The journey of the only child of a peasant family to take the imperial examination

Looking at the empty and leaky room, I would cry if a mouse came.

The few of them had no choice. They had been traveling for several days and their nerves were always tense. It was good enough to have a place to sleep.

I slept until the afternoon.

Zhang Ping'an took his elder brother-in-law Liu Sanlang and Ruan San out together, wanting to stroll around the county town, at least to take a look at the situation first.

The person guarding the yamen was Lao Tu's deputy, an eighth-rank Chengxinlang named Zouping, who was a steady man.

Hearing Zhang Pingan say that he wanted to go out for a walk, Zou Ping thought for a moment and said, "Then I'll assign a few people to accompany you!"

"Okay!" Zhang Ping'an did not refuse. The other party must have his reasons for saying that.

He also knew that the people today could not be viewed with the same eyes as before.

The county town is neither too big nor too small, about the same size as my hometown Wushan County.

It's dead and lifeless right now, not to mention any businesses are open, there's actually nothing to see.

Zhang Ping'an could feel that as he walked, there were pairs of eyes peering at him from the ruins on the roadside, but when he looked over, he couldn't find the source of the gazes.

They are probably the surviving people hiding among the ruins.

They passed by several wells on the way. Zhang Ping'an took a look and found that they were all usable.

Now that everything is in ruins, we really need to think carefully about where to start.

After returning to the county government office, the bald old man had also returned.

Zhang Ping'an stepped forward and asked, "Deputy General You, do you have a map of Ze County? I'd like to see it."

Old Baldy's real name was Youtu. Upon hearing this, he replied nonchalantly, "Well, just call me Old Baldy. No need to be so polite. I have the map. I'll find it for you! Oh, and there's a sand table. It's in the meeting room. Want to go take a look?"

"Okay, that would be great!"

Zhang Pingan and his companions followed the bald old man to look at the sand table.

After a careful reading, Zhang Pingan pondered and said, "In fact, Ze County has a very good geographical location. There is Daze Lake to the west, Gaoyou Lake to the southeast, and a small hilly area to the north. There are mountains and water, and the land is fertile. As long as the people cultivate normally, they will definitely have no worries about life."

"Yes, in times of peace, this is also a good place to settle down," the old bald man touched his head, feeling a little regretful.

"It's the end of September, not even October yet. Let me think about what else we can plant. We can't just leave these lands lying idle," Zhang Pingan said. "Not only do we need to be able to plant, but we also need to be able to harvest as soon as possible."

The old bald man stroked his chin and began to think: "The fastest way to grow vegetables is to plant spinach, turnips, and Chinese mustard greens. The next best thing is beans. You can plant broad beans or peas, but they won't be harvested until next spring. They're really hard to grow!"

"Can we still grow buckwheat? After all, what the people lack is food. The climate in Ze County is still relatively warm now, so we can harvest it in a short period of time before the frost. This thing is cold-resistant, and many people outside the pass grow it, but the harvest may not be that good," Zhang Pingan added.

Liu Sanlang and Ruan San's eyes lit up when they heard this, but then they frowned again: "But I haven't heard of buckwheat being grown in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Where can we get the seeds?"

"We don't have it, but there must be some in the south. Many small restaurants in Lin'an sell buckwheat tea. Nanjing is as prosperous as Lin'an, so there must be some. I will write a letter to the Yangzhou camp later to try it out. Let's try it out and ask them to find a chance to send some seeds over. Whatever they have, they can send." Zhang Ping'an didn't dwell on this.

He felt a little annoyed. If he had known this would happen, he should have brought some seeds from Lin'an. He didn't expect that he was not asked to fight, but to lead people to rebuild after the war.

Oh, no, we do face the risk of war at any time now.

"What seeds do we have now?"

The old bald man replied while thinking back, "There should be some Chinese mustard seeds. Go look for them in the warehouse. They're not meant to be eaten, so every household has some stored. If they don't have any in the warehouse, go search the houses of the people nearby and you'll definitely find some. As for beans, we have peas and broad beans in our military rations, so we can allocate some. It's hard to say about other seeds."

"These two things are easy to grow," Ruan Saner replied.

"Then let's start with Chinese mustard, peas and broad beans. There's a lot of land and few people, so we should plant as much as we can. At least we can see some hope. Otherwise, it will be useless to have an empty city," Zhang Ping'an made a prompt decision.

The old bald man nodded: "Okay!"

"By the way, have you ever been to those two big lakes? There must be some small fish and shrimps in them," Zhang Pingan suddenly thought.

"I didn't go out of my way to look, but there must be fish. Those two lakes are quite large and deep. The refugees are starving and have no energy to catch fish. As for the rebel army, they don't bother with them. They just want to take advantage of what's available. Otherwise, these counties wouldn't be so devastated."

"Well, let's improve the food. We can find a suitable opportunity to treat the fish with medicine. We can make the leftovers into dried fish. Now we have to find a way to get food, otherwise when winter comes and it gets freezing cold, we won't be able to do anything," Zhang Pingan smiled. "Now it's really hard for a good cook to cook without rice!"

"Hey, you're right. Someone suggested to me two days ago that I should do some medicine for the fish, but I just haven't got around to it," the bald old man clapped his hands and laughed.

"I have the right medicine here. If you have some fine hemp rope, you can use it to make a few nets, and that will be enough."

"I have the hemp rope. I'll ask someone to get it now. That's it. I'll arrange a team to go there tomorrow."

"Is safety okay?"

Zhang Pingan found that the other party was even more impatient than himself.

The old bald man waved his hand and said, "We just finished the battle. There will be no problem in the next ten days or half a month. Those chaotic troops also need time to recuperate. They fled in the northwest direction, probably to Si County or Guzhen, which is far away!"

"Yeah, I see," Zhang Ping'an nodded, "Old Baldy, this is what I think. Now the county has suffered serious damage in terms of politics, people's livelihood, and housing. The reconstruction work is complicated, so we can only focus on the key points first.

The first thing is to restore public order and set up a temporary management agency. Only in this way can the people feel a little relieved. The second is to restore the household registration system. We must collect information on the remaining people in the county to facilitate management arrangements. Third, set up a temporary clinic to treat these people and avoid infectious diseases and plagues.

Fourth, and most importantly, getting back to the root of the problem, we still need food. We need to provide these people with some relief, like porridge or something. This is the biggest difference between us and the rebels. Otherwise, people will starve to death. Even if we distribute seeds and farm tools and encourage them to resume farming, how will they have the energy to plant?

"Ah, I understand that," sighed the old bald man, "but food is too scarce. There's not enough rations for the army, let alone relief for the people. This isn't a matter of a few bushels. Otherwise, we wouldn't have called a truce. We can't keep up with the food and fodder!"