Defeat natural disasters with farming

The little piglets huddled together and ate by the food bowl. Ye Yu took a look and saw that there was no pigweed in the basin, but a mixture of wheat bran and bean dregs. It is more nutritious and the pigs will be healthier.

Deputy Han held up a piglet with one hand and said: "You have never seen it before, and it is chubby, especially suitable for breeding pigs. Moreover, these four piglets are three males and one female. They are a perfect pair, and they will be easy to reproduce in the future."

Ye Yu thought for a while and asked him, "Are you sure these pigs are not sick?"

"Of course, our caravan has its own doctor, who can guarantee that they are all healthy." Deputy Han said firmly.

In fact, today's doctors are similar to veterinarians, who can treat both humans and livestock.

Even the two Doctors Hao in Ye’s Village were like this. Ye Yu remembered that once some sheep in his family fell ill. It is exactly the same as the case of heat stroke.

Ye Yu asked the price of the four pigs again, it was not cheap, four fox skins or one mink skin or two ermine skins for one pig.

Deputy Han also made a small joke, "If you have a complete bear or tiger skin, you can exchange all the livestock in this house with one piece, and you can even take away a few bolts of silk."

Bear skin and tiger skin can not only keep warm, but more importantly, they are rare enough. As the saying goes, the rare is the most expensive. These two kinds of skins are a status symbol. Ye Yu knows that no matter how expensive the price is, they can still find buyers , because no matter when, there will be a privileged class.

Father Ye and Ye Zhong observed the four pigs carefully, and they both felt that there was no problem, so they quickly traded the animal skins on the donkey cart. After the transaction was completed, Deputy Han also gave a slightly larger pig cage.

After buying the pigs, they continued to walk around under Deputy Han's lead. Ye Yu suddenly thought of something while walking around. He hurriedly asked, "Do you have any seeds here?"

"Seeds?" Assistant Han thought for a while and replied, "There are indeed. I'll take you to have a look."

The seeds are all stored in a dry place, and different seeds are wrapped in different straw paper. Ye Yu sees that there are quite a few types.

After Deputy Han's introduction, Ye Yu knew that these seeds were pumpkin, gourd, cucumber, carrot and other vegetable seeds. When he introduced the seeds of cold melon, Ye Yu's eyes lit up. The so-called cold melon is watermelon. This kind of fruit Ye Yu often eats in summer, and it can be said that he can almost eat one in a day.

"Are there any rice seeds?" Ye Yu asked again.

Although most of the rice harvested in their village has been preserved as seeds, if they can buy seeds from the south, they will plant both kinds together, and when they are harvested, they will pick out the one with the best yield and continue to plant it. After such an operation, their The output of side rice will always increase.

"Hey, don't tell me, there really are." Deputy Han searched the room, and then took a ceramic jar from the shelf.

Ye Yu is not very good at distinguishing good rice from bad, but old farmers like Father Ye and the others can. They hold the rice in their hands, and seeing that it is very full, they nodded and said, "It's a good seed."

Deputy Han said with a smile: "Of course, we don't have bad seeds here."

After they discussed, they wrapped up all the seeds that were not available in the village, especially the cold melon. Ye Yu held the paper bag happily, and when the cold melon is planted next year, he will have something to eat. He has already thought about the sweet taste of the cold melon for several years.

In addition to cold melon, there is another kind of seeds that Ye Yu is very surprised about, that is chili seeds, the chili peppers here are not very spicy, and he has always missed the red chili peppers from Sichuan all these years.

After all these things were bought, they didn't want anything else. Father Ye originally wanted to go back to the village early, but because the other two villages were still hesitating and didn't know what to change, they had to wait a little longer.

Taking advantage of this time to have lunch, Deputy Han lent them a stove. They brought their own pots and bowls and chopsticks, and the food was simple, that is, boiled goat milk tea with milk tofu, and a sesame seed cake for each person.

Ye Yu took a bite of the biscuits, it was a bit cold, the biscuits taste better when they are crispy just out of the pan, but the cold ones have a different taste, but there is no sesame, which is a pity.

Chu Xufeng handed Ye Yu a bowl of goat milk, "Eat slowly."

