In December, the northern winter wax moon is cold, and the snow is falling. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Seeing that the New Year is approaching, it is a day of celebration, but at present, the villages in Guanzhong Prefecture are sad, and many villages are empty.

Since last year, floods and droughts have broken out in more than 40 prefectures, including Guanzhong and Henan, and grain prices have risen sharply. This year, there are more than 40 states with severe drought and frost insects, and it is not an exaggeration to say that there is no harvest in the fields.

After last year's grain harvest, the peasants' families have survived until this year, and the wealthy families have reached the point where they have no grain of rice, not to mention those tenants who are already poor. In addition to being in debt, the miserable thing is that he is hungry and bone-ty. In some places, the local people can no longer live, and the phenomenon of cannibalism occurs.

As the controller of the empire, Li Zhi was even more worried. In addition to ordering local governments to open warehouses to help the victims, in September, Ding Chou issued an edict to the eastern capital in the first month of next year. Most of the imperial court officials and garrisons in Chang'an were temporarily moved to Luoyang, the eastern capital, to relieve the food pressure in Guanzhong. At the same time, the affected people were ordered to go to the states to seek food.

In October, he also ordered the poor families of Yong, Tong, and Huazhou, who could not survive under the age of fifteen, to be adopted as men and women for the adopters to drive into servitude, but stipulated that they should not be used as slaves and maids.

Although various measures have been promulgated one after another, most of Guanzhong has been affected by the disaster, and since last year, the disaster has been two consecutive years, and the grain harvested is pitiful. The Changping Warehouses set up in the disaster-stricken states were already short of food, and some local officials relied on the high sky to deceive the emperor and deceive the superiors and subordinates, resulting in a discount in the effect of disaster relief.

Only the Henan region relied on the canal built in the former Sui Dynasty to transfer grain from Lianghuai and Jiangnan, and the disaster was slightly lighter.

Zheng Cheng sat at the door of his house with blank eyes, looking at the hillside in the distance.

On the hillside, some women and children are bent over the wild vegetables, watching every inch of the land like the minesweepers of later generations.

After two years of disaster, a little wild vegetables in the wild have also been dug up, and now it is the north of the cold winter, and it is even more difficult to find wild vegetables.

As soon as the team looking for wild vegetables found it, they quickly buckled it out with their hands, and the two children even fought over a small wild vegetable.

The woman next to her sighed and watched all this, standing with a sallow face and weak breath, but she didn't want to step forward to stop it, just bent down mechanically and swept towards the ground.

Trees grow on the hillside, as long as they can be eaten, and now even the bark has been stripped of the warp, and the bare trunk of the tree looks extremely desolate on the hillside.

Zheng Cheng, whose eyes were gray, looked back at the two daughters and a three-year-old son who were shivering on the bed wrapped in a broken quilt in the room, looking at their sallow complexion and shriveled bodies, only a weak sigh remained.

Maybe in a few days, the three children will starve to death, right?

Half a year ago, I was still looking forward to the grain coming out of the field, and endured two light meals of mushy wild vegetable soup every day, and made do with my trouser belt. I didn't think that this god thought that these poor people were not living hard enough, and they had a year's disaster last year, and they simply continued to make trouble this year.

The severe drought and frost caused the wheat seedlings planted last year to survive to the very bottom, and then there was a locust plague, and the grain was completely lost.

Now, within a radius of several hundred miles, except for those landlords who are rich and rich, the poor people are almost unable to survive.

Zheng Cheng's family has been drinking water for more than ten days mixed with a few wild vegetable leaves and a few beans to hang on to their lives, and now the family has no even the little beans left, not to mention wild vegetables, and the bark can't be scraped.

Fortunately, my father and mother died early, so I don't have to suffer from this.

At dusk, Zheng Cheng's wife Zhang returned home with a vegetable basket and an ugly face.

Seeing that there were only four or five small wild vegetables in his wife's vegetable basket, Zheng Cheng felt bitter in his heart, and he couldn't live this day.

Zhang dragged his hungry and tired body on the stove to prepare for cooking, and the three children got out of bed excitedly and surrounded him, and couldn't help but dim when they looked at the vegetable basket with expectant eyes.

Long-term malnutrition, Zheng Cheng's ten-year-old daughter is a head shorter than the daughter of the same age of the landlord of the same village, and the three-year-old son is even thinner. They all became thin into bamboo poles, with sallow skin and sallow hair, and Zheng Cheng's heart couldn't stop souring in his eyes.

Drinking a few wild vegetable leaves without even salt, Zheng Cheng said weakly: "Tomorrow, I will take the eldest mother and the second mother to the county seat, and beg the rich and noble families in the city to adopt them, but if it doesn't work, I just sell them to others as slaves and maids." ”

"Woo woo...... Zhang lowered his head and couldn't stop wiping his tears.

When the two little girls heard that their father was going to sell them, they also cried with their mothers, but because they were too hungry, drinking a bowl of water could not stop their hungry stomachs, and they didn't even have the strength to cry.

Zheng Cheng touched the sallow hair of the two girls, who were twins. When I was born, I was a little disappointed though I wasn't a son. But a pair of twin daughters gave birth to delicate skin, white as clotted fat, at that time the old Taoist looked at the two daughters and said: These two daughters have the appearance of nobles, should be a good life to be raised.

Zheng Cheng gave birth to a pair of twin daughters with good faces, and they had old-fashioned faces, which became a beautiful talk in the mouths of the villagers in ten miles and eight villages for a while, and he was even more proud of it.

didn't think about the past two years, a pair of daughters who were originally getting longer and more beautiful were hungry and hungry, and the skin and limbs that used to be like clotted fat were even more sallow and ugly.

