July.

In Henan, it has not rained for four consecutive months.

In addition, the weather is hot and the heat is scorching.

Now Henan, it can almost be described as a thousand miles of red land, not to mention finding crops, not even bark and wild vegetables.

And unlike Shaanxi, which is more remote and has a cheaper living environment, Henan has always been the most populous province in the Ming Dynasty, and it is conservatively estimated that there are at least 20 million to 30 million people living on this land, even if due to perennial natural disasters and wars, some of the population has been lost, but it will still not be less than 20 million.

In the face of such a severe drought, except for a small number of irrigated land belonging to high-ranking officials and nobles who rely on the river, grain production can be ensured, but the cultivated land belonging to ordinary people will be reduced by at least 80 percent, and even a large area of the harvest will be lost.

What to do?

What should the people of Henan do in this situation?

How can they survive the rest of the days when they have no food in stock at home, and they have even eaten all the seeds?

How long can they hold on under the influence of heart-burning hunger? Three days, or five days?

Yang Dayan, a farmer in Yangjia Village, Gong County, Henan Province, began to think about these problems and faced difficult choices after running out of food at home.

Do you want to take your family with you, join the team to escape the famine, and go to the Jiangnan area to survive?

It is better to sharpen the firewood knife and kitchen knife at home, and then gang up to do something big, you must know that those big families who occupy a large area of watered land have warehouses full of grain, and they don't know how much is moldy and rotten every year.

There is also grain in the official warehouses of the county seat, even if there is not a lot of it, but there will definitely be hundreds or thousands of stones, because those who starve to death only see the people who grow grain, and never see the officials starve to death.

And the homeland is difficult to leave, people leave their hometown, on that long journey, anything can happen, their mother-in-law, two sons and a daughter and an elderly mother, a family of six, how many people can arrive in Jiangnan alive in the end?

If the family and children are dying of illness and starvation on the way to escape the famine, or are sold, only to arrive in Jiangnan, and all the people you love the most are lost, what is the point of such a life?

Don't go.

Even if most of the people in the village fled the famine, Yang Dayan chose not to leave.

But grunt.

The taste of hunger was only endured for one day, Yang Dayan regretted it, uncomfortable, too uncomfortable, it was so difficult to survive for one day, how should I survive the rest of the days?

I can only quickly take out the sharpened firewood knife and firewood knife, call the only dozen young people left in the village together, and discuss which big household to 'borrow grain' is better, who is the soft persimmon that is easier to pinch?

It's decided! I went to the Song family in Songling Village, and I heard that the head of the Song family is kind-hearted, and he should be able to borrow a few buckets of rice and noodles to survive some time.

Ready, just about to resort to action.

The officials of the government suddenly entered the village, and Yang Dayan's face turned pale with fright, it was over, the matter was leaked, and the government actually took the lead to nip them in the bud.

"Recruitment, Xujiazhuang road repair team has recruited road repairers!"

"Both men and women can sign up, and there is no limit to the number of recruits."

"Male workers have 100 yuan a day, and female workers with big feet have 50 yuan a day, and they have two full meals a day!"

"If you want to sign up and want to live, come with us, the magistrate is kind and has helped you find a way to live, but you can't act in vain and do wrong." In fact, it is the road repair team of Xujiazhuang that outsources the recruitment task to local governments, and recruits a male worker to give an introduction fee of 1 silver dollar, and a female worker half a silver dollar, without an upper limit on the number of people, and is full of natural motivation.

Hear these advertising words from the officials.

Especially when I hear the words that I take care of two full meals a day.

Yang Dayan immediately put his original plan to take risks behind, rushed out of the house quickly, and said to the officials: "I sign up, I want to be a road repairer!" In addition, my daughter-in-law is a big foot, can she go with her? ”

"Yes, those who meet the conditions will come to the king's side to register." The official looked at him and said.

Soon Yang Dayan and his mother-in-law Sun Xiniu successfully signed up to become a road repairer, and joined the road repair team on the same day and ate the first meal of stomach-nourishing porridge.

The other young people in the village also made the same choice and joined the road construction team.

And that's not all.

Yang Dayan waited for the young and strong, and also brought the elderly and young children in the family to the road construction site, and brought all the belongings of a little value to the family, which is equivalent to dragging the family to the small - no way, the family has run out of food, if you don't bring your family, wouldn't you all starve to death in your hometown.

