Chapter 82 Various Industries

  "These are the land deeds held by Zhengfengmen, in a village about five miles down the mountain, with about 50 mu of farmland, and some wasteland. But these lands are useless, and I don't know what Zhengfengmen is doing with them!"

  Those 50 mu of land were rented to two nearby farming households by Zhengquan Gate, and every year after the autumn harvest, they would go to collect rent. Zhengquan Gate would take 70% of that year's yield, and the remaining would be the income of those two farming households. This year's rent has already been collected, so if we want the yield from these 50 mu of land, we'll have to wait until next year!

  Ye Wen nodded, these fifty mu of land were absolutely a good thing, whether it was to send people to plant or rent out to farmers, they gave the Shu Shan Sect a most basic income guarantee. This wasn't like the vegetable garden in their own sect's mountain gate, this was real grain that could be taken out.

  In this era, grain yields were not high, so grain prices remained high. The 50 acres of land produced by the Shu Shan Sect could bring in a huge income if sold, which would fully meet the basic needs of the sect. However, Ye Wen was not interested in selling grains, he thought that the greatest use of these 50 acres of land was to allow the Shu Shan Sect to eat their own homegrown grains, which saved a lot of expenses.

  "Moreover, Zhengquan Gate also has connections with several landlords in some villages. These large landlord families all asked Zhengquan Gate to send people as guards. Now, Zhengquan Gate is handing over the task of guarding these estates to us. They said that tomorrow they will send someone to call back their own people and have us take over on our own!"

  Ning Ruxue furrowed her brow: "Will these landowners not acknowledge the strength of our disciples, and then be unwilling to use us?"

  In fact, Ning Ruxue wondered if Zheng Quanmen would be so quick to give up. After all, when it comes to protecting the family business, it's always better to use familiar faces rather than new ones. If Zheng Quanmen had just mentioned that they were being forced to abandon this job beforehand, those wealthy landowners probably wouldn't have any good impressions of the Shu Shan disciples.

  Ye Wen also thought of this, and in the blink of an eye he had a plan: "Don't bother to take care of it, whoever is willing to let us take over the escort, we'll send someone. Whoever is not willing, we won't force them! But since this contract is in our hands, if they don't want to use it, just ask them to pay compensation for breaching the contract!"

  In fact, even if the landlords really wanted to send out disciples of Shu Shan Sect for a long time now, Ye Wen would not be willing, because his door simply did not have so many disciples, and some of them still needed to go to Yue Shan Escort Bureau to escort goods frequently, only ten disciples could stay in the door for a long time.

  Compared to his specially built large sect, these ten disciples were thrown in and it was difficult to see them walking around the sect normally, unless it was time for training or meals, otherwise, it wouldn't be unusual not to see anyone wandering around all day.

  So, the guardianship work of these landlords, Ye Wen did not want to take over all of it. The best case scenario was that one or two landlords agreed to let the Shu Shan disciples take over the guardianship, while the others refused. However, this person who breached the contract would absolutely not be Ye Wen, he was unwilling to bear the losses brought by breaching the contract.

  "Would those landlords be willing to pay the price?" Ning Ruxue didn't think these people would be willing to foot the bill for the trouble caused by Zhengquanmen, after all, the contract was signed with Zhengquanmen, and now the people of Shushan are holding these contracts saying that the other party is in breach of contract, and even if they don't pay, it seems like there's nothing that can be done.

  Ye Wen thought for a moment, then said: "If they don't give it to us, we won't force them! Just remember which families have what, and if they come begging in the future, we'll settle accounts with them then!"

  After careful consideration, if these people really don't pay up, Ye Wen indeed can't do anything about it. After all, his sect is on the right path, and Ye Wen has no interest in becoming a public enemy of the martial arts world, a great thief, or a super big demon head. So if the other party is determined not to give money, he won't use his disciples either, and there's nothing he can do about it.

  Can't just go and kill them all off, can we?

  He is now the leader of a sect, with dozens of people to support, and his hometown is just on top of Shu Mountain. Not that rootless duckweed, without a fixed residence, lone wanderer, come and go as one pleases, after Ye Wen decided to build a strong sect, he left him far behind.

  So, he has to consider more when doing many things, such as those that will obviously make his sect's reputation stink. He must be cautious in dealing with them. If something goes wrong, the reputation of Shu Shan Sect will be ruined by these people, and all his efforts over the past few days will be in vain.

  However, Ye Wen is not without a way to deal with these guys. Once the Shu Shan Sect has suppressed all the forces around Shu Shan County and cleaned up the various sects on Shu Shan, especially after they have been cleared out, these landlords will definitely come begging when they recruit others later. At that time, he can do whatever he wants with them.

  More crucially, there were also struggles between landlords and between them, they would even break out in small-scale armed fights due to some conflicts of interest, which is also the reason why landlords would spend a lot of money to invite powerful bodyguards.

  Ye Wen can totally support some landlords who support Shu Shan Sect and suppress those who don't know what's good for them.

