I Love Farming

As the Lord’s residence, the house must be built with the best materials. The square stone must be stacked, the roof must be covered with shale slate, and the interior must be paved with slate. The windows couldn’t be like the windows in the castle. They had to make the windows using wooden strips. 

The most important thing was that even though the house was built on this flat land, they couldn’t just listen to what the Lord said. Peasant soldiers guarded the house because the house had not yet been reinforced with other materials. A circle was cut off outside the Lord’s Siheyuan. They then dug trenches around it. It was necessary to build a wall around it as well. The side of the wall that didn’t contain an entrance was also covered with thorns. This way, nobody would dare to climb it.

Because of this, the house wouldn’t be completed for a while. Cui QiChao was in for a penny, in for a pound, so he had these people take half the time to repair the roads and bridges in the courtyard, as well as abolished miscellaneous taxes such as the bridge tax. Yes, farmers had to pay taxes whenever they crossed the Lord’s bridge. But this was only the first step. In the future, the taxes would grow less and less, while their income would grow more and more.

The farmers were rejoicing. Whenever they spotted any good stones, they would pick them up and send them to the Lord. They did their best to support the Lord to build a house. They all heard about the rumors that the Lord was building the house to live by himself. If the Lord moved out of the castle and into that house, the Lord would be closer to everyone, and it would be more convenient for them to worship the Lord.

In addition, Cui QiChao also asked people to level the field of land where the village houses were concentrated. He had these people spread stones and make a firewood pit in the middle, which would then be surrounded by long pieces of wood for people to rest on. 

This was considered the earliest public entertainment facility in Northumberland. The villagers could gather here in their spare time. Whenever the weather was good, the women could come out from their narrow huts and all sit here to do housework.

And if any announcements had to be made in the fief, they could be made here.

Later, the “square” became Northumberland’s marketplace. Every once in a while, people from the fief and some villages far away would gather here to exchange the materials that they produced too much of.

Then at night, when they were done with work for the day, those who still had spare strength could also sing and dance, tell stories, and listen to stories here.

.

When the Northumberland trade team came back, it was close to the wool trees’ blooming season.

This time, they mainly exchanged various spices and ironware, all of which were very expensive items. Fortunately…the brown sugar they brought was more expensive, so they returned with a full load.

Raymond thought about the Lord’s hobby. Other than what he brought back, he also collected some seeds, most of which were various types of vegetable seeds, particularly tubers. With the priority being sugar beets. He always thought, who knows whether there are crops among this bunch that contain sugar? 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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Replacing these wooden farming tools with iron farming tools would undoubtedly improve efficiency.

It could be said that no Lord would collect so many iron farm tools. They didn’t feel a  need to not exchange brown sugar for more iron. After all, if they could craft more weapons, wouldn’t that be better since they could trample over other people’s territories? 

Cui QiChao also found many useful seeds amongthe seeds that Raymond brought back such as new natural pesticide seeds and neem seeds, which were brought back from the Far East.

Neem extract was harmless to humans and animals, but it could slowly kill insects and inhibit their oviposition and reproduction. The disadvantage was that it would make plants taste a little unpleasant. However, with the current circumstances, this wasn’t a big defect.

Unfortunately, Cui QiChao always seemed to lack good luck. He didn’t know when he would find high-yield crops such as corn and potatoes. He might not be able to find them before he had to leave. After all, this was the middle ages, and these plants or seeds had yet to appear.

Raymond also told Cui QiChao some news. He passed through the city where he had previously exchanged for beets and found that their beets had been bought by the church at a very low price. Interestingly, the farmers there were complacent and felt that they had taken advantage of the church. 

It was nothing unusual.

Raymond said, “The church might also set aside some arable land to grow some beets. Once that time comes, our brown sugar probably can’t be traded for so many items anymore.”

“I know, but even if there’s a slight price reduction in the near future, there should still be a short supply of sugar. Moreover, as one fades, the other grows.” Cui QiChao said, “If the church uses a part of their land to produce beets, their food produce and even their grapes will reduce.”

Northumberland would become rich in grain and grapes, but the grapes would only ripen at a later period. The grapes planted by cutting would not be able to bear fruit in the first year. They would have to wait for two to three years before the grapes could produce continuously. 

After calculating the time needed to make sugar, Cui QiChao began to write to the archbishop.

He was going to suggest to the archbishop to set up a trade zone in the parish, summon nobles from all over the world to buy brown sugar, and allow them to trade with each other. If there was a church in charge, they wouldn’t have to worry too much. For example, Northumberland always suffered from suspicion whenever he sent out the trade team to exchange things from elsewhere. Since his trade team were foreigners in those territories, he was also afraid of being cheated by others.

By approaching the church, they would be able to save time because they wouldn’t have to individually sell their sugar to each territory. At the same time, they could also collect trade tax.

For Northumberland, such a big move would put a cover over their actions and facilitate trade for everyone. They wouldn’t need to try so hard to buy and sell with others in the future. Each fief that independently lived on their own could produce and sell their own products, as well as take this opportunity to increase their transactions and information exchange. 

