Chapter 1012 Disposal (1)
fɾēewebnσveℓ.com After some inquiries, Mo Yan learned about the general situation of the estate from Zhao Dafu.
The estate was located within a territory called Chen Family Village, where the vast majority of villagers had the surname Chen, with only a few families being outsiders. The Mo Family Farmland’s thousand mu of good land was rented out to the villagers of Chen Family Village.
This land was also within the boundaries of Chen Family Village. Apart from two hundred mu of paddy fields, of the remaining eight hundred mu, six hundred were dry land, and two hundred were sloping fields.
Compared to the sloping fields, the dry land was more fertile and easier to irrigate, suitable for planting wheat, corn, rapeseed, sorghum, etc., all of which fared quite well. The soil of the sloping fields was also not bad, fit for peanuts, soybeans, millet, and buckwheat. As long as there was no drought or flood, the annual yield per mu was several dou more than in other places, which is why the farmland on the estate was highly sought after by the villagers, with few tenants relinquishing their lease.
As for the rent, it was supposed to be five parts after the crops were harvested and taxes paid, but since the previous owner of the estate was an official, according to the Great Chu’s tax laws, his lands were exempt from rent, so the rent directly became six parts, meaning the tenants could keep forty percent of the harvest. If the harvest was poor in a particular year, the rent would usually be adjusted to five or four parts.
If Mo Yan were a tenant, she would surely complain about the high rent, but now that she had become the owner of these lands, her perspective was different, although she still felt the rent was a bit high. However, given the larger context, if she were to rashly reduce the rent, she might gain a good reputation among those tenants, but it would disrupt a certain balance, potentially causing resentment and leading to trouble.