Defeat natural disasters with farming

After Father Ye came back from the village, Ye Yu couldn't wait to jump on him, telling him the advantages of cement in a small mouth.

Father Ye didn't pay much attention to it at first, but later he became more serious as he listened to it, and asked again and again: "Is there really such a wonderful use for this thing called cement?"

Ye Yu nodded vigorously, "Anyway, it is much stronger than the rammed earth of glutinous rice mixed with lime slurry used today."

There are generally only five kinds of building materials in this dynasty, wood, earth, stone, bricks and tiles, among which wood and soil are the veritable protagonists, and soil is divided into two types. The natural state is called raw soil, and the reinforced one is called rammed. earth.

"Okay, then let's try to make this so-called cement." Father Ye made a decision after thinking for a while.

The raw materials needed to make cement include limestone, clay and iron ore. The first two are easy to obtain, but iron ore is a bit rare, because generally gold, silver, copper and iron mines are not allowed to be mined by private individuals. camp.

Fortunately, there happened to be an iron mine next to their village. Although it was not that big, it was more than enough for making cement.

After making a decision, the village chief and Father Ye took the young adults in the village to the open-pit iron mine next to the village.

The sight that came into view just now surprised everyone. Originally, there were only sporadic iron ore exposed on the ground. If you don’t look carefully, you will basically ignore it. Looking at it this way, the amount of iron ore in this mine is actually quite a lot.

According to the blueprint provided by Ye Yu, Father Ye built an iron smelting factory on the hillside where the iron mine is located. There is an iron smelting furnace inside. Blow air in the furnace to support combustion with oxygen.

The high temperature provided by coal allows the ground limestone and clay to be fully calcined in the smelting furnace to become clinker, which is then mixed with the remaining waste after ironmaking and ground into powder, and the thick liquid after mixing with water is cement. .

It took about two months to complete all the above tasks. The first batch of cement was used by the villagers to build the fence. The gaps are covered with cement, which is particularly strong after drying.

The original wall was relatively low, just surrounding the village, but the new wall was tall and thick, with a height of five meters and a width of one meter, which was no worse than the city wall of the county seat.

There are still only two doors on the wall, and there are two towers in the front and back. There are people guarding the gates in the towers. In case of danger, you can blow the whistle to notify everyone in the village.

During the three months of building the wall, Ye Yu learned some news from the outside world through occasional letters from Chu Xufeng, which was very shocking. For example, the capital was surrounded by earthquakes, and one-third of the huge capital collapsed. Two, it was in ruins. The most serious places were the imperial palace and palace. Not to mention seizing the throne, the entire imperial court probably no longer existed.

In addition, according to Chu Xufeng's speculation, the earthquake is estimated to be nationwide, because the clerk of the Chu family's shop in the south once sent a letter saying that they also experienced the earth dragon turning over there, but there was no earthquake in the north. It's so serious, it's just a slight vibration.

After reading word by word, Ye Yu folded the letter and put it back in the envelope, then picked up the wooden box next to the desk and put it in. The box was already half full with the new letter put in.

He put the box back on the desk, opened the curtain and went out. Their house was also rebuilt with cement, and three extra rooms were built. His grandma said that it was for the young couple to live in after Ye Hai and the others got married.

Among them, the cellar was the most troublesome thing for their family. After learning the lessons of the earthquake, the original cellar was filled, and the new one was dug in the backyard. If there was another earthquake, only the backyard would collapse. Blocking the front door makes it impossible for people to escape, but don’t think this is unfounded worry. There is a family in the village who failed to escape because the cellar in the front yard collapsed because the cellar in the front yard was not dug properly.

The new cellar door is opened at the original chicken shed in the backyard. Of course, it is now a wooden cabin with a layer of straw on the floor. No one knows that there is a large cellar hidden underneath. It is very safe, so the family All food is placed inside.

In addition to these, there is a specially built bathing room in the yard. It is only five square meters at the very edge of all the rooms. There is a wooden barrel in the middle, and a hole is punched on the left wall, which is connected to the next room with pipes. , When taking a bath, you only need to heat up the kang in the next room, and the hot air can float along the pipes to the bathing room, so that you won't get too cold when taking a bath in winter.

But now it's May, and the temperature is still getting higher day by day. What Ye Yu can't understand is that the weather didn't cool down for a whole year last year, and the lowest time was [-] degrees. Same as last year, I don't know what's going on in this world.

Just as he was standing in the yard thinking about things, he suddenly heard someone calling him, "Brother Bao."

After Ye Yu realized it, he quickly responded, "Grandma, what's the matter?"

Mrs. Ye came out of the kitchen with a jar of chicken soup and waved to him, "Come and deliver the chicken soup to your sister-in-law's house."

Aunt Ye's family came back to the village a month ago. She said that the county seat is no longer a city, and there are almost ruins everywhere. Her family is considered lucky. Because it was too hot during the earthquake, they ate in the courtyard. At dinner, the whole family escaped unharmed.

After the earthquake, they stayed in the county for a while until they were sure that no one in the imperial court was in charge of them. Then they decided to go to Yejia Village with the whole family. They are skilled, so other villagers in Yejia Village are very happy to see their defection.