  She roughly told Ning Xue about her plan, and her junior sister also understood how to deal with it afterwards, so she put the contracts for hiring guards aside.

  "Wow! Brother, it turns out that Zhengquan Gate has an inn in Shushan County too!" Ning Ruxue looked at the thing in her hand with great surprise. She really didn't expect that Zhengquan Gate had such a large source of income apart from collecting rent and providing protection for people.

  And this inn is not a cooperative relationship like Shushan School and Yueshan Guard Bureau, but it is fully opened by Zhengquanmen as the backstage boss. How this inn develops is entirely up to Zhengquanmen, even if Wang Shu just opens his mouth, the inn will hand over all its profits to Zhengquanmen, and then close down the next day is also an order that must be followed.

  The inn's shopkeeper and waiters are all hired, and the Zhengquan Gate will send people to check accounts at regular intervals and take back part of the income to the gate. This job is usually done by the four major executives in rotation. Of course, the inn will also have disciples stationed for a long time to prevent someone from coming to make trouble.

  Ye Wen and Ning Ruxue were unclear how to operate the industries under Zhengquanmen, but Ye Wen could completely guess. In fact, if there was no accident, Ye Wen would also choose this way to operate, because the sect was his foundation, and these surrounding industries were serving the sect.

  Ye Wen attaches more importance to the development momentum of these industries because he understands that inns can bring not only income but also some news from the rivers and lakes.

  No choice, this is also the trouble brought by the limitation of the world's technological capabilities. In order to obtain intelligence, one can only rely on the mobile population! And inns are the largest gathering place for the mobile population.

  So Ye Wen hopes that this inn can develop as much as possible, best to become the largest inn in Shushan County, and can concentrate all intelligence under his ears.

  Almost in an instant, Ye Wen realized the enormous value of this inn and immediately decided to reduce the rent, putting more profits into expanding the scale. In contrast, Ning Ruxue was concerned about the benefits that this inn could bring.

  "According to what was said above, Zhengquanmen collects accounts approximately every three months. Calculating that way, the next account collection is just around the corner. This time we don't have to worry about New Year's gifts!"

  As soon as this was mentioned, Ning Ruxue's face lit up with a smile. Although the Shu Shan Sect didn't have to worry about living expenses at present, Ning Ruxue still felt extremely happy that her own sect could earn some extra income - This child had been poor for too long.

  But things don't seem that simple. The Zhengquan Gate was defeated just yesterday, so the people from some of the industries around him definitely haven't had time to withdraw yet.

  Just like the guards of those landlord families, the Zhengquan Gate disciples in this inn will probably not get the news for a while, and when they go to receive it themselves, there will definitely be another conflict.

  "This is the Zhēngquán Gate, and they're in such a hurry to send these contracts over but didn't even bother to send someone to escort us for the handover, what a bad intention!"

  To be honest, Ye Wen hadn't thought of this before, but now that he thinks about it more deeply, he realizes what Zhengquanmen is getting at: "The contract is yours, but whether or not you can smoothly obtain what Shushanpai wants is none of their concern!"

  Thinking of the leader of Zhengquan Gate, Ye Wen felt a wave of disdain: "Just look at this person who likes to play with tricks, and there's nothing to be afraid of in Zhengquan Gate! The gate master himself fell into his own trap, what kind of big waves can these stinky fish make?"

  Actually, Ye Wen wronged Wang Shu on this point, because as soon as Wang Shu returned to Zhengquan Gate, he directly fainted and handed over the contract. The idea of sending things over was actually Vice Master Jiang Zhen's idea. Although Jiang Zhen is the vice master of Zhengquan Gate, his martial arts skills are mediocre, and any one of the four attendants is more powerful than him. And yet, he holds such a high position in the gate because this person is the military advisor of Zhengquan Gate.

  Zhengquan Gate now has such a relatively large layout and so many industries in Shu Mountain, among which Jiang Zhen came up with quite a few ideas. At the same time, Zhengquan Gate's strategy of suppressing the development of nearby small door factions was also set by this vice gate master.

  It can be said that before encountering Ye Wen, the development of Zhengquanmen was steadily advancing along the route arranged by Jiang Zhen. If it weren't for the existence of Shushanpai, which completely exceeded the average martial arts standard of Shushan, Zhengquanmen might have become the number one sect in Shushan, and Jiang Zhen would naturally have become a meritorious figure in Zhengquanmen.

  Unfortunately, after all these years of hard work by Zhengquanmen, everything was done for Ye Wen's wedding dress. Under the gloom, Jiang Zhen couldn't help but do some petty things.

  Although these things seem a bit ridiculous in Ye Wen's eyes, Jiang Zhen's idea is very simple: "Even if you win, I will make you feel sick!"

  But with a wave of Ye Wen's hand, Jiang Zhen's abacus didn't get to ring out: "Have Xu Shidi bring people to take over this inn! Have him bring two disciples, whoever jumps out to block the way will be beaten severely!"