Ancient natural disasters: The whole family traveled through time and was almost wiped out

Chapter 215

It’s the spring equinox.

The heavy snow has been falling for a full month and a half.

Today, things finally seem to be easing up.

At Jiang's house, Jiang Xiaomi was awake physically, but her mind was still not awake. She slumbered for a long time before she sat up yawning. When she looked at the time, it was almost eight o'clock.

Ever since the temperature dropped sharply and the mountains were blocked by heavy snow, Jiang Xiaomi's willpower has been declining. She either wakes up by herself around eight o'clock or is woken up by Chunya when he comes to find her for something.

"This snow is really endless. When will it stop? It's freezing!"

Jiang Xiaomi would definitely not feel cold in the house, because everyone in the Jiang family had a kang. Not only the Jiang family, but many families in the county, town, and village had kangs. Jiang Xiumian's brick kiln could produce tens of thousands of revolutions every day, and it was still continuing to expand. Rows of red brick houses had been built.

It's not cold in the house, but it's dead cold outside. Some time ago, she and her brother worked in a kiln in the mountains and brought back an ear full of frostbite. Her hands were swollen like radishes. Just thinking about how it felt made her shiver. It was painful and itchy, and she wished she could scratch her hands through.

So she is looking forward to the warmer weather every day, so much so that the first thing she does when she wakes up every day is to check the "weather forecast". She thought today would be the same as any other day, but was pleasantly surprised to find that today is actually "light snow"!

The temperature actually rose by two degrees.

You have to know that it was a heavy snow yesterday and the temperature continued to drop, already breaking minus 40 degrees Celsius, but today it has risen to minus 38 degrees Celsius.

It's a good sign!

Jiang Xiaomi quickly got dressed, washed up with warm water, put Chunya in the food box that was warming on the kang, and went out - her parents who were on vacation were waiting for her, their daughter, to serve them dinner!

"Wow--"

As soon as she went out, the cold wind blew towards her neck. The temperature rise of two degrees was really slight. Jiang Xiaomi didn't feel it at all, but the frequency of the falling snowflakes was indeed a little lower.

"Dad, Mom? Are you awake yet?" Jiang Xiaomi knocked on the door outside: "Do you want to have breakfast? Do you still need to serve the two elders today?"

Jiang Yipei and Jiang Suying also just got up at this time. During this period of time, the county finally no longer had to work without him, so he gave himself a holiday starting yesterday.

If there is something going on in the county government, go find the county lieutenant or the county magistrate. If it really cannot be delayed any longer and it is something that will result in someone’s death, then you can go find him!

The same goes for Jiang Suying. The doctor from Jishidiang was finally found. Now there is sufficient staff, not so many patients, and more than enough staff on duty. She can finally take a break.

If you don’t know how to lead a team, you will have to work until you die.

The two let go without hesitation or reluctance!

Yesterday, the couple slept in bed all day and were too lazy to get out of bed even for eating. As people who work from 6 am to 10 pm and are even worse than office workers, they really felt very tired. They didn’t know how they managed to survive the past month.

There are things to worry about every day when I open my eyes. Sometimes, things start happening before I even open my eyes.

They themselves didn't know what made them work so hard. They took over Luoshui County and handled and arranged every political affair.

I'm exhausted.

Both of them lost a lot of weight.

Jiang Yipei was not fat to begin with, but he became so thin that his face became oval.

Jiang Suying was originally chubby, and she was satisfied with the ten pounds she lost, but the price of losing weight was too high - I believe no one would object to saying that she is a spinning top.

"Come in." Jiang Suying had just finished putting on her clothes when she heard her daughter knocking on the door: "Just in time, hurry up, your mother is starving to death."

I didn’t eat much last night and went to bed. When I woke up in the morning, I was so hungry that I could eat a cow.

Jiang Xiaomi put the lunch box on the table and tucked a strand of Jiang Suying's hair that was stuck to her cheek behind her head: "You can ask Jiang Cheng to get breakfast for you, or ask Chunya to bring it to you! Why do you have to let me deliver it myself?!"

"Jiang Cheng and Chun Ya all have to work. Chun Ya has already wasted a lot of time getting it for you. You don't have anything to do, so what's wrong with bringing some food to your parents?"

Jiang Suying was right. The old couple were very busy, but Jiang Xiumian and Jiang Xiaomi were very relaxed except for the initial period when the management was not perfect.

