In order to increase revenue and save costs recently, Yingbao had several large mushroom sheds and two baking ovens built in the mansion, and called on all servants and guards to come and watch how she grows mushrooms.
This time she mainly planted snow fungus because it tastes better than golden fungus, is cheaper, and is more easily accepted by ordinary people.
A lot of golden fungus is also planted, but not as many as snow fungus.
These strains of fungi were brought from Dongchen Village, Qinchuan County, and then soaked in the Tongkong Spring, so the bacterial yield is very high.
When this batch of mushrooms mature, Yingbao wants to distribute some of the mushroom strains to poor people in various villages, so that they can do some side jobs in their spare time, increase their income and improve their lives. He also wants to grow some of them himself, after all, he still has more than 40 people working for him.
Of course, the fungus strains cannot be given away for free. The villagers must sign a contract and the money for the strains will be returned after the finished products are sold.
Everyone in the mansion studied very hard, including the guards, who even secretly asked Mu Dan if he could sell some of the fungus to them so that they could send it back to their hometown.
Mu Dan said with a straight face: "There are not enough fungus species at the moment. When there are extra ones, you can ask the princess yourself."
A month and a half later, it was already May.
Five thousand snow fungus and two thousand golden fungus are ripe.
Everyone in the Princess's Mansion worked together, and in half a day they had harvested all the mushrooms. Some were dried in the sun, and some were baked.
To this end, Yingbao specially found two pharmacists who were good at baking medicinal materials from an outside pharmacy and asked them to help bake the mushroom ears.
After a few days, the mushroom ears were dried one by one, and more than 500 kilograms of mushroom ears were obtained.
Yingbao sent Chu Shun to transport this batch of dried mushrooms to Qinchuan County and hand them over to his eldest brother Jiang Cheng for sale.
Because his specialty shop is very famous in the local area, the golden ear and snow ear fungus are the best-selling products in the shop. By giving it to him, he can earn a lot of extra money.
A few days later, Chu Shun came back with more than 6,000 taels of silver, which just solved Yingbao's urgent need.
You know, Yingbaotou has spent a lot of money on solving villagers' survival problems, but no results have been seen so far.
The 500 looms sold on credit have not yet paid back their investment, and the more than 40 temporary servants have to be paid monthly salaries.
In addition, the maintenance of servants, guards and horses in the mansion also costs money.
But the joy did not last for many days. With the start of summer harvest, temporary officials came back to report, and officials and local gentry in various villages began to take frequent actions to collect taxes.
They exchanged the moldy grain with the villagers', and used large and small measures to cheat the people.
Wei Zhan immediately took a group of guards to check, and found that it was indeed true.
"Take them all back to the government office! Hand them over to the county magistrate for punishment!"
Wei Zhan turned to look at the head of the village: "Do you know?"
The village head was terrified and shook his head repeatedly: "How could I have known that they would do this? If I had known earlier..."
Before he could finish, Wei Zhan waved his hand and said, "Since you don't know, I will tell you now. If anyone dares to oppress the people in the future, I will never let them off easily!"
He raised his voice in a high pitch, deliberately letting everyone present hear it.
The people were whispering to each other, and some even knelt down before Wei Zhan, shouting "Great Official".
Seeing that the time was almost right, Wei Zhan called over four temporary servants and asked them to take over the work of the previous servants.
"When you collect grain, you are not allowed to shortchange people in weight, and you are not allowed to commit corruption for personal gain or store the damp and moldy grains into the warehouse. You are also not allowed to collect grains mixed with sand and gravel. Do you understand?" Wei Zhan glanced at everyone.
The four temporary officers quickly assured: "We understand, General, don't worry, we will keep a close watch!"
"Okay, you continue to collect grain!" Wei Zhan left two guards here to maintain order, and he took the rest back to the county town.
When they were halfway along the way, suddenly countless arrows rained down from the woods on both sides.
Wei Zhan was startled, knowing that he couldn't rush forward at this moment.
After all, he had fought in the army for many years and knew that there must be tripwires or other traps set up on the road ahead, and even the rear might be ambushed.
Now the only thing to do is to go to the left or right and defeat them one by one.
"Follow me and rush over here!" Wei Zhan drew his sword and rushed towards the slightly flat woods on one side.
More than thirty guards followed closely behind, not even leaving behind the injured, and rushed into the woods together.
Fortunately, this patch of forest was not very dense, with only short pines. Wei Zhan, sitting high on his horse, soon saw about twenty people dressed as villagers fleeing into the distance.
"Catch them!" Wei Zhan kicked his horse's belly and rushed towards those people. He caught up with one person, swung his knife and knocked him down, then went after the next one.
More than thirty guards also chased after them and quickly chopped down a dozen arrow-wielding men, while the rest quickly fled away.
“Don’t fight any more!” Wei Zhan called back the guards who were still chasing after them, and pointed at the few people who were still alive and said, “Bring them here!”
Several guards dismounted, picked up several people with lighter injuries, and threw them in front of Wei Zhan's horse.
Wei Zhan looked at them coldly and asked, "Who sent you here?"
Several people were trembling with fear, but dared not speak.
“Since you won’t tell me, just kill him!” Wei Zhan winked at those around him.
The guard understood, picked up the bloody knife and walked over, chopping off the man's head with one blow.
The others screamed in fear and knelt down and kowtowed: "I'll tell you, I'll tell you! It was Mr. Zhang who ordered us to ambush the great official. We are all good citizens. Great official, please spare our lives! Please spare our lives!"
Mr. Zhang? The tycoon who was killed as a warning to others last year seemed to have the surname Zhang, right
"Take them away, take the bodies and arrows with you, and let's go back to the county town quickly!" If we don't leave now, Mr. Zhang will definitely have a backup plan.
The guards immediately put the bodies on horseback and took the injured people away as well.
Wei Zhan urged his horse to gallop along the ridge of the field until he was out of the area, then he got back on the official road and headed straight for the county town.
Instead of asking for help from the post station, they ran into the city without stopping, came to the gate of the county government office, and threw the body directly on the ground.
Several injured guards returned to the princess's mansion and reported the situation to the princess.
When Yingbao heard that Wei Zhan was ambushed on the way, she became very nervous, "Is Yibin injured?"
"Don't worry, Princess. The general is not injured. Several of our brothers are injured, but they are not serious. We are asking the court doctor to treat them." said the captain of the guards.
Ying Bao breathed a sigh of relief, took out a packet of pills and handed it to the captain of the guards, "There are medicine powders for wounds and some for internal use. Take them and distribute them to everyone."
The captain of the guards was not polite. He took the medicine bag and clasped his fists: "Thank you, Princess."
"You guys just rest at home and come back for duty when your injuries are healed." Ying Bao said.
"Yes!" The captain of the guards stepped back.
Yingbao then changed into a formal dress, put on the imperial hat, and left the house with a team of ceremonial guards, heading for the county government office.
At this time, there were a lot of people gathered at the gate of the county government office, talking a lot.
Then two guards shouted, "These are assassins who dared to kill our general in broad daylight! Come over here and identify them. Do you know anyone familiar with them? Who did they work for before? If what you say is true, our general will reward you!"
The guard shouted a few times and someone came to check.
But most of them don’t know each other.
A ragged man said, "Sir, I know these people!"