The five-year day of Yonghui seems to be particularly abnormal.

There were a series of great changes in the court, first of all, the rebellion of Fang Yiai, which implicated a large number of clan princes, county kings, princesses, concubines and heroes, and then immediately followed by a great change in the center.

Under the personal attention of the emperor, the central government passed the emperor's decree with difficulty, and a new generation of central prime ministers of the Tang Dynasty was born, with eleven prime ministers.

People who are familiar with the court have found that in the past, it was the elder faction of the ministers who took care of their lives led by the eldest grandson Wuji and others who were in power, but now they can't see it clearly.

The court has changed, and the weather in Guanzhong is also extremely abnormal from previous years.

It's March, but it hasn't rained a few times since then.

There is no rain in the drought in Guanzhong, the streams and rivers are cut off, the drought alarm has been sounded, and experienced people are worried that there will be a major drought this year.

Blue Creek.

The Blue Creek originating from the Qinling Mountains is also about to break off, and the Blue Creek, which was originally more than ten zhang wide, now only a small trickle in the middle of the stream bed remains.

The land is cracked, and many wells are no longer able to produce water.

The canal in front of Lijiazhuang Village has lost its former agility.

The two acres of fish pond in front of the village have not been filled with water until now, and the water is not only not more than at the beginning of the year, but even less, and now only the place in the center of the pond remains, and the water storage area of the fish pond has shrunk by two-thirds.

A thousand head of cattle have been bought.

The cooperative in Lanxi was also established, and all the 800 households of Princess Tamase joined the cooperative, and each family happily registered and received the cattle back.

But what makes everyone unhappy is that although there are cattle this year, there is no shortage in the field.

Li Xiao grabbed a handful of soil, and when he rubbed his hands, it was all shattered into dust, and there was no trace of hand on his hands.

"This year, I can't grow rice, not even wheat, so I can only grow some millet." An old crop sighed.

This is the best land in Lanxi Township, and it is also one of Li Xiao's high-quality assets, located on the river beach on the edge of Lanxi, which will not be short of water, and can even be directly irrigated, so that it can be planted in the Guannai rarely with high prices, and obtain extremely high returns.

But this year, the paddy field has turned into dry land, and the cracks that have been deeply cracked are like a thirsty mouth.

The drought has become more and more severe, and this year's spring planting has been seriously affected.

Although there have been no victims yet, this year's spring ploughing will not be possible, and there will be no harvest in the summer.

"Blue Creek will soon be cut off."

The experienced old man said worriedly, in order to ensure a little harvest, in order to ensure a little harvest, the people near each section of Lanxi will definitely start to intercept the stream water and dam the weirs.

Those who are upstream will block the water, and those who are downstream will definitely grab the water.

At that time, a water war is inevitable.

"Every three or five years, there will be a major drought, and every time there is a fight for water, it will lead to village fights, and even clan fights, and each time several lives will be killed."

The old man said that the last time there was a great drought was five years ago, that is, the year Emperor Taizong died.

That year, dozens of water battles broke out in many villages near the Lanxi River, killing a total of more than a dozen people, and even because of this incident, the county orders at that time were demoted.

The atmosphere in the township has begun to become tense.

There was a tense atmosphere everywhere in Lanxi Township, everyone was looking forward to rain, but those with a little experience knew that it was unlikely to rain in a short time.

The water war is inevitable and is imminent.

I just bought a thousand cows, started a cooperative, and wanted to do a big job, but faced with such a situation, Li Xiao was also helpless.

If the drought is severe this year, not only will the thousands of acres of his own land not be harvested, but even the tens of thousands of acres of land he took care of for the princess will not be harvested.

This was a serious blow to Li Xiao's enthusiasm.

Repairing water trucks and drilling wells is okay for dealing with minor droughts, but it is useless for a real big drought, because the wells will dry up and there will be no water in the streams.

No matter how drought-tolerant millet is, it is impossible not to need a little water.

A batch of millet seeds has been selected and bred in the space, but now there is no water, and there will be no harvest if they are sown.

"If it doesn't rain, you're going to miss the season."

If you miss the planting, you won't have a good harvest.

Li Xiao also ran to the fields every day these days, but to no avail.

Da Biao came back from the street and told Li Xiao bad news.

"The price of grain in the grain store on Lanxi Street has begun to rise, and it has risen a lot, and it looks like it will continue to rise."

Da Biaoguan's restaurant has to buy vegetables and grain every day, and is very concerned about the price of grain.

"Well, it's inevitable that food prices will rise. When I came back from Chang'an yesterday, I heard that the price of grain in Chang'an has also risen, and not only our Lantian has a great drought, but the entire Guanlong and even Longyou are also in a big drought, and even Shannan is also in a big drought. ”

There are droughts in Guanlong and Shannan, which accounts for one-third of the Tang Dynasty.

