I feel so good after dressing up as a peasant girl

In addition to the planting of fruit trees and mulberry trees, Gu Wenxuan is also simultaneously managing the expansion of production lines in two new workshops.

This year, many families planted sweet potatoes, corn, potatoes, peanuts, and sunflowers. After the autumn harvest, Gu Wenxuan plans to purchase a batch of these crops from the villagers to use for oil extraction, as well as to make corn flour/noodles, sweet potato/potato vermicelli, dried sweet potatoes, sweet potato/potato starch, etc.

Furthermore, they have been breeding mules for several years and can now try to promote it on a small scale.

In late autumn, Bai Jingzhou will report to the court the breeding methods, advantages and disadvantages, breeding experience of mules, the equipment drawings of the two workshops, the improvement in oil yield and oil extraction efficiency, the processing methods and home-cooking methods of new crops such as sweet potatoes, corn, potatoes, peanuts, and sunflowers, etc.

After the goods are delivered, he will ask Uncle Ning and his family if they want to upgrade their oil pressing equipment. If he needs it, Bai Jingzhou will introduce Uncle Bai and his son to him.

Of course, this is a story for another day.

The top priority that Gu Wenxuan and Bai Jingzhou need to focus on right now is Gu Wenhai's marriage.

Gu Wenhai is already eighteen years old, and it is time for him to get married, but the Gu family are all ordinary rural people and have no idea about the ways of a scholarly family.

In order not to be impolite, the Gu family decisively invited Gu Wenxuan and Bai Jingzhou, especially Bai Jingzhou, as external aid.

Although Bai Jingzhou also came from a farming family, he had long established the image of being an all-knowing person. If there was anything they didn't know or didn't understand, people would subconsciously ask him.

Bai Jingzhou did not disappoint the Gu family. He explained all the procedures and rules in detail.

The two men helped the Gu family properly marry Gu Wenhai's new wife, but before they could even breathe a sigh of relief, they received the bad news that the entire neighboring Luozhou and the three counties under the jurisdiction of Xiangzhou further south were hit by drought.

In fact, the drought had already shown some signs. Last winter, only a few areas in the entire Luozhou and the three counties under Xiangzhou had snow. This year, almost all areas have only had a little rain.

The little rain only wet the surface soil, so that most of the land in the entire Luozhou and the three counties under Xiangzhou were not suitable for sowing.

Spring was almost over and half of summer was already past, but the land was still not suitable for cultivation. The people were extremely anxious.

In the past few months, the wild vegetables, tree bark, and grass roots on the mountains have been almost eaten up by hungry people, and most of the water sources in Luozhou and the three counties under Xiangzhou have dried up.

The local authorities were powerless. Although they had reported the disaster to the court, all the court could do was distribute relief food, and the problem of drying up water sources remained unsolved.

After weighing the pros and cons, the emperor ordered local officials to escort the people to escape the famine collectively, and required neighboring prefectures and counties to cooperate with the disaster-stricken areas to resettle the victims in batches.

Of course, the emperor also immediately transferred relief grain to nearby counties and cities to solve the food problem for most of the people who fled famine.

In this way, the nearby counties and prefectures no longer had to worry about food. They only needed to select places with water for the disaster victims to stay temporarily, and then, while maintaining local public order, mobilize the rich to provide porridge and medicine to help reduce the burden on the court.

When the wealthy families in Qingshan County received the news from the county government, many people in the three counties under the jurisdiction of Luozhou and Xiangzhou had already fled the famine with their families.

Bai Li was afraid that the influx of disaster victims would bring danger, so he once again organized a patrol team to protect the safety of the village.

When Gu Wenxuan saw this, he also organized the young and middle-aged men in the village to take turns patrolling and standing guard.

In addition, Gu Wenxuan and Bai Jingzhou also adjusted their original plans.

Their original plan was to replace the old grain in the granary with new grain after the autumn harvest, and use some of the sweet potatoes and potatoes to make vermicelli and other products.

After the disaster, they adjusted their plan to:

1. Immediately take out 90% of the old grain stored last year to provide relief to the victims.

Second, after the autumn harvest, half of the new grain, sweet potatoes, corn, and potatoes would be used to provide relief to the victims, and the remaining half would be kept for seeds, as well as for their own families, servants, workshop workers, adopted orphans, and children in school.

3. Go to other states and counties to purchase a batch of grain, medicinal materials, cloth, salt, etc., and use them together with the grain they stored last year for disaster relief.

Of course, Gu Wenxuan and Bai Jingzhou did not want to give away all the food for free. They chose to help the victims through work-for-relief.

This will not only ensure that the victims have food, clothing and medical treatment when they are sick, but will also allow them to spend their energy and time on working instead of doing bad things.

"It just so happens that some roads and bridges near us need to be rebuilt, and some canals and dams also need to be desilted and reinforced. There is a lot of work to do, and we are short of manpower everywhere."

"Then we can't set up our stall too big, otherwise I'm afraid there won't be enough food."

"Then we can reclaim more wasteland, sow rapeseed on it, and vegetables will grow soon."

There is an old saying among farmers that "vegetables are half a year's food." After the vegetables are grown, they can be distributed to the victims together with grain, which can effectively slow down their food consumption.

The two men had a brief conversation and decided on the types of work that each of the victims could do.

The young and middle-aged people will undoubtedly have to do the heavy physical work, such as building roads and bridges, developing water conservancy projects, and reclaiming wasteland. The old, the weak, women and children can take on light work such as cooking, cleaning, making clothes and shoes, sowing seeds, and weeding. In short, the goal is to make everyone self-reliant as much as possible.

As for those lazy guys who would rather drink porridge every day than work hard, Gu Wenxuan and Bai Jingzhou didn't want them to appear in front of them.

Since they prefer to just lie there and do nothing, then just let them do that. Gu Wenxuan and Bai Jingzhou want to help those disaster victims who still want to stand up and fight to make life better for themselves and their families.

After the disaster relief arrangements were made, Bai Jingzhou personally led people to Luozhou and Xiangzhou.

The drought in Luozhou and Xiangzhou this time has caused Gu Wenxuan and Bai Jingzhou to feel a sense of crisis. Although Xingzhou, especially Qingshan County, has been enjoying good weather and harvests in recent years, and God has been very kind to them, it is obvious that this situation will not continue forever.

In this day and age where people depend on the weather for their livelihood, they have to be prepared for the disasters that may come next.

Whether it is drought, locust plague or flood, once a natural disaster occurs, it is not just a matter of one state or one county.

The two of them thought about buying property somewhere else.