Severe drought...

Thousands of miles naked!

Once upon a time, Shi Yiwen thought that this sentence should be just an exaggeration of a writer, how could it be a thousand miles apart?

But after he left the capital, he walked south along the official road, but just passed Baoding, just in this place where the richest fish and rice town was originally the richest fish and rice town in northern Zhili, and what he saw was "a thousand miles of barren land".

The red sun hangs high in the sky, and on the road, dry dust rolls like smoke in the wind, and the cracked holes in the cracked land can hold the child's arms.

The further south the more this happens, the more drought in the fields becomes.

"Hey, it's a sin. It's not raining for two months, so how can the people live!"

The driver was driving, sighing, Shi Yiwen, who was sitting in the carriage, looked at the shore of the ditch thoughtfully. On the shore of the ditch, you could occasionally see several water trucks. They should have turned the water truck, but there was no movement. Even if the car blades of the water truck occasionally moved, they would only scrape some sticky mud and water. Before they could be delivered, they had solidified on the car blades.

The two consecutive months of drought have almost dried up many small rivers and ditches in Shenzhou. Only some water is still stored in the middle of the river. Although it is far from the shore, the people still walked to the middle of the river, filled water with wooden barrels, and then carried the water to their own fields. However, the cracks on the land in the fields were like greedy lips licking the pitiful little water desperately.

Looking into the fields, the sorghum and millet in the fields are sparse. These crops are far more drought-resistant than wheat, but now they are browned like fire.

"Zhiyuan, look, as those refugees said, the drought is worse as the southwards go, the more severe it is. Shenzhou suffered another flood last year, and the drought and flooding for two consecutive years. The people here probably had already exhausted their savings. Along the way, many of the people we met escaped from here, but everyone is still here to hold on."

Zhang Jingxiu looked at Shi Yiwen in confusion. That day, he said he wanted to go to the disaster area in the south to see. Even if he came here to see it, what would happen?

"Doesn't the government provide relief?"

Shi Yiwen asked with a frown.

"Zhiyuan, you don't know that there was no drought or flood in this world that year. Even if the emperor was at the foot of the emperor, the court could not ask about the drought in several prefectures and places like this, that is, the local government raised money and food to provide disaster relief, and the people themselves supported it."

"Stand up..."

Li Feng, who was riding on the horse next to him, snorted.

"Young master, the people can't last long. When they run out of their savings, they don't know how many people will be willing to sell their daughters..."

When Li Feng was talking, he pointed to the village not far away and said.

"Young Master, you see, many people even sold the roof beams of their houses. This has always been like this. They first sold cattle, then sold the beams of houses, then houses, fields, and finally, they sold the daughters..."

For Li Feng, who had escaped from the desert, he was not unfamiliar with all this, and finally he pursed his lips and said.

"Actually, most people are suffering. They don't know that they should hurry up when the drought is not serious. After all, they can still beg for food on the road at that time. If it is too late, they will probably starve to death on the road..."

As we approached the village, we saw many houses in the village having been demolished with beams and tiles, and houses without roofs, as if we wanted to devour everything here. On the edge of the well platform in the village, many people with yellow faces and thin faces lined up with long snake formations, and Shi Yiwen hurriedly walked over.

Standing by the well, an old man was squeaking up on the well. There was half a bucket of turbid water in the bucket. Each of the villagers in the queue was holding a bowl in their hands, waiting for the water. An old man stood on the well platform, took the bowl, poured water, and took another bowl, picked up the wooden barrel and poured the water into the bowl.

Then the old man said to the villagers with a calm face.

"Don't drink it anymore, pour it into the field, do you understand?"

The young child licks his chapped lips.

"Is it okay to take a sip?"

The old man said directly.

"No! A person saves a gulp of water, and a seedling grows in the fields! Maybe one seedling can save a life."

Shi Yiwen asked as he watched the child carefully carry the water bowl and walk behind his father towards the farmland and pour the water from the bowl into the field.

"Dad, there is no water in this well?"

Seeing that he was dressed differently like ordinary people, my father-in-law replied respectfully.

"Reply to the young master, this well has been dry for a long time. Even if it is digging two feet deep, there is no water. It is God, the sun poisoned by fire, but it is not worth giving a drop of rain..."

The river is dry and the well is dry.

Continue to walk forward, watching the people carrying buckets and along the ridge of the field, carefully pouring bowls of water into the fields. A bowl of water poured into the field, and a stream of smoke rose from the field. After a few squeaks, even a trace of water was gone in a blink of an eye. Standing under the scorching sun, Shi Yiwen's robe was covered with sweat, and his brows were furious.

"The well has dried up. There is not enough water coming out from the bottom of the well. If you pour it into the ground, it will be useless!"

When he complained, a middle-aged man walked over and said.

"Even if it is useless, the people will not be willing to die of a drought in the crops in this field!"

The middle-aged man sighed at the arid land.

"There is no water in the river and no water in the well, so what can the people do? Are they just sitting here and waiting for death?"

"There is no water in the well. That's because the diving line has fallen due to the long-term lack of rain. Why not dig a deep well?"

Shi Yiwen said without looking back.

"The well is shallow and there is no water. If it is deep, will there be water?"

"How do you know that there is no well digging? But if the wells in each township are more than two meters tall, there is still no water. There is no water underground. What's the way?"

The middle-aged man frowned unhappily.

"Ah, the drought is so severe that there is no water at two feet deep!"

Shi Yiwen said in surprise that he had never seen a well in the past, but in the village, the water surface of the well was only about two meters above the ground. Sometimes, it could be only more than one meter. There was no water at two feet..., almost six and a half meters, which was too dry.

"How could this be so drought?"

"If you can't do two feet, just dig three feet, and you can always see water!"

When Shi Yiwen finished speaking, not only did the middle-aged man show sarcasm on his face, but even Shi Yiwen's expression was not natural. Just when he wanted to remind him, he only heard the middle-aged man sneer.

"You scholar, really useless. Do you know that digging wells from ancient times to the present is only about a meter, and a two-meter-deep well (1) is not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also very easy to collapse. If it weren't for this severe drought, it would be helpless. How could the well craftsman dig a two-meter-deep well? No matter how deep it is, he would be afraid that the well would collapse and die..."

Faced with the sarcasm of the middle-aged man, Shi Yiwen sneered.

"How do you know that it is not feasible if you don't do it? Since there is a severe drought and there is no water in the river, you should naturally dig wells to resist drought! Otherwise, will you watch the people lose their grains and become hungry?"

(1) The depth of ancient wells was limited, with a general depth of between 3-5 meters, which is at the location of their diving surface. For example, the "Change of Tumubao" in history records that "people and horses do not drink water for one or two days, and they are extremely thirsty, dig the well to two meters, and there is no spring in the depth."
Chapter completed!