Transmigrating with a Five Million Dollar Retirement Life

Chapter 58 Buying Land Again to Build a New Workshop

"This land still belongs to the village, but nobody wants to buy it. It's too steep; it's not a good place to build a house or use as farmland. Jiaojiao, why are you asking about this place?"

When Song Jiaojiao heard that no one was buying, her eyes lit up. "Approximately how wide is this plot of land?"

"It's not very wide, but it's quite long. The total area is about three acres, but we'll know the exact number after it cools down. Jiaojiao, you're not going to buy it, are you?"

The village chief looked at Song Jiaojiao and guessed.

"Yes, Uncle Wang, I'm planning to buy this place. As you can see, my old house upstairs is too small. It's too cramped to use as a workshop, and I also have to feed the pigs and stuff. I thought if I'm going to do something, I should do something big, and this area is perfect," Song Jiaojiao said excitedly.

The village chief looked at the woman in front of him. Her confident demeanor was completely different from Song Jiaojiao, who had been kicked out of the Wang family three months ago and was crying and sobbing. Jiaojiao had really changed. It was a good thing that she had changed.

"Since you've made your decision, I won't say anything more. I'll go find someone to measure the dimensions and calculate the cost, and we'll complete the formalities tomorrow."

"Alright, Uncle Wang, you go ahead. I'll just walk around here." Song Jiaojiao urged the village chief, who nodded and hurried off to find someone without wasting any time.

This piece of land is really long, but not very wide. Because of the slope, it looks even narrower, but the parts without the slope are very flat.

If it's long enough, it could almost run through the entire Qingshui Village; if it's wide enough, it's just enough to build a house, with a little extra space.

As Song Jiaojiao walked, she thought to herself. She could dig a cellar on the slope; as long as it was secured, it wouldn't collapse. This way, the harvested sweet potatoes wouldn't take up space in the yard anymore. It would also be better to store them in the cellar for brewing wine later. Along this slope, she could dig at least a 40-square-meter cellar.

The sweet potato processing workshop is built on the far side, and a drying room is essential because it operates year-round. This workshop needs to be quite large, with two drying rooms. The kitchen is simply a shed, which serves as the stove for the drying rooms. An open space, roughly the size of the house, is also left for drying goods.

Next to the drying room, build a fruit drying workshop, specifically for drying fruit. Since it is seasonal, it doesn't need to be too big; a drying room and an open space for drying things will suffice.

A sugar mill was built next to the dried fruit workshop. When the sugarcane was harvested, they could boil sugar themselves. This was also seasonal. If it was successful next year, many villagers would follow suit and plant sugarcane the year after. The sugar didn't need to be dried; it had to be boiled. The kitchen had to be spacious, with at least two stoves and four pots, plus a room for drying the sugar. There was no need to leave any open space, mainly because it had to be kept dry.

Next to the sugar mill is a fruit winery. Storing wine in the cellar is better than storing it in the house. There's no need for a kitchen; all you need is a room and a plot of land.

These workshops all needed water, so each workshop had to have a well. For safety reasons, they all had to be fenced off, and each workshop had its own separate gate and courtyard, with each having its own designated area.

Just as he was thinking this, the village chief led his men to measure out the wasteland.

“Jiaojiao, it’s a total of 3.5 mu of land. You’re building a workshop, so the cost is calculated based on the land foundation. It’s 20 taels per mu, so it’s 70 taels in total. With taxes and other fees, it’ll be around 75 taels.”

The village chief was surprised that the land, which didn't look very wide, turned out to be quite large. He wondered if Song Jiaojiao wanted such a big piece of land.

"Okay, tomorrow He Fan and Uncle Wang will go together to complete the formalities. But I still have a question. I've set up a workshop here. Do I need to register it or anything?"

Song Jiaojiao thought that the workshop was equivalent to the factory in her previous life. Although it was not big, it required all sorts of procedures and taxes in the previous life.

"That's fine. You only need to pay 50 taels of tax every year. This year your scale is small, so you don't meet the tax standard yet. If you want to expand next year, you will need to pay commercial tax. Oh, Dapeng is not considered a commodity, but only an agricultural product, so you don't need to pay that."

Seeing Song Jiaojiao's confused expression, the village chief was relieved that he had looked into it some time ago and figured that Song Jiaojiao definitely had more than just one workshop.

"No matter how many workshops there are, they only pay 50 taels?"

"No, it's not that. It's the same price for no more than ten workshops under the same household registration. If there are more than ten, the price will double. Most people won't have more than ten."

The village chief explained with a smile. Song Jiaojiao thought about it and agreed. In this era of many children, how could there be more than ten? At worst, they could just divide the family property and have multiple household registrations, right?

No wonder there aren't many people who actually run workshops. The annual tax of 50 taels is enough to cover the expenses of an ordinary person for at least five years. If a workshop doesn't make money, it will go bankrupt.

When the people who came with the village chief heard that Song Jiaojiao wanted to expand her workshop, they quickly asked, "Jiaojiao, will you need more manpower if you expand your workshop? Do you think I can help you then?"

Song Jiaojiao looked at the villagers in front of her and said, "We definitely need people, but I don't handle this. This is Aunt Li's responsibility. You can sign up with me later. It doesn't matter if you're not selected. I will also harvest a lot of sweet potatoes next year. You can plant more if you have time. Of course, food is our foundation. We can't use all the soil to grow sweet potatoes."

Upon hearing Song Jiaojiao's words, everyone agreed, thinking that even if they weren't selected, they could still clear more wasteland to plant sweet potatoes; of course, it would be even better if they were selected.

Upon hearing this, everyone said goodbye to the village chief and left, hoping to clear some land before it got dark.

The village chief, watching the hurried villagers, couldn't stop smiling. "At this rate, our Qingshui Village will have a lot more land next year, and we won't be taxed for the first three years." My performance is going to increase several times over. Of course, the village chief didn't say this aloud.

The village chief glanced at Song Jiaojiao standing beside him and thought, "This is the real deal. No one in the surrounding villages dares to open a workshop. Once this workshop is up and running, it'll be more than enough to make our village the largest in Yunshui Town within three years, maybe even less."

I never imagined I would achieve this in my lifetime. Thinking about this, the village chief felt even more how much benefit his past kindness had brought him. Indeed, one should always have a kind heart.

As Song Jiaojiao watched the village chief's increasingly amiable gaze and the barely suppressed smile on his lips, she felt like she was being watched.

She hurriedly tried to say goodbye to the village chief, but before she could speak, she heard him ask, "Jiaojiao, when do you plan to start building this workshop?"

"The New Year is almost here, and we'll start again after the fourth day of the Lunar New Year." Song Jiaojiao thought that everyone probably wouldn't be in the mood to work before the New Year, so she decided to wait until after the New Year. "In our area, we rarely even see snow. The ground never freezes; there's only frost in the morning and evening."

"Sure, this is a good time to gather manpower. Will we need more people this time? What are your plans?"

The village chief thought that with such a large area, it would be impossible to finish planting before the spring planting season if there were too few people, so they needed more manpower.