Rebirth of an Old Farmer: Escape from Famine with Children and Grandchildren

Although everyone has a deep attachment to this forest, they still have to leave in order to continue living.

The women carefully cleaned the children from head to toe and kept themselves as clean as possible.

When night fell, the men jumped into the crystal clear pond and took a refreshing bath, washing away all the fatigue accumulated over the past few days.

People in Sujia Village are used to getting up early, so when the first ray of dawn appears, almost everyone has already gotten up and started a new day.

Su Shunde especially reminded everyone to make sure to have a full breakfast, because only when the stomach is full of food can one have enough energy to move on.

So, in this short and precious early morning time, every household was busy cooking pot after pot of fragrant, thick and warm soup, and enjoying it with the wild vegetable cakes prepared in advance.

Some families with relatively better conditions will add a small piece of dried meat to the soup to add flavor.

That’s right, it’s the dried meat that has been carefully cured and air-dried.

Since the men returned from hunting these days, the fresh prey they caught has been distributed equally to everyone. Everyone cherishes this hard-earned food very much. No one is willing to enjoy all the meat products immediately. Instead, some of the meat is carefully removed and processed into the most primitive and simple form of dried meat, planning to take it out to replenish physical strength if they feel their physical strength is declining during the journey.

During the more than three days they stayed on the mountain, Sun Wan took great pains to take care of Zhang Yu Niang, who was in poor health.

Every morning, she would personally prepare a bowl of sweet syrup for Yu Niang to drink, hoping that the sweetness would make her feel happier; whenever it was time to make pancakes, Lan Zhen would deliberately avoid adding any wild vegetables that might cause discomfort, and instead let Yu Niang enjoy the pure and delicate black flour pancakes alone to achieve the nourishing effect.

Unfortunately, during the entire process, we were not able to successfully exchange any medicines or important supplies needed for pregnancy maintenance. We could not even find a suitable source for the most basic delivery tools such as gauze, scissors, and even disinfectant. This made the upcoming days full of unknowns and challenges.

Sun Wan's father and brother have been very busy these days.

Ever since the villagers knew that they had some carpentry skills, neighbors or acquaintances came to them almost every day and asked them to help make carts or donkey carts.

As the autumn harvest approaches, the demand for transportation becomes more and more urgent.

Zhang Laohu thought that the horses he had robbed in Ankang City would be too conspicuous to take on the official road.

Although these tall and strong horses are indeed a great advantage for their group, it is precisely this advantage that may bring them unnecessary trouble and risks.

Originally, everyone had planned to slaughter these horses as a source of food for storage, but facing the innocent eyes of these creatures, no one had the heart to do it.

After all, if they could really settle down in Youzhou in the future, it would be a wonderful thing if these horses could help them plow the fields and do farm work.

However, as an experienced person, Zhang Lao Hu was keenly aware of the potential crisis and seriously explained the dangers to all his companions.

"It's too conspicuous and too dangerous."

His tone was filled with worry. "A group of us, ragged and starving, possess so many sturdy mounts. This will undoubtedly attract the covetousness of refugees struggling for survival, and it will also likely attract the attention of officers and soldiers. If our team is intercepted and inspected, and we cannot reasonably explain the exact origin of these animals, I am afraid everyone will be severely punished."

After hearing this, Sun Wan suddenly realized.

It turned out that she had always thought that traveling with livestock was a normal thing, but she didn't expect that there were such huge risks behind it.

Since then, how to protect these precious resources and reach the destination safely has become a problem that has troubled her.

To this end, she began to think hard, racking her brains to think about how to get these horses out of here safely without being discovered.

Seeing this, Zhang Lao Hu had an idea in his mind.

Through observation, he guessed that perhaps his in-laws had some secret channels that could help everyone transfer these valuable properties more covertly.

"Why don't we adopt this approach? First, we need to gather all available horses and have them pull the vehicles to the halfway point of the mountain. Once there, we can flexibly respond based on the specific situation along the way. If there are no obvious obstructions or surveillance on the official road, we can lead the horses directly to the next county town and exchange them for cash or physical reserves. Otherwise, we can temporarily place all the horses in this hidden valley and have the remaining personnel take care of them. Once everyone is settled in Youzhou, we will send reliable personnel back to collect them."

This proposal was unanimously agreed by everyone.

Considering the current situation, there is really no better way than this.

Therefore, the focus of the next work shifted to the preparation of transportation.

Due to the existence of horses, in order to make better use of these resources, the team decided to let Li Erhan and his son be mainly responsible for manufacturing the necessary means of transportation.

However, since the power of the father and son alone is obviously limited, when building equipment for a family, the family themselves needs to prepare enough materials and do the basic processing work in advance.

In this way, when the critical moment comes, the Li father and son only need to focus on completing the final assembly link to play the greatest role.

Su Shunde added that it would be better to make the cart smaller so that it would be much easier to pull.

Therefore, most of the people in the village who were interested in carpentry learned some practical skills from Li Erhan and his son, and everyone was very grateful to them.

Carpentry is a technical job. Being able to selflessly pass on this precious craft to everyone is an act of generosity that is truly admirable.

After everyone had eaten and drunk their fill in the morning, the people from Sujia Village began to go down the mountain.

Some rode horses or pulled carts loaded with heavy objects, so they moved quite fast, and the team maintained this speed all the way.

The women freed their hands. They carried baskets on their backs and held small sticks that they had pre-selected so that they could quickly pick wild vegetables and put them in their backpacks when they saw them.

No matter what edible thing it is, it will not be ignored, not even a little bit will be missed, which greatly slows down the overall pace of progress.

Su Shunde kept urging everyone to walk faster and warned them not to focus on picking wild vegetables and delay their journey.

"We must hurry up and get to Youzhou sooner so that we can settle down sooner."