The Quick Transmigrating Cannon Fodder Chooses to Farm - Chapter 61

Xu Yin saw a rare opportunity to discuss farming with the prince in person. As such, she bluntly told him everything she knew.

“The same goes for cotton. It needs sunshine, and it is drought-resistant. It’s not a suitable plant to be planted around here. Instead of struggling to maintain the cotton yield that we have, which isn’t enough anyway, it’d be wiser for us to plant sugar cane instead.”

“Sugar cane?”

Yan Kejin had heard the mention of sugar cane related to his princess more than once. However, the last time that he’d heard about it was from Yan Qi’s mouth.

Xu Yin thought for a bit and said, “I read it from a book before. It said that there’s a foreign crop called sugar cane that has many uses. It’s good for disease prevention and for nourishment. Its juice can be squeezed and used to make sugar. The residue can be used as a raw material for papermaking, the leaves can be used as fertilisers, and the stem can be used to plant more sugar cane.

“The preferred growth environment that the book described didn’t sound much different from the one that we have in Nanban, so I wondered if we could find that plant here, too. If we can find it, we can plant it en masse to produce sugar and make paper, then trade it for as much fabric as we want. What do you think?”

“What book are you talking about?”

Yan Kejin seemed to be more interested in the book that Xu Yin mentioned rather than the sugar cane itself.
Innocently, Xu Yin said, “I don’t really remember. I once had a little quarrel with my fifth sister and tore it up.”

The original host did tear up a bunch of books in the past. She had done it because she’d gotten furious after learning that the imperial preceptor’s daughter had been given to the new crown prince as his crown princess.

The original host’s fifth sister was in their residence at the time, and the original host never had a good relationship with her father’s other daughters, anyway, so Xu Yin used her as her excuse.

Yan Kejin gave her a deep stare. How could someone who could learn so many things from a book tear that book apart?

He didn’t believe it one bit.

However, he realised that she probably didn’t want to talk about it, and didn’t push the matter.

“This prince will send people to find the sugar cane plant,” he said.

He’d come here today mainly because of the curved plough. She had so readily agreed to his request, and he didn’t want to take it for granted. In addition to having the mansion they were in put under her name, he also gave her a gold note.

After Yan Kejin left, Xu Yin took the gold note and inspected it.

“So, the only difference between silver and gold notes here is whether they’re backed by silver or gold. The notes themselves are no different from each other,” Xu Yin remarked.

In the Yan empire, the exchange rate between gold and silver was ten to one. One tael of gold was worth ten taels of silver.

This gold note was worth one thousand taels of gold. As such, it was equivalent to ten thousand taels of silver.
Xu Yin happily patted the gold note. She was wealthy again now!

Nanny Feng was worried that she would spend the money as lavishly as she did before. She couldn’t help suggesting, “Miss, how about using the money to purchase some industrial properties?”

Industrial properties?

Xu Yin couldn’t help thinking about some workshops that she’d like to have.

She hadn’t found the sugar cane she needed yet, so she had to put aside sugar and paper-making for the time being. However, she was already set to start her animal husbandry business.

Silkworms could produce silk, which could be woven into clothes. That’d require workshops.

She could also start raising chickens, ducks, geese, and pigs on a large scale. Their manure could be used as fertiliser, and their meat could be processed into sausages, shredded meat, jerky, meatballs, and more. That’d also require workshops.

Oh, right! Some areas within Baigui, like Baiyue and Minyue, were by the sea. She could also start an aquaculture business. In that case, she would need a seafood-processing workshop. Fresh seafood would be hard to sell, but if she turned them into dried products and exported them to the Central Plains and the north, then… Well, she had promising market potential there!

Setting up workshops would require land. The construction itself would be a significant expense. Besides that, she’d also need to consider other costs, such as worker wages, tools, materials, and so on. In short, she’d need to invest a lot of money in the initial stage.

Upon calculation, a thousand taels of gold might not be enough for her to use to start several breeding farms and workshops.

She decided to start with these. She believed that by the time she’d set up these workshops, she’d also have made progress with the sugar canes.

If all else failed, she could secretly use sugar cane stems from her system inventory and cultivate those. After all, she had to start her sugar and paper production somehow.

