Great drought......

Chichi Chiri!

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 away?

But after he left the capital, he went all the way south along the official road, but just after Baoding, in this was originally the richest land of fish and rice in Beizhili, but what he saw was "thousands of miles of red land".

The red sun hung high in the sky, and on the road, the dry dust rolled like smoke in the wind, and the cracked earth cracked out enough to plug a child's arm.

The further south you go, the more this happens, and the further south you go, the more severe the drought becomes.

"Hey, it's evil, this ghost hasn't rained for two months, but how can the people live!"

The coachman who was driving sighed, and Shi Yiwen, who was sitting in the carriage, looked thoughtfully at the bank of the ditch. Occasionally, you can see a few waterwheels on the bank of the ditch, which should have been turning, but there will be no movement, and even if the blades of the waterwheels move occasionally, they only scrape some viscous muddy water, and before they can be sent, they have solidified on the leaves.

After two months of drought, many small rivers and ditches in the deep state were almost dry, only some water remained in the middle of the river, although it was far from the shore, but the people still stepped on the silt to the middle of the river, filled the water in wooden barrels, and then poured the water into their own fields, but the dry cracks in the fields were like greedy lips desperately licking the little poor water.

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 also charred as if they had been burned by fire.

"Zhiyuan, you see, just like those refugees said, the further south you go, the more severe the drought, Shenzhou suffered another flood last year, two consecutive years of drought and flood, I am afraid that the people here have already exhausted their savings. Along the way, many of the people we met escaped from here, but everyone is still holding on here. ”

Zhang Jingxiu looked at Shi Yiwen puzzled, that day, he said that he wanted to go to the disaster area in the south to see, even if he came here to see, what could he do?

"Won't the government give it to you?"

Shi Yiwen frowned and asked.

"Zhiyuan, don't you know, in this world, there was no drought or flood that year, even if Beizhili was at the foot of the Son of Heaven, the drought in several prefectures and places like this, the imperial court couldn't ask about it, that is, it relied on the local self-raising money and grain for disaster relief, and then it was supported by the people themselves."

"Holding on to the ......"

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

"Young master, the people won't last long, and when they run out of savings, I don't know how many people will have to sell their daughters......"

As Li Feng spoke, he pointed to the village not far away and said.

"Young master, you see, many people have even sold the roof beams of their houses, which has always been like this, first selling cattle, then selling house beams, then houses, fields, and finally Dian'er selling daughters......"

For Li Feng, who had escaped the famine, he was no stranger to all this, and finally he pursed his lips and said.

"Actually, most people are struggling there, they don't know, they should hurry up when the drought is not heavy, after all, at that time, they can still beg for food on the road, and if it is too late, I am afraid that they will starve to death on the road......"

When I got closer to the village, I saw that many houses in the village had been torn down beams and tiles, and houses without roofs were black holes, as if they wanted to devour everything here. At the well platform in the village, many people with yellow faces and thin muscles lined up in a long snake formation, and Shi Yiwen hurriedly walked over.

Standing at the edge of the well, I saw a bucket being hoisted up on the well, and in the bucket was half a bucket of muddy water, and the villagers in the queue each held a bowl in their hands, waiting for water. An old man stood on the platform of the well, took the bowl, poured water, took another bowl, picked up a wooden bucket and poured all the water into the bowl.

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

"Don't drink it, but pour it into the field, understand?"

The young child licks his chapped lips.

"Can't you take a sip?"

The old man said directly.

"No! People save a mouthful of water, and a seedling grows in the field! Maybe a seedling can save a life. ”

Watch as the child carefully carries the bowl of water, walks behind his father towards the farmland, and splashes the water from the bowl into the field. Edwin asked.

"Daddy, there's no water in this well?"

The old man saw that he was not dressed like ordinary people, so he replied respectfully.

"Back to Gongzi's words, this well has long been dry, even now it is digging two feet deeper, and there is no water, it is all this God, the fire and poisonous sun, but it is not worth giving a drop of rain......"

The river dried up and the well dried up.

Continue to walk forward, watching the people carry buckets and carefully splash bowls of water into the fields along the ridges. A bowl of water was splashed into the ground, and a puff of smoke rose from the field, squeaked a few times, and in a blink of an eye, there was no trace of water at all. Standing under the scorching sun, Shi Yiwen's robe was covered with sweat, and his brows were tightly locked.

"The wells are all dry, and with the little water coming out of the bottom of the well, no one can drink enough, so pour it into the ground, there is a fart!"

As he complained, a middle-aged man came up and said.

"Even if it's useless, the people are reluctant to die of drought in the crops in this field!"

The middle-aged man sighed as he looked at the arid land.

"If there is no water in the river and no water in the well, what can the people do? Is it just sitting back and waiting? ”

"There is no water in the well, it is because the diving line has been lowered due to the lack of rain for a long time, why not dig a deep well?"

Shi Yiwen said without looking back.

"The well is shallow and waterless, and when it is deep, won't there be water?"

"How do you know that no wells have been drilled, but the townships have dug wells for more than two feet, and there is still no water, and there is no water underground, what can you do?"

The middle-aged man frowned displeasedly and said.

"Ah, the drought is so bad, I can't see water at a depth of two feet!"

Shi Yiwen was surprised, he had never seen a well in the past, but when he was in Zhuangzi, the water surface of the well was only about two meters above the ground, and sometimes, it could be more than one meter. There is no water ...... for two feet, almost six and a half meters, which is too dry.

"How can this be so dry?"

"If two zhang is not good, dig three zhang, and you can always see water!"

When Shi Yiwen's words fell, not only did the middle-aged man's face show sarcasm, but even Shi Yiwen's expression was unnatural, just when he wanted to say something to remind, he only heard the middle-aged man sneer.

"You scholar, it is really useless, do you know, throughout the ages to dig wells but a few zhang Xu, two zhang deep wells (1), not only time-consuming and laborious, but also very easy to collapse, if it is not for this great drought, it is really forced to helpless, how can the well smith hit two zhang deep well, and then deep only afraid that the well will collapse and people will die......

Facing the cynicism of the middle-aged man, Shi Yiwen sneered.

"If you don't do it, how do you know it's not feasible? Since there is a great drought and there is no water in the river, it is natural that we should dig wells to fight the drought! Otherwise, will it not be possible to watch the people lose their harvest and become starving? ”

(1) The depth of ancient wells is limited, and the general depth is between 3-5 meters, that is, the location of its diving surface. For example, in history, the "Change of Civil Fort" recorded that "people and horses do not drink water for a day or two, they are extremely thirsty, dig wells to two zhang, and there is no spring in the depths." ”

As for many ancient wells up to more than ten meters deep, they are produced after hundreds of years of continuous digging and reinforcement, rather than digging out at one time, the depth of rural horizontal wells is often limited, and the water output of wells is also very limited, only one or two wells, can not meet the demand for irrigation.