Chapter 352: No. 1 Territory Food Storage Warehouse

The meeting place for the Lord Alliance members was once again chosen as Territory No. 5.

Once everyone had arrived, Xia Qing announced the good news first. "Brother Luo has agreed to let us store the vegetables and grain we've harvested in the No. 1 Territory food storage warehouse. The price and requirements are the same as the Safe Zone storage warehouse, but we can go pick up food once every week."

The lords, who had expected to pay a higher price than the Safe Zone rate to store food in No. 1 Territory, were so happy they couldn't close their mouths.

Xia Qing continued, "The shelves in the No. 1 Territory storage warehouse are two meters long, one meter wide, and two meters tall, with five tiers. Everyone needs to figure out right now how many shelves we need in total. Once I'm back, I have to report it to Captain Hu."

Each storage shelf in the food storage warehouse costs 150 points per month, so of course they had to calculate the amount carefully and arrange the food reasonably.

The middleman Kuang Qingwei took out his phone and skillfully did the math. "These are standard-sized shelves. Each tier can hold six standard grain bags, so one shelf holds thirty bags of grain. Everyone figure out how many bags of grain you need to put in."

Zhong Tao asked, "The grain we can store includes wheat, rice, mung beans, and corn. Nobody should have much wheat left, and around a hundred stalks of rice won't yield many jin either, so the most we have is mung beans and corn. Brother Kuang, how many jin can a standard bag hold?"

Kuang Qingwei asked Qi Fu, "Brother Qi, I only know that a standard grain bag can hold 120 jin of wheat. Mung beans and corn should be heavier than wheat, right?"

Qi Fu, who had rich farming experience, answered, "No. Wheat is the heaviest. A grain bag that holds 120 jin of wheat should hold about 115 jin of corn, 100 jin of mung beans, and 90 jin of rice."

Seeing the surprised looks on everyone's faces, Qi Fu explained with a smile, "Before the disaster, my wife and I ran a transport business, often hauling grain and vegetables. The bags used for grain back then were exactly this size."

Zhao's mother, not understanding, asked, "Rice is actually the lightest?"

Qi Fu explained, "Unhulled rice is light. Once it's hulled into white rice, one bag can hold close to 130 jin. But white rice is processed grain, so it doesn't use this kind of bag—it should use 10-jin, 20-jin, or 50-jin retail packaging bags."

Kuang Qingwei noted down the jin figures Qi Fu gave. "Based on the numbers Brother Qi provided, everyone figure out how many bags of grain you're putting in."

Although the second crop of mung beans hadn't been dried yet, with the planting or harvesting experience from the first crop, everyone quickly calculated their own yields. The yield of late-planted corn could also be calculated based on the yield of the already-bagged early-planted corn.

Soon, each lord reported their numbers.

At planting time, everyone had the same amount of corn seeds in hand—the two jin given by Luo Pei and the two jin exchanged with the Territory Management Department.

The same amount of seeds were planted, but while yields differed, the differences weren't large: Qi Fu had 5 bags, Xia Qing and Zhong Tao had 4 bags each, Kuang Qingwei had 3 bags, and Zhao's mother had 2 bags.

The amount of mung beans put into storage varied greatly. Because the number of mu planted with mung beans differed across territories, the gap came from the different first-crop mung bean yields, which meant the jin of mung beans available as seed for the second crop differed, and so did the mu planted.

The one who put in the most mung beans was still Qi Fu—he stored 10 bags. Kuang Qingwei had 7 bags, Zhong Tao had 4 bags, Zhao's mother had 3 bags, and the least was Xia Qing, with only 1 bag.

Adding the wheat and rice the five territories put into storage, the total came to 52 bags, which couldn't even fill two shelves.

Xia Qing, who had built her own storage room and knew the differences in storage temperature and humidity for different foods very well, suggested, "The storage warehouse is isolated from Calamity-element, and the temperature and humidity are constant. Let's not waste space. The space left for eight bags can be used to store dried vegetables, dried pumpkin, and dried meat. I don't have much, so I'll just keep it in my territory. Everyone see how much you want to put in?"