"Of course I should!" Jiang Xiaomi laughed, and after Jiang Suying brought out breakfast, she sat down to eat. "By the way, the latest weather forecast says it's getting warmer today, with the temperature rising by two degrees to -38 degrees Celsius."

"Really?" Jiang Suying ate a steamed dumpling made of pickled mustard greens and shook her head. "I can't really tell."

"It's just a bleating sound, you definitely can't feel it!" Jiang Yipei came over and sat down after washing up: "But according to the rules, as long as the temperature rises, it should continue to rise. Just wait until it returns to normal temperature."

"What do you mean by rising all the time? I'm starting to get scared when you say that." Jiang Suying paused while biting her bun. "How high will it rise before it stops? What if it doesn't stop? Will everyone be roasted to death?"

"No way? In modern times, the subsidy for a temperature of 40 degrees is already scary. Is God here going to raise the temperature to 60 degrees? What's the difference between this and La Renji?"

Jiang Yipei stuffed the last bite of the bun into his mouth. Seeing that the two of them didn't say anything, he added, "But no one can say for sure! Floods and snowstorms have already happened, so is it surprising that there is also a drought?"

"What?" Your head! If I hear you speaking to me in such a rhetorical and sarcastic tone again, I will poison you to silence!"

Jiang Yipei: “…”

He was just speaking normally, how could that be sarcastic? What was he satirizing?

Jiang Yipei, who wanted to say something, got angry for a moment.

Never mind, women are like this when they have their period, so be considerate and understanding, isn't it just a bit nitpicking? He won't argue with her!

Jiang Yipei was making buns with a crackling sound.

"The snow hasn't melted yet. Even if there is a drought, it won't come so soon!" Jiang Xiaomi said, "I heard some uncles and aunts chatting a few days ago. They said that in previous years, wheat should be planted around the spring equinox. Now the snow hasn't melted yet. I don't know if planting after the snow melts will affect the harvest."

Jiang Yipei nodded: "It will definitely have some impact, and if it takes too long, it will affect the next season's rice harvest, but there is nothing we can do about it. Who put us in this situation? Let's take it one step at a time! The grain reserves in Luoshui County are enough to last until the next season's harvest."

"Really?" Jiang Xiaomi expressed doubt: "First of all, I really am not raising the pole! I really want to ask, how can we guarantee that we will have good weather to sow spring wheat and the next season of rice?"

Jiang Yipei: "...You know how to kill the conversation."

What guarantees can he have? What guarantees can he have?

Jiang Xiaomi raised her hands and said, "I'll reiterate that I didn't raise the bar. This is the problem we are facing. I just raised it. We will have to face it sooner or later."

Jiang Yipei: "...then throw away the word 'early' and face it later."

It was a rare vacation, so Jiang Yipei really didn't want to talk about this, but Jiang Suying seemed to suddenly remember something and asked Jiang Xiaomi: "You just said around the spring equinox, what time is it now?"

"Today is the Spring Equinox!" Jiang Xiaomi looked at the calendar when she got up and naturally remembered it.

"The Spring Equinox... that's the 10th day of the second lunar month, right? Oh my god, isn't it only a month before the Chinese New Year—" Jiang Yipei reached behind his back, touched his spine that was about to bend, and complained to Jiang Suying: "It feels like a year has passed every day. I clearly feel like several years have passed!"

The main thing is that the day is so long that it never ends, and he always feels like a very long time has passed.

A month is so damn long!

"Then you were lying when you said you were extremely busy, right?" Jiang Suying glared at him, "If you were really busy, you would only feel that you didn't have enough time. How could you complain that you had too much time?"

That's how she felt. She was in a hurry and didn't see many patients. The sky, which was bright at first, suddenly became dark. It was so fast.

But that's not the point. The point is -

"Your third aunt's due date is around this time."

"Ah?" Jiang Xiaomi was stunned for a moment. They hadn't been back to Jiangjia Village for so long that they almost forgot about Qin. "Then you want to go back and deliver her baby?"

"The nanny next to your third aunt used to be a midwife. I taught her some delivery techniques." Jiang Suying said, "But when we left Jiangjia Village, I felt your third aunt's fetal position. The baby's head hadn't entered the pelvis yet. Your third aunt doesn't like to move, so I can't say for sure if there is a problem."

The changes in the fetus during the last month of pregnancy are the most difficult to predict.

Whether the baby is not engaged in the pelvis, the amount of amniotic fluid, and the umbilical cord around the neck will all have an impact on the fetus. No doctor dares to make a conclusion easily without a face-to-face consultation.

