Chapter 89 Horse Farm

The next day, Liu Yuanfu brought six children of the Liu family to the government office. Yang Zhengshan talked with him for a while and then took them to the school.

The so-called school is actually just a small courtyard. The normal three main rooms have become a large room that can accommodate forty students at the same time.

The east and west wing rooms are used as the teacher's office and lounge.

There is also a slightly larger courtyard next door, which Yang Zhengshan prepared for the soldiers to learn to read.

On the eighth day of October, the school opened. The first batch of students were forty children selected from the garrison, of course, Lin Zhan was among them.

On the same day, the first batch of soldiers completed a month-long basic training.

After the basic training, they will go back and take over the garrison tasks of the tower and beacon tower from others, and let other soldiers come to Yinghebao for basic training.

Of course, their return does not mean that the training is over.

After returning, they have to conduct combat training by themselves, swordsmanship, spearmanship, archery, etc., which all require them to practice by themselves.

Yang Zhengshan set the date of the Yinghebao martial arts competition after the New Year. By then, all the soldiers should have completed basic training, and Yang Zhengshan could select some outstanding talents to fill the missing official positions.

Busy time always passes quickly, and in the blink of an eye it is the twelfth lunar month.

A heavy snowfall turned the 800-li Qianchong Mountain into a world covered in silver.

Early in the morning.

Yang Zhengshan pushed open the door, stepped on the thick snow, and exhaled a cloud of mist.

"Dad!"

"Master!"

Yang Yunxue and Wang Yunqiao had gotten up long ago, and the two were practicing guns in the yard.

Yang Zhengshan looked at their rosy faces and smiled, "Practice well, don't be lazy!"

"Dad, when have we ever been lazy!" Yang Yunxue said coquettishly.

"Haha, you are all good children!" Yang Zhengshan laughed.

He said this sincerely.

Whether it is Yang Yunxue, Wang Yunqiao, or Lin Zhan, they are all very obedient children.

They get up early every day to practice, even earlier than Yang Zhengshan.

Although they have not become warriors yet, they have laid a solid foundation. Yang Zhengshan thinks that the future of these three little guys will definitely be much stronger than Yang Mingcheng.

After giving a little guidance to the two, Yang Zhengshan went to the front yard to give guidance to Lin Zhan, which was also considered to be fulfilling the duties of a master.

Not only them, after leaving the government office, Yang Zhengshan gave guidance to Yang Mingcheng, Yang Mingwu and others in the martial arts training ground in front of the government office.

In the past year, Yang Mingcheng and others have made considerable progress in their cultivation.

Among them, Yang Mingwu has the highest cultivation, and has entered the refining stage.

Yang Mingcheng has also touched the threshold of the refining stage, but has not yet entered the refining stage.

He became a warrior earlier than Yang Mingwu, but was surpassed by Yang Mingwu. The main reason is that he has not been with Yang Zhengshan for more than half a year, and Yang Zhengshan cannot provide him with spiritual spring water.

In order to make up for Yang Mingcheng, Yang Zhengshan often gave him a special meal during this period, whether to make a pot of spiritual spring water for them brothers to drink.

Yang Chengze, Yang Chengxu and others are similar to Yang Mingcheng, and are at the level of about to enter the refining stage.

Only Yang Minghao and Yang Qinwu were a little behind, as they had just become warriors not long ago, mainly because they were still young.

Although warriors can start to lay the foundation from a young age, the real practice starts after the age of fifteen.

Yang Zhengshan was not very clear about the specific reason, but he felt that it had something to do with human growth.

Anyway, he had never heard of anyone becoming a warrior before the age of fifteen.

And those who could become warriors at the age of fifteen would be called geniuses.

Yang Minghao and Yang Qinwu were fifteen years old now, and they were already geniuses.

After giving some pointers to everyone, Yang Zhengshan walked out of the garrison alone, came to a vacant land by the Yinghe River, and began his own practice.

The key to practice is persistence. No matter how busy he was, Yang Zhengshan would take out an hour every day to practice.

As for his cultivation, it was naturally a leap forward.

Now he almost drank the spiritual spring water as ordinary water. The spiritual spring water was his, so naturally he drank the most.

As his cultivation became higher and higher, the thunder sound of Kui Niu Jin became louder and louder.

Now when he punched out, it was like a real thunder, rumbling.

But under normal circumstances, he would not use his full strength, because the rumbling sound of thunder was really noisy.

"Grandpa, it's time for breakfast!"

Just when Yang Zhengshan was almost finished practicing, Yang Chengye ran over with his short legs.

Yang Zhengshan quickly put away his gun and picked up the boy.

The little guy was less than five years old, but he looked like he was seven or eight years old, and his little body was also very strong.

He didn't feel cold at all in the cold weather.

This was all thanks to the nourishment of the spiritual spring water.

Not only him, but everyone in the Yang family was in great shape.

"What did your mother cook?" Yang Zhengshan asked, holding the gun in one hand and Yang Chengye in the other.

"Dried vegetable meat buns!" Yang Chengye blinked and said, "Grandpa, put me down, I'll walk by myself!"

After growing taller, he felt uncomfortable being held by others.

Yang Zhengshan put him down. This grandson was not as comfortable as the soft granddaughter.

Back in the backyard of the government office, Wang had already prepared the food. All the family members except Yang Mingzhi were present.

"Let's eat!"

