Republic of China: Guandong Ginseng King

Chapter 175: Wolf Disaster

"Here, there are two skulls over here."

Everyone searched separately, and then Jiang Chunfu and his team found two skulls with only a few hairs left a mile away from the corpse.

There were obvious tooth marks on the skull from a large beast.

"Shaoyang, it looks to me like it was bitten by a wolf." Liu Dongshan said, looking at the skull.

"Yeah, it looks like that to me too. Maybe these two have encountered a pack of wolves."

There were two heavy snowstorms in a row a few days ago. The small animals didn't come out. The wolves had no food and would definitely attack humans.

The two corpses had been eaten beyond recognition, but judging from their clothes and other aspects, it was still possible to tell that these were the two men who went into the mountains to hunt.

So, everyone collected the remains and took them back.

People who died suddenly were not allowed to enter the village, so Qu Shaoyang could only call the two families to the outskirts of the village and let them identify the bodies.

The two people who died were not too old, one was in his twenties and the other was in his early thirties.

There are wives and children in the family. The oldest child is eight years old and the youngest is only two or three years old.

When they saw their husbands’ bodies, the two women cried so hard that they fainted several times.

When everyone saw this situation, they had no choice but to help out and finally buried the deceased.

As the year draws to a close, because of this disaster, a heavy, ominous shadow has shrouded the entire Maoer Mountain.

In the following days, the village began to become restless.

Near the edge of the forest, traces of wild animals began to appear.

Soon after, some families lost a piglet, and some lost a sheep.

The most terrifying thing was that one afternoon, when a group of children were sledding outside, they heard a scream. When they turned around, they found that one of the children was missing.

The children quickly shouted for help. The people nearby heard them and rushed out, following the trail and picking up the children's hats, gloves and cotton shoes on the road.

After everyone chased into the woods for a long distance, they found the child's trace.

Unfortunately, the child’s stomach had been ripped open by some wild beast, all his internal organs had been eaten, and there was almost no flesh left on his body.

When the child's body was brought back, his parents cried so hard that they were out of breath. Others burst into tears when they saw the child's miserable condition.

"No, we can't just let it go like this. We have to think of a way to prevent these beasts from continuing to run rampant and harm people."

Someone in the crowd suddenly said something.

"Yes, yes, we can't just sit there and wait for death, we have to think of a way to get rid of these evils.

Otherwise, how can we celebrate the New Year peacefully? " Someone raised his head, and others echoed him.

Maoer Mountain is under the jurisdiction of Tonghua. There is only one patrol officer here, and he is only stationed in Maoer Mountain in the summer and goes to Badaojiang in the winter.

In other words, it is impossible to expect help from the government now, and everything depends on themselves.

After discussion, everyone decided that each family would send out a person in charge to hold a meeting in the courtyard of the yamen where the defenses were inspected.

There are probably two to three hundred households around Maoer Mountain. When everyone gets together and talks at once, they still can't make a single statement.

Finally, everyone suggested that they should select one or two capable and talented people to take the lead, and everyone would just follow his instructions.

As the saying goes, if there are a thousand people in a family and only one person is in charge, and if there are seven or eight people in charge, nothing can be accomplished.

After much deliberation, the crowd finally nominated Lao Zhou and Liu Dongshan.

Lao Zhou came to Maoer Mountain early and was popular there.

Although Liu Dongshan came late, he had a large family and a powerful business, his apprentices were capable, he had so many servants at home, and Liu Dongshan also had good kung fu skills.

Led by these two people, and with the cooperation of others, this crisis should be resolved first. Lao Zhou has a good personality, and he feels that he does not have such great ability, so he proposed that Liu Dongshan take the lead and he assists from the side.

When Liu Dongshan saw this situation, he did not refuse and just agreed to it.

Afterwards, Liu Dongshan put forward several points based on Qu Shaoyang's suggestion.

One is that each household reinforces their own garden poles.

The local people in Northeast China did not use the walking stick before. It was only after the people who crossed the Guandong arrived that they started to use the walking stick with a wooden stick.

Most people's garden sticks are only as tall as a person, and a nimble young man can easily jump over them, not to mention wild beasts.

So the first thing to do is to raise and reinforce the garden pole to prevent wild beasts from jumping in and harming people and livestock.

The second is to dig traps and set traps on several main roads leading into the village, in front of and behind the village, and mark the surrounding areas.

People in the village should not go out easily to avoid accidental injuries.

The third is to warn children in each family not to leave their homes.

Those who are studying in school should not go to school for the time being and stay at home.

Last but not least, each family sent out strong laborers and organized people to patrol the surrounding area.

Once an abnormal situation is discovered, the gong will be struck to give a warning. Others should respond promptly to help as soon as they hear the gong.

These four points were unanimously agreed upon by everyone.

So everyone took action, and each family contributed young and strong laborers. Under the leadership of Qu Shaoyang, they found ways to dig traps, set clamps and traps during the day, and patrolled and kept watch in two shifts at night.

Others tried to find ways to make the garden pole higher and stronger.

In these cold days of winter, it is easy to set traps and snares, but it is extremely difficult to dig traps.

Everyone worked hard with pickaxes for a whole day, but they only dug out a few traps.

The trap was filled with bamboo sticks, and a live chicken was put in it, and clamps were buried around the trap.

Then use branches and other things to smooth the surface, making it the same as other places.

It turns out that these things are really useful. Within a few days, two wolves fell into the trap, the clamps caught three wolves, and the snare even caught an old wolf.

When everyone saw this, they all breathed a sigh of relief. As long as the culprit was killed, they could have a peaceful year.

Sure enough, for a period of time afterwards, there were no more cases of livestock being lost in the village.

The Little New Year has already passed and it is only a few days away from the Big New Year. Every household begins to prepare for the New Year.

When Qu Shaoyang got married, his family slaughtered two pigs and there was some pork left.

In the autumn, many families borrowed meat. In the past few days, each family has slaughtered pigs and returned the meat.

In addition, we have wild boars hunted a few days ago, which is enough to eat during the New Year.

So Qu Shaoyang said that they would not slaughter pigs for the New Year this year, and that they would keep the two pigs in the pigpen and raise them until next year's New Year.

“Master, let’s make some tofu at home.

This year we have a lot of soybeans at home, so we will make more for the New Year and freeze two plates of frozen tofu.”

Qu Shaoyang found Liu Dongshan and discussed with him.

"Okay, if you want to eat it, we'll just make it. What else can we do?" Liu Dongshan was happy when he heard it.

None of the produce from the fields was sold this year. Apart from sending the soybeans to the oil mill to extract some oil, there is still a lot left.

I have a mill at home and enough manpower, so making tofu doesn’t take much effort. Just make it if you want to eat it.

(End of this chapter)