Tomorrow when you go into the city, it would be better if you meet a good family who adopts them according to the will of the court, although they are still driven, than to sell them to others as slaves and maids and lose their freedom.

Early the next morning, the family drank a few bowls of wild vegetable soup, and Zheng Chengcheng took a pair of daughters to Huayin County.

All the way to Huayin County, Zheng Cheng saw many hungry and green-eyed homeless people, and there were also many people who thought the same way as him and ran to the county seat with hungry and thin children.

Outside the gate of Huayin County, several local wealthy families set up a few soup kitchens not far from the city gate, and thousands of people licked their stomachs and lined up in a few long lines to receive the bowl of gruel.

In the past, when the family couldn't survive, Zheng Cheng also brought his wife and daughter to receive it a few times, but because there were too many people to receive it, half of them waited in line for most of the day hungry and did not necessarily receive it. After all, the rich families also have a lot of food, and it is impossible to satisfy the hungry people in a county.

Today, the queue of the soup kitchen shed is long, Zheng Cheng knew at a glance that he didn't hope to get the porridge when he went up to line up now, and pulled his two long-awaited daughters into the city.

"Hey, you're not Zheng Cheng!" The middle-aged man who blocked Zheng Cheng's way looked at the pair of daughters he was holding with both hands, and asked in surprise: "You don't plan to go into the city and sell your daughter, do you?" ”

The person blocking the way was the only rich and not hungry landlord in the same village, and he was still holding his little daughter in his right hand.

Zheng Cheng couldn't help but smile bitterly: "I plan to find a rich family in the city and ask someone to take in my two daughters." ”

The landlord shook his head and persuaded with some sympathy: "Now that Guanzhong has been affected by the disaster, there are not many children who cannot be supported by poor families in the countryside, and the imperial court has ordered that those who cannot survive under the age of fifteen should be adopted as men and women for the adopters to drive for servitude." But how many families can afford to adopt in this disaster year? In Guanghuayin County, the families who are okay have adopted one or several children. It's hard to find someone in the city who is willing to adopt a child right now. Even if you pull the two girls to the market to sell them now, no one will necessarily buy them. ”

"Then ......" Zheng Cheng, who was honest, was anxious, if the situation in the city was as the landlord said, wouldn't the two girls starve to death with him? I planned to find a good family in the city to adopt two daughters, but I couldn't sell them, and after returning home, I took my wife and son to the east to flee the famine. On the way to escape the wilderness, they may starve to death in the wilderness one day, and if they take the two girls with them, it will not only be a burden, but will also cause them to die faster.

Although the landlord sympathized with Zheng Cheng's family, his family had adopted several children in the same village who could not support him, as well as the children of his poor relatives, and they were really unable to help him.

Wang Lingxin, the youngest daughter of the landlord Wang, looked at the two girls shrunk beside Zheng Cheng quite proudly, Zheng Min and Zheng Lin, and their pretty little faces were obviously proud and arrogant.

As the three most beautiful girls in the same village, Wang Lingxin compares with Zheng Min and Zheng Lin who are good-looking.

Two years ago, whether it was skin color or appearance, Zheng Min and Zheng Lin firmly pressed Wang Lingxin's line, which made Wang Lingxin very unconvinced.

In the past two years, Wang Lingxin has relied on the wealth in his family, and his father loves his only daughter and spends his time to maintain his skin. In the past two years, not only has her already pretty appearance gone to the next level, but she has become more and more beautiful and moving, becoming a cute and beautiful, and everyone loves the little Lori, and her skin is even more tender and unbearable to touch.

On the contrary, the once beautiful twin sisters in the same village were left with a beautiful appearance due to two years of natural disasters, and their families were poor and unable to eat, and their faces were yellow and hungry.

The two sisters, Zheng Min and Zheng Lin, understood the arrogance on Wang Lingxin's face, looked down on their eyes, and the other party's height advantage looked down on their hearts and oppression.

is the same age, the three girls were basically the same height, I don't want to go down for two years, Wang Lingxin not only looks more moving, but also taller than them, but he is ashamed of his self-appearance that is getting longer and longer.

The inferiority complex made Zheng Min and Zheng Lin hold the corners of their father's clothes tightly and dare not look at Wang Lingxin's eyes that seemed to be smiling rather than laughing and mocking.

Zheng Min and Zheng Lin, who were staring, didn't dare to look at themselves, and Wang Lingxin's self-esteem was greatly satisfied. For the sake of the two of them, Wang Lingxin decided to show them a way to live, shaking his father's hand and coquettishly said: "Dad, isn't Xiaoyao drunk recruiting those boys and girls who can't survive?" Wouldn't it be okay to let Uncle Zheng take Zheng Min and Zheng Lin there? ”

"Girl, what you said is true? How did I not know? The landlord looked at his beloved daughter in shock.

Zheng Cheng looked at Wang Lingxin expectantly, waiting for her to continue.

Wang Lingxin glanced at his father, "You just stare at the ass of the lady in front of you, how can you notice what you are doing when you are drunk!" ”

"I, I'm ......," Wang Di asserted, unable to speak for a while. It took a long time to say to Zheng Cheng: "Zheng Cheng, you should hurry up and take the two girls to get drunk and take a look, maybe what the little girl said is true, it's not good if they don't recruit them if they go late." ”

"Zheng thanked Wang Yuanwai and Xinniang......" Zheng Cheng was so excited that he frequently raised his hand to thank him!

"Let's hurry up, getting drunk is the industry of King Yan, and it is definitely better for them to recruit boys and girls than to be adopted by other people."

The landlord urged Zheng Cheng to hurry up and take the two daughters, and Zheng Cheng took the little hands of the two daughters and rushed to the street where he was drunk.