A Blessed Daughter - Chapter 447

A Blessed Daughter
Chapter 447 – Give suggestions to the Yun Shi (1)

Translator : Virichime
Editor : Chu
This translation made by Virichime.
Please read my translation only at Moonlight Teatime. 
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The three workshops on the estate—five-spice powder, oyster sauce, and soy sauce—were all progressing smoothly.

-Five-spice powder: Star anise, Cloves, Chinese cinnamon (cassia), Sichuan peppercorns, Fennel seeds.

The five-spice powder and oyster sauce were being supplied to Drunken Immortal House, earning the restaurant a better reputation and more customers. Their partnership had become even more stable.

Soy sauce had a much longer production cycle, so everything was still fermenting in the vats, and no batches had been shipped yet.

The brewery’s building was already under construction, still overseen by Uncle Xu, and work was progressing steadily.

At the moment, Wei Ruo owned five shops: three Sibaozhai Shops—one in Huzhou Prefecture, one in Xingshan County, and one in Taizhou Prefectural City.
Each individual branch was performing slightly worse than last year, but overall profits remained solid.

The grain shop that was opened in Xingshan County last year was doing very well. Toward the end, it was often out of stock because Wei Ruo insisted on selling only part of the inventory. The rest had to be reserved for herself and the people on the estate for the coming year, just in case of natural disasters or unexpected events.

The Xu Family Braised Food Shop had been doing a bit worse this year compared to last year. Meat prices had risen, while daily sales had dropped. But this wasn’t unique to their shop—Wei Ruo’s shop was still doing better than many others.

Overall, the shops were profitable.

Wei Ruo’s main focus was still agriculture.
As long as the shops maintained a positive income and helped sell the estate’s and workshops’ products, that was enough.
But whether the estate could have a good harvest this year—that concerned lives.

At the Colonel’s Residence, the new farmland that Yun Shi had been longing for had finally been purchased.

Farmland near the prefectural city was expensive, so Yun Shi first bought a small estate with two hundred mu of land.

Keeping her promise, Wei Ruo went with Yun Shi to inspect the new estate.

“What do you think, Ruo’er?” Yun Shi asked.

When buying the estate, She’d long known that even though the land surrounding the prefectural city was flatter and wider than in Xingshan County, the soil quality wasn’t very good.
In previous years, crops grown there had not done well, and the harvests were never very good.

“The soil lacks fertility. It needs to be turned over, filled in, or mixed with burned straw ash and farm manure. Repeat this process three times. For each round, apply half a cart of straw ash and half a cart of farm manure per mu*.”

*1 mu ≈ 0.0667 hectares.

Wei Ruo provided the solution.

The soil quality around the prefectural city was generally similar everywhere.
The method used to improve the 1,000-plus mu that Wei Ruo had bought herself would be exactly the same for the 200 mu Yun Shi had purchased.

However, Yun Shi had bought the land a bit late. Unlike the fields Wei Ruo acquired last winter where there had been plenty of time for soil improvement, those lands had already been planted with rice by now.

Hearing this, Yun Shi showed a troubled expression.
“Tilling the soil is fine—we can just have the farmhands work a bit harder. But in this weather, there’s nowhere to find straw. Last year, during such cold days, any leftover straw would have already been taken home by people to keep warm.”

“Then after tilling, apply fertilizer directly,” Wei Ruo said. “Cow and sheep manure, or even human waste—it all works. Still half a cart per mu.”

“That would be quite a large expense, wouldn’t it?” Yun Shi said.

“Sharpening the axe won’t delay the chopping of firewood. If you want good harvests for the year, the soil must be rich. The upfront investment is necessary.” Wei Ruo’s tone was serious.

“No other method?” Yun Shi asked, unwilling to give up.

Of course she knew that applying farmyard fertilizer would enrich the soil, but precisely because it was expensive, she hoped Wei Ruo might have a better idea.

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