The end of natural disasters: the daily life of child brides in ancient times

When Lu Qingqing ran over, she saw that the villagers of Lujia Village and the villagers of Lijia Village downstream of the river were in a tense standoff.

"Old Man Lu, I was wondering why the water in the river has been getting less and less these days. If I hadn't come here to see it today, I wouldn't have known that you guys blocked half of the water from upstream. You're leaving us no chance of survival!"

The head of Lijia Village shouted loudly, obviously very emotional.

The head of Lujia Village was not willing to lag behind.

"We only blocked a small section, so water still flows to your village."

"What nonsense are you talking about? Is the water flowing down enough for you to wash your feet? Your village is upstream, so you're taking advantage of the water. And you've blocked the water for us. You should ask the men of Lijia Village if they agree to this!"

As soon as the head of Lijia Village finished speaking, the men of Lijia Village responded loudly:

"No! No!"

Seeing the momentum in the village rising, the head of Lijia Village raised his voice even higher.

"If you cut off our water supply, you're going to kill us. Even though your village has more people, don't think we're easy to bully. We can't survive, and we won't let you have an easy life!"

Seeing that the two sides were about to fight, several elderly elders from Lujia Village came out, including the former village chief.

The old village chief said:

"Old Li, we've known each other for over sixty years. If there's anything we can discuss, let's just talk it over. There's no need to resort to violence. What do you think?"

An old man with wrinkled face came out from Lijia Village:

"Old Lu, what your village is doing is not fair. We all know that crops need water right now. You can't do this."

The head of Lujia Village wanted to say something, but was stopped by the old head of the village.

"Alright, you did this wrong. Go get some people to dig up the drain."

After the old village chief gave the order, several men in the village came forward to dig up the water.

The villagers of Lijia Village looked relaxed as they watched the water flowing towards their village.

The head of Lijia Village wanted to talk about the water that had been blocked in the past few days, but was stopped by Old Li.

As the villagers of Lijia Village were walking back, the village chief asked Old Li:

"Uncle, Lujia Village has been blocking the water for several days. Are we just going to let it go?"

Old Li glanced at him:

"It's great that we were able to open the water outlet today. Why is it that Lujia Village only has half of the water outlet blocked?"

Village chief Li immediately understood.

Everyone knows that water is food now. In previous years when the weather was good, we still could not have enough to eat even after paying the grain.

The water shortage this year is so severe that if the grain harvest is small, people will definitely starve to death.

If the people of Lujia Village blocked the water supply and cut off their livelihood, the people of Lijia Village would definitely fight them to the death. If they don't fight now, they will starve to death later.

But they only blocked half of the water, and the water still flowed towards Lijia Village. Although the people of Lijia Village shouted loudly at that time, if they really asked them to fight, no one would fight to the death.

Who would want to fight to death or injure others when there is a way to survive?

The most important point is that the population of Lujia Village is much larger than that of Lijia Village. The people of Lujia Village can accept just opening the water outlet.

But if they wanted any more compensation, whether it was water or food, the people of Lujia Village would not agree.

The elders of the two villages were unwilling to fight. Regardless of who won or lost, someone would definitely get hurt.

In addition, the autumn harvest is coming soon, and no one wants to cause trouble at this time.

The water storage incident passed without any major incident.

Lu Qingqing secretly guessed that this water storage incident was most likely planned by the old village chief and other elders, and the original intention was just to store more water.

Even though the villagers tried their best to retain more water, the village's bays were still dry within a few days.

The water in the river was almost dry. The villagers checked and found that the water source in the back mountain was no longer flowing.

That evening, the elders of Lujia Village called all the villagers together and asked them to carry water for irrigation overnight while there was still some water in the river.

If it is exposed to the sun for another day tomorrow, the existing water will evaporate.

That day, everyone in Lujia Village carried water all night long. In order to grab water, the women also went to the river to fetch water and were busy all night.

At dawn the next day, Lu Qingqing found that everyone had stopped.

The water in the river is completely gone!

However, Lu Qingqing discovered that Old Man Lu had secretly fetched a few more buckets of water and put them at home last night.

I guess other families do the same thing, so they can retain some water.

The old village chief and several elders of the village were walking around the village looking at the millet in the fields. The grains had not yet grown and were dry and shriveled.

But in the current weather, if there is no water to irrigate the fields, the millet will not last more than two days.

All the nearby water sources have dried up. Only the well in the village still has water, but the water level has dropped significantly now.

This is the water used by the whole village to drink. People can't survive for a few days without water.

The old village chief and several elders in the village reluctantly decided that the whole village would rush to harvest the millet starting tomorrow.

Old Man Lu arranged for his sons to secretly go to the fields in the east and pour a few buckets of water on them at night, hoping to harvest more grain.

The next day, Old Man Lu looked at the millet in the field that was wilting due to lack of water, and arranged for everyone to harvest the two plots of land in the west and south first.

There were limited sickles at home, so the men had to cut the grain in the front, while the women and half-grown children piled up and bundled the harvested grain.

The younger children followed behind, picking up the scattered grains of rice on the ground to ensure that not a single grain was wasted.

While tying things up, Lu Qingqing secretly collected them into the space.

After all, she has been doing this for so long, so it can be considered as some interest.

The family worked for two whole days and finally collected everything.

Next, the villagers lined up to go to the wheat field to thresh the grain.

As the villagers finished threshing the millet and took it home one after another, the atmosphere in the village became increasingly depressed.

This year's millet yield per mu is about half less than in previous years. After paying taxes to the government, we will have to save some seeds for next year.

Even if many families replaced all their millet with coarse grains, it would still not be enough for a year.

On the day the Lu family finished harvesting the grain, Old Man Lu's face looked frighteningly gloomy.

That day's dinner was changed to everyone just drinking vegetable porridge, and there was no coarse grain steamed bread.

From that day on, Old Mrs. Lu arranged for the women and children in the family to start digging wild vegetables and drying them when they came back.

The vegetables in the vegetable garden were not watered and most of them died in the sun.

The rest, whether ripe or not, were pulled out, dried into vegetables, and saved for winter consumption.

The village wells have been arranged to be guarded. Each household with less than ten people can only draw one bucket of water a day.

For every five people in a family of ten or more, give them half a bucket of water.

As water controls became increasingly stringent, most households in the village began disposing of their livestock.

The Lu family's pig was still a piglet. They had planned to raise it until the end of the year, slaughter it and sell it for some money so that the family could eat pork.

But now it is difficult for people to drink water, let alone livestock, and no one in the village can afford to buy pork.

The millet has been dried and processed in the past two days, and the part required to pay taxes is reserved. Old Man Lu plans to go to the town today to exchange the rest for coarse grains.

He also arranged for his three sons to tie up the pigs and chickens in the house, preparing to see if they could be sold at the big market in town today.