The Sibeigou family completed their assigned tasks in two days, and were assigned to harvest rice on the third day.
Si Xiaosong and Si Xiaobai are the two grandchildren of the family. Even though one is thirteen and the other is twelve. But you have to work like adults.
You have to bend down to harvest rice. Rice plants are not much shorter than corn plants. And it must be harvested from the roots. Otherwise the threshing time will not be long enough.
When Si Xiaosong harvested sorghum, he had already reaped the rewards. He cut the short sorghum lazily and was ordered by his family to thresh it himself. He almost died from exhaustion. It really saved him a lot of effort and he had to do three times more work. He regretted it.
Si Xiaosong saw that his mother was not paying attention to him, and whispered to Si Xiaobai: "Xiao Bai, do you want to make money? There is a new candy store in the city. It opened that day. You can try a piece of fruit candy for free. I got one, sir. Delicious.”
Si Xiaobai's mouth was watering. He said anxiously: "I also want to eat sweets. Last time I passed by that shop called Lollipop. I couldn't bear to leave and was kicked by my mother. Brother, tell me where you can make money."
"The harvest will be finished in two days, and we will herd the sheep. I have inquired about this place. It is no better than our hometown in Baoding Prefecture. The adults here say that half the year is farming and the other half is idle. In short, after harvesting the grain, we can play for half a year. Hehe. It just so happens that I will take you to dig a field mouse hole."
When Si Xiaobai heard this, he lost his mind. I thought my elder brother had some good ideas. It turned out to be a field mouse hole. That one is very tiring, okay?
In autumn, voles are at the peak of pregnancy, giving birth and nesting, and are very active. They search hard for food, actively store food, and are busy running around in search of food.
Peanuts, beans and other crops in the field can be stolen and stored by voles in their holes. Generally, a vole hole can store 20 to 30 kilograms of grain, and a large hole can dig out up to 40 or 50 kilograms of grain.
It causes great losses to rural income, so digging rat holes after autumn is an important activity after the autumn harvest. Although people cannot eat the food dug out for fear of plague. However, poultry and livestock can be fed. It can still be sold for a lot of money.
"Xiao Bai, you don't know. There is a large pine forest in the west. There must be pine nuts and hazelnuts in the vole holes over there. You can get at least thirty kilograms out of one nest. I tell you, this thing is very expensive. Roasted seeds and nuts are sold in the city. Boss Song told me that pine nuts cost three cents per catty and hazelnuts cost seven cents per catty."
"What, brother, you heard it right. Our family only has less than a hundred big coins from my grandpa. Grandpa is reluctant to spend even a copper penny. What do you think of a trip together? It's more than the entire family's money. As you say If you say that, wouldn’t it make you rich?”
"Hey, don't even look at who your brother is. I've been asking around for the past few days, and only the guy from our hometown has the habit of digging vole holes after autumn. We don't tell other people."
Si Xiaobai immediately became excited. He said, "I know the place you are talking about. It is quite far away for more than ten miles. There is a barbed wire fence there. Our family will not let us go there."
Duolun City is the starting point. The first circle is vegetable fields, the second circle is paddy fields, the third circle is dry fields, and the outermost circle is planted with sorghum.
Outside the sorghum fields are trenches and barbed wire fences, and a thorn wall was planted. They were just planted this year and have not yet grown.
Beyond the barbed wire fence, farmers are no longer within the scope of their activities. Barbed wire and trenches were built to protect crops from wild animals.
Outside the barbed wire fence, there were cavalry teams patrolling day and night. Farmers are not allowed to move outside the barbed wire fence without permission. Children are even more useless. If caught, he will definitely find his parents to take him back.
Si Xiaosong and Si Xiaobai knew with their buttocks that if they were caught by the patrolling cavalry, they would have their butts peeled off when they returned home.
"Don't worry, when the harvest is over, the adults won't care about us. The children of each family are waiting to have a party. Let's sneak out and dig for an hour and come back. We are not greedy. We will have enough time to come back and finish the meal. You rest assured."
Duolun City developed 200,000 acres of paddy fields around Hechazi. There are also 200,000 acres of dry land on higher ground. Dry fields mainly grow soybeans, corn, sweet potatoes, millet, rhubarb rice, glutinous rice, and various beans.
The 100,000 acres of land closest to the city wall are grown in vegetables. All modern seeds are used. They mainly grow potatoes, Chinese cabbage, and radishes, which are vegetables suitable for cellar storage in winter.
Because the grassland is bitterly cold, 10,000 acres of red peppers were specially planted to keep out the cold. Chili peppers are high-yielding and suitable for sandy soil. Fertilization uses decomposed manure, which is fermented soil from cow and horse manure.
Other supplies here are expensive and scarce, and there is an abundance of cow and horse excrement. The yield of pepper seeds per acre can reach 3,000 kilograms. Modern peppers generally yield 5,000 kilograms per mu.
After all, this year is the first winter that everyone has spent in this bitter cold land on the grassland. Yang Fan repeatedly instructed that we must grab the winter vegetable basket.
This year everything was a start-up, and I didn’t even bother raising pigs, and I didn’t even have time to build a pig pen.
There are a lot of public construction projects this year. The castle and rammed earth walls were able to be built thanks to the modern manpower equipment Yang Fan obtained.
After the spring plowing, they built the city wall, then divided the homestead and built their own houses. Everyone was exhausted and had not had any rest for most of the year.
Now that the autumn harvest is here, everyone is working hard, knowing that when the work is done, they can take a complete rest.
When we were recruiting everyone, we were told that the winter here on the grassland is long, and the three seasons of spring, summer, and autumn only last for six or seven months. To work here, you have to farm for half the year and work for half the year. In winter, it is so comfortable to keep the hot pot warm.
After the Si family worked for another five days, the harvesting was completely over, and An Sanxi and Huang San also breathed a sigh of relief. What they fear most is that the Mongolian coalition forces will attack during the harvest.
An Sanxi also knew in his heart that he had so many people, so he didn't pay attention to the four groups of people in his early 10,000s. They would wait for you to finish harvesting, dry them, and then grab them after entering the warehouse.
Your ruined city is right there, can you still run away on your own?
There is nothing wrong with this view. Duolun City penetrates so deeply into the grassland. As long as there is a blockade on all sides, are we still afraid that the duck in the mouth will fly away?
After all, human legs cannot outrun four horse legs. This is like meat delivered to the mouths of the Mongols, pie falling from the sky.
But in fact, the Mongols didn't know how so many Han people got here. They don't know that this is not an isolated stronghold.
Duolun City is connected to Zunhua and Xincheng by water transport from the Luan River. Hexi Guards Qianhu Station is also on the water transportation line. These places are connected by canals and natural rivers.
The transport capacity of water transport far exceeds that of horse-drawn carriages, which is why Yang Fan started researching steam engines early. Only with power can water transportation completely solve the problem of going upstream.
Even when the river is frozen in winter, horse-drawn sledges can still pass. The friction on the ice surface is small, and the transportation capacity is also large.
There is a saying in the art of war: the small enemy is strong and the big enemy can be captured. This means that if a small unit is stationed in an isolated stronghold, it will be completely destroyed once it is surrounded by a large group of enemies.
However, if a strong fortress has transportation channels that cannot be cut off, it will be extremely difficult to conquer. Because there will be continuous support from personnel and material resources. This place will become a meat grinder.
An Sanxi understood that only by turning this place into a meat grinder could the Mongols accept the fact that the master had wedged himself into the hinterland on the grassland.