"I didn't expect to buy cold melon seeds here. I will plant them later. In summer, I just need to splash the cold melon into the well water to relieve the heat." Ye Yu's voice was full of joy.

He took a sip of goat milk and continued, "I'm still a little greedy, I want to grow cherries and lychees."

Hearing this, Chu Xufeng suggested, "Why don't you let the Chenhui caravan help you find these two seeds." The name of this caravan is Chenhui.

Ye Yu nodded, "I'll talk about it after eating."

But before he could say anything, Deputy Han came over with a basin in his hand.

"Try our specialties quickly. Don't look at them, but they taste great."

A pot of worms, each as big as Ye Yu's palm, looked fat and white.

"This is woodworm. Don't look at it as a worm, but as long as it is fried, it will be crispy and refreshing, dry and fragrant. You can try it."

Ye Yu thanked him, and then put a firewood worm into his mouth. The firewood worm is rich in protein, which becomes more obvious after frying.

Deputy Han asked with a smile, "How does it taste?"

"Delicious." Ye Yu wiped his hands after eating one, and asked, "When will your caravan come again?"

"Not sure, it depends on the weather. If it's cold, we won't go out for business. Do you want anything?"

Ye Yu secretly praised him for his sharpness, and then replied: "I want some rare vegetable and fruit seeds, such as cherries or lychees."

Deputy Han thought for a while after hearing this, "It's not a problem, I'll look for it first, and bring it to you when I come back later."

"Okay, then it's a deal." Ye Yu said.

Father Ye waited for them to finish chatting before interjecting, "I don't know how did Deputy Han know about our three villages?"

"Oh, this matter, before we came, we specially asked the refugees who went to the south from you to draw a map. He marked the remaining villages on the map. The three of you are the bigger ones. I don't know if there are any. The smaller ones survived." Deputy Han sighed and said, "This world is hard."

Father Ye also sighed, "I see. I wonder if we can take a look at that map."

"Yes." Deputy Han asked his subordinates to bring the map.

Ye Yu and Chu Xufeng couldn't wait to look over it, and saw that it was a grass-yellow map, the texture was quite hard, and the lines on it were a bit scribbled, but you could tell where the drawing was, for example, the black line was Liuhe, and the two nearby This village is the village where Yejia Village and Uncle Zhao are located.

"The person we hired is literate, and it is said that he was a scholar before." Deputy Han said with his hands in his hands.

However, Ye Yu heard a piece of news from it, and he hurriedly asked, "Do you have maps of other places?"

Deputy Han replied: "There are indeed two more."

But he added: "These are not for sale."

Ye Yu can understand the importance of maps. There was a saying in ancient times that obtaining a map is equivalent to occupying a certain place. In today's situation, the map is even more important. .

He originally thought that he could only give up with regret, but Deputy Han suddenly said: "If you can hunt a brown bear and exchange it with us for the belt, meat and bones, these three maps can be copied for you."

Ye Yu and Chu Xufeng looked at each other, "Let's discuss it first."

"Please." Deputy Han said with a smile.

The map is important, but Ye Yu thinks the safety of the people in their village is more important, so after Deputy Han left, he said, "Let's forget it."

Ye Zhong was the first to object. "No, I still need a map. Although bear hunting is difficult, as long as you are prepared and set up traps, you are likely to successfully hunt it."

Ye Zhouyuan and Ye Hai also agreed with him.

They couldn't figure out why they were arguing, so they all looked at Father Ye.

Father Ye frowned at this time, hesitating for a while before making up his mind: "Go up the mountain and try the trap."

Seeing this, Ye Yu could only say: "Let's go back and make a plan."

They waited until the people from the other two villages had changed what they needed, and after meeting up, they said goodbye to Deputy Han and left together.

Safe journey.

As soon as he returned to Yejia Village, Father Ye asked Jia Yi, "Is there no one following on the road?"

They exchanged a lot of things this time. The caravan should know that their village is extremely rich and well-spoken. They are not afraid of ten thousand, just in case, so they still have to be careful.

Jia Yi and Jia Er were very focused along the way, and they shook their heads when they didn't notice anyone following them.

Only then did Father Ye feel relieved, and began to gather the village soldiers to discuss the issue of going up the mountain to hunt bears.

