After returning to their residence, Ouyang Xuan and Huang Dagen went to visit Yu Zhu's condition again. Yu Zhu's condition did not improve after taking the herbs sent by Lu Dezhi.
In less than two days, the originally lean and strong man was tortured by alternating fever and coldness and became weak.
Although the residents of Liuliba Village have been asked to help find Artemisia annua, Ouyang Xuan is still worried about Yu Zhu's condition.
After taking care of the urgent matters at hand, he decided to wander around the nearby mountains and forests to see if he could find Artemisia annua.
But the most important thing at the moment is to convene and discuss the future direction of the grain collection team. After instructing the personnel to take care of Yu Zhu, Ouyang Xuan asked Huang Dagen to summon personnel immediately to discuss the matter.
After a while, everyone gathered at the shack where Ouyang Xuan was. Because it involves house construction, mining, ironware production and trade, Ouyang Xuan not only summoned five fire chiefs, but also several people with special skills such as Zhu Tiaozi, Yang Xiucai and blacksmith apprentice Li Saner.
At the meeting, Ouyang Xuan pointed out that there were Mongolian cavalry outside the mountain and Wanjiaping bandits inside the mountain. The whole team was staying here. There would be no problem in eating in the short term, but if time went by, Liuliba would not provide more than fifty soldiers. People consume food and wages.
To survive in this mountain, the entire team must use their own skills to support themselves. His idea was to adjust the personnel of each fire according to the personnel's strengths and establish several professional teams together with the Liuliba personnel.
The specific adjustment plan is: select the 10 most powerful people in the team to form the first fire, with Huang Dagen as the fire chief, responsible for the security of the village, and also participating in the hunter's acquisition of wild boars, bears and other large prey, also known as the guard; Select 10 people with strong discipline and patience to form the second fire. Cao Ergou will be the fire chief, responsible for training the cottage militia, also known as the teaching team; the third fire, fourth fire, and fifth fire will still be led by the original fire chief Chen Hu, Liu Zhong, and Wang Youfu are responsible for this. Among them, the third fire cooperates with Shanzhai to produce iron, wood, pottery and other objects, with blacksmith apprentice Li Saner as an assistant, called the industrial team; the fourth fire cooperates with Shanzhai to mine iron, sulfur, and nitrate. Waiting for the mine is called the mining team; Wuhuo and Shanzhai are doing business in partnership, with Zhu Tiaozi as his assistant, called the trading team.
There were 53 people in the team, except for the 10 people in each team and Ouyang Xuan and Yu Zhu, there was still Yang Xiucai, so Ouyang Xuan asked him to work in his old business and handle the team's paperwork.
At the moment, everyone was in favor of Ouyang Xuan's idea. Everyone understands the current situation. With the Mongolian cavalry roaming and threatening outside the mountains, and the road out of the mountains being blocked by the Wanjiaping bandits, even if they could get food, they would not be able to transport it back to Chongqing Mansion.
If he tries to collect grain again without any results and returns to Chongqing Mansion, he will not be able to escape heavy fines or even be imprisoned. It is better to stay in Liuliba and develop and wait for action.
During the discussion, the always cautious Fire Chief Wang Youfu proposed: "If we can tell the Chongqing Mansion about the predicament and describe the difficulty of collecting food in detail, we may be able to get Pan Tongzhi's understanding. If the food collection is not completed in the future, it can also be alleviated." Punishment." After hearing this, Yang Xiucai, who had just been assigned the responsibility of handling documents, snorted and said: "I am not talented. I have been immersed in the yamen for many years as a swordsman and pen clerk. Those adults are very hard-hearted and are not trusted people. Subordinates are treated as insignificant, and their occasional kindness is like a cat crying and a mouse pretending to be compassionate." As soon as Yang Xiucai said this, everyone felt sad.
Yes, if those officials had a trace of compassion, they would not make things difficult, let alone rush out to collect food without waiting for everyone to rest.
"However, we should still report the situation to Chongqing Mansion, but we will not report the difficulty of collecting food and our plight, but report that we used a strategy to let the bandits and Tatar soldiers fight each other, causing heavy casualties on both sides. We will achieve a great victory without spending a single soldier," Yang Xiucai said proudly.
Yang Xiucai's words made everyone suddenly enlightened and they all clapped their hands and applauded. It turns out it can still be like this! These ways of officialdom really opened the eyes of these warriors with swords and sticks.
Seeing that everyone had no objections, Ouyang Xuan ended the discussion and immediately asked Huang Dagen to take Zhu Tiaozi and Yang Xiucai to report the situation to Lu Dezhi and further discuss the implementation in detail.
As for reporting meritorious service to Chongqing Mansion, there is no rush as the current road is blocked. Only when the time is right, can someone send someone to report the meritorious service to Chongqing Mansion.
As soon as the meeting was over, Ouyang Xuan took Cao Ergou through the second village gate, walked straight through the village, and walked towards the mountain behind.
The two of them stopped halfway up the mountain, because the forest was thick and the grass was dense, and the mountain was getting steeper, so there was no way to walk on it.
Looking down at the terrain of Liuliba from the mountainside, Ouyang Xuan felt more and more that this mountain basin was a treasure. Apart from the mountain road they came from, they did not see any other roads leading to the outside world.
It was summer, and large areas of sorghum and wheat grew in the fertile area in the center of the Bazi, covering an area of no less than 3,000 acres. The rest of the area was covered with miscellaneous trees and dense weeds.
As Lu Dezhi said, as long as the farm tools are powerful, another 5,000 acres of land can be reclaimed. The crude iron produced in Liuliba is not only of poor quality, but will break when it touches the stones in the soil. What’s more, the output is too low. To maintain the production and repair of farm tools currently needed in the village, how many copycat blacksmith shops are needed? The craftsman was already very busy.
Ouyang Xuan and Cao Ergou walked along the mountainside, observing the terrain and looking for herbs. It was already dusk when they returned to their residence.
Along the way, they encountered iron ore and saltpeter mines, but since they were mainly here to collect herbs today, they were pressed for time and did not go into the mines to check.
Since the two of them didn't know Artemisia annua, they had no choice but to take a handful of the Artemisia they encountered along the way and bundle them together back to their residence.
When Cao Ergou arranged for someone to boil the collected artemisia in water, Ouyang Xuan stopped him. One was because he did not know whether the artemisia collected today was poisonous, and the other was that he vaguely remembered that if the activity of artemisinin exceeds 70 degrees Celsius, the activity of artemisinin will be reduced. It will be destroyed and lose its efficacy.
At that moment, he took some parts of various mugworts, squeezed out the juice, and drank it with Cao Ergou respectively.
I had to test whether it was toxic before I dared to take it to Yu Zhu.
