Wang Zhong, Ma Renli, and Niu Dadan came down from the reservoir and were walking towards the village, all with worried faces.
"It seems the reservoir is hopeless!"
"Let's go to the water cellar and have a look." The three of them were chatting as they walked, but the topic was a bit heavy and the atmosphere was also a bit heavy.
"How much rations do the folks have left?"
"I still have half a bag of wheat at home, almost a bag of rice, and some sweet potatoes, but not much." Niu boldly said.
The bags are all standard sacks, but the density and quality of wheat and corn are different, so the weight of each bag is naturally different.
It's probably about ten or twenty kilograms of wheat. The corn is heavier, about one hundred and twenty kilograms per bag.
Ma Renli said: "I'm about the same as Bold. I still have some potatoes and dried radish leaves at home." Although Ma Renli is not as bold and capable as Bold, he can't bear to say that Yang Deng'er is a powerful character and a good hand at farm work. Ma Renli He is much better than Qiao Yue, so the two families are about the same.
These were basically saved last year and the previous two years, but now they are almost used up. However, compared with the original plot, it is much better, at least it is not time to grab the seeds to eat.
Wang Jian nodded and said: "My fellow villagers should be about the same." There is nothing we can do about this. The summer harvest has reduced production by 60%, and the quality of the harvested wheat is not very good. After paying the public grain, there is not much left.
Niu Bingdao said: "Anyway, we can't plant crops now. Let the villagers save some food and survive for a while." Wang Jian nodded and said: "It's as long as we can carry it for a while."
"Be brave, is there a place on our team where we can hide a little?"
"A hidden place?" Niu Bingdao said, "In order to hide from the little devils, we dug a hole in the ground. Is that place okay?"
"Di Zongzi?" Wang Zhong had the impression that Niu DaDa and the others secretly held meetings at night to discuss the land for growing yellow tobacco in Laoqiugou in order to develop a side business.
"Yes, there is a big cellar down there. When the Japs came to raid, the whole village was hiding in it," Niu boldly said.
Wang Zhong asked: "How is it waterproof and moisture-proof?"
"It should be no problem to store food." Ma Renli said.
"Storage grain?" Niu Dadan frowned and looked at Wang Zhong in confusion: "Isn't there a cellar under the warehouse?" Wang Zhong said: "A cunning rabbit has three holes, and eggs cannot be put in one basket."
"Oh~~~" Niu Dadan finally understood. Now that the drought is severe in the county, Zhang Defu and his group don't have the energy to engage in any activities. Even if they have the energy to engage in activities, the people below don't have the energy to accompany them.
The villagers are either busy digging up grass roots and looking for wild vegetables in the mountains, or they are lying on the kang at home and trying not to move. Naturally, they will feel less hungry if they don't move.
Time passed like this day by day. Because there was still food at home and Wang Zhong, a doctor with superb medical skills, helped with the treatment, Niu DaDaFang slowed down and was gradually able to walk around.
Autumn was coming soon, and the heat gradually receded. Niu boldly led the villagers to plow some land, poured a circle of water from the cellar, and planted the buckwheat that had been prepared in the storehouse.
Buckwheat is a treasure for drought resistance and self-rescue. Buckwheat is said to be short-lived and fast. It is drought-tolerant, shade-tolerant, acid-tolerant, and ridge-tolerant. It has a short growth cycle and quick results.
It only takes sixty to eighty days from buckwheat emergence to harvest, which is less than three months.
Since they have to farm, the villagers cannot eat porridge and water every day like before, otherwise they will not have the strength to work in the fields.
Moreover, the consistent rule of the Maixiang Brigade is that during busy farming or during the holidays, the canteen that has been put aside for a long time must be reopened.
In late July of the lunar calendar, the canteen of the Maixiang Brigade was reopened. Instead of asking the villagers to turn in grain to support the operation of the canteen, the more than 50,000 kilograms of reserve grain stored in the warehouse for several years was officially put into use.
On the morning of the first day in the fields, all the villagers gathered in the canteen.
"Let me say a few words first. This time we will replant some buckwheat. Because there is not much water in the water cellar, the area we plant is not large. It will take less than a few days to finish planting. The rules are still the same as before. The more you work, the more you pay. If anyone is lazy and cheats and gets deducted work points, don't blame me for not making it clear in advance." When he said this, Wang Zhong also swept away the underfed couple at the front of the crowd.
"Brother Big Chong, don't worry. If anyone is lazy and refuses to work, none of us will agree!"
