Defeat natural disasters with farming

"Why didn't the imperial court send anyone to help the disaster?"

"They can't even take care of themselves, how can they spare a shot?"

"What happened?"

"Let me tell you, King Duan is forcing the palace on the grounds of natural disasters and man-made disasters to make the emperor condemn himself. Now that the wind and cranes are raging in Beijing, and the grass and trees are full of soldiers, how can there be time to send people to relieve the disaster?"

"It is so."

Father Ye and Ye Yu, who heard the conversation, looked at each other. It is estimated that General Chu is also involved. After all, he holds the military power and is the one who must be fought for by the prince.

Father Ye sighed and said, "No wonder, there is no news at all."

According to Ye Yu's knowledge, the current emperor is old, and the two princes under his knees are both in their prime of life. The eldest son, King Duan, and the second son, King Ning, are both eyeing the emperor's position.

Of course, these things are very far away for the common people. The only thing worth noting is that they probably won't be able to wait for the court's disaster relief for the time being.

The father and son stayed at the teahouse until the sun went down, and then they left to join Ye Boss. They waited for Ye Zhouyuan and the others after a while, and the group left the county town at this time, driving a donkey cart to the village.

Along the way, even though the donkey cart was tightly covered and nothing was exposed, the eyes of the victims around were always firmly fixed on the cart. Seeing this, Father Ye's mouth was tightly pursed, and he covered Ye Yu's face in the In his arms, he whispered, "Hurry up and go."

These two donkey carts are very eye-catching, but fortunately, the people following the carts are all strong and strong men, who are not easy to mess with at first sight, and the group of them finally returned to Yejia Village safely.

When we were parting at the entrance of the village, Father Ye suddenly caught a glimpse of a figure in the distance from the corner of his eye. He frowned slightly, put Ye Yu down, and asked Boss Ye to take them home, while he went to find the village chief.

After returning to his home from the village head's house, he said in a deep voice, "Be more vigilant tonight, I'm afraid something will happen."

Hearing this, old man Ye put down the cigarette stick in his hand, and told his family: "The children will all sleep in the same room tonight, let's work harder as elders, and don't sleep at night."

Mother Ye hugged Ye Yu and nodded solemnly. The atmosphere in the room suddenly became heavy, but Aunt Ye comforted her, "There are quite a few people in our village, and everyone is tall and big, so don't worry so much."

"That's right," Mrs. Ye changed the subject, "What did you buy today?"

Boss Ye immediately became excited when he heard this, "We were lucky today, and we happened to meet a seller of red dates, and we wrapped up two big baskets, and we bought a basket of salt, enough to last for many years, oh yes Yes, and a basket of red beans."

The basket he was talking about was a wicker basket woven by the family himself. It has a huge capacity and can be eaten for a long time after a basket is full.

Mrs. Ye glanced at it and nodded in relief, "Move it into the cellar and store it."

The red dates were washed by Mother Ye and served in a small bowl. This is for the children to eat. The jujubes are full and the skin is slightly wrinkled. Ye Yu took one and put it in his mouth. sweetness.

The evening meal was simple, with steamed buns and pickles. After eating, Mrs. Ye urged the children to wash up and go to bed. Tonight they slept with their respective mothers, and the others stayed in the main room just in case.

Ye Yu gradually fell asleep amidst his worries. He slept in a daze until midnight, when he suddenly heard dogs barking one after another from the village, and even Xiaomi at home barked. At this time, his slight drowsiness disappeared immediately No, he woke up suddenly, seeing that Mother Ye was not by his side, he quickly sat up and shouted twice to the outside of the house.

Mother Ye opened the door and trotted in, comforting him: "It's okay, don't be afraid."

She poured a glass of water and stuffed it into Ye Yu's hand, "Your father has passed, it seems that it shouldn't be a big deal."

After all, the dogs in the village only barked twice, and there was no other movement. If something happened, there must be shouts.

Ye Yu's heart was half relieved, and the other half had to wait for his father to come back to let go.

He couldn't sleep all night, always alert, but nothing major happened until dawn.

As soon as the sky was slightly bright, the three brothers of the Ye family came back stepping on the dew. They were all a little tired. Father Ye wiped his face with water, and then carefully told what happened last night.

"Two victims of the disaster wanted to steal things from our village at night, but they were spotted by dogs as soon as they came in. It happened that someone in the village was guarding the entrance of the village and arrested them."

"Those two people should be lonely. The village head decided to send them to the yamen. We were afraid that someone would sneak into the village, so we guarded the village entrance all night."

After hearing this, Ye Yu frowned slightly, the world has really changed.

So he suggested: "Father, you can discuss it with the village chief later. If you have time, build a fence around the village. It's really not safe outside recently. A fence is better for protection."

This suggestion was immediately agreed by everyone in the Ye family. Father Ye couldn't stay at home. He didn't even eat breakfast, so he hurried to discuss with the village chief. killed the whole village.

The village head mainly said two things. The first one was about the current situation in the county. It is said that there have been sporadic outbreaks of disease. He asked the villagers not to leave the village for the time being.

The second is about the construction of the wall. No one objected to this point, and they all agreed. In the end, they decided to move stones up the mountain in the morning and evening when it was not so hot, and use stones to build a wall around the entire village.

Because Aunt Ye's family was in the county, the old couple seemed a little worried about the news of the outbreak. However, the Qin family was unwilling to leave, and they really had no choice but to hope that the epidemic would not be too serious.