After that, Nanban would surely become the most prominent fief in all of Yan!

The emperor might not care about this son of his, but that didn’t matter, because she would!

Well… She was doing it because he had her first love’s face, but still!

After hearing Xu Yin’s plan, Nanny Feng: ‘…’

After a long pause, she swallowed and said, “Miss, I think it’d be better for you to buy some small properties first, like farm and land, then buy a few shops with good business with the rest of your money, just in case…”
The workshops that her miss was talking about would not be able to make any money if they weren’t run well. In fact, it might even make her lose all of her money.

Real estate was a much more stable investment compared to workshops. If she bought land, she would have no need to worry anymore. Real estate only required an initial investment in buying it; to generate income, she would only need to rent it out.

Xu Yin could understand Nanny Feng’s thoughts.

As such, she had Chun Lan take the money she still had left in her dowry and handed it to Nanny Feng without any hesitation. She said, “Please help me purchase some land and real estate properties.”

As for the thousand taels of gold… Well, she still planned to use it to buy a hill that she’d use for animal husbandry as well as to establish her workshops!

Nanny Feng: ‘…’

In the end, she couldn’t hold on to even this last bit of dowry money!

The next morning, just after finishing her breakfast, Xu Yin saw the steward bringing the deeds for her new house. The steward conveyed the prince’s words: Since the house was gifted to her, she could arrange and decorate it as she pleased.

Xu Yin suddenly felt like money had suddenly rained down from the sky for her.

Nanny Feng also felt the same way.

Just yesterday, she had been worried about how long Xu Yin’s remaining dowry money would last, considering her spendthrift habits. To her surprise, by the very next day, her miss had become the owner of an estate for her experiments and also a residence, on top of a thousand gold taels.

“…”

Nanny Feng was beaming with joy.

Was their miss some kind of celestial being who had descended to earth for her trials? There was no other explanation; how else could it be that every time she was short of money, someone would suddenly come and offer it to her?

The one offering it this time was also none other than the prince!

The prince treated their miss very well. This was a good thing, one that every good servant would wish for their miss.
Nanny Feng sent the steward away with a happy smile on her face. Meanwhile, Xu Yin told Chun Lan to put away the house deed.

“Where is this house, anyway? Is it close to the princely residence?”

If it was nearby, she wanted to go and see it now.

Property was something that Chinese people had been obsessed with since ancient times.

“The steward said it’s on the second street north of the prince’s residence. It’s a short trip by carriage.  Miss, do you want to go and take a look?”

“Yes. We’ll go shopping as well, while we’re at it.”

She hadn’t gone out for a walk since she’d arrived in Fucheng.

When Nanny Feng heard that Xu Yin intended to shop, she covered her chest out of instinct and gave Chun Lan a meaningful wink. This wink told Chun Lan to deliberately not bring too much money.

Xu Yin didn’t pay attention to the discreet interaction between Chun Lan and Nanny Feng. She simply concentrated on listing the things that she wanted to buy.

However, suddenly, the Life Assistance System went online and assigned her a task—

[Ding! Explore Baigui and find local delicacies that are not well known yet. For each one you find, you will be rewarded with 100 energy points. If you find ten, you will be rewarded with a random skill.]

For a moment, Xu Yin was stunned. Local delicacies were not well known yet? Then, did the rice noodles she ate in the morning for the past two days count?

[Ding! You found a special delicacy of Baigui: Rice noodles. You have been rewarded with 100 energy points.]

Xu Yin was overwhelmed with joy. Was this even okay?

How could she get such an easy task?

There were bound to be many local snacks and delicacies that she could buy on the streets of the city. However, due to inconvenient transportation and preservation issues, these foods couldn’t be exported to far places as commodities.

This was a reason why Central Plains and Northern Di people thought that the Southern Barbarians were poor—so poor that they had nothing good to offer to the rest of the empire, and that their lives were miserable. They thought that they could only eat raw food and drink animal blood when they were hungry. This was how the misunderstanding came about.

It was not all a misunderstanding, of course. It was true that the people here were poor, and it was true that they never had enough to eat the entire year. This was caused partly by taxes and partly by the fact that they grew crops at the wrong time, which resulted in those crops producing low yields.