"No one can tell how long this drought will last. If there is more, I won't say more. Everyone, please work harder. Whether we can get more food rations depends on these buckwheat!" After the mobilization, Wang Zhong gave an order. , people drove oxen and donkeys and carried curved shaft plows into the fields.
The Maixiang Brigade currently has six cattle, seven donkeys, and two horses. They are all skinny now. They will be planting buckwheat in the past few days, so they have been fed some high-quality forage mixed with beans and eggs in advance.
In addition to oxen and donkeys, powerful oxen and donkeys like Wang Zhong and Dabao also pulled the plow together.
As early as the early days of land reform, productivity was low and only Ma Datou's family had two oxen in the village. At that time, people would pull the plow at the front. If one person could not pull the plow, two people would work together.
Working with Wang Zhong is Jiang Hongguo. Wang Zhong is pulling the plow at the front, and Ma Renli is holding the plowshare at the back. Nowadays, Ma Renli is a good hand in both plowing and farming, although he is not as strong as Niu and the others. , but not bad.
This plowing is different from other jobs. Naturally, you can't just do it quickly. You have to take care of Ma Renli who is holding the plow behind. In fact, it is more tiring. However, Wang Zhong's physical abnormality is even worse than that of the old man in his prime. The scalpers were not weak at all. After a few days of hard work, Wang Zhong had nothing to do, but Ma Renli, who was holding the plow, was exhausted.
The men are responsible for plowing, and the women are responsible for top dressing, ridging, and sowing. Although the work is not heavy, they still have to endure the scorching sun and endure the scorching heat.
It took a total of seven or eight days to grow all the buckwheat. In the canteen, there are two dry meals a day and one thin meal. There are also bean cakes and peanut cakes, which are all made of oil residue and have a good taste. Although it is rough, it has high nutritional value and contains oil and water to keep you hungry.
After the buckwheat was planted, there was no intention of closing the canteen. Wang Zhong and others agreed that from now on until the food stored in the warehouse is used up, the villagers will have two meals a day in the canteen and have to work. Just eat dry food, and when you are not working, eat thin food, such as corn lake, sweet potato porridge, etc., as long as you can't starve to death.
If the villagers want to open Xiaozao Village, there will be no explicit ban on it, but if they run out of food in their hands and the team's warehouse is also empty, don't blame the team for ignoring it.
Wang Zhong has already started talking about the ugly things. One hundred kilograms of cornmeal a day, and a total of more than five kilograms in the warehouse. If you continue to eat like this, you can eat it for more than five hundred days, which is nearly two years. It is the autumn of 1960. If you calculate it this way, as long as nothing happens, , can almost last until the three-year disaster is over.
Coupled with the buckwheat planted later, as long as one crop is produced, it will be enough for everything. Not all the sown buckwheat can successfully break through the ground and sprout. The villagers have successively built simple sun protection sheds with hay, and they also carry water from the water cellar every day to water them. They care for the buckwheat that breaks out of the ground just like they care for their own children. of fresh seedlings.
Time passed day by day, the autumn tiger gradually receded, and the autumn wind became bleak, but still not a drop of rain fell, and the sky above the head was clear and blue day by day.
There are reports of disasters all over the country in the newspapers, mostly droughts, but in some coastal areas and parts of the south, there are tsunamis, typhoons, heavy rains, floods, etc.
Fortunately, it is now the autumn of 1960, winter is about to begin, and half of the three-year difficult period has passed. In the yard, Da Hong and Er Hong also lay dying under the eaves all day long. They lay in the east wing in the morning and in the west wing in the afternoon. They knew how to find a place.
In the entire Maixiang Brigade, Wang Zhong is the only one who has a dog at home. After the buckwheat was planted, Wang Zhong was still the same as before, taking his two hunting dogs into the mountains every three days, but he no longer had the same harvest as before.
It took two or three trips to get something, and the prey was all dry and skinny. In the side courtyard of Ma's mansion, on the Kang in the main room, Wang Zhong took back his hand that was on Niu DaDang's mother's pulse. Niu DaDang asked nervously, "How is it?" Wang Zhong shook his head and said, "It's still a matter of vitality. I just had a fight the day before yesterday. There is a hare coming back. You and I can go get the rabbit back and make it into dried meat. Cut a little bit of it every day and make it into minced meat porridge. Auntie should have some effect after eating it."
"No, no, it's what you worked so hard to get back. I can't have it!" Niu Dadan shook his head quickly.
