Thankfully, Gu Qingcheng had distributed new cotton-padded clothes, making outdoor living bearable.
After much effort, with everyone settled, Gu Qingcheng and Mi Guo could finally rest.
"Sister, your Yuan Qi porridge."
Mi Guo brought Gu Qingcheng a bowl of eight-treasure sweet porridge for a late-night snack.
After enjoying the supper, Gu Qingcheng prepared to sleep.
Upon entering her room, she was pleasantly surprised.
There was already a wooden bed in her room, emanating the scent of new wood, clearly newly made.
Besides the bed, there was a set of a wooden table and chairs by the wall.
This was good enough for her basic needs.
Gu Qingcheng stretched out comfortably on the bed and couldn't help but roll over.
She knew this must have been arranged by Dai Fa.
Being the boss certainly had its perks! When she lacked something, someone would proactively arrange it for her without her even asking.
Mi Guo also received a new bed and new table and chairs, and the siblings enjoyed a rare good night's sleep.
Gu Qingcheng woke up to the sound of birds chirping.
This kind of life also held promise.
Currently, half the village's manpower was engaged in house construction, while the other half had begun land reclamation.
After Gu Qingcheng got up and washed, before she could eat, she went to inspect the nearby reclaimed land.
"Young Master Gu, this land is no good. Nothing will grow here."
Liu Ding complained as soon as he saw her.
"Why?" Gu Qingcheng had no experience farming; she thought having land was enough.
"The roots of the plants and trees in these mountains are very deep. If we don't clear these tree and grass roots, they will compete with the crops for nutrients underground, leading to reduced yields, or even no yield at all.
But clearing them completely is too difficult. If we rely solely on digging, by the time it's done, the season for planting millet will have passed."
Liu Ding spoke honestly.
Gu Qingcheng pondered for a moment and said,
"How about we buy some oxen and use plows to turn out the grass roots, then burn them to clear the land?"
"Having oxen would be great, but I thought buying them was too expensive before, so I didn't dare to suggest it."
Gu Qingcheng had spent so much money recently buying food and clothes for everyone. Everyone had seen it and knew it was a huge sum. Coupled with the high cost of buying oxen, no one dared to propose this simplest solution.
Liu Ding, fearing they would miss the best season to plant millet, finally couldn't help but complain a few words.
Unexpectedly, Gu Qingcheng herself proposed buying oxen.
"We need them for agriculture; we should get what's necessary."
At this point, Dai Fa, who was nearby, volunteered to go down the mountain to buy oxen and asked Gu Qingcheng how many she wanted.
Gu Qingcheng thought for a moment. Of course, the more the merrier. She had so much land to cultivate, so she said,
"Buy thirty to forty oxen. We can also buy sheep, rabbits, chickens, and ducks to raise. Their manure will fertilize the land later."
Dai Fa was stunned.
He knew she was wealthy, but he hadn't expected her to be this wealthy.
An ox cost thirty taels of silver. Forty oxen would be over twelve hundred taels of silver, wouldn't they?
Adding chickens, ducks, and sheep, it would likely cost over thirteen hundred taels of silver.
Was Gu Qingcheng so rich?
She was truly unfathomably wealthy!
Dai Fa was once again amazed by her lavish spending.
Gu Qingcheng nervously checked the loyalty of Dai Fa and the others. Finding them completely loyal, she felt relieved.
She had inadvertently revealed how rich she was. If these people harbored ill intentions, she and Mi Guo would be in dire straits.
"Uncle Dai, there's no time to delay. Take a dozen or so people down the mountain to buy the oxen. I'll give you the money here.
When you go down, if you can recruit more people, then recruit more."
Gu Qingcheng said, forcing a calm demeanor.
"No problem, Young Master Gu. Are you sure you want to buy so many oxen? It'll cost over a thousand taels of silver!"
Dai Fa was genuinely worried that Gu Qingcheng might be a prodigal.
He didn't know that Gu Qingcheng had already stockpiled almost the entire city's worth of supplies from Jinsha City, more than enough to eat. She also had gold bars from Prince Xia, which were inexhaustible.
Of course, Phoenix Village was in a phase of rebuilding and required significant investment. In the future, she hoped everyone could support themselves.
Gu Qingcheng said without hesitation, "Buy!"
It was a joke. If she didn't buy them now, she wouldn't be able to find any when the flood came.
Gu Qingcheng also specifically instructed that the male and female livestock purchased should be balanced, not just all males or all females.
Dai Fa led his men down the mountain. Before leaving, Gu Qingcheng gave him a gold bar and told him to exchange it for silver at a goldsmith in the city, to avoid the hassle of carrying a large amount of silver.
Dai Fa, holding the gold bar, was astonished!
Young Master Gu is becoming more unfathomable. First money, and now gold bars?
After finishing this matter, Gu Qingcheng casually had breakfast at home.
At this time, the more than 300 new villagers recruited yesterday were also called for a meeting.
Seeing the renewed spirit of everyone, Gu Qingcheng said generously,
"As long as you follow me diligently, you'll have food and drink and won't have to worry about anything. By the way, does anyone here have any special skills? Step forward and tell me what it is."
Out of the more than 300 people, over 20 stepped forward.
Masons, carpenters, embroiderers – these were all talents urgently needed on the mountain.
Gu Qingcheng then selected the artisans first. Roughly following yesterday's grouping, they were divided into 16 teams, with the excess filling into the original teams 1 to 10.
With more people, Gu Qingcheng worried about remembering everyone, so she asked Huang Wenming to handle the unified registration.
Huang Wenming wrote diligently, his heart filled with emotion. He never expected that one day he would be able to pick up a brush and ink again.
His handwriting was neat and handsome, befitting a scholar.
Gu Qingcheng, whose handwriting was always mediocre, couldn't help but give him a thumbs-up after seeing his writing.
Gu Qingcheng planned to have all the villagers register their information for better management.
All villagers reported their names, ages, genders, special skills, and other detailed information, which Huang Wenming meticulously recorded. In this way, Phoenix Village had its first relatively complete villager database.
After the registration, Gu Qingcheng discovered that these villagers indeed came from all over, with representatives from various northern provinces, and even some from the south. This greatly surprised Gu Qingcheng, and she asked them why they, being from the south, were also fleeing famine.
These local people explained various reasons for their flight.
It turned out that the south was not without its troubles. Insect plagues had destroyed crops, and some areas were experiencing floods.
As soon as she heard about floods, Gu Qingcheng became wary and called them aside to ask for details.
On the map provided by the system, Gu Qingcheng found the hometowns of these southerners. The elevation of their hometowns was low, only over 300 meters, but they had abundant water systems. After an extreme cold period, their hometowns had already experienced five heavy rainfalls, flooding their homes and fields. They were forced to flee.
Gu Qingcheng suddenly felt that natural disasters truly cannot be controlled by human will, and before she knew it, they were upon them.
Gu Qingcheng specifically noted down their names and asked about their skills again.
Among them was a young man from the south named Yan Xin, who said he was a hunter and often hunted in the mountains.