"Then do you want to go back and take a look?" Jiang Xiaomi's eyes sparkled. She wanted to go back to Jiangjia Village. She missed her old lady. She lobbied even harder: "Anyway, you are on vacation - uh... you can't say that, it seems like we are neglecting our duties."

"What I mean is that although Third Aunt is a family member to us, she is also your patient. As a doctor, you must be responsible for your patients. When your daughter gives birth, it is like going through the gates of hell. You should go back and see what is going on! No one can say no!"

"As for my father, it's even simpler! Isn't it the spring equinox? It's the county magistrate's duty to encourage people to farm. You are now the acting county magistrate, so this task naturally falls on you. But the snow hasn't melted yet, and you care about farming. Why don't you go to the village and see what's going on?"

Jiang Yipei: “…”

Jiang Suying: “…”

There is no need to find such high-sounding reasons. They are the heads of the county now. If they have to find reasons for everything they do, then what are the points of being heads?

Are they sitting in this position to make trouble for themselves?

Of course, the purpose of sitting in this position is to avoid being bullied!

However, after working non-stop for more than a month, Jiang Yipei's belief has been slowly shaken. He feels that if he becomes an official, a high-ranking official, and is exhausted every day, he might as well be an ordinary rich man.

If it were a prosperous time, he would not have encountered any difficulties in Luoshui County relying on his reputation as a Beijing official, but it was a time of chaos - if refugees broke into the city, people like them would definitely be the first to be targeted.

Being an official is like this, and being an emperor is even worse.

Don’t underestimate the emperor, as he is high and mighty. His words are always binding.

If you don't have an iron fist, there will definitely be a bunch of treacherous officials below you who will form cliques for personal gain and work together to deceive you. What else will you have except fine clothes and delicious food and the emperor's name?

Whatever decision you make will attract opposition from a lot of people, and the imperial decree you issue may be forced to withdraw the next second. There is nothing you can do except get angry.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that this emperor couldn't do it.

Could it be that County Magistrate Chen is a masochist who went to the position of the emperor to seek abuse?

Jiang Yipei has been the acting county magistrate for more than a month and has done a lot of practical things. The most obvious one is that he solved the heating problem for the people. At the beginning, he forced the laborers to go up the mountain to chop wood and burn charcoal, first of all to ensure the heating problem in the county and surrounding villages.

After a while, it expanded to villages within one or two miles. The village head organized the strong laborers from each village to collect firewood from the nearby mountains. After Jiang Xiumian trained apprentices with skilled charcoal-making skills, he sent them to various places to teach the villagers how to make charcoal.

Making bricks is not that simple. After all, not every place has clay suitable for making bricks. But as long as suitable soil is found, Jiang Xiumian will arrange people to build different numbers of kilns according to the local clay reserves.

People who lost their homes in floods or snowstorms were the first to live in red brick houses, which became a great spectacle.

Building a house with fired bricks would not take long if there were enough masons and bricklayers, even including the time for laying the foundation. When building the house, they could also build a kang. All the people in Jiangjia Village who knew how to build a kang were mobilized. This was not only to make money, but also for construction. The kang bed was connected to the stove, which could make fuller use of the heat and greatly alleviated the problem of firewood shortage.

Jiang Yipei also raised a large amount of supplies.

Among them, Mr. Qian was the most generous. After more than half a month of treatment, his "illness" began to improve. At least he was very happy every morning. When he was happy, things flowed into the county government.

The Liang and Qi families ranked second. They wanted to donate more, but they were powerless because a lot of their things were destroyed by those damn servants. The other four families were also persuaded by the Liang and Qi families. Only the Huang family donated ten taels of silver as a token of their appreciation.

Jiang Yipei did not think it was too little, nor did he go crazy and return the ten taels of silver and then scold the donor. He accepted the donation no matter how big or small it was.

Ten taels of silver is already a lot for ordinary people.

But what made him feel the warmest and most motivated to rebuild Luoshui County after the snowstorm was——

When Mr. Qian and his men were donating grain, supplies and money in a big way, many people in the county spontaneously donated some things to the yamen.

In the beginning, they used the quota for purchasing supplies to lure people to come to work. Later, many people came to volunteer spontaneously without being called or registered, and the county government also provided them with three meals a day.

It is precisely because of this that everything in Luoshui County has gotten back on track so quickly.