"It's already this time, why are you still worrying about this!"
"No!" Niu Dadan still shook his head: "You gave my mother the medicine she drank. How can I still want something from you?"
"In this way, just treat it as if I borrowed it from you, and you give me an IOU and pay it back when the drought is over. Is that okay?" Qiao Yue pulled Niu DaDang's sleeve: "Bold!" Niu DaDang looked at it. Sitting on the bed, the white-haired and somewhat frail old lady gritted her teeth and nodded helplessly.
"I will exchange food for you..."
"Okay, don't be polite to me. I can go hunting in the mountains. My family's life is at least better than yours. Now is the slack season. The canteen works out that one person only has five taels of rice every day. With the little food you have in hand, it's better. Leave it to replenish your aunt's body! As long as you are fine, you are better than anything else." Niu Dadan looked at Wang Zhong, his eyes filled with emotion: "Dachong, I will remember your kindness for the rest of my life." Wang Chong smiled. He smiled and said, "Why are you talking about this? Auntie's body is the most important thing now."
"Okay, come with me!" Jiang Hongguo didn't complain at all about Wang Zhong giving the hare to Niu Dudao, and even asked some questions about Niu Dudao's health with concern.
In the evening, Jiang Hongguo used a lunch box to make corn porridge from the canteen. He took some dried meat from the warehouse, cut it into cubes and mixed it with the porridge. He added water to boil it. There was a steamer on the pot, and ten yellow buns were placed on the steamer. After making steamed buns, I took out a handful of pickles from the jar, cut them into pieces and simply fried them, and my dinner was complete.
"Eat more!" Wang Zhong stuffed two yellow buns into his son's hands. Jiang Hongguo specially scooped some extra diced meat for her two sons.
"You should also eat more, don't starve the child." Wang Zhong also helped Jiang Hongguo scoop a bowl of corn porridge.
Jiang Hongguo paused in taking the yellow steamed bun, then turned to look at Wang Zhong, full of surprise: "What?" Wang Zhong put his hand on Jiang Hongguo's lower abdomen, said with a smile: "Don't you think you are doing this? Is the time a little sluggish?" Jiang Hongguo was still a little dizzy, confused by the sudden news: "Is there any?" He just asked, and then nodded slightly: "It seems to be quite a bit!"
"You!" Wang Zhong shook his head and said, "It's still early, the fetus is not stable yet, and the weather has started to get colder recently. Don't touch cold water or anything like that. Leave any heavy work to me." Both sons also They looked at my mother in unison, with curiosity in their eyes.
"Listen up, you two. Your mother is pregnant and is going to give you a younger brother and sister. If I'm not at home, you two men should take good care of your mother, you know?" Wang Zhong said to his two sons.
"Dad, are you going to give birth to a younger brother or sister?" Zian's eyes lit up instantly. This boy was very talented and interested in medical skills. Now he has started to recite the Tangtou Song.
"Yeah!" After receiving their father's affirmative answer, the two brothers immediately jumped up happily, shouted several times, and couldn't wait to run to Jiang Hongguo, without even bothering to eat.
"Mom, are you carrying a brother or a sister in your belly?" The two sons have high IQs, and with Wang Zhong's teachings, although they are only seven years old, they have already passed the stage of asking where their brothers and sisters are.
"Mother doesn't know either!" Jiang Hongguo herself was a little confused. If Wang Zhong hadn't told her, she wouldn't have known she was pregnant. But Jiang Hongguo believed Wang Zhong's words 100%, so now Jiang Hongguo The red fruit is a little dizzy.
"Brother, are you stupid? Mom is not a fairy, how can she know whether she is pregnant with a younger brother or a younger sister?" Zian mocked his elder brother unceremoniously.
Then he turned around and asked Jiang Hongguo with a smile: "Mom, do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?" Jiang Hongguo rubbed Zian's head: "Mom, I don't feel uncomfortable!"
"Hmm~~~" Ziping wanted to say something else. He moistened his throat and the two brothers stiffened in unison. Then both pairs of eyes looked at Wang Zhong who was watching them next to him. He turned around, got on the kang one after another, and sat back in his seat.
"Let's eat when we're eating. What's it like?" The two brothers lowered their heads and plucked at the polenta in their bowls.
Jiang Hongguo pulled Wang Zhong: "Okay, they also care about me."
"Let's eat!" Wang Zhong didn't mean to make excuses. As time passed, the buckwheat planted in the ground began to grow taller, the weather gradually turned cooler, and the temporary shed was dismantled.