Yang Zhengshan simply washed up, sat in the main seat, grabbed a meat bun and started eating.

Two large pots of meat buns were eaten up in just a few moments.

Everyone is in good health, so their appetites are naturally not too bad.

Yang Zhengshan raises this family just like raising a group of big eaters.

If it weren't for the two thousand taels of silver given by Mr. Lu, Yang Zhengshan would probably have been ruined by this group of filial sons and grandsons.

"Boss, let's go to the horse farm with me!"

After breakfast, Yang Zhengshan called Yang Mingcheng to go to the horse farm.

The horse farm was built a month ago. More than a dozen stables, five warehouses, and seven or eight houses for people to live in formed a large yard.

Such a horse farm can still raise fifty or sixty horses, but now there are less than thirty horses in it. In addition to the ten inferior horses bought at the beginning, Yang Mingcheng later bought some foals and mares.

When he arrived at the horse farm, a middle-aged man in a cotton jacket immediately came out to greet him.

"Sir!"

This man was a horse herder hired by Yang Mingcheng from Guancheng. His name was Ma San, and he was considered a long-term worker of the Yang family.

In addition to Ma San, there are more than a dozen farmhands in the stable, both men and women, most of whom were hired from Huoludun in the north.

Ma San stepped forward to help Yang Zhengshan hold Hongyun, and Yang Zhengshan got off the horse and asked, "Is everything OK!"

"All good, the snow on the roof was cleaned last night, and the stable was also lit, and the horses are all good!" Ma San said respectfully.

He was originally a horseman in the Dusi Yamen, but unfortunately he was driven out of the Dusi Yamen because he offended someone, and someone forced him to live in Guancheng.

If Yang Mingcheng hadn't taken a fancy to him, his family would definitely be forced out of Guancheng.

In fact, now they have also left Guancheng, and their family lives in the stable, and the couple are both farmhands of the Yang family.

Yang Zhengshan walked into the stable and walked around from beginning to end.

The first ten horses bought have completely changed their appearance. The originally thin and inferior horses have become much stronger. Although they are not good horses, they are much better than before.

"How much silver can these ten horses be sold for?"

"I think it should be no problem to sell one horse for fifty taels of silver." Ma San said honestly.

In fact, he was full of doubts, because with his twenty years of experience in raising horses, he really couldn't understand why these ten horses became so strong.

When he came, these ten horses had become much stronger, but even so, he still felt that it was a bit unreasonable.

Fifty taels per horse!

Wouldn't ten horses be five hundred taels?

In just three months, two hundred taels became five hundred taels!

Yang Zhengshan said: "Then contact someone to sell them. After selling them, buy a batch of mares and foals back!"

Some things can't be done too much, otherwise people will notice the abnormality.

This kind of thing of turning a bad horse into a good horse can only be done once. In the future, the horse farm will only train foals. Although there will be some differences, it will be more acceptable to people.

"I obey your command!" Ma San responded.

Yang Zhengshan didn't need to worry about buying and selling horses. Ma San was very familiar with the cattle and horse market in Guancheng, and he would contact buyers and sellers himself.

Yang Mingcheng was more concerned with supervision of people and money. He was just the boss and didn't need to do everything himself. He just needed to control the account book and personnel power.

As for whether Ma San would do something secretly, Yang Zhengshan would not dare to do it even if he had eight guts.

This was his trump card. The flag officer of Huoludun in the north was selected by him from Linguanbao.

If Ma San dared to do something, Yang Zhengshan could kill his whole family at any time.

He found a reason to send Ma San and Yang Mingcheng away. Yang Zhengshan sprinkled two bowls of spiritual spring water in the trough, and then left with Yang Mingcheng.

Back to Yinghebao, Yang Zhengshan had just sat down in the study.

Lu Wenhua came over.

"Sir, this is the income of the needlework workshop and the charcoal workshop last month!" Lu Wenhua put two money boxes in front of Yang Zhengshan.

Yang Zhengshan opened the money box and looked at it.

The needlework workshop did not make much money, only four or five taels of silver per month.

However, the charcoal workshop made a lot of money, especially now that the demand for charcoal was the highest.

Li Erhu built more than ten charcoal kilns in Yinghebao and Sanshanbao successively, and brought hundreds of people to burn charcoal day and night, and the monthly charcoal output reached 30,000 catties.

Looking at the three ten-tael silver ingots in the money box, he silently calculated in his heart.

He had thirty taels, and Luo Shang should have earned twenty taels. As for Li Erhu and others, they made almost five hundred copper coins each.

On average, one person made less than twenty copper coins a day, which was more than what they could earn by hiring a short-term worker in the village.

In the past, in Yangjia Village, if you hired a short-term worker with a meal, you would earn ten coins a day, and twelve coins without a meal.

With this income, Li Erhu and his people should not have a bad year this year.

One hundred workers, that is, one hundred military households.

"Let Li Erhu and his men plant some trees on the mountain next spring, otherwise the trees on the mountain will be cut down in a few years!" Yang Zhengshan ordered.

No matter how many trees there are on the mountain, they can't withstand such cutting. In order to keep the charcoal business going, planting trees is essential.

"Okay, I'll tell Li Erhu!" Lu Wenhua said.

"Put it in Wenchun's account!" Yang Zhengshan closed the money box and said again.

"Yes!"

Lu Wenhua left with the money box.