Even in a famine, there's no panic; the eldest sister has stockpiled plenty of money and grain.

The village head's wife, who had somehow found a stool and sat down under the eaves, was so frightened by the village head's louder voice that she sat down on the ground, rubbing her sore bottom. She thought there must be something wrong with her ears.

Jiang Lu's mouth gaped open. Although she trusted her older sister, but... but did her older sister not know how much fifty acres of land actually was?

The little girl kept tugging at Jiang Bai's sleeve, her heart filled with anxiety.

The village head came to his senses, his face still showing shock. Seeing Jiang Bai looking at him seriously, he knew Jiang Bai wasn't joking.

Even knowing that Jiang Bai was doing it for a living, she couldn't help but get angry.

"You have quite the nerve, girl. Do you even know how much fifty acres is? And how much silver it would cost?"

"Leaving aside whether you can clear so much wasteland, do you even have that much silver?"

"He just casually mentioned fifty acres."

The village head was incoherent, and he held back the curses that were about to come out of his mouth, which prevented him from cursing at Jiang Bai.

Fifty mu, not five or ten mu, that's a full fifty mu.

Even if it's a poor piece of land, if it yields 100 catties of grain per mu, then 50 mu can yield 5,000 catties of grain. And has this girl ever thought that if next year's grain tax is like this year's, she won't be able to pay it even if she sells everything she owns?

"Nonsense, you're absolutely ridiculous! If you're so capable, why don't you just fly to the moon?"

Now, Jiang Bai's illusions about yams were shattered. The village head was so angry that he paced back and forth in the yard, pointing at Jiang Bai every now and then. If she weren't his niece from the next household, he would have hit her a couple of times with a stick.

The little brat doesn't know her place.

It takes a lot of effort to cultivate five acres of land. The whole family has to work together to cultivate it. She's just a young girl. Even if you add Ji Xiucai and two other children, they still can't manage to cultivate fifty acres.

"I'd love to go to heaven, but I can't!" Jiang Bai muttered under his breath.

Fortunately, the village head didn't hear it, otherwise his anger alone would have set him on fire.

"Please calm down. I didn't buy this much at first. Can you sell me five acres first, and then sell me the rest once I'm able to open the market?"

With fifty mu as a base, the village head found it much easier to accept when he heard this. He had originally only planned to let her try one or two mu, but now that he heard five mu, he didn't feel it was too much.

Indeed, if you want to open a window, don't just say "open a window" directly. Instead, say "tear down the house." Then, people will be more likely to accept your request to open a window.

"You have that much silver?"

The village head's anger subsided slightly, thinking that when even five acres of land couldn't be cultivated, this girl would know what was what.

"I remember wasteland was priced at two taels of silver per mu, so five mu would be ten taels of silver, right?"

The village head nodded.

Jiang Bai took out two silver ingots and waved them in front of him.

The village head only felt a blur before his eyes, and before he could see clearly, Jiang Bai withdrew his weapon.

But he recognized it at first glance; it was silver, and quite a large piece.

Ten taels is enough.

The village head wondered to himself where the girl got the money.

“There’s no concept of ‘female households’ in the village. Even though you’ve married into the family, you can’t have your own private property. The land you buy now can only be registered under A-Wen’s name. Have you thought this through? Are you really sure you want to buy it?”

It's best to say this upfront, so she doesn't cause trouble later if we buy it.

"I know all of this, but I still want to buy it."

Jiang Bai was naturally aware of all this; he had already thought it through when he was taking in a son-in-law.

"Then you sit for a while, I'll go find the clan chief and elders."

The village head's heart was still pounding from the exorbitant demand for fifty acres. He was eager to scare the elders in the clan, and when he left, he took with him the roasted yams that Jiang Bai had brought over, which were still uneaten.

I don’t know what the village head said to the clan chief and elders, but when he came back, he was holding a land deed for five acres of land.

The village head personally wrote the land purchase document and had Jiang Bai sign and affix his seal, then folded the land deed and the document together.

"Tomorrow I'll go to the county and register the land under Awen's name at the county government office."

"Thank you, uncle."

Jiang Bai breathed a sigh of relief after finally getting the land purchase settled.

In ancient times, buying land was not an easy thing. Each household could only own a limited amount of land. Fortunately, her family had a scholar who passed the imperial examination. Although scholars were not exempt from taxes, they could still buy fifty acres of land under their household registration.

With Ji Yanwen joining the Jiang family, the amount of land the Jiang family could hold naturally increased.

Otherwise, she wouldn't have dared to directly ask to buy fifty acres.

Jiang Bai's eyes darkened as he considered his plan. He then looked at the village head and asked, "Uncle, if I cultivate these five mu of land, can you sell me the remaining forty-five mu?"

Upon hearing her mention the forty-five mu (approximately 1.65 acres), the village head glared at her irritably: "You haven't even learned to walk yet, and you're already trying to run away?"

"Let's cultivate these five acres first."

The other wasteland at the foot of the mountain has not been measured yet, so how would we know if it's enough forty-five acres?

"Oh, Uncle, just give me a straight answer. If I sell these five acres, can you sell me the other forty-five acres?" Jiang Bai shamelessly began to whine.

She was already beautiful, and now with that added voice, the village head felt his scalp tingle. His niece seemed to be possessed by some kind of demon, which was quite frightening.

“It’s impossible to sell you forty-five acres at once. If you can cultivate these five acres, you can cultivate the rest. You can only buy one acre after you cultivate one acre. It can’t be like this, where you get the land deed and then cultivate the wasteland.”

Only these five acres of land, which were originally cultivated, have land deeds. The others had to be reclaimed first, and the county government had to send someone to measure and record them before land deeds could be issued. They couldn't just be bought and sold directly.

"Alright, alright, it's getting dark, let's go back!"

The village headman impatiently began to shoo people away, secretly hoping that Shanzi would actually dig something out, so that everyone's food supply would be secured.

"Really, how can you just use it and then throw it away? I've done a great service to our village."

Seeing that the village head's face was getting darker and darker, Jiang Bai didn't dare to provoke him any further and quickly ran away with his younger brother and sister-in-law.

After they left, the village head's wife, while tidying up the stools, asked the village head, "Old man, why did Uncle agree to sell the land to Daya?"

"Ugh."

The village head sighed heavily: "Da Ya has found a new way to eat. When the refugees came before, that scholar Ji also made great contributions. This girl has some other merits with her uncle. She wants to cultivate a few acres of land. How could her uncle possibly stop her?"

"My uncle said that the money from selling the land should be used to buy more grain in the county and store it, so that no one in the village will starve to death in the second half of the year."

The village head knew that the clan leader's intentions were good and that it was for the good of the entire Jiang clan. However, this would be a loss for Jiang Bai, that girl. Wasteland is not so easy to cultivate.

And even after it's cleared, who knows how many years it will take to make a name for it?

He felt somewhat guilty.

Of course, Jiang Bai had no idea what he was thinking. If he did, he would only think that Jiang Bai was worrying unnecessarily.

She's capable of doing as much as she can; if she dares to buy land, she must have the confidence to make a name for herself in farming.

She dared not speak for other places, but in the area around Pingshan, there was no one more suitable for farming than her.