Transmigration: From Farmer To Empress
Chapter 556 Growth (3)_1

Chapter 556: Chapter 556 Growth (3)_1

One of the managers mentioned hesitantly, "Without intending to hide anything from you, Miss, the sanctuary has indeed been facing difficulties these days. We have a fixed monthly expenditure, but the sudden increase in grain prices has not changed our fixed allocation of funds. The sanctuary accounts are already spending more than we can afford..."

"Yes, our accounts are transparent. Each and every expense is clearly documented. Please take a look, Miss."

Cai Wei took the ledger, looked it over, and upon finding no errors, she smiled and said, "Everyone just rest assured. These external factors that lead to expenditures exceeding income, we’ll naturally not blame you all. Whatever shortfall, we’ll just top up accordingly."

As she spoke, she took out two hundred taels of silver and placed it on the desk.

"You guys can take this silver for now to make up for the previous shortfall. With the leftovers, please hire a decent teacher to educate the children in the sanctuary. Later, I’ll have people deliver some rice and vegetables, we definitely won’t let everyone go hungry due to the increase in rice prices."

"Yes, thank you, Miss!"

The managers were extremely grateful. They had initially planned to send someone to the capital to discuss with Young Master Huo, but now that Miss Mu had come over, she solved the problem without a word, even hiring a teacher for the children in the sanctuary. This surprise left everyone deeply moved.

By night, Cai Wei had, indeed, sent two large horse carriages filled with brown rice, white rice, flour, and various fresh vegetables, along with some commonly used medicinal materials.

If these were given a few days ago, they would have been worth around three to five hundred taels. Now, they’re worth up to a thousand taels, enough for everyone to get by for two months.

The elderly, weak, sick, and disabled of the sanctuary had all been privately worried when the price of grain increased, fearing that they would need to go hungry. They didn’t anticipate Miss Mu’s surprising generosity. Not only did she bring them enough rice, vegetables, and Chinese medicine, but she also enabled the children to study. They were so moved that they wanted to kowtow in gratitude. However, they were told that Miss Mu had already left Lin’an Prefecture, so they had no choice but to set it aside, burying this gratitude in their hearts.

After taking care of the sanctuary, Cai Wei left Lin’an Prefecture to lobby the surrounding manors, hoping to purchase some food supplies. Before meeting Nangong Yi, she wanted to give him a surprise. The surprise was to solve his current biggest problem - procuring enough food supply for his army for a month.

Lin’an Prefecture is a prosperous city with large surrounding manors. Some are private manors owned by landlords in the city, while others belong to local gentry. These manors have vast amounts of land and each household has a large stockpile of food. She believed that as long as the price was right, these manor owners should be willing to sell.

Cai Wei didn’t act blindly. She found an experienced mediator to help her purchase, promising that if he could help her acquire ten thousand dan of food, she would gift him a hundred-year-old ginseng root.

The price of a hundred-year-old ginseng roots was more than three hundred taels, so the mediator was naturally willing to make every effort to help. He first brought Cai Wei to a manor, called Li Family Manor, located about twenty miles away from Lin’an Prefecture, to persuade the manor owner to sell grain.

The manor owner of Li Family Manor was named Li Shoucai. As his name suggested, he was a true miser, a man who would split a copper coin in half before spending it. The townsfolk called him Manor Owner Li to his face, while behind his back they called him Li Tieji, implying that he was stingy to a fault.

Li Tieji not only owned vast fertile land, countless manor houses, and innumerable livestock, but he was also renowned as a wealthy man in Lin’an Prefecture. However, this affluent man was so frugal that he wished he could split a copper coin in half before using it. He always went around with a long face lamenting his poverty, acting as if he were so poor that he was on the verge of starvation.