In years of famine and drought, their village even rejected fatty meat.

It wasn't that the officials in charge of distributing the land were making things difficult for Wu Zhijian. In fact, the vast majority of people in Mingzhou were allocated abandoned farmland, and Wu Zhijian's family was not an isolated case.

The reason for this situation is that the previous rebels in Mingzhou only thought about plundering the people and bullying them, and never considered governance and production.

In addition, the war caused a large number of people and small and medium-sized landowners to flee Mingzhou, leaving no one to cultivate the land.

By the time Yang Zheng attacked and occupied the entire Mingzhou, production in Mingzhou had already been severely damaged, and more than half of the land in Mingzhou was abandoned.

After the land redistribution policy was implemented, the farmland allocated to people like Wu Zhijian in Mingzhou naturally did not grow any crops.

Even so, being able to receive land was a joyous occasion for farmers like Wu Zhijian. When the land distribution policy was first implemented, the people of Mingzhou cheered and shouted "Long live King Yang!" and "Long live the Yang family army!" showing their unwavering support for Yang Zheng's rule in Mingzhou.

Because they knew that with land, they would have the means to survive, and they would no longer have to suffer from hunger once they planted crops on the land they were allocated the following year.

Imagination is beautiful, but reality is cruel.

After being plundered by local rebels, eight or nine out of ten people in Mingzhou are now destitute. They have no money, let alone enough food to keep their families from starving.

Their only hope is that after the autumn harvest they can harvest enough food from their own land to alleviate their hunger.

Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned. Due to the ongoing war, large areas of farmland were trampled by the army. In addition, multiple factors such as the continued cold snap and low temperatures led to a large-scale crop failure in Mingzhou. Many farmers lost 30% to 50% of their crops, and in some cases, there was a complete crop failure.

Wu Zhijian's family was relatively lucky; their crops on their three mu of land did not fail completely, but the situation was not much better.

When the autumn harvest came, Wu Zhijian and his wife worked hard for half a month to harvest wheat, but the harvest was only 420 jin of grain!

This filled Wu Zhijian with utter despair. His family of four, even if they were extremely frugal, would still need to consume about 10 jin (5 catties) of grain a day. 420 jin (211 catties) of grain could only sustain the family for a little over a month, far from enough to help them get through the long winter...

Thinking of his two hungry children at home, Wu Zhijian's eyes were filled with confusion. He had done everything he could to keep his wife and children alive, but now he couldn't think of any other way to sustain his family.

"Old Wu, don't say such discouraging things!"

Seeing the despair on Wu Zhijian's face, his wife whispered to comfort him, "How could we not survive? We persevered through all the hardships before. Now that we have land and have just harvested our crops, as long as we get through this winter, we won't have to live such a hard life anymore."

"Get through this winter?"

Wu Zhijian said with a self-deprecating smile, "400 jin of grain, even if we eat very little, how can we possibly survive the winter?"

The effects of the cold snap have not yet subsided. Minnesota will enter winter in August or September, and the winter will be exceptionally long, with the weather not warming up until at least mid-January of next year.

With insufficient food and not enough warm clothing at home, Wu Zhijian really couldn't imagine how his family would get through the winter.

"Can't we also dig for wild vegetables? If we work harder and go out of the city to dig for more wild vegetables, we can reduce our food consumption."

"Foraging for wild vegetables?"

Wu Zhijian shook his head. Wild vegetables aren't so easy to dig up.

The couple knew that digging for wild vegetables could save food, so how could others not know that?

The hills outside the city have been almost completely dug up by starving people; there are no wild vegetables left, not even roots.

Finding even one or two wild vegetables on the entire mountain would be considered incredibly lucky; relying on wild vegetables to save on food is simply unrealistic.

"Also, I heard from others that King Yang is a bodhisattva sent down from heaven to save us from suffering, and he certainly wouldn't sit idly by and watch us go hungry."

Wu Zhijian's wife added, "Perhaps the government will soon find out about the poor harvest and send people to distribute grain and porridge!"

"maybe."

Wu Zhijian casually replied dismissively that Yang Tianwang was indeed a good general, not only did he not harm the people of Mingzhou, but he also distributed land to them.

Wu Zhijian still felt that the idea of ​​the government distributing grain was somewhat unrealistic.

The government is already being lenient by not raising taxes; how could they possibly provide grain to these lowly people?

"Old Wu, no matter what, we have to persevere. Our children are still young. If we're gone, how will they survive?"

Wu Zhijian's wife concluded by saying that life is too bitter. Her Wu Zhijian had contemplated suicide several times, but whenever he saw his two children, they would pull themselves together again.

It can be said that it is their two children who have supported the couple to persevere until now.

"Yes! The children are still young and cannot lose their parents!"

Sure enough, the moment the children were mentioned, the confusion in Wu Zhijian's eyes vanished instantly, and he rallied: "No matter how difficult or painful it is, we will make sure our children grow up healthy and strong!"

Upon seeing this, Wu Zhijian's wife couldn't help but laugh: "That's more like it! It's just a food shortage! We've had shortages before, we'll figure something out and get through it."

"Ok!"

Wu Zhijian nodded firmly and walked home side by side with his wife.

About fifteen minutes later, the couple returned home and found their two children, who were staying at home obediently.

Wu Zhijian's children are twins, a boy and a girl.

Both children inherited their mother's good looks; they both have big eyes and look very cute.

However, due to lack of food and clothing since childhood, both children are somewhat thin, with dry and yellow hair and sunken cheeks, which makes people feel sorry for them.

"Father, mother."

Upon seeing her parents return, the girl happily ran over, hugged Wu Zhijian's leg, and said in a clear voice, "Dad, my brother and I were very good today and stayed at home without going out."

The security situation in Mingzhou, or even the entire Kyushu, was terrible, with countless thieves and human traffickers. As a result, when adults went out to work, they would often keep the children at home locked up to prevent them from being abducted by human traffickers or other bad people.

Before going out to do farm work today, Wu Zhijian and his wife told their two children to stay at home and not to go out.