Chapter 73 (continued)

Feng Ningxiang: "Then what about your land?"

Tan Wenlei: "We can sublet it. The roads here are easy to navigate, so it'll be easy to sublet."

Farming is quite risky, with diseases, pests, and floods occurring frequently. In addition to technical skills, luck is also required.

Tan Wenlei was alright in his early years, but now that he's older and has so many things to worry about, and he's always doing heavy physical labor, he wants to retire. He's mentioned to Qing Mengzhu several times that he doesn't want to farm anymore.

Qing Mengzhu knew and understood.

After asking the question, Tan Wenlei noticed everyone gathered around and realized what he meant, saying, "I was just asking if you needed anyone?"

Qing Mengzhu: "Yes! Uncle Wenlei, if you've made up your mind, you're welcome to come anytime."

Tan Wenlei farms over ten acres of land by himself. His diligence goes without saying, and he also has a good character and personality. He is enthusiastic about helping people make connections and is responsible.

Qing Mengzhu likes him quite a bit.

Upon hearing Qing Mengzhu's words, Tan Wenlei immediately said, "Then I'll go back and discuss it with my wife."

Qing Mengzhu: "Take your time, there's no rush. Our production department hasn't been officially established yet. You can come over after it's officially set up."

Qing Mengzhu said so, and the news that their family was hiring quickly spread throughout the entire village, and even people from several nearby villages knew about it.

Many people came to him, offering their services and expressing their willingness to work for him.

Qing Mengzhu would hire suitable candidates and hand over unsuitable ones to Zhao Hexi to handle. Running a company is running a company; he doesn't care about saving face.

Qing Mengzhu and his team only recruited two people from Pingkou Village: Tan Wenlei and Deng Linjia.

Both of them were quite familiar with Qing Mengzhu, knew his character and abilities, and thought highly of him.

They preferred following Qing Mengzhu to farming themselves.

At least I get a fixed salary and they pay for my social insurance and housing fund. I'll have some income when I get old, which is better than farming.

After the two officially joined Zhuxi Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd.., the fields were also sublet to their company.

Besides the two of them, many other villagers sublet their fields after seeing that Qing Mengzhu's company wanted to rent them.

Qing Mengzhu and Zhao Hexi spent their days overseeing the land transactions and securing a large portion of the adjacent fields. The leases were uniformly signed for twenty years, taking effect on January 1st of next year.

Some fields were not in good locations or were not adjacent, so they did not rent them out for the time being.

The landowner was quite disappointed to hear that they didn't want to rent it out.

In recent years, agriculture has developed well here. With the support of various parties, it has also connected with supermarkets and community agriculture, so there is no worry about sales. However, farming is still tiring. It doesn't earn much more than working in a factory all year round, and it is also very worrying. If there is an opportunity to leave, many people would like to leave.

Qing Mengzhu ignored what others thought; he only made plans and acquired all the farmland and ponds with good conditions.

After more than a week of hard work, the farmland he owned increased dramatically from 15 mu to 450 mu, or 30 hectares.

This amount of land isn't much for an agricultural technology company, but it shows they're on the right track.

What pleased Qing Mengzhu most was that, in addition to the thirty hectares of land, she also rented eight large ponds connected together, which together covered at least ten acres.

Next year, they'll clean up the pond, plant lotus roots, and raise shrimp; they're sure to reap good profits.

They were both exhausted after running for so long.

They finally had a day off and sat at home making notes.

Zhao Hexi's notebook was all curled and frayed. He flipped through it. "We've finished everything that needed to be done. Next, we need to prepare the farmland, first by disinfecting and then by applying base fertilizer, in preparation for next spring's planting."

Not every plot of land they rented was planted with crops; some of the empty plots are now ready to be prepared.

Qing Mengzhu also looked at her notebook. "Disinfection isn't urgent. Let's do it all when we have more free time. I want to plant bamboo first these next few days, and then think about next year's sales."

They have a lot of land; if they were to grow vegetables, they should be paving the way for selling them now—whether through partnerships with supermarkets, direct connections to communities, or e-commerce.

