Martial Arts: Start by Obtaining the Wild World

Chapter 150 0149: Take a gamble!
In the afternoon, in the main room of the house.

At this time in the main hall, in addition to Li Lu who had finished discussing things with Cheng Zongyang, there was also Zhao Laoqi who was called over.

At this moment, he was standing respectfully two meters away from the two of them, bowing to them and saying:

"My Lords, why did you call me here?"

Although Zhao Laoqi is now the gang leader in the east city area, he is very sensible. This was all given by Li Lu and Cheng Zongyang.

Therefore, he can be arrogant in front of his younger brothers and the common people, but he must never be arrogant in front of these two people.

If these two wanted to kill him, it would only take a moment. Therefore, he put himself in the right position.

Cheng Zongyang didn't care about Zhao Laoqi's attitude. He just nodded slightly and said to him:

"I do have something to ask you. You have been in the city for some time, and now you are the person in charge of an area. I want to know, how many people are there in the city now?"

Hearing this, Zhao Laoqi was stunned. What does this mean?
But soon, he realized that this was a test for himself, and he immediately began to ponder.

After a long time, he scratched his head awkwardly:

"Sir, I don't know the exact number for the entire city, but there are about 4,300 households in the eastern part of the city, some of which are uninhabited and have left the county. There are still more than 2,700 households with inhabitants, about 8,000 to 9,000 people.

Sir, there are most houses in the south and west of the city, but since the government was gone, those outsiders took away a lot of resources, but also left some food, which was later taken over by us. We also learned from the practice when the county magistrate was in power and sold them at a low price every two days, which was considered to be keeping them alive.

However, many people left the county because of this. The southern and western parts of the city together accounted for only about 20,000 people. The northern part of the city was originally a place for officials and business families, but almost all of them left, and it was estimated that there were only 4,000 to 5,000 people left.

Therefore, according to a small estimate, the county now has no more than 40,000 people. Most of these people are former refugees who no longer want to escape and want to die in the county. The refugees under my command at the time now have houses to live in.

My Lord, if necessary, I can have someone investigate and we will have a result in two days."

After listening to what Zhao Laoqi said, Cheng Zongyang fell into deep thought.

There used to be 60,000 to 70,000 people living in this county, but now there are less than 40,000 left, which is nearly half the population.

Although it was just an estimate, he didn't care about the exact number, so he would just count it as 40,000.

"Seventh Zhao, the county's grain reserves are now stored in the east of the city, and you are also in charge of it. How much is left?"

Zhao Laoqi immediately replied, "I dare not deceive you two adults. The current food reserves only have 16,000 catties of old rice, 17,000 catties of sorghum flour, 8,000 catties of wheat bran, and 21,000 catties of wheat bran. The rest is only the 3,000 catties of dried fish sold by Master Cheng. The rest is gone."

"This means there are only 65,000 kilograms of edible grain left." Cheng Zongyang quickly calculated the total.

I was also quickly analyzing the feasibility of my plan in my mind.

Li Lu on the side did not disturb him.

After chatting this morning, I learned that Cheng Zongyang has the idea of ​​vigorously developing the farming plan.

The two of them had also discussed that according to the current situation, the court had persisted for so long that it was basically certain that it would not compromise.

According to the fighting style of the Thirteen Royal Clans, it is impossible for them to end and retreat now, so this farming plan is very feasible.

They waited for about a cup of tea before they heard Cheng Zongyang speak.

He stared at Zhao Laoqi with deep eyes and said:
“Starting tomorrow, you will post notices throughout the county.

Anyone who registers and is willing to follow the people out of the city to open up wasteland can drink dried fish soup for free before starting work.

After work, each person can receive a steamed bun weighing one or two taels.

Therefore, starting from tomorrow, all the cooks in the city will no longer sell all the food as raw food.

The old rice is ground into powder and added with sorghum flour, wheat bran and wheat bran to make a rice and flour coarse grain steamed bun weighing one or two taels.

The dried fish are added with water and boiled into fish soup. It is not necessary for everyone to eat the fish meat, just boil a large pot of soup with one dried fish, and it is enough to have the taste of salt and fish soup.

Don't worry about the dried fish, as another 30,000 to 40,000 kilograms will be delivered in batches later.

There is only one goal, to ensure that people in the entire county survive these four months!"

This time, not to mention Zhao Laoqi, even Li Lu was stunned.

"No, it's free? Are you being a good person? We are not county lords, why are you doing the same thing as a county lord?"

Cheng Zongyang smiled and said, "Free? No, clearing wasteland and cultivating the land is like working for relief. This food is their reward. The problem now is how to survive the early stage. This food is not enough."

"Farming? Then..."

"Brother, just follow my instructions." Cheng Zongyang said with a smile, "I won't treat you unfairly. In four months, when there is a good harvest of grain and medicinal herbs, everything will be worth it."