It was indeed a great drought.

"There's still some money in the store, why don't you use it to buy food and stock it up?" Da Biao asked.

Da Biao has suffered from famine, before the Jiangnan disaster, Da Biao's hometown was eaten up by the victims, and then the hungry people began to become homeless, and then became robbers and bandits, grabbing wherever they went.

Da Biao, who originally had a little surplus wealth at home, had to be coerced into a chaotic people, and finally joined Chen Shuozhen's righteous army, in fact, where is the real rebellion, but it is just to eat and not be starved to death.

The disaster area with no food is the most terrible, no courtesy, righteousness and shame will not exist, and the real people eat people.

Li Xiao nodded.

"Take all the money in the store and buy as much food as you can. Also, remember not only to buy fine grains, but also more corn, sorghum and soybeans, which can save lives when there is a famine. ”

"Know, I'll buy it quietly, and then hide the grain so that it doesn't leak out."

In times of famine, having food in hand is not always a good thing. If it were known to the other victims, it would be a scourge, and then there would be countless hungry people who would come and go crazy, and they would do anything.

There will probably be a lot of deaths this summer, even in the land of Gyeonggi, at the feet of the Son of Heaven, but when there is a great drought, people will still die.

Not to mention the people of Lantian, even the people in Chang'an City, in the event of a catastrophe, they could only follow the emperor's car all the way from Guanzhong to Luoyang to eat.

The emperor and the ministers and magnates will have food supplies when they arrive in Henan, but the people who go to Henan with them can only eat Henan.

The so-called eating in Henan is just a nice saying, and to put it more bluntly, the imperial court allows people to leave their hometowns and then go to Henan to ask for food.

As for whether you can get food, it depends on your personal ability, if you can't, you will starve to death, it's so cruel.

"Why don't you go to Jiangnan in advance to take refuge? I heard that Jiangnan arrived this year, and it's okay. Da Biao came up with an idea. Guanlong, Shannan drought, but Jiangnan has not heard of the drought, although Jiangnan is not as good as Guannai, but after all, it is a water town, Zeguo, as long as it does not happen to encounter a major flood after the past, it is better than the famine in Guannai.

And after all, they are also Jiangnan people, who fled into Guanzhong when they left their hometowns, although they are settled down now, they still miss their hometowns, even if there are no relatives at home, there are always ancestral graves.

Leave?

Li Xiao didn't think about it.

Although he himself is not really a Kannai person, after all, he has lived here for such a long time and has feelings for everything here.

On the other hand, it is uncertain that there will be a famine this year. Besides, in the land south of the Yangtze River, who are they looking for if they are not familiar with the place?

This is not a comfortable time to travel long distances.

The Li family also has property and employment here, so can they just throw it away?

As the days passed, the disaster did not show any relief.

As many expected, in order to be able to keep the harvest and sow seeds, the villagers in various sections of Lanxi began to organize manpower to dam the already small stream water.

The women and children carried the water of the barricade into the ground hand in hand and on their shoulders, and sprinkled it into the parched earth. Although it is attracted clean as soon as it is sprinkled, it can at least give everyone a little psychological comfort, hoping that the seeds in the field can survive until it rains.

"If you can't go on like this, you can't go down the old ways."

Li Xiao shook his head.

If it doesn't rain, the stream will dry up sooner or later, and how much water can be poured by relying on manpower to carry water to water the ground.

And it's not worth losing your life to fight for water.

It's already a natural disaster, so don't make it worse.

"There's no way, who can stop it."

"Gotta try." Li Xiao said. "In this way, tomorrow we will send someone to issue a notice in the name of the cooperative, so that all families can come to Lijiazhuang for a meeting. This matter has to be discussed, even if it is water, it must be reasonably arranged. No fights, let alone injuries. ”

"People don't necessarily listen."

"I just lent them a cow, and I believe there will be some face. As long as everyone is willing to come, you can sit down and discuss it. ”

After returning home, Li Xiao went to visit his wife, attached himself to his wife's increasingly bulging belly and listened to the movements of the fetus, then returned to the study and began to write and scratch.

He wrote some ideas about using the name of cooperatives to organize villagers to fight disasters and droughts.

In fact, there is still some water now, and I am afraid that everyone will panic together, and they all want to grab that bit of water, and they have to block the dam and repair the weir, while the downstream ones are vying to smash the dam and grab the water, and then the chaos will be chaotic, and it will be difficult to control.

If we can control this panic and reasonably distribute the water source, then with the addition of wells and water trucks, there is a chance to complete the spring sowing.

If you have planted the seeds, you can water them once, and you can last a few more days.

Unless the heavens really don't give food and it doesn't rain all the time, everyone still has some chances.

Writing and drawing, he was busy until midnight, and his wife Wanniang came to tell him to rest several times and got a little angry, so he finally put away the pen and paper and went back to his room to sleep.