Different methods of selling vegetables have different focuses, so it's best to decide on the method before planting.

Zhao Hexi noted down Qing Mengzhu's words. "Alright, let's make clearing the forests our production department's first task. We can use this as a trial period to test them out."

Qing Mengzhu nodded. "Planting bamboo is quite tiring. If everyone can adapt to planting bamboo, then the rest of the work shouldn't be a problem."

Zhao Hexi: "Okay, I'll contact someone to report for duty tomorrow."

Zhao Hexi has already set up the production department. He has temporarily divided the people in the production department into three groups. At present, only one group has been set up, with Feng Ningxiang as the group leader and himself serving as the head of the production department.

There are now fifteen people in the group, seven men and eight women, all middle-aged people in their forties and fifties.

Qing Mengzhu doesn't have high requirements for recruiting people. He hopes to provide job opportunities for local middle-aged people with low education levels who have limited career prospects, which can be considered as fulfilling his social responsibility.

Zhao Hexi personally conducted the interviews and also inquired about the candidates' character before carefully selecting fifteen diligent employees.

Now that he finally has work to do, he wants to see if the person he hires is suitable.

If they're not a good fit, replace them before the probation period ends; that way, they'll have experience to draw on next time they're hiring.

On the day they officially started working on the mountain, Qing Mengzhu and Zhao Hexi led a team of seventeen people, all wearing hats and gloves, and headed up the mountain to Qing Mengzhu's house.

When they reached the top of the mountain, Zhao Hexi held a short meeting with everyone. The goal for today was to clear the shrubs and miscellaneous trees, remove the ground cover, and then dig up the tree roots later.

After listening, everyone said they understood and quickly went their separate ways to get back to work.

Such a large mountain, with seventeen people scattered throughout, they were completely inconspicuous.

However, everyone got to work quickly, thumping away, and soon cleared out a large area.

Qing Mengzhu and Zhao Hexi observed that their male and female colleagues actually worked at about the same speed.

Zhao Hexi whispered to Qing Mengzhu, "The aunties here are really fierce."

Qing Mengzhu also whispered, "They do a lot of heavy physical labor, some even work on construction sites; they're all very hardworking people."

Zhao Hexi: "That's amazing, much better than us."

Everyone else worked quickly, but the two of them fell behind.

Fortunately, they were leaders, so no one pressured them.

Their production department's working hours are from 7:00 AM to 11:00 AM and from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM, seven hours a day. They get a lunch break, usually a boxed meal.

Today was the first day of work. When we finished work at 11 o'clock, Zhao Hexi took everyone to town for dinner to celebrate the start of the project.

After lunch, everyone went home and returned to work in the afternoon.

That's the good thing about it being all locals; you can get anywhere in half an hour by electric scooter, making commuting very convenient.

Zhao Hexi and his team worked for several days, cutting down all the miscellaneous trees and shrubs, and then began transplanting bamboo.

The bamboo in Qing Mengzhu's house is growing too fast; it has now grown into a large patch.

When transplanting, dig up the bamboo with its roots, cut off the excess branches and leaves, soak the roots in a prepared rooting solution for two hours, and then transplant it to another location. It will generally survive.

As a result, in just over a week, the bamboo forest of Qing Mengzhu's family expanded from a single patch to a mountain.

Although bamboo is planted sparsely in most places and has not yet formed a forest, one can imagine what it will look like when it is lush and verdant.

The mountains will be lush and green by then, with a refreshing breeze rustling through the bamboo.

Zhao Hexi understood immediately. "Are you planning to raise hazel grouse on the mountain?"

Qing Mengzhu: "That's right, we can't keep them in the backyard forever. The backyard is too small; it's not good for them."

Zhao Hexi: "Are the hazel grouse about to hatch?"

Qing Mengzhu: "Not so fast, at least until the end of the month. Hazel grouse need 25 days to incubate."

Zhao Hexi checked the weather forecast on her phone. "The temperature should have dropped by the end of the month, right? Should we buy a heater?"