These were all suggested to the archbishop. Whether he could adopt it or not depended on his activities.

After writing the letter, Cui QiChao threw away all his worries and began to concentrate on the work in the territory. The cotton was ripe and ready for harvest.

When the cotton flowers started spurning into balls, the fields filled with cotton flowers became a famous landscape to tour in Northumberland. The well-informed nobles all misunderstood that the cotton came from sheep growing from wool trees, not to mention the serfs.

The serfs vaguely heard that it was a wool tree. They couldn’t tell the difference between a wool tree and an ordinary tree before it reached maturity. They also didn’t know how a sheep would grow from it. The tree was not tall. How could sheep hang from it? 

But when the white cotton slowly appeared, the sight refreshed everyone’s understanding: there were no sheep growing on the wool tree. Wool grew directly on it! Lumps and lumps! White as snow!

Stalks of white cotton flowers all bloomed on the field. It looked like sheep from a distance, except that they couldn’t move.

Not to mention serfs, even all the stewards, knights, and priests couldn’t help but wander around and lower their heads to study the wool.

Priest William studied it for a long time and said, “This should also be a miracle. On the continent where wool trees originally grew, the environment was bad and not suitable for sheep to survive. So the merciful God had mercy on them after understanding what they were going through and gave them wool trees so that they could grow wool directly this way.” 

The onlookers nodded one after another and thought that made sense So that was the case. God was so kind. This was way better than raising sheep. You didn’t have to feed the sheep, shear them for their wool, and then deal with the wool.

Cui QiChao: “……”

Since the Baron was highest in the social hierarchy here, William naturally turned to him for feedback after sputtering his opinions.

Cui QiChao nodded slowly and agreed. “You’re right. This is God’s blessing. It can grow safely in Northumberland, which is also the blessing of God. I will donate some of this cotton—wool to the church.” 

William was overflowing with joy. He liked the Baron’s generosity. Here, he never had to worry about not receiving tithes. Rumor had it that Northumberland was small and remote, but ever since the Baron took office, he lived no worse here than the bishops in the great aristocratic territories.

He felt embarrassed to report to the church on how he wanted to refuse overeating and how he refused to eat meat during fasting with strong willpower. But during the non-fasting period, he really couldn’t refuse the delicious food that the Lord sent. He had enough to eat every meal… Cough. Fortunately, there weren’t many people in Northumberland’s church, so he could still control the situation, and he believed that it was a secret between himself and the Baron.

Without the help of machines, cotton could only be harvested by hand. The snow-white cotton balls were picked, while the cotton flowers and the cottonseeds were separated by a gin that was newly made by the craftsmen. Baskets of snow-white cotton quilts were transported to the Lord’s warehouse, after which they would be processed into various cotton fabrics.

The Baron had already figured out how to use it. In addition to replacing wool with cotton, he asked some people to spin the cotton flowers into cotton to make close-fitting clothes. Wool was warm, but close-fitting clothes made from it were too itchy. 

And these medieval people didn’t wear underwear at all. Cui QiChao had endured it for a long time. He needed some close fitting clothes.

In addition, Cui QiChao also asked people to make cotton bedding. Previously, he used fur blankets, wool blankets, and pillows filled with grain.

The people in the castle were very envious of the Lord. The Lord really knew how to enjoy life. They saw that fluffy cotton felt so good, and that close contact with it wouldn’t itch at all. This was unlike wool fabric, which had to be covered with other fabrics beneath it first before it could be worn. Although the wool quilt was a little heavy, in everyone’s hearts, they inwardly felt that this was the only way to reflect their high status.

In any case, things like wool and cotton were rare. Cotton fabrics were rare in the whole continent, and most of it would only be seen in the north. Nobody has seen anyone make quilts like the Lord. They couldn’t help but fantasize. Once the cotton production output increased, like the full-sugar banquet, would they also have a cotton castle… 

The soft cotton mats, the fluffy cotton quilts, and the bulging cotton pillows were all placed on the bed after exposing them to the sun and letting them soak the scent of sunshine, thus adding some warmth to the dark room.

The moment XiaoBai saw the cotton quilt, he flew to bed before Cui QiChao could say “no.” The cat’s entire body fell onto the thick quilt.

Cui QiChao: “……”

XiaoBai rolled around in comfort before climbing out of bed. Its face was saying “you didn’t say no yet”. In any case, it knew that Cui QiChao wouldn’t let him sleep in it. It was better to enjoy it first and not think about whether it would be killed, or whether its cat head would be bitten off. 

It could only be said that XiaoBai had grown familiar with how to act like a cat and was now more and more able to exploit loopholes.

At this time, Lily knocked on the door and came in. She held several thick cotton cushions stacked in a tall pile in her arms. She tilted her head, so that she could expose her face from behind the heap of thick cotton cushions. With a smile, she whispered, “My Lord, the three pillows… No, the cat nests have also finished drying in the sun. Different marks have been embroidered on them as you ordered.”

XiaoBai: “……”

Cui QiChao said slowly, “No, it’s a pillow and two cat nests.“