Out of pity, the person in charge of the road construction team in Xujiazhuang also allowed the young workers to bring their families to come, but these families could only take care of their gruel, and if they could also do a little work, they could take care of their full meal, and there was nothing else, which was already benevolent and righteous.

Yang Dayan naturally had nothing to say, and was grateful, it was very good to be able to manage a meal of gruel, and his two sons were over six years old, they could help with some work, and it was no problem to eat that full meal, if the old lady and the youngest daughter were to say, their rations could be sold with the wages earned, even if the grain was expensive now, but the wages of 150 Wen could buy two or three catties of grain from the Xujiazhuang caravan.

That is, for Xujiazhuang, in Henan, where the famine is severe, the main cost paid by hiring these young road builders is actually to feed their family's rations, and the labor cost is extremely low, and morally blameless, because this is called 'work for relief'.

It's just that the only negative problem is that Xujiazhuang originally only planned to recruit more than one million young and strong workers to complete the "Three-year 100,000 Miles Road Construction Plan", but in order to 'work for relief and help the hungry', in Henan alone, a full 1.5 million young and strong workers were recruited, plus their families, and a super road repair army of 5 million people was formed!

Even if their work efficiency will not be too high, such a huge population is only used for the planned highway network of less than 10,000 miles long and more than 3 meters wide in Henan, plus hundreds of bridges, coupled with the unique hard-working quality of the Chinese nation, even if it is only the use of muscle strength to build roads, and the use of high-efficiency construction machinery is very small, this amount of work can be completed in half a year at most.

Considering that this drought and famine will continue for many more years.

The road planning team in Xujiazhuang had to adjust the road repair plan and greatly improve the road grade standard.

For example, the original plan was 50 years of service life, but now it will be increased to 100 years.

Originally, the maximum unit bearing capacity of the planned pavement was 10 tons, but now it will be increased to 20 tons.

The width of the road will also be increased from 3.5 meters to 10.5 meters, and it can accommodate up to four four-wheeled carriages in parallel.

The building life, load-bearing capacity, and deck width of the bridge should also be improved.

Isn't this an exaggeration, is it necessary to build such a high standard of infrastructure?

That's not an exaggeration.

Because the loess, gravel, and stone slabs on the surface needed to build roads and bridges can all be made of local materials, and only some reinforced concrete may be used to repair bridges.

And the labor cost is extremely low.

Land acquisition does not cost money.

In this case, why not seize this opportunity and make a big deal, lest you encounter extremely thorny land acquisition problems in the future, such as widening the road surface (this kind of problem has already appeared in Nanzhili).

……

After joining the Road Repair Team.

Yang Dayan knew that what he was participating in was a trunk road project from Luoyang to Xi'an, namely the "Luoxi Highway", which was about 700 miles (350 kilometers) long, but it was divided into 30 sections at the same time, and each section was concentrated with tens of thousands of young road builders, and he belonged to the workers working on the "western section of Gongxian County".

There are mainly six or seven types of work on the construction site.

They are earthmoving, rammed earth, chiseling, crushing, pushing, cutting, and paving.

Of course, the easiest ones are earthworkers and pavers, but they are mainly done by women, and the rest of the jobs are not easy, they are all very hard work.

For example, Yang Dayan is a stone cutter, who has to cut large stones mined from the mountains into palm-thick stone slabs as the most superficial material of the road.

Even so, Yang Dayan felt that this job was relatively easy, because although the cutting machine provided by Xujiazhuang was a little simple in appearance, it was cut with extremely sharp diamond wire, and cutting stones was like cutting tofu.

It is driven by pedal manpower, and the feet that can be tired after half a day are sore, numb, and unconscious, but after surviving the first few days, the back is more and more adaptable, and even more comfortable.

He even used this machine tool to cut a lot of wooden planks, and then used the planks to build a shack with a comfortable living environment.

The daily meals were also very good.

There are all kinds of vermicelli, noodles, corn nests, and multigrain rice, all of which are eaten in unlimited quantities, as long as they are not wasted.

You can eat a meal of white rice or wheat steamed buns every two days.

You can see the meat every three days, and although it is only shredded flesh, it can be seen with the naked eye.

……

In the evening, work was over.