At first, we built a shed because the weather was too hot and the sun was too poisonous, so we had no choice but to do so. Now that the buckwheat is growing well, it is natural to let it absorb enough sunlight to carry out light synthesis and promote growth.
Three months passed in a blink of an eye. It was the tenth month of the lunar calendar. The north wind was blowing and the weather was getting cold. The buckwheat in the fields had matured under the careful care of the villagers.
The villagers also had smiles on their faces. During this period, Niu Dadan and others were not idle. The weather was too hot and dry to grow food, but cabbage and radish could still be grown. The county distributed a lot of seeds to each brigade.
Niu DaDang also led the people to clear out the land early. Instead of planting in the mountains, they planted in fertile land where buckwheat was not grown.
However, in order to jointly utilize water resources, the Maixiangling brigade deliberately controlled the planting area of cabbage and radish, applied more fertilizers, and jointly watered, so as to make the cabbage and radish planted grow better as much as possible.
Facts have proved that this method is indeed practical. Among the dozens of brigades in the entire Maixiangling area, the radish and cabbage grown in the fields of Maixiang Brigade are the best.
This time, the villagers harvested nearly 400 acres of buckwheat, which is the best and most fertile land in the village. Fortunately, it is the dry season now. Although it is already October of the lunar calendar and all the autumn tigers have left, the weather is still there. It's not bad. There is sunshine every day, but the temperature is not enough, so we use time to make up for it. If we stay in the sun for a few more days and plow more diligently, the harvested buckwheat will be almost dry.
Half of the buckwheat stored in the warehouse was kept in the brigade's warehouse, and the other half was distributed to the team members according to their work points. The Spring Festival of 1960 passed gradually as the villagers lived frugally and frugally. Niu Daudao's health was no longer serious, but the missing vitality still could not be replenished.
In the spring of 1961, the higher authorities once again issued a policy that all canteens run by rural production teams were disbanded, and every household set up stoves and started cooking.
On the day this order was issued, the canteen of the Maixiang Brigade, which had been open for more than two years, was officially closed. The remaining grain in the warehouse, except for the sufficient grain and 10,000 kilograms of emergency grain, were all kept in accordance with the order. Human hair was given to the team members.
From July to March of the 1961 lunar calendar and mid-April of the Gregorian calendar, in almost nine months, more than 30,000 kilograms of grain were consumed in the warehouse, and now less than 20,000 kilograms are left.
Ten thousand kilograms were left in the brigade warehouse, including the five thousand kilograms of wheat, the remaining several thousand kilograms of corn, and the leftover buckwheat from last year. They were evenly distributed among nearly 200 people, each weighing only a few dozen kilograms.
But with this average of dozens of kilograms of grain per person, plus the radishes and cabbages grown by each family in the winter, and digging some grass roots and bark, we can barely survive a year.
The drought is still going on. In early spring, there was an unusually light rain, but the thunder was loud and the raindrops were light, and the ground was not even watered.
Fortunately, the groundwater resources in the Maixiangling area are still abundant. Although the continuous drought has caused the water level to drop, water can still be obtained, which is enough to meet some of the needs of irrigation and the daily life of the villagers.
The shrubs on the mountain have dried up in patches, not to mention the grass. Except for some that may be found in the more lush forests, all other places are dead. Nowadays, the remaining vegetation on the mountain is basically all They are trees with deep roots and a long history.
There are less vegetation and fewer animals in the mountains. The hares and pheasants that usually fill the mountains and plains all seem to have disappeared.
At the beginning of spring, the brigade planted another batch of buckwheat and harvested it in the summer. The yield was much lower than last year. The yield per mu was almost 70 kilograms. It was naturally incomparable with normal years, but it could be grown. , the folks are satisfied.
Not a single bit of the buckwheat harvested this time was retained, and all was distributed to the team members. The policy above is very clear. The canteens should be closed, everyone should start their own cooking, and each family should eat their own food. Now is a special period, so this food must naturally be distributed.
The disaster situation across the country is still very serious. The Maixiang Brigade directly gave up crops such as wheat, corn, soybeans, and peanuts, and only focused on the buckwheat wool. They avoided the hottest season of midsummer and planted two seasons in spring and autumn, and it took three months. It can be harvested. Although the yield is not high, at least people will not starve to death.
Due to the ongoing drought, autumn sowing in 1961 could not be carried out, so Niu Budao could only lead others to continue planting buckwheat, radish and cabbage.