Seeing this, Li Lu didn't know what to say.

But Zhao Laoqi said with some concern:
"Sir, if we do this, as you said, I'm afraid the food won't last. Even if you send more later, it won't be enough, right?"

"Add one more sentence to the notice. After the grain is harvested, each household can get half of the harvest. Just do as I say. Even if you have to eat one day and go hungry the next, you have to get through this period. There's no need to say too much else."

If you want them to be willing to starve, you have to let them see hope.

If the county town is empty, it will definitely do more harm than good to him! Who knows when this war will end!
Seeing this, Zhao Laoqi didn't dare to say anything. Anyway, they wouldn't starve.

He immediately bowed and said, "Yes! Then I'll take my leave."

Cheng Zongyang then added: "Also, after the rain stops, gather your people and be responsible for supervising the work. If you find anyone who is lazy, you can remove them directly."

"Yes!"

After Zhao Laoqi left, Li Lu said, "What if you grow crops well, and the government or the Thirteen Royal Clan comes? Wouldn't you be making wedding clothes for others?"

Cheng Zongyang shook his head: "If they don't come, the harvest of these four months will be enough for the whole county to survive this year! It will only get better and better in the future! So, we can only take a gamble.

Besides, according to our analysis this morning, Daliang is unlikely to compromise, and the Thirteen Kings did not pass through here again, which means that the road to the north is not ours. The group that captured Yufeng County came from Linchuan.

Besides, the place where I reclaim land and farm is not near the county town, but in the countryside. Even if they come, they should not enter the village to check, right?

There is so much land in the village now, all ready-made. After the rain, the land becomes soft and can be planted after a little tillage. And I have to go back today to ask them to send some supplies over so that we can catch up with the spring ploughing!
As long as we survive these four months, we will win! The people in the county will be able to survive. It will be beneficial to our subsequent development. It is worth a gamble!"

As he spoke, Cheng Zongyang began to instruct on specific matters:

"Also, I will contact my master and my clansmen in the next few days and ask them to deliver the crops. This will take a few days. The county is now your territory, you arrange the personnel, and you must gather all the farmers who have farming experience within seven days, and let them lead people to start clearing from Xujia Village in the west of the city. There is no need to wait for everyone to gather before working, as many as possible can go! The number of people can be increased slowly later.

If the land in Xujia Village is not enough, then go to Ping'an Village in the south. At least a thousand acres of land will be needed.

Xujia Village is relatively close to the county town, and if you walk fast, it will only take fifteen minutes to get there.

So the sooner the better, turn over every acre of arable land so that it can be cultivated whenever I come back.

These farmers have experience, you let them make the arrangements, I will come back as soon as possible."

After listening carefully, Li Lu felt that this made some sense, so he stopped talking and prepared to talk to the people in the other three districts to cooperate with Zhao Laoqi.

Cheng Zongyang also left the county town and returned to the mountains, preparing to bring back medicinal herb seedlings cultivated by cuttings.

Thanks to the growth liquid, Cheng Guangshan cultivated a large number of medicinal herb seedlings through the cutting method, and they all developed very well and could be transplanted to new medicinal fields at any time.

Similarly, Li Xingyun and Ye Di used growth liquid to cultivate all the fruits and local fruits of the wilderness by cuttings, so as to increase the number for planting.

The same attempt was made with wild rice.

Cheng Zongyang originally thought that crops like rice, which reproduce sexually, could not do this, after all, the xylem is also different.

But after trying, Li Xingyun and Ye Di found that the stem nodes could take root normally after being soaked in growth liquid. Wild rice is relatively tall, and the rice seedlings have seven nodes, which means seven cuttings can be used!
Although they didn't know the outcome, they continued to try.

After finding that the nodes were taking root, sprouting and growing leaves normally, they began normal farming experiments. They also tried to see if they could grow a little more per acre.

So, using one acre of land to cultivate 3,000 plants, after more than a month of growth, the rice seedlings were grafted and divided into 21,000 plants! They were divided into seven acres of land for cultivation!

After a month of growth, it has reached the height of a calf and can be divided into fields and transplanted at any time.

But these seven acres of land were just for experimentation, and he couldn't transplant them outside, lest the external environmental factors affect the rice production.

This time when he went back, he first entered the wilderness world. After letting Li Xingyun leave a few kilograms of rice seeds, he soaked the rest and cultivated them. After a few days when they grew a little bigger, he covered the roots with soil and prepared to take them to the county town!

Things in Yufeng County progressed quickly, and the reactions of the county residents varied.

But under the pressure of food, almost everyone who could walk, move and work signed up.

As a result, there was no way to register one by one because there were so many people. After thinking it over again and again, Zhao Laoqi made a decisive decision that each household could only send two people. No more. In addition, they had to bring their own farming tools.