Finished dinner.

And Yang Dayan, who received 100 literary wages from the foreman, went straight to the construction site supply and marketing cooperatives as quickly as possible, and after showing his worker credentials, he bought three big wowotou (5 wen each), three small steamed buns (5 wen each), and three potato cakes (5 wen each) in the food area.

Then he gritted his teeth and bought two more white eggs (15 wen each), as well as a piece of fried ham slices (25 wen).

A total of 100 Wen was spent.

Although this consumption is a bit extravagant, Yang Dayan still comforted himself and said: "It's okay, my money is spent, but Xiniu's salary can be saved, save fifty wen a day, and when the situation gets better in the future, maybe you can find a daughter-in-law for your son." This is the ordinary and great Chinese people, no matter how tired and hard, they can pull out some money from their fingers and achieve positive accumulation, which is almost comparable to any nation.

Return to the shack area.

Twisting and turning, she found her own shack, and when she saw Yang Dayan coming back, the youngest daughter Yao'er immediately cheered: "Daddy is back, Daddy is back!" ”

"Daddy!"

"Dad, you're back."

The two sons who also left work early also said that (child laborers only need to work for half a day).

Yang Dayan bent down into the shack, walked to his mother, who was half-lying on the mat and rested, and said, "Mother, get up and eat something, I brought dinner." ”

"I'm not hungry, which bowl of porridge in the morning is already full, you can give it to the children, they are still growing."

Mother Deng sat up, this is repeating the old rhetoric, but even if she has been lying down for a day, she is dizzy and weak, and she is weak to speak, which shows that even if she is an old man, the energy provided by a bowl of gruel is not enough.

"Mother, eat, I earn hundreds of dollars a day, I can feed our family, come, eat this egg, this piece of meat is also for you to replenish your body." Yang said with big eyes.

But Deng took a peeled egg, but the ham slice insisted that it was not too late, and he took it upon himself to divide this 'meat' into three and stuff it into the mouths of the three children.

Yang Dayan had to shake his head helplessly, hating his uselessness, if he could make more money, he would not have to buy only one piece of meat at a time, but buy ten or eight pieces of meat, and buy a lot of meat, so that his mother would not refuse.

After a while.

Mother-in-law Liu Xiniu came back, she scolded him angrily after learning that Yang Dayan had spent all the 100 literary and labor money: "You are a loser, I still want you to save some money to come out, buy some fabrics, give them to your mother, give them to your children, and make clothes for you, you are a loser, what fabric do I buy after spending the money, and after a while, the family will freeze to death, right?" ”

"I was wrong, I was wrong!"

Yang Dayan hurriedly admitted his mistake and promised: "I won't spend money anymore, and if I buy food in the future, I guarantee that it will not exceed seventy Wen, and I won't be successful?" ”

"Sixty words, at most you can use sixty words!" Liu Xiniu said.

"This ......" means that it is difficult to buy even one more egg.

"Daddy, I think I have a lot of strength, tomorrow I will go to work on the construction site, let my brothers take me." The youngest daughter Yaoyao is sensible, but she is only five years old this year, but she is thin and small like a three-year-old girl, how can the construction site accept it?

"My old bones are a drag, just bring me a nest head at night." Mother Deng also said.

"Hey!"

Yang Da's eyes were wet, he clenched his fists and walked out of the shack, looking at the sky above him in a daze, at this moment, he had never hated himself so much for being useless, and the idea of changing his fate was even stronger than ever.

……

In the seventh year of Chongzhen, July 8.

Henan Province, Lingbao County.

Seeing the "Luoxi Highway" that has begun to take shape, and the countless strong and young people who are working hard and sweating like rain, they look full of power.

Good-looking romance

In terms of the number of people, there is no boundary, I don't know how many thousands of people have gathered.

Li Zicheng, no, now he is known as Li Zaocheng, as a recruited worker, was led by the staff of Xujiazhuang when he passed by this large construction site from the side.

lit up.

Li Zaocheng's eyes lit up.

His face was full of surprise, and the saliva at the corners of his mouth was about to run down.

He felt that he was going to be sent, if he used to see and draw the cards, at most there is only one A, now he sees this deck of cards, there are at least four A's in it, as long as you can get this deck of cards, he Li will become a great cause, no one is unstoppable!