-

The construction of the fence is a big project, and it took the whole village three or four months to build it successfully. The stones on the mountain were basically emptied by them. In addition to being used to build the fence, the village also dug in a place with a backside. An ice cellar with a depth of ten meters underground is set up. There are water channels at the bottom of the ice cellar through which melt water can flow out. At the same time, straw is laid to hide the ice in winter. It only needs to be coated with a layer of mud on the cellar mouth and then covered with straw. That's right, the ice hidden in this way can be stored for several months.

Some stones were removed by the villagers to repair their own houses.

Even Ye Yu's family built two more houses with heated kangs in the backyard, which were specially used for livestock. At the same time, the cellar of the family was also reinforced, and the upper and lower were about half a meter away from the surface and the ground. A partition was made with stone slabs for waterproofing, and a lot of insect repellent was sprayed around. Several wooden boxes were placed on the stone slabs on the ground, and inside were white rice and other grains packed in sackcloth bags.

There are two cellars in total, which store various grains and vegetables, such as dried mushrooms and bamboo fungus.

The cellar door was tightly locked and covered with a layer of loess. Even if they entered the yard, no one could find that their house had two cellars.

When Ye Yu passed by the newly built wall, he couldn't help feeling a little awed in his heart. The whole wall was about three meters high and half a meter wide, and it was dark gray throughout, covering the whole village. A door is opened, which gives a great sense of security.

During these days, the outside world has become more and more chaotic. According to the letter sent by Chu Xufeng, King Duan and King Ning of the capital are competing for the throne, and no one cares about the lives of the common people.

Thinking of this, Ye Yu sighed. Now that it is September, the outside temperature has not dropped at all. It is still more than 40 degrees, which makes people upset.

What's more frightening is that because of the high temperature and heat, the refugees who fled could not bear it. Many of them died on the road. Under the accumulation of corpses, germs bred and caused the plague. Even an elderly person in their village was infected with the disease. Fortunately, the symptoms were mild and It was discovered early, and Dr. Hao only prescribed a few doses of medicine, and he was almost healed.

The anti-plague pills that their family bought from Huichuntang lit one almost every day. Ye Yu didn't know how useful it was, but it was a psychological comfort anyway.

Heihe County is now closed and no one is allowed in or out. Although Aunt Ye and her family are afraid, they are safe and sound. Ye He has already returned. His master temporarily closed the Xinglong Martial Arts Hall. He went to the capital with a few older apprentices.

Ye Yu was thinking about things aimlessly as he walked home, when he was halfway there, he suddenly saw a yellow-brown bug lying on the bushes by the roadside, his heart skipped a beat, and he hurried over to examine it carefully.

locust.

The moment these two words passed through his mind, Ye Yu jumped up and shouted loudly: "The locusts are coming, collect your things quickly!"

It was noon at this time, and most people in the village were resting at home. When they heard Ye Yu's shout, many people were startled, and whether they believed it or not, they began to pack their things in a hurry.

Ye Yu was still rejoicing when she ran home. Fortunately, the crops in their village had been harvested early, and now there was nothing to eat in the fields except wild stalks. Although the grain production had dropped by at least one-third compared with previous years, There is always something to gain, save some food, and you can eat it for a year or so.

When they got home, the old couple was already instructing their children and grandchildren to pack their things. First, they were the corn drying in the front yard, then various vegetables in the vegetable field in the backyard, and finally the bacon and sausages under the eaves.

Boss Ye and Second Ye picked vegetables like crazy, and they didn't have time to clean them up, so they threw the vegetables and mud into the basket, and asked Ye He and the others to move them into the house.

Ye Yu was young, and his family thought he and the twins were in the way, so Ye's mother locked the three of them into the main room and instructed: "Close the door tightly and pull down the windows. Don't go out if you have nothing to do."

After speaking, he hurried out to help.

About a quarter of an hour later, Ye Yu heard countless buzzing sounds from outside, and then the room gradually darkened, as if covered with a layer of black cloth, his expression froze, both worried and frightened.

So I couldn't sit still, I walked up and down the room, and I wanted to look outside from time to time.

Turning his head again, he saw Ye Jing and Xing Hua leaning against each other shivering, their faces full of horror.

Seeing this, Ye Yu quickly comforted him, "Don't be afraid, it's just locusts. Our crops have already been harvested. Wait for the locusts to fly over in a while."

The two of them relaxed a little when they heard this, and Ye Jing asked nervously, "What's going on?"

It's a pity that Ye Yu couldn't answer, because he didn't know what was going on in this world.

I don't know how long it took, but finally there was no movement outside.

Mother Ye opened the door and let the children out, then she pointed to the locusts on the ground that hadn't had time to fly away and said, "I've never seen such a big locust, each one is as big as a child's fist."

After finishing speaking, he stepped on it.

Ye Yu looked around, only to see that the green branches had become bare, without a single leaf left, and he opened and closed his mouth for a long time and finally closed it.

There is no more appropriate interpretation of the locust crossing than this scene.

There were cries in the village one after another, and Old Man Ye sighed, "What a crime, hurry up and see if our livestock are okay."

After hearing the words, the Ye family divided into two groups. One group started to pick up the pulled vegetables, and the other group went to the backyard to check the livestock.

They did not rescue all the vegetables in the vegetable garden, they only pulled out more than half of them, and the rest had been eaten by locusts. Fortunately, the livestock shed in the backyard was tightly blocked, except for a few hens who were frightened There were no other casualties other than the call.