"Yes", Shun'er understood what Shi Zhongkui meant, "I will ask someone to ask my uncle right now. News should come back soon."

"Yeah", Shi Zhongkui nodded and waved Shun'er to leave, but he was thinking in his heart that if he remembered correctly, Xue Pan's birthday should be the third day of May.

The third day of the fifth lunar month is only about a month old. If we change it to modern time, it would be almost the beginning of June. Xue Pan would definitely feel that it would be honorable to send some large, excellent-looking peaches by then.

While sitting on a chair waiting for the Jia family to come, Shi Zhongkui couldn't help but sink into the space farm in his mind.

The peach tree that was the first to be planted on the farm was already more than ten meters tall and half a meter in diameter four months ago.

It's a pity that the tree still only bears 20 fruits, ten pounds a day, not a cent more, not a cent less.

Moreover, the taste did not become much better. Even after eating too much, Shi Zhongkui still felt that it was not as delicious as before.

Therefore, he only left one peach tree as a reminder, hoping that the tree would slowly turn into a spiritual fruit due to age.

After more than five months, we planted peaches in 20 fields for 20 consecutive days, making 1,000 kilograms of preserved fruit. There are also about 1,500 kilograms of fresh peaches in the warehouse.

The best peaches weighing 6 taels each weigh about 600 kilograms at this time.

Wheat was planted in 19 fields for 20 days and 3,800 kilograms were harvested. Rice was planted for 40 days and 7,600 kilograms were saved.

The rest of the time is allocated to grapes, persimmons and dates. Occasionally, when there is no fresh vegetables, a day or two is allocated to planting them from time to time.

So for the past six months, I have been studying behind closed doors at home, and I have not been wronged in terms of food.

Early the next morning, I took Shun'er on horseback and rode outside the city.

When I arrived at the farm of the family Xue Pan was talking about, I was immediately overjoyed.

Although this place is not big, it is a farm specially used to cultivate spices and flowers and make rouge.

Using the excuse that the scholar was going out for an outing, he easily entered the farm, and was even taken around by the farm owner to play among the fields.

And Shi Zhongkui didn't need to steal. Zhuangtou probably wanted to make some extra money and strongly recommended various flowers and potted plants to him.

I pretended to be tangled for a while, thinking that it would take a lot of effort, but I didn't expect that with only 2 taels of silver, I could easily buy more than a dozen kinds of potted plants, including saffron.

On the way back to the city, Shi Zhongkui sighed. The saffron flowers that his master had worked so hard to find were sold by his subordinates for only 2 taels of silver.

After returning home, I planted a piece of rhizome and soon a large number of tusks sprouted. After cutting off the tusks, all 19 fields were planted with crocuses.

If you collect 190 kilograms of safflower every day, you can get about 1.8 kilograms of flower core.

If it is dehydrated and turned into dried saffron, it will be about 5 taels, which is 15 kilograms a month and 180 kilograms a year.

One tael of dried flowers and 10 taels of silver is indeed equal to one tael of gold.

18,000 taels of silver a year, this income definitely exceeds the income of Ningguo Mansion and Rongguo Mansion from their fields.

After the wedding in Yuanchun, Jia Zhen of the Ningguo Mansion only received 3,000 taels of silver from the farm one year, while his own expectation was 5,000 taels.

Even if Jia Zhen said that Rongguo Mansion had a little more than Ningguo Mansion in previous years, the two mansions combined probably didn't even have 10,000 taels.

Of course, these incomes should not be the only ones for the two mansions, and the farm will not be the only one in the north.

Shi Zhongkui would not sell all the saffron harvested from the beginning.

After all, this thing is a medicinal material after all, but dried flowers can be stored in the warehouse.

It is actually the same to wait until the time is right to sell it, and in Central Asia and Europe, saffron is a hard currency that holds its value better than gold.

Shi Zhongkui also thought about simply selling it to Arab businessmen or Persians.

Silk and tea from the Central Plains traveled along the Silk Road. First, they left Yumen Pass and traveled to the Western Regions. This road was basically controlled by the Persians.

When he went to the market, he saw some blond and blue-eyed foreigners.

The second is to take the Maritime Silk Road.

Before the Great Navigation, because the Suez Canal was not opened, the maritime merchants who came to Asia were basically Arabs.

The ship entered the shore of the Red Sea and took the overland route to the Mediterranean, all the way to Venice in Italy. Venetian merchants then sold spices, porcelain, silk and other unique oriental goods throughout Europe.

The Arab, Persian and Venetian merchants who mastered this route were the richest group of people in the Middle Ages for hundreds of years.

Venetian merchants could even determine the outcome of most wars in Europe.

-----

Rongguo Mansion.

After dinner, Mother Jia saw Wang Xifeng coming over with a cheerful face and her maid, carrying seven or eight fruit plates.

If you look closely, in addition to the snacks you often eat at home, they are all peach preserves, persimmons, dried dates and raisins.

He couldn't help but asked in confusion, "Feng Yatou, peach preserves, persimmons, and dried dates are common, but where did you buy these raisins?"

Wang Xifeng felt happy, and Jia Lian finally breathed a sigh of relief for himself, "Ancestor, you are asking the wrong person."

Seeing Jia Mu, Mrs. Xing, Mrs. Wang, Li Wan, Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu and Sanchun all looking at me.

Wang Xifeng smiled and said, "Didn't the elder ask Lian'er to go to Daxing yesterday to do some work? This afternoon, Lian Er came back and went to the elder's place.

However, Xing'er came to me with some preserved fruits and said that they were gifts from friends Lian Er had made.

I saw that these delicacies looked no worse than the tributes in the palace, so I asked others to try them, and then I took them out to the old lady, the two ladies and the girls to taste."

When Jia Mu heard that someone had tried it, she felt relieved about Wang Xifeng, so she reached out and grabbed a few raisins and ate them.

"It tastes really good," he said to the women who had this on the table. "You all should try it. It's a sign of Lian Er's filial piety that he still remembers us."

A group of women laughed and ate.

After a while, Jia Mu suddenly asked Wang Xifeng, "Is Lian'er still with me?"

"Isn't that right?" Wang Xifeng was originally worried that Jia Lian would be scolded or even beaten, so she gave these dried fruits and planned to call Jia Lian for questioning in Jia's mother's name.

"It's been two hours. It's not like Lian Er has something important to bother the eldest master for so long. The eldest master hasn't even summoned him for dinner yet."

Of course, Jia Mu could hear Wang Xifeng's worries. After thinking about it, she said, "Yuanyang, ask me in the east courtyard. No matter how important the matter is, we have to eat before talking about it."

"Yes, old lady."

But Yuanyang only left for a moment and came back to report, "It was said outside that the eunuch Xia from the palace has arrived. The eldest master, the eldest master, is accompanying Mr. Lian in the Hall of Rongxi."

Jia Mu quickly ordered people to watch outside the Rongxi Hall.

Not long after, Yuanyang came in again and whispered the report in Jia Mu's ear, "I heard from the master's servant that the master ordered someone to withdraw 500 taels of silver from the public treasury in the mansion."

Mother Jia's face darkened, but she didn't say much. The old lady had experienced too much when eunuchs like Xia Shouzhong were greedy for money.
Chapter completed!