But Ye Yu didn't care about their discussion, he carried the four piglets out of the cage, and they will be kept with the sheep for a while.

The children in charge of feeding the sheep came over one after another. Their enthusiastic eyes made the four piglets hide in the corner shivering. Because it was late, Ye Yu didn't prepare pig food for them alone, and let them live with the sheep. We eat the same thing, wheat bran and bean dregs of various colors, mixed with warm water and stirred twice, it is very nutritious pig food.

A child next to him asked with his finger in his mouth, "Can we eat meat when the piglet grows up?"

Ye Yu rubbed his head and asked him to take out his hand, "Yes, when we succeed in breeding, there will be no shortage of pork in the village."

Another child raised his hand and said, "I know, I know, pork is delicious, and it's also delicious to chop up and make dumplings."

"That's right, then you have to feed the pigs well in the future, the pig food they eat will grow on their bodies and become the pork we eat." Ye Yu said with a smile.

"Okay." They replied in unison.

After coming out of the livestock shed, Ye Yu went home. He didn't participate in the bear hunting discussion. After all, he knew nothing about laying traps, and it didn't matter whether he participated or not.

He wants to go home and pack the seeds he bought. Some of the seeds that cannot be planted temporarily should be preserved and planted in the yard when the temperature is suitable for the next year.

Mother Ye followed him to watch his movements, and asked suspiciously, "Why are they divided into two categories?"

Ye Yu pointed to a pile of paper bags on the left and said, "These seeds have low moisture content inside, so they need to be stored in a dry place."

Then move your fingertips to another pile of paper bags, "These are just the opposite, and should be stored in a low-temperature, humid and ventilated place."

The former can be kept in the cellar, and the latter is more suitable to be placed by the well.

Mother Ye sighed after hearing the words: "I didn't expect there to be so much attention."

After Ye Yu divided all the seeds, he straightened up and said, "It's a little troublesome, but it's okay if you know what you're doing."

Strictly speaking, these seeds belong to the whole village, and any family who wants to plant them in the future can just exchange them with points.

-

When the hunting team entered the mountain to hunt bears, Ye Yu didn't follow them, because it was really not safe enough, and he might drag them down, so he was worried all day, for fear that there would be bad news. This hanging heart didn't let go until the evening when the hunting team happily dragged their prey back to the village.

From the back door of the village, Ye Yu watched the hunting team come down from the mountain. The tall and middle-aged man was dragging a raft behind him, which was full of prey, and the most eye-catching one was a brown bear dragged by Ye Zhong.

He held his head high, looking proud.

"Isn't it a coincidence, this brown bear is the one that hurt me before." Ye Zhong smiled happily, "Now it's revenge."

Ye Yu asked him suspiciously, "Uncle Zhong, how did you recognize him?"

"Did you see the wound on the bear's face? That's what I left behind." Ye Zhong pointed to a scar that ran through half of his face.

It turned out to be so, that was really a coincidence.

On the other side, Mrs. Ye checked that Ye Hai was not injured, and said, "You have gained a lot today."

"It's more than that," Ye Hai said happily, "Look, we also caught a group of minks, probably dozens of them."

Mrs. Ye poked her head to take a look, and said pleasantly, "Hey, have you found the mink's nest?"

"It should be." Ye Haile grinned happily.

While they were talking, Ye Yu's eyes never left the dead brown bear. The brown bear was very huge. Even though it was dead, it still gave people a strong sense of oppression. fishy.

I don't know how they caught such a big bear. Even the bear's fatal wound is on the head, and the rest of the fur is extremely intact.

In the end, Ye Lao Er answered this question for him.

"The trap I set up is really useful," Ye Laoer gestured to his family, "The trap is the simplest kind, dig a hole eight meters deep in the ground, and use the smell of rotten wild fruit that brown bears like Lead it close to the trap, and as soon as the bear steps down and falls, we can drive the hard machete through its head."

He drank a cup of herbal tea and continued: "Actually, this method still depends on luck, because the bear may not be attracted by the smell of rotten fruit, and even if it is attracted, it may not necessarily fall into the trap."

