daughter’s advice, and for the construction of this estate, had spent the money they had earned over the past two years.
Not only was the pond used for raising fish and offering fishing spots, but next spring they planned to plant lotus roots in the pond, while the mountain wouldn’t go to waste either – it would also be planted with fruit trees.
It felt a bit wasteful to cut down the pine trees on the mountain, but they also had a purchasing option, selling the pine trees for building houses.
Hongji saw he had invested so much money in the villa, and it wasn’t earning money yet.
The villa was already beautifully built, and currently, only his uncle and a few long-term workers lived there — living quarters that weren’t intended to make money.
The many rooms in the villa wouldn’t be used only for accommodations but would become a clubhouse, as his daughter had mentioned, where people could fish, cook the caught fish to eat, and even book rooms to stay.
The vast estate, with everyone’s effort, cleaned up the rice harvest in just three to five days.
Then they started the next season’s planting, turning the soil after the rice harvest, planting onions, garlic, potatoes, and some vegetables. These vegetables were not only sold but also provided for the estate’s food, including some that were suitable for pickling.
Chinese cabbage, mustard greens, dried mustard greens, and even some radish sprouts for pickling were planted.
In the Southern climate, even in winter, it wasn’t difficult to grow any crop as there was no snowy weather.
During the coldest times, to ensure good growth for the tender seedlings, they covered them with rice seedlings, planting onions and garlic, and potatoes in this way helped to suppress weeds and retain warmth.
Ye Shiqi, aside from occasionally visiting the estate, her five sisters resumed their daily studies.
To prevent others from knowing about her space, her "space" was only used to cultivate rice and the flowers she had grown before — the flowers didn’t need to be replanted annually, but the rice needed planting every few days.
Every time the harvested rice seedlings were tossed aside, it was all done by her mind.
The rice in the space didn’t require different cultivation from the outside fields, using water for planting.
Once seeded, she would simply spread a thin layer of the previous rice seedlings, spray water once, and the seeds would sprout, ready for another harvest in a few days.