Traveling through 1942 with space

The weather in August was like a steamer, and there was a shortage of food, so the entire team could only walk and stop along the way, and had to slow down and rest after every two or three miles.

The same was true for Hou Xiaoge's family. Not long after they walked out of the village, their frail four-year-old cousin Hei Niu and three-year-old cousin Xiao Lan were too tired to walk anymore, their little faces turning pale.

Erda and his uncle felt sorry for their children, so they quickly put the two little ones in the cart and pushed them away. But they were afraid that the two little ones would fall, so they had to tie the two children to the cart with ropes.

Although Hou Xiaoge's younger brother Xiao Shuanniu is only five years old, the spiritual spring water he drank for three days was not in vain. He could barely keep up with the others during this stop-and-go journey of fleeing famine.

However, after two hours, the little guy was tired and hot, and could hardly bear it anymore. Hou Xiaoge had to tie his younger brother to the wheelbarrow that he and his eldest cousin were pushing and pulling, and continued on their journey.

After walking and resting along the way, at around 1:00 p.m., the team finally found a shady hillside covered with bamboo.

It was the hottest time of the day and the fleeing team was already exhausted. Seeing the green bamboo forest, they were unwilling to move forward any further.

Hou Xiaoge drove the cart for six or seven miles in the morning. He felt that the air he breathed was hot. He was so tired that he was panting and sweating profusely.

After untying his brother who was drowsy from being exposed to the sun on the wheelbarrow, Hou Xiaoge took out a bamboo tube and gulped down a few mouthfuls of liquid, then passed it to his brother and cousin.

"Burp! Cool."

"Heiwa, your water is so sweet, it really quenches my thirst." The eldest cousin drank the rest of the spiritual spring water in one breath, feeling refreshed, and all the fatigue in his body disappeared.

"Brother, my brother put honey in the water, it's so sweet." Xiao Shuanniu whispered in Huanying's ear.

"No wonder it's so sweet! Heiwa, you are really capable." The eldest cousin was welcomed to hear the word honey and licked his lips with satisfaction.

"Brother, we still have two or three taels left. We will use them to make tea for everyone to drink when they flee from famine." Hou Xiaoge said with a smile.

"middle!"

My eldest cousin was very happy to hear that he could drink sweet water every day, and he was naturally very happy.

After drinking the spiritual spring water, Hou Xiaoge was revived to full health and then observed the situation around him.

This small hillside is about ten to twenty acres in area and is covered with emerald green bamboo. It looks very attractive in this disaster year when it is rare to see green.

However, judging from the neatness of the bamboo forest, this bamboo forest should belong to the landlord's forest farm.

However, there is famine everywhere now, and the landlords and rich people must have fled to the city or Wubao, so naturally there is no one guarding this bamboo forest.

"With such a large bamboo forest, we should be able to get some harvest at noon today." Hou Xiaoge looked at the bamboo forest not far away with uncontrollable excitement in his eyes.

Seeing that Erda and the other adults had already entered the woods in advance, Hou Xiaoge didn't want to rest any longer and got up quickly.

"Welcome, brother. Let's go into the bamboo forest and take a look." Hou Xiaoge invited his cousins to go into the bamboo forest together.

Hearing Hou Xiaoge's shout, Erhuan, who was lying on the ground in a humiliating manner not far away, immediately climbed up.

"Hei Wa, wait for me! I'm going too."

As Erhuan stood up, Heidan, Kangzhan and Tuanjie beside him also struggled to get up and wanted to follow him.

"Okay, let's go together." Hou Xiaoge did not refuse.

"Welcome, Erhuan, Heiwa, you all be careful." Second aunt and younger sister-in-law warned with some concern.

"Okay! Got it. Second aunt, aunt, you guys stay here to look after the luggage and my younger brothers and sisters. We're leaving." The brothers nodded and excitedly rushed into the bamboo forest.

Seeing that Hou Xiaoge and his brothers also followed the adults into the bamboo forest, the little ones in the crowd who were originally lying on the ground and didn't want to move also became eager to go in.

But most of the children were already exhausted after walking for a whole morning, and now they had to climb the hill to consume their energy. In the end, only three or four children who were close to Hou Xiaoge followed.

As soon as they entered the bamboo forest, Hou Xiaoge and his group saw several adults struggling to pull a few small bamboos as thick as copper coins and pick bamboo leaves.

Going further in, several women were lying on the ground, digging and cutting the weeds they had just found. When they saw Hou Xiaoge and her group of children, they scolded them.

Hou Xiaoge was speechless when he saw this, and didn't want to make himself look bad, so he asked the cousins to disperse. Everyone kept each other's sight, and then they stretched out a horizontal line to explore inside.

Perhaps the area of this bamboo forest is too small to form an ecological chain, or perhaps it is too close to the town and there are many refugees coming and going. Hou Xiaoge searched all the way and found almost nothing of value.