Speaking of dried wild vegetables, Zhao's mother immediately straightened her back, because she had dried a lot of them. The other three territories had quite a bit too, so they simply divided two bags' worth of space per territory.

Next came the shelves in the vegetable storage warehouse.

Although everyone had grown quite a few vegetables in their territories, the ones planted in large quantities were tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, and green beans. These vegetables were out of season, and the harvested vegetables had either been made into dried vegetables or traded to the patrol convoys.

After much discussion, everyone decided they only needed half a vegetable shelf, to store root vegetables that needed to be kept for seed, such as radishes, onions, Jerusalem artichokes, garlic, and ginger. Because all five members of the Lord Alliance would stay in their territories to grow greenhouse vegetables, they wouldn't lack fresh vegetables in winter.

Because seeds were scarce, everyone only had a few radishes and a dozen or so onions. Even counting the seeds of tomatoes, cucumbers, and other vegetables that needed to be kept for planting, it didn't take up half a vegetable shelf. The remaining space would be used for sweet potatoes.

Everyone had high hopes for Xia Qing's sweet potatoes and wanted to trade with her for a few sweet potatoes to keep for seed.

Xia Qing felt that trading now wasn't a good deal. "On the lord supplies trade list Captain Zhong brought, several territories are offering sweet potatoes for trade. I estimate that next spring the Territory Management Department will sell sweet potato seeds or seedlings at a preferential price, and the price should come down quite a bit. When that time comes, everyone can trade with me for however many you need."

Naturally, no one objected. Qi Fu suggested, "After using Third Brother's soil insecticide, sweet potatoes are easy to manage and have high yields. Everyone can plant more sweet potatoes."

Kuang Qingwei spoke to Xia Qing first. "Right, I also want to plant more sweet potatoes next year. Sweet potatoes can be made into many kinds of food to sell—it's more cost-effective. Sis, I'm definitely buying your sweet potato seeds."

"Me too." Zhong Tao and the others chimed in.

Xia Qing's sweet potatoes had green-light and yellow-light ratings; what the Lord Management Department sold would definitely be yellow-light. Green-light seeds were more expensive, but the risk of Calamity evolution was low, and the sweet potatoes grown from them sold for higher prices.

Xia Qing agreed. "As long as the sweet potatoes I take out of the storage warehouse next spring haven't gone bad, I can trade each person two green-light sweet potatoes and two to four yellow-light sweet potatoes."

Previously in the lord channel, Xia Qing had said that of the sweet potatoes she propagated by cutting, only about twenty-odd plants survived. The fact that she could offer so many sweet potatoes for trade already made everyone very grateful.

Qi Fu, the only one who had been inside the No. 3 Territory greenhouse and knew how many sweet potatoes Xia Qing had grown, was also overjoyed.

After roughly calculating in his head how many seedlings six sweet potatoes could grow in spring, and how many sweet potatoes could be propagated by cutting in summer, he wouldn't be a real farmer if he wasn't happy!

As for how many sweet potatoes Xia Qing had, that was her business. That she was willing to offer them for trade already made Qi Fu extremely grateful.

After Kuang Qingwei calculated the points each lord should pay based on the proportion of food each territory stored, the main agenda of today's meeting was concluded.

Qi Fu said with a smile, "Having a safe place to store grain has put my heart at ease all of a sudden."

Who could disagree? Everyone shared in each other's joy and thanked Xia Qing for making the connection.

Xia Qing was also very happy, because once she could store her fields' output in No. 1 Territory, no one would think her territory still had grain, and her territory's safety had increased again.

Others thought her territory was empty, but in reality, her underground storage room still hid part of her grain and large quantities of chestnuts, hickory nuts, pine nuts, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, dried meat…

What could possibly make one happier than having hidden food?

If there were such a thing, it would be hiding even more food!

After finishing the discussion on grain storage, everyone began chatting about fertilizer and planting, which was also the topic Xia Qing was most concerned about today.