I have been farming since I crossed over.

Uncle Wu was about to go to where Old Man Wu worked, but Old Lady Wu stopped him and said, "Your sister's family has just split up, so they must be short of something. You can pack up some bowls, basins and jars and send them to your sister. Also, isn't your sister saving up money to buy land? Mother still has some money, give it to them first." After saying that, she stood up and was about to get her own private money.

Although the Wu family has not yet split up, they are actually dividing the property but not the family. The eldest brother now mainly takes care of the family's 60 acres of land with his younger sons and nephews. When the other brothers have no work, they also help to farm at home, and come back to help during the sowing and harvesting. Except for paying taxes and eating for themselves, the output of the family's fields all belongs to the eldest family. Old man Wu took his sons and grandsons to build a house outside. The income from building the house was calculated for each person, and each room managed its own money. The money earned from building the house outside does not need to be handed over to the grandchildren, but half of the money earned by the sons is handed over to be used for public expenses.

The eldest daughter-in-law is the housekeeper and doesn't have to do housework. The remaining daughters-in-law take turns doing chores. Household chores mainly include gardening, cooking, and raising livestock. Everything else is the responsibility of each family and is handled by each family individually.

The five daughters-in-law were assigned to cook, two to tend the vegetable garden, and two to tend the livestock, taking turns. Later, when the fourth and fifth daughters-in-law became pregnant, they took turns watering the vegetable garden and feeding the livestock, while the remaining three daughters-in-law took turns cooking, digging the vegetable patch, and cleaning the livestock shed.

The silver in Old Lady Wu's hand should be the donations from each family, plus the silver earned by Old Man Wu from helping out. It's all their retirement money. Yang Mingxi grabbed Old Lady Wu and said, "Grandma, our family is not short of money for the time being. Sit down and I'll tell you. My second and third brothers and I earned over 100 taels from hunting. But we want to buy some wasteland first, so we don't have money to build a house."

Yang Mingxi pulled Old Lady Wu to sit down and continued, "You heard it just now. If Third Uncle and his family can make bricks and tiles, we won't have to spend any money to build a house. Grandma, why are you so anxious? Wait until the rice harvest is over. How much will the rice from over 200 acres of land sell for? By then, we can buy out the wasteland. Keep your money for yourself."

After listening to this, Old Mrs. Wu really sat down and said, "You are all good children. I won't worry as long as you have a plan." She also called Uncle Wu to pack some necessities and send them to Yang Mingxi's house, and to send Yang Mingxi and the others back at the same time.

In the end, when they came, Yang Mingxi and others took the three bags of snacks left at home. When they left, they had Uncle Wu carrying a basket of bowls, basins, clay pots, jars, etc. Yang Mingyu also carried a pair of pickle jars on a shoulder pole.

When the three of them crossed the back mountain and arrived at Old Yang's house, the sun was just setting and the people who had been clearing the wasteland had not yet returned. Of the five branches of the Yang family, only the eldest sister-in-law, Zou, was at home, cooking and tending the livestock.

The three of them put down their things and walked towards the small river next to Old Yang's house. When they reached the river, they climbed up the small slope on the back mountain and came to the wasteland near Old Yang's house.

There are still more than a hundred people clearing the wasteland. Looking at the remaining wasteland, it will take about three days to complete it.

Uncle Wu and Yang Mingxi went to the thatched cottage to check on the rice seedlings. As they walked over, they saw Yang Minghu and Yang Mingyang driving old oxen to turn over the wasteland that had been cleared earlier.

Uncle Wu said, "Xiao girl, it's still too early to start farming, why are your brothers already tilling the soil?"

Yang Mingxi looked at his two brothers who were expertly plowing the soil with their old oxen and said, "Our land is wasteland, and we've mixed it with a lot of humus soil, so we have to plow it twice before we can use it as a field."

Uncle Wu nodded and said, "Can we finish tilling it? Besides the rice seedling fields, there should be 150 acres of reclaimed land!"

Yang Mingxi nodded and said, "This is the second time. It should be OK. This one is easier. The brothers can turn over about ten acres a day. It's just that the cows and people are very tired."

After walking a little further, they saw a man driving an old ox to plow the soil. Yang Mingxi looked at Yang Mingyu and asked, "Third brother, who is that person plowing the soil in the field?"

Yang Mingyu took a look and said, "It's Uncle Zhang from the village chief's family."

Uncle Wu also saw it and nodded, saying, "This is more or less okay. Otherwise, it would be a bit difficult to carry two cows. You would have to bring water and plow the fields after you follow."

Yang Mingxi thought for a moment and said, "Really? We still don't have enough cows. We need to find a way to buy two more, otherwise there won't be enough during the double harvest."

Arriving at the rice seedling field, Uncle Wu looked at Yang Mingxi's rice seedlings and said, "The fertility is a bit lacking. After all, it's barren land."

Yang Mingxi nodded and said, "That's right, so we still need to raise a large number of livestock, otherwise the fertility of the crops will never keep up."

After inspecting the rice seedlings, Uncle Wu looked at the area where Yang Mingxi planned to stay and build a house. He said, "With the wheat field, we can almost build a yard like ours. But I'm afraid we'll have to dig deeper into the hillside behind, otherwise the area for the barn will be a bit small."

Yang Mingxi brought Uncle Wu to the gentle slope at the back and said, "Uncle, how much can we dig in here? If it's convenient, can we dig a cellar?"

Uncle Wu walked around the gentle slope a few times and said, "We can dig in quite a bit, but I don't know if there's rock underneath. I think it's more likely to be rock, especially on the riverside. There shouldn't be any problems here."

Yang Mingxi led Uncle Wu forward a little further until they reached a gentle slope above the wheat field. Yang Mingxi pulled out a clump of weeds and said to Uncle Wu, "Uncle, take a look at this soil. Is there anything wrong with it?"

Uncle Wu looked at it again and again, rubbing some in his hands, then looked at Yang Mingxi and said, "This soil is a bit sticky, very suitable for building a house!"

Yang Mingxi asked, "Uncle, what bricks do you use to build your house?"

Uncle Wu said, "Generally, they use sand, fine mud, and lime. Rich families will add glutinous rice paste, which is even more effective. If you have clay, you can use it instead of glutinous rice paste, and it will also be very effective."

“Is there a lot of limestone?”

"Some places have more of this kind of stone, but others don't. We have some on the mountain behind our village. Don't worry, your fifth uncle has a lot of it. If we find anyone who doesn't have it, we'll buy it for them."

Yang Mingxi asked again: "Uncle, do you have any clay?"

Uncle Wu shook his head and said, "I haven't seen it, what's the matter?"

Yang Mingxi pointed at the clay on the ground and said, "Third uncle's bricks were not fired. It might be because of the soil. The same may be true for young uncle's."

Uncle Wu slapped his head and said, "Yeah, why didn't we think of this problem? I'm going to bring some clay back and ask your third uncle to try again." Uncle Wu said as he prepared to dig the soil.

Yang Mingxi said, "Uncle, there's no rush for this soil. Come back and dig it tomorrow morning when you're leaving."

Yang Mingxi walked a little further, climbed to the front of the gentle slope, pointed to a cave entrance and asked, "Uncle, do you think we can use this cave entrance and the clay underneath to make bricks and tiles?"

Uncle Wu looked at the stone cave in front of him and wondered why it looked so similar to the cave where his sixth brother baked bowls and pots. Then, thinking of Yang Mingxi's question, he widened his eyes and said, "You're saying... this cave might have been used by someone else to bake bricks. With the clay down there and the sand here, isn't this a ready-made brick factory?"