But even a little bit of meat is still meat. When Hou Xiaoge swept his mental power over the bamboo forest, the young cicadas that had not yet crawled out were in trouble.

However, this bamboo forest was so barren that even with Hou Xiaoge's mental assistance, it took them half an hour to find more than twenty cicadas. They also laboriously dug out four or five small bamboo shoots hidden under the soil, which together weighed less than two kilograms.

"Forget it, this place has been looted, let's just pull some bamboo leaves out!" Hou Xiaoge shook his head and asked everyone to go out.

However, compared to Hou Xiaoge's disappointed face, his cousins and some friends were much happier. After all, twenty or so cicadas were a lot of meat, and they would have something to eat when they got back.

After leaving the bamboo forest, Hou Xiaoge gave some of the bamboo leaves he had picked to several friends who came with them, and gave each of them a cicada, then returned to the camp with his brothers.

After returning to the camp, many adults saw that the children had dug up bamboo shoots and couldn't help but look at them with envy.

Second Aunt and Younger Sister-in-law did not create hatred or praise Hou Xiaoge and the others. They just quickly stuffed the bamboo shoots and leaves into the sacks, and then gave each of the brothers a wild vegetable pancake the size of a child's palm.

Hou Xiaoge had seen this wild vegetable pancake these days. It was made by his second aunt and sister-in-law by mixing bark powder, bran, wheat flour and wild vegetables.

After taking the wild vegetable pancakes, the brothers were afraid that people around them would take advantage of them, so they quickly stuffed them into their mouths and finished them in just three or five bites.

After eating the wild vegetable pancake, Hou Xiaoge felt as if he had not eaten anything, and even hungrier.

However, there were people watching him all around, so he didn't dare to take the vegetable dumplings from the space to eat. After drinking a few sips of water, he lay down in the shade with his eyelids drooping and fell asleep.

I don’t know how much time had passed, but Hou Xiaoge was woken up in a daze by a burst of shouting and noise.

I looked up at the setting sun and realized it was already past three o'clock.

Although he slept for more than an hour, Hou Xiaoge felt much more energetic.

After wiping his face, he tied his confused brother back to the wheelbarrow, and the two brothers set off again, one pulling and the other pushing.

.........

At around six o'clock in the afternoon, the fleeing team stopped again.

"It's getting dark soon. There are a few abandoned caves ahead. Let's spend the night there!" Several men in the village who were organizing the team stopped and shouted.

"Brother, there's no village or shop here, and there are only a few broken cave dwellings. How can more than 200 of us live here?" asked a woman in the crowd.

"Auntie, it's getting dark soon, and there's no village for four or five miles ahead.

Besides, we are all exhausted today, this is the best place to camp. Besides, we are fleeing famine! We can sleep anywhere. "The middle-aged man said with a smile.

"Oh! What you said is true, brother." The woman sighed and nodded.

After the woman asked this question, the team seemed to relax all of a sudden, and everyone sat down and took a rest.

Hou Xiaoge sat there calculating the distance he had walked today, and asked Erda next to him.

I didn't expect that I only walked less than seven kilometers in six or seven hours today. If this happened in the future, not to mention an adult, even a child of five or six years old would have no problem.

But this was a journey to escape famine, and walking more than ten miles a day was already quite good.

After fleeing for several months, the victims' already meagre assets have been completely used up. Not only is food difficult to replenish, but even salt, which is in great need of the human body, is in short supply.

As a person of later generations, Hou Xiaoge knows clearly that people cannot live without salt.

If you don’t eat salt for three days, you will feel weak, irritable, and listless, not to mention that most people don’t eat salt regularly.

The consequence of lack of food and salt was both mental and physical torture. On the road of escape, everyone was struggling to survive with the willpower to survive.

Hou Xiaoge's family had sufficient food supplies and a little salt to sustain themselves these days, so they were able to hold on, but most of the refugees traveling with them were already exhausted.

Along the way, Hou Xiaoge saw many adults and children with edema and weak limbs, which was a typical result of lack of salt supplementation.

There are even some children who are extremely skinny but have big bellies, which is a sign of extreme lack of nutrition and salt. If this continues, these people will not be able to hold on for long.

So for such people, walking more than ten miles a day is already the limit. That is to say, they have just set out today and everyone still has some energy. By tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, Hou Xiaoge estimates that they will walk even less.

After they had rested for a while, my uncle and several organizers began to arrange people to clean the cave.

Hou Xiaoge also took the opportunity to go over and take a look. The two cave dwellings were not very big and could accommodate at most forty or fifty people. It seemed that these cave dwellings could only be occupied by the elderly and the weak tonight.

After a while, the uncle came over and said that anyone under the age of six could sleep in the cave and could be taken care of by a woman.

Xiao Shuanniu, Hei Niu and Xiao Lan were all under six years old. Second Aunt and Younger Aunt were about to lead the kids in, but they were stopped by Hou Xiaoge.