After returning to their residence, Ouyang Xuan and Huang Dagen went to visit Yu Zhu's condition again. Yu Zhu's condition did not improve after taking the herbs sent by Lu Dezhi.

In less than two days, he was originally lean and strong, and he was weakened by alternating fever and cold.

Although he had asked the villagers of Liuliba to help find Artemisia annua, Ouyang Xuan was still relieved of Yu Zhu's condition.

He decided to go to the nearby mountains and forests to see if he could find Artemisia annua.

But the most important thing at the moment is to convene and discuss the future direction of the grain collection team. After instructing the personnel to take care of Yu Zhu, Ouyang Xuan asked Huang Dagen to immediately convene the personnel to come to the meeting.

After a while, everyone gathered at the shack where Ouyang Xuan was. Because it involved house construction, mining, ironsmith making and trade, Ouyang Xuan not only summoned five fire chiefs, but also called Zhu Zhuozi, Yang Xiucai, and blacksmith apprentice Li San'er and several other people with skills.

At the meeting, Ouyang Xuan proposed that there are Mongolian cavalry outside the mountain, and there are Wanjiaping bandits in the mountain, and the whole team lives here, so there is no problem with food in the short term, but if it takes a long time, Liuliba will not provide more than 50 people with food and salary.

In order to survive in this mountain, the whole team must use their own skills to support themselves. His idea was to adjust the personnel of each fire according to the head of the personnel, and to set up several professional teams with the personnel of Liuliba.

The specific adjustment plan is: select the 10 strongest fighters in the team to form the first fire, with Huang Dagen as the fire chief, responsible for the protection of the cottage, and also participate in the hunters' acquisition of wild boars, bears and other large prey, also known as the guard; 10 people with strong discipline and patience were selected to form the second fire, with Cao Ergou as the fire chief, responsible for training the cottage militia, also known as the teaching team; The third, fourth, and fifth fires are still served by the original fire chiefs Chen Hu, Liu Zhong, and Wang Youfu, of which the third fire cooperates with the cottage to produce iron, wood, pottery and other objects, and the blacksmith apprentice Li San'er serves as an assistant, called the industrial team; The fourth fire and the cottage partner to mine iron, sulfur, nitrate and other mines, called the mining team; The fifth fire partnered with the cottage to do business, with Zhu Zhuozi as an assistant, called the trade team.

There are a total of 53 people in the team, in addition to 10 people in each team, Ouyang Xuan and Yu Zhu, and Yang Xiucai is left, and Ouyang Xuan let him engage in his old business and handle the clerical affairs of the team.

At that moment, everyone was very much in favor of Ouyang Xuan's idea. Everyone understands the current situation. When the Mongolian cavalry roamed outside the mountain and threatened, and the road out of the mountain was blocked by the bandits of Wanjiaping Mountain, even if they could get food, they could not transport it back to Chongqing.

If the grain is requisitioned again and returns to Chongqing Mansion to resume his life, it will be difficult to escape heavy punishment and even imprisonment, so it is better to stay in Liuliba and develop, and wait for the opportunity to move.

During the discussion, the always cautious Huo Chang Wang Youfu proposed: "If you can tell Chongqing Mansion about the predicament and explain in detail the difficulties of the grain collection, or you can get the understanding of the Pan system, if the grain collection is not completed in the future, the punishment can also be reduced." Hearing this, Yang Xiucai, who had just been appointed with the responsibility of handling the paperwork, snorted and said: "I am not talented, I have been immersed in the yamen for many years as a sword and pen official, those adults are very hard-hearted, and the subordinates of people who are not close to them are regarded as grass mustard, and their occasional kindness is like a cat crying and a mouse fake compassion." As soon as Yang Xiucai's words came out, everyone was gloomy.

Yes, if those officials have a trace of mercy, they will not make all kinds of difficulties, and they will not rush out to collect food without waiting for everyone to rest.

"However, we should still report the situation to the Chongqing Mansion, but instead of reporting the difficulty of requisitioning grain and our predicament, we should report that we and others used a strategy to let the mountain bandits and the Tartar soldiers fight each other, so that both sides suffered heavy casualties, and we won a great victory without spending a single soldier," Yang Xiucai said triumphantly.

Yang Xiucai's words made everyone suddenly brightened, and they all applauded. It can still be like this! These ways of officialdom have really opened the eyes of these martial artists with swords and sticks.

Seeing that everyone had no objections, Ouyang Xuan ended the discussion at the moment, and immediately asked Huang Dagen to take Zhu Zhuozi and Yang Xiucai to report the situation to Lu Dezhi, and further discuss the implementation of the matter.

As for the matter of reporting to Chongqing Mansion, because the current road is blocked, it is not in a hurry, and only when the time is right can someone be sent to Chongqing Mansion to report the meritorious service.

As soon as the discussion was over, Ouyang Xuan took Cao Ergou through the second gate, walked straight through the village, and walked towards the mountain behind.

They stopped halfway up the mountain, for the forest was thick and the grass was thick, and the mountain was getting steeper and steeper, and there was no way to walk.

Looking down at the topography of Liuliba on the mountainside, Ouyang Xuan felt more and more that this mountain basin was a treasure land, except for the mountain road they came from, he didn't see any other roads to the outside world.

It was summer, and a large area of sorghum and wheat grew in the fertile area of the dam, covering an area of no less than 3,000 acres, and the rest of the place was overgrown with miscellaneous trees and dense weeds.

As Lu Dezhi said, as long as the agricultural tools are effective, another 5,000 acres of land can be reclaimed. Now Liuliba's self-produced crude iron is not only of poor quality, it will be broken when it hits the stones in the soil, but also that the output is too low.

Ouyang Xuan and Cao Ergou walked along the mountainside, looking for herbs while observing the terrain, and when they returned to their residence, it was already dusk.

Along the way, they came across iron ore and saltpeter caves, but because they were mainly here to collect herbs, they did not enter the cave because of the urgency of time.

Since the two didn't know Artemisia annua, they had to take a handful of Artemisia they encountered along the way, bundle them together and carry them back to their residences.

When Cao Ergou arranged for someone to boil the artemisia he had collected, Ouyang Xuan stopped him, firstly because he didn't know whether the artemisia collected today was poisonous or not, and secondly, he vaguely remembered that if artemisinin exceeded 70 degrees Celsius, the activity would be destroyed and lose its medicinal effect.

At that moment, he took part of all kinds of artemisia grass, squeezed out the juice vigorously, and drank it separately with Cao Ergou.

You have to test whether it is toxic before you dare to take it to Yu Zhu.