Ye Yu took the pottery urn and walked to Aunt Ye's house. The distance between their two families was not far, and it only took a short walk.

The Qin family's house is newly built, and it's a bit smaller than the Ye family's, but it's more than enough to accommodate a few members of the Qin family.

Brothers Qin Muwen and Qin Muwu, who were squatting face to face at the door of the house watching the ants, just raised their heads when they saw Ye Yu walking this way.They jumped up quickly, the former ran over to take the pottery urn from Ye Yu's hand, while the latter entered the room shouting.

"Brother Bao, why are you here?" Mrs. Qin asked with a smile after being pulled out by Qin Muwu's sleeves.

Ye Yu pointed to Tao Urn and said, "My grandma made chicken soup today, and asked me to bring some to you."

As soon as they heard the chicken soup, the Wen and Wu brothers stared at the pottery urn with bright eyes, both of them looked greedy. Although their family did not lack food, they were short of meat!

Seeing this, Mrs. Qin didn't refuse. She just took out a bag of brown sugar from home and handed it to Ye Yu, telling him, "There's some brown sugar left at home, take it home and eat it."

It was useless for Ye Yu to refuse again and again, Mrs. Qin directly put the paper bag into his arms.

At this time, Aunt Ye came out of the house holding a two or three-year-old girl. The girl had pink cheeks and was very cute.

As soon as the girl saw Ye Yu, she struggled to get off the ground, and yelled indistinctly, "I want my brother to hug me."

This is Ye Xiaogu's youngest daughter, her nickname is Fu Niu, and her first name is Qin Fei.

Ye Xiaogu laughed when she saw this, "It seems that Fu Niu really likes Brother Bao."

Ye Yu touched Fu Niu's round face, the child's face was full of milk fat, and it was full of milk.

Mrs. Qin brought out melon seeds and peanuts for the children to eat.

Qin Muwen asked vaguely while eating: "Where is the second cousin?"

Ye He, Ye Yu sighed, and replied: "Recently, he is worried about his master and brother. He can't eat well and sleep well every day. His master and brother Dilong were both in the capital when they turned over. I don't know what's going on now. .”

"Oh." Qin Muwen also sighed, in the eyes of children, there is nothing more terrifying than the earth dragon turning over.

Ye Yu played with a few children at Qin's house for a while, and reluctantly bid them farewell and went home until it was getting dark.

Before leaving, the pottery urn was cleaned and returned to Ye Yu.

When he got home, he was just about to start dinner, and Mother Ye greeted him, "Come and have some soup."

A pot of milky white hen soup exudes a strong fragrance on the table, and there are also dried bamboo shoots and wax gourd floating on the soup to relieve the greasy.

Mother Ye ladled him a bowl of soup.

As soon as Ye Yu took a sip, she heard Mrs. Ye talking, "I just went to see, the two remaining hens in our family are already brooding, and I don't know how many will hatch."

"Ten are always available," Mrs. Ye replied.

Mrs. Ye sighed, "There are only a few animals left in our family."

There are only one male and two females left for the chicken and sheep, two male and two female ducks, a dog and a donkey.

To be honest, it's not too small, but compared with before, it looks a little more bleak.

After talking about the livestock at home, Old Man Ye worriedly mentioned the cultivated land again, "The germination rate of our 35 mu of land is really low. I don't know if it's because of the bad weather."

The [-] acres of land behind their family was leased to other people, but due to natural disasters and man-made disasters during this period, only four of the six tenants remained, and the remaining two left, and those who died passed away. Therefore, ten mu of land was vacated, and the ten mu of land was rented out to the Qin family when they came over, so they could gain something at least.

And the germination rate of the seeds in these cultivated lands is less than half, and it is afraid that there will not be much food when harvesting.

It wasn't just their family that had this situation, it was the same in the whole village. Even the old farmer looked at the cultivated land without sleep, but couldn't find the reason.

If this year's harvest is only half of that of previous years, I am afraid that many people will have to tighten their belts to live.

"No, I don't know what's wrong with the seeds, why don't they germinate?" Boss Ye asked in wonder.

Ye Yu thought for a while and asked, "Are the seeds we used last year's self-retained seeds?"

Father Ye replied: "Some are, and some are from the year before last."

"It's better to use last year's self-retained seeds when replanting." Ye Yu thought that last year's seeds are better suited to today's weather than previous seeds, and the germination rate may be higher.

These words woke up the Ye family in an instant, Ye Lao nodded repeatedly, his hands kept patting his thighs, "Why didn't I think of that! I'd better call a child, Brother Bao, to remind me."

He didn't want to eat right away, his mind was full of seeds.

In the end, it was Old Man Ye who stopped him, "It's so late, don't run out, we'll talk about it tomorrow if you have anything to do."

So early the next morning, the Ye family dug out the seeds they had kept from last year from the cellar, and replanted them in their own fields after simple treatment. It was unexpected that [-]% of these replanted seeds had grown bud.

Old man Ye looked at the slightly outcropped shoots in the field, and couldn't help sighing repeatedly, "Good good!"

Seeing this, the people in the village finally let go of what they had been worrying about for a long time.

As Village Chief Ye said, as long as they can cultivate the land, they can always survive no matter what happens outside.