Xuanmen Xiaoguo Shi is divination again

Chapter 865 Raising Food
The drought in southern province is far worse than what the county guards wrote in their letters.

Bai Jingzhen leaned over to touch the dry and cracked mud. The clods of soil that had lost water were as hard as newly fired mud bricks in a brick kiln.

He poked down along the crack that was more than the width of his finger, and his fingertips sank three inches into the soil, but he could only touch the clumped dirt in his hand.

——No life at all.

That's right, there has been a severe drought for two months, there is still no water falling from the sky, and the small ponds in the county are completely dry, and there is no water in this field for a long time.

The rice planted in that field had already withered until its root system died.

The young man couldn't stop being dizzy. When he stood up, his wide sleeves inadvertently brushed the dead early rice, and there was a thin and crisp crackling sound.

Hearing the crisp sounds, Bai Jingzhen staggered uncontrollably. He fixedly stared at his sleeves that were shredded by the dry rice, and his eyes were red for no reason.

He remembered that this place... used to be a fertile farmland.

There used to be ten thousand hectares of fertile land that could feed an entire county with one season of rice!

Fuli's rice can be harvested twice a year, and July is the busiest season for the farm. If there hadn't been this terrible drought, the land under his feet would have been an endless golden green paddy field.

Farmers will rush to harvest the ripe early rice, and then rush to plant seedlings for the late rice before the sun turns cold; there may be some newly released ducklings scattered in the paddy fields, or grass carp that have been left early .

The wind blows the rice waves, and the mountains reflect the greenery. This place should be full of vitality, but now it has become such a dead and silent state?
Bai Jing floated out of the field like a real soul, and he didn't come back to his senses until he re-entered the county.

At that time, Old General Wen was leading a group of soldiers busy distributing food and porridge to the people, when he raised his eyes and saw the dazed young man, he hurriedly put aside his work and strode forward.

"How is it?" Wen Jin pressed his voice and asked, Bai Jingzhen turned his head in response.

Thinking of the withered and yellow color all over the sky, he felt a sore nose and almost burst into tears.

"It's more serious than we imagined before." The young man said hoarsely, his throat was blocked for a while, "Ten thousand hectares of farmland are dead."

"—It's dead, it's all dead, there's nothing alive."

"Grandpa, I really don't know, the drought in the southern province alone has become like this, what kind of situation will it be in the eastern county where the drought is more severe than the southern province—"

Trembling, Bai Jingzhen raised his hands to cover his face, and glanced through his fingers to see the victims waiting for the porridge.

The long-term hunger made their bodies quickly shrivel and thin, and he could even see their protruding ribs under their thin clothes.

People who have been hungry for a long time do not have the strength to laugh and play. Even the most active little boy in the middle of the day can only follow behind his parents in a daze, his eyes numb and empty, and he follows the crowd like a puppet. Chung.

And this is just the Southern Province.

Even, this is not the most severe drought in Southern Province.

The young man's brows and eyes collapsed, and his chest suddenly turned up with unspeakable depression and sadness.

Seeing this, Wen Jin raised his hand and patted the young man's shoulder as if to comfort him, and finally he sighed, "Don't worry, kid."

"Ziran and Yushan have already gone to Dongjun with a batch of rice."

"Although it is difficult to save the entire East County with that little thing, it can finally stop the urgent need... Yulang is still collecting a lot of grain in the ten counties in the south, but this year there was a severe drought and famine, and the price of grain was high. No matter how high it is, we may not be able to collect much with the little money we have in hand."

"Jing Zhen, I'm afraid you need to pay more attention to this point."

Old General Wen closed his eyes after he finished speaking, but Bai Jingzhen seemed to have made up his mind when he heard this. When he spoke, his voice trembled imperceptibly to ordinary people. Wen Jin turned his eyes and saw his trembling teeth.

"...Since there is no food in Fuli." The young man gritted his teeth, lowered his head and clenched his fists, "Then we will buy from outside."

"Go to Sangruo, or Qianping—"

"I will send a letter to His Highness Seventh tonight, to see if I can ask him to help raise some water and food."

Wen Jin was speechless, he quietly closed the young man's eyes, and said "OK" softly for a long time.

*
Mo Junli's movements have always been neat, within five days after the letter entered Qianjing, the first small batch of food had quietly crossed the border with the wandering caravan.

When the two carts of rice arrived in Nan Province with the caravan, Old General Wen emptied a bag of tobacco for the first time in his life.

He looked up at the grain sack covered by the straw, with complex and unspeakable expressions in his bloodshot eyes.

"I really didn't expect...the drought in Fuli," Wen Jin frowned, and let out a sneer, "One day, the prince Qianping will have to take care of it."

After he finished speaking, he closed his eyes and cut off the cigarette stick in his hand. His tone of voice was extremely soft, but he didn't know whether the scolding was directed at himself or the court: "Waste | waste."

"... His Royal Highness the Seventh Prince said that in order to stabilize the price of grain and avoid other people's eyes and ears, he never dared to raise too much grain at one time." Bai Jingzhen, who had unloaded a cart of rice grain, slowly opened a cloth bag on hand, revealing his There are dozens of catties of new grain inside.

"The fact that he brought them here first was that he urged people to buy them overnight. After two days, he would bring in some old grain left over from the Jianghuai disaster relief last year. Not easily noticeable."

"The rest, he will send people to buy elsewhere." By patching together, they can always raise enough for their disaster relief.

"All in all, Uncle, even though we still have to tighten our belts and slowly calculate the remaining food to live on, we don't have to worry about suddenly running out of food one day." Bai Jingzhen said, grabbing the rice in the cloth bag.

The freshly planted white rice is plump and crystal clear, in his palm, like a handful of jade carved by a skilled craftsman.

——Finally they no longer have to worry about running out of food one day.

The young man's eyes turned sore, Wen Jin sighed and counted the grain bags piled up in the room.

The four hundred cloth bags contained a total of more than [-] catties of grain, which wasn't too much. If you boiled it into porridge, added some rice bran, and ate it carefully, it was enough for the nearby city to last for another half a decade.

Coupled with the food they stockpiled before... Nan Province and Dong County can live for another month and a half.

At this juncture, eating enough has obviously become an extravagant hope, and they have tried their best to keep the lives of these people alive.

"However, although the supply of food is generally settled, there is another problem that cannot be ignored." Old General Wen looked up at the small skylight of the warehouse. The sun outside the house was still scorching hot. It's not raining.

"What?" Bai Jingzhen, who couldn't turn his head around, turned his head subconsciously when he heard the sound, and Wen Jin pursed his lips and said, "Tax."

"This year's tax," the old man cast down his eyes, "is even heavier than previous years."

"East County has always been rich in grain production, and it is said that even if it suffers from natural disasters, it can last for a while."

"But this year the imperial court's taxes have been set high, and the taxes of local and state capitals have also been forced to rise accordingly. Many families will have no more to celebrate after paying the grain tax at the beginning of the year. Naturally, there will be no food to cross the border..."

"If the problem of exorbitant taxes is not resolved, there may be more than one Dongjun and Southern provinces that will suffer disaster in the future."

　I was lied to today, saying that the results of the nucleic acid test were over, and he said that it is not necessary for all the staff not to ask for it, so I was so angry
　　
　
(End of this chapter)