People in the county town don’t have many farming tools, so they can only look for them in the surrounding villages.

Just wait until the rain stops!
As a result, the heavy rain lasted for three days and three nights!
Fortunately, it only rained for three days, and the water that failed to penetrate quickly flowed along the terrain into the dry river channels around it, reducing the possibility of flooding. It also replenished the missing water source underground outside.

On the fourth day, as the sky cleared, countless people poured out of the county town and rushed to the surrounding villages in search of farming tools.

Some people who are lucky enough may have some tools in their homes, which saves them the trouble.

It was Zhao Laoqi who limited the number of people in each household to only two people, which not only reduced food expenses, but also slightly increased the enthusiasm of the residents, all for the sake of obtaining food. Two people meant two taels of steamed buns and a full bowl of dried fish soup.

The lack of food was inevitable, but the only consolation was that the dried fish soup was provided free of charge. Although you might not even get to eat the dried fish pieces, it was salted and tasty, so you could drink as much as you wanted. Everyone could also take a portion of the soup home.

This further increased the enthusiasm of those people. They lived one day at a time.

Finally, when everyone knew that they could get half of the food share from the crop harvest, their original feeling of being forced turned into active!

Incredible diligence and initiative!

On the fifth day, those who found farming tools were arranged to go to Xujia Village.

Therefore, in Xujia Village, under the arrangement of hundreds of experienced farmers gathered by Zhao Laoqi, teams were formed, and they began to inspect the boundaries of Xujia Village, and then cleared the land, reclaimed wasteland, and turned the soil.

Thanks to the heavy rain, the ground is soft.

As more and more people came, the houses that were burned down by the fire were basically cleaned up.

The original 300-acre site of the small village was transformed into acres of arable land that could be cultivated at any time in just half a day due to the active labor of tens of thousands of people.

After all, it had been burned by fire, and countless wood ashes were mixed into the soil, so you can imagine how fertile it is.

Seeing such efficiency, Zhao Laoqi felt that today's food expenses should not be wasted, so he ordered people to continue to open up land in the south and razed the remaining charred houses in Ping'an Village and Beidang Village further down to the ground, turning them into new farmland.

Under the arrangement of some old farmers, the river was diverted and canals were built to ensure that water was available.

At the same time, Chengjia Village also ushered in the beginning of spring plowing!

They have been preparing for this day for more than half a year!
Although it rained heavily for three days, the fields were not flooded due to prior preparations. Of course, even if there was water, it would not affect the transplanting of rice seedlings.

The whole village was mobilized. Grandpa Zhou Fengshun had already learned the key points of planting from his grandson. Therefore, under his command, the whole village planted 2500 plants per acre.

All the planning has been completed, all you have to do is plant the rice seedlings at the designated locations!
When it comes to this year's food, everyone is extremely active!
Seventh day.

When Cheng Zongyang turned back and arrived at the Linjia Village through the rural road, he could see from afar the Beidang Village, Ping'an Village and Xujia Village that had been blocked before. Now, they were all vast tracts of farmland.

Countless people are continuing to correct field ridges, build pits to store water, etc.

"I can imagine the magnificent sight of hundreds and thousands of acres of golden rice in four months." Cheng Zongyang murmured.

Then he turned back and took out all the medicinal herb seedlings that his second uncle had asked the villagers to help cultivate through cuttings from the territory of Dongtou Village and released them.

These medicinal materials include the main medicinal materials needed for foundation-building medicinal bath, martial arts medicinal bath, body-quenching powder, qi and blood powder, qi essence pill, detoxification powder, growth liquid, etc.

Qixue Powder, Qiyuan Dan, and Jiedu Powder are purchased from the inventory during this period.

The former is a medicine that assists lower third-grade martial arts practice, the middle one can assist middle third-grade and even upper third-grade martial artists practice, and the last medicine can cure all kinds of poisons. The Qi Yuan Dan formula is worth one thousand points, and the other two are also worth five hundred points each.

Afterwards, Cheng Zongyang continued to take out baskets of rice seedlings that had been cultivated for five days and were only palm-high.

The roots of these rice seedlings are protected by a ball of soil moistened with growth liquid, which ensures their vitality while allowing them to be planted at any time.

It’s just that the time is too short, and Ma San and his team cannot finish processing all the rice seedlings. Currently, there are only ten acres of land, so Cheng Zongyang can only "transport" them in batches.

There are a lot of medicinal herb seedlings, more than 50 baskets, and once they grow up, the tribe will not have to worry about using medicinal herbs in a short period of time. After all, there are also people who cultivate and grow them in the village.

Finally, there are 5,000 kilograms of dried fish. The last time we sold only a portion, this time we brought enough to keep everyone drinking dried fish soup for a while.

(End of this chapter)