"However, we didn't expect the plan to be realized so smoothly. As soon as the bear smelled the rotten smell, it seemed to go crazy. It ran straight towards the trap, and even fell into a coma after falling into the trap. We thought about it later, the bear's eye was scratched by Ye Zhong before, and it must be something that he couldn't see clearly."

Even the injured people in the hunting party were not injured by bears, but by themselves while hunting.

When Ye Yu heard this description, he felt that they seemed to have been helped by a god, and it went smoothly inconceivably.

"We don't need us to tan the bear skin, we just need to send it to the Chenhui caravan as soon as possible, but we have to do it ourselves for other skins." Father Ye said.

Mrs. Ye nodded when she heard the words, "Take advantage of the good weather recently, and finish the nitration sooner so you can save worry."

At this moment, Pandi and Taohua lifted the curtain and walked in, asking, "Grandma, what are you having for dinner tonight?"

Before Mrs. Ye could speak, Ye Yu heard Ye He's excited voice, "Eat barbecue! We haven't eaten roe deer meat for a long time."

"Eat whatever you want, and you won't be afraid of accumulating food at night." Mrs. Ye gave him a white look, and then told Pandi and the others: "I remember there is a silver carp in the water tank at home, cook a fish head tofu soup, and then heat the steamed buns. One heat is enough."

Immediately afterwards, she said to Ye He: "I will roast roe deer meat for you at noon tomorrow."

Ye He wasn't picky either, since he didn't have barbecue, the fish soup was also good.

Silver carp is stewed with dried mushrooms, white tofu, and a tomato. The soup is neither fishy nor firewood, and the fish head is tender and smooth, giving it a special taste.

Halfway through the meal, Boss Ye suddenly said, "The Chinese New Year will be in a few days, but the temperature outside is higher than before. I'm worried that there may be a drought next year."

Old man Ye paused his hand to drink the soup, sighed, and even lowered his voice, "No matter what, let's prepare for the worst first."

This year can really be called the worst year in so many years. There are twelve months in a year, and the first six months are extremely cold, with daily temperatures as low as minus 25 degrees, which surprised Ye Yu. Extremely, you must know that even in the Antarctic, the average temperature there is only minus [-] degrees, and then the next six months are extremely high temperature, the hottest time is over [-] degrees.

Under such a huge temperature difference, many elderly people could not survive, so many funerals were held in the village one after another.

The most incomprehensible thing is that the vegetation in the forest seems to be two different species from the ones planted in the village. The forest is full of trees and there are a large number of mushrooms and wild fruits, while the food and vegetables grown in the village are poor due to the extreme weather. Sick, it can almost be said that the production has been cut by more than half.

Ye Hai said: "Fortunately, our village is close to the Liuhe River. As long as the Liuhe River doesn't dry up, we don't have to worry too much about drought, and we rely on mountains to eat mountains. Even if we don't farm, we can survive by hunting."

However, if the Liu River also stops flowing, it means that the worst situation has happened, and Donghai County will completely fall into drought.

Talking about this topic, the atmosphere at home suddenly became dull. They didn't talk anymore, and they ate quietly at the table. He yawned, and violent drowsiness rushed over him.

He had to yawn twice when he wrote a word, and he couldn't bear it anymore, so he stopped and went to sleep.

When Ye Yu woke up the next day, it was already late, he rubbed his eyes and got up to wash, "Why didn't you call me?"

Mother Ye replied, "It's fine today. Why did you wake up so early? Why don't you sleep more. Your father and the others have already left with that bear. If there are no accidents, they should be back at noon."

Father Ye and the others really came back in time for lunch.

"If Brother Xu hadn't had to spend time copying the map, we would have come back earlier."

He put the three maps on the table, and Ye Yu looked at them one by one. The three maps were the general route map of the Chenhui caravan from the south to Donghai County near Heihe County, but the last one made him stare. , involuntarily picked it up and watched it carefully.

This is a map of the capital city. Although most of it is unclear, important places are marked.

"By the way," Father Ye said again at this time, "Deputy Han asked me if I needed coarse salt, but I excused it with reasons, but I don't think he believed it."

Since their village produced salt, the two nearby villages have basically exchanged salt from them.

Ye Yu put down the map and said, "It's okay, just give them a reason."