The drought in Li Qinzai's impression is about "lack of water", and the intuitive picture is of the dry riverbed, the cracked land, and the people with yellow faces and thin skin, and ragged people.

These impressions are true, of course, but the drought is not limited to these images.

When there is grain growing on the land, but it is estimated that the grain production is pitiful, and the family should leave the homeland, they have to stay in their homeland and wait for this pitiful grain to ripen......

This kind of feeling of immersing oneself in despair all day long should not have been tasted by anyone except the poor farmer.

Li Qinzai slowly walked along the ridges, he carefully observed every mu of fields, and he even tried to count the number of ears of wheat per mu to estimate this year's yield.

The more I counted, the colder my heart became.

It is now almost the end of summer, and after the autumn harvest, this food will not be enough to feed a family, and there will be a mass exodus from their homes.

It would be a disaster, a disaster related to the life and death of the people, and a disaster for the Tang Dynasty and the government.

Squatting on the edge of the ridge, Li Qinzai suddenly said, "Ah Si." ”

"Yes."

"Your family also farms, look at this field, how is the harvest this year?"

Liu Asi showed a miserable look, shook his head and sighed: "There is no hope, the harvest in the field is only about one-third or one-quarter of the previous year, the ears of wheat have not grown well at all, and many grains are empty shells." ”

Li Qinzai said in a deep voice: "If the landlord is rent-free, the government is exempt from taxes, and a lot of grain in the field is given to the farmers, can they survive this year?" ”

"No, Wu Shaolang, this is not a matter of rent reduction at all, after the autumn harvest, it will be a great famine."

Li Qinzai stopped squeaking and stared blankly at the lifeless land in front of him.

After a long time, Li Qinzai got up and said, "Let's go, go to the village and have a look." ”

Walking into the village, Li Qinzai was stunned.

Originally, he thought that everyone in the village sat in a daze, like a walking corpse, or women and children howling and crying, and men pounding the ground in frustration.

However, there are no such images in the village.

What he saw was a hot fire.

Women and children, big and small, rushed in and out with their burdens, some lined up at the well to draw water, while others carried empty buckets to unknown distances.

The men were naked, and five or six of them were gathering in a heap, shouting trumpets, and using a sharp log to drill holes in the ground.

More people keep wielding hoes to dig ditches on the ridges, the ridges are long and distant, and the huge project is desperate, but the men are still tirelessly sweating, like a group of stubborn fools, who have to dig a ditch to the sky.

Under the scorching sun, from time to time someone fainted from heat stroke, was carried to the shade of a tree to fan it, applied a compress to his face, woke up to catch his breath, struggled to get up and continue to dry.

Li Qinzai was shocked by the picture in front of him, he didn't expect that the ancient farmers would be so unwilling to admit defeat, and in the face of the inevitable defeat, they were like a lone horse rushing towards thousands of troops, and still dared to fight with God.

In his previous life, books always talked about how industrious and brave working people were, Li Qinzai always thought that it was just a decoration, after all, he grew up in the city and never saw it with his own eyes.

In this life, he finally saw it.

The picture is very shocking, in the face of the doomed result, even Li Qinzai, who has lived for two lifetimes, feels hopeless, but the farmers do not despair.

They are still gritting their teeth and fighting for their lives.

At this moment, Li Qinzai finally understood that it was not the so-called wisdom of the court and the ministers who created the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty, but these nameless low-level people, who were the ones who really laid the foundation for the prosperous era.

Slowly approaching a well, Li Qinzai smiled and squatted beside an old man.

The old man is about 60 years old, and in this era when the average life expectancy is not long, he can be regarded as an old man in the village, Li Qinzai observed for a long time, and could see that the old man's work is relatively leisurely, he is responsible for maintaining order at the well, assessing the size of each person who fetches water, and deciding how much water they can pick at a time.

"Old man, busy? Hehe. Li Qinzai greeted with a smile.

The old man opened his cloudy eyes and saw that Li Qinzai and his party were wearing short shirts and hunting suits, and they were also leading horses, and they could see at a glance that they were powerful people in the city, so they didn't dare to slack off, and were about to get up and salute, but Li Qinzai held his arm.

"The old man is not polite, he has tormented the younger generation." Li Qinzai said hurriedly.

The old man said vaguely for a long time: "What do you have to say?" ”

"I don't dare to see the teaching, I just want to ask about the situation in the field this year, and I ask the old people to give advice."

The old man looked him up and down: "The noble man is an official in the city?" ”

Li Qinzai smiled: "How can I be such a young official, just an idle person who has nothing to do." ”

The old man sighed and said, "I'm afraid we won't be able to survive this year, God doesn't want to give us a way to live." ”

Li Qinzai said with a solemn expression: "Is the drought serious?" ”

The old man pointed to the field in the distance and said, "It's not serious, the nobles have seen it." ”

"If the landlord is rent-free and the government is exempt from taxes, can it survive?"

The old man shook his head: "The harvest in the field is less than half, even if the taxes are all exempted, it will be difficult for every family to survive, and the grain laid down will not last for about two or three months, and there will be a famine before the end of the year." ”

Li Qinzai pointed to the farmers in the distance and said, "What are they doing?" ”

"Trying to get water, digging wells, digging ditches, all in order to survive, God doesn't give us a way to live, we can't wait to die." The old man squinted, and the joy and sorrow on his face were covered by the vicissitudes of time,

"I have lived for decades, I have seen a lot of disasters of all sizes, waterlogs, droughts, locust plagues, snow disasters, I have survived a meal of hunger, it is a great luck to survive, I have lived enough at my age, I pity these dolls......"

In the distance, men and women were still working hard, and they brought two buckets of water from afar and poured them into the ground, not even a single bubble bubbled, and the cracked earth instantly absorbed the water, and the ground was dry again, like a big mouth cursed by a demon.

Li Qinzai watched all this in silence and sighed: "Old man, the government will not sit idly by, and soon there will be a decree on disaster relief." ”

The old man shook his head: "The decree is a decree, I heard that the grain in the city of Bingzhou is sold at a sky-high price, and money can't buy it, and those profiteers hoard the grain and are not allowed to sell it, so they just wait for the grain to fail and make a lot of money, and the government may not be able to manage it." ”

The pupils in Li Qinzai's eyes shrank slightly, but his face was full of smiles: "The grain in Bingzhou City has been sold at a sky-high price?" Do many merchants hoard grain? ”

The old man snorted and said: "The day before yesterday, the old five families in the village brought dozens of yuan, and the family's savings for many years plan to go into the city to buy some food to cope with the famine that is coming. ”

Li Qinzai was curious: "How much was a liter of rice in the past?" ”

"Before the price of grain rose, a liter of rice was about four yuan, and millet was cheaper, but before the autumn harvest, it had already multiplied many times, and I couldn't afford to live."

Liu Ah Si and other subordinates behind him all showed angry expressions when they heard this.

Li Qinzai smiled quietly, and then said seriously: "Old man, rest assured, the government will bring down the price of grain, and there will be relief in the place of great disaster." ”

The old man's cloudy eyes stared at him, and he said, "The noble man is an official, right?" And the officials in the city? ”

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