afterglow

Chapter 219 Food Problems; Big Fish Eat Small Fish
The preparatory warehouse refers to a kind of warehouse in the Ming Dynasty that stabilized grain prices and stored relief grain. Before that, it was usually called Changping warehouse.During the Longqing and Wanli years, due to the chaos and long-standing abuses of the government, this system existed in name only, and it was continued to be used after being reorganized.

Due to their population concentration and economic model, cities are more prone to crisis in the face of natural disasters.

It is no problem for the rural small peasant economy to be self-sufficient in a short period of time. Every household will hoard some grain, but this is not the case in the city. Who will prepare a large amount of grain in ordinary households?It is often when a bag of rice or flour is almost used up that I will buy it again.

Now that water, electricity and food are cut off, the basic living needs of hundreds of thousands of surviving citizens have become a big problem.

Even if it is only calculated on the basis of one catty, at least one million catties of food will be consumed every day. It is difficult for people to feel the demand for supplies of this order of magnitude. Concretely speaking, it will take about [-] light trucks to make two round trips to be shipped.

As for Zhou Changfeng's question about whether the amount of grain stored in the reserve warehouse is enough, Lu Weizhong answered very firmly.

"Nowadays, reselling food without oil and water is not making money and is a serious crime. Who will do it? Don't worry, Mr. Zhou. When the warehouse was inspected last winter, there were more than 600 million catties, enough for a month's needs."

After driving around the surrounding streets a few times, Zhou Changfeng finally gathered a group of shrimp soldiers and crab generals, more than 30 militiamen, retired, reserve, and reserve soldiers.

Yu Zhang first suggested digging up the ruins of the Caozhou Police Station, hoping to get guns and ammunition from them. However, because the collapsed building was a double-story brick-concrete structure, and the debris of bricks and tiles piled up like a mountain, it might take a day and a night to dig by manpower alone. .

So Zhou Changfeng gave up this plan, and chose to dig a shop selling guns instead. It took a lot of effort to finally find a dozen pistols, shotguns, and some bullets.

"It's not much, but it's enough. I'll repeat it again. Deterrence comes first. Don't even think about massacres. That's impossible. And...there's not enough bullets."

This improvised team was divided into four teams by him, leaving one team to protect the officials of the state government, and the remaining twenty or so people went straight to the reserve warehouse.

The Caozhou reserve warehouse uses steel vertical silos to store grain. There are 22 large vertical silos of the million-jin class, [-] small vertical silos of the [-]-jin class, and two room-style silos, which can store up to [-] One hundred tons of unhulled raw grain and one thousand tons of finished grain.

Here too, it was severely damaged by the earthquake. The outer wall collapsed, and the strong steel frame of the vertical silo was also twisted and deformed. At least half of the vertical silo fell to the ground, and the unhusked wheat grains and rice piled up on the ground into hills. , but drenched with rain.

Dozens of people who protect this place are also patchwork, guards, patrols, officials, etc., but facing hundreds of disaster victims, they can be said to have more than enough energy.

"Why is there no food? Our family has been hungry for a day and a night!"

"The food is soaked in water..."

"Give me a letter, when will the food be released?"

Doubts came from the crowd one after another.

Many people have been here since noon yesterday, and now after a whole day and night of wind and rain, they are hungry, and people's emotions have also been aroused.

How can there be any reason to starve to death in front of food?Even if he really rushed in to get a few bags of grain, so what?
Facing the angry victims, a nervous housekeeper shouted loudly: "The silo is full of raw grain, which has not been shelled! Most of the edible grain has been pressed under the warehouse." !"

"Then let's go help, when will you guys wait until?!" Someone asked loudly.

The atmosphere here can be said to be tense. Once the critical point is passed, hundreds of disaster victims will swarm up. How can the dozens of people in this area be stopped?

Fortunately, Zhou Changfeng and his party finally arrived at this time, and the guards, whose hearts were in their throats, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

After being relieved, some people who were physically and mentally exhausted sat down on the ground.

The haggard-looking housekeeper cupped his hands and said weakly, "It's really timely rain... I almost couldn't hold back the scene."

"It's hard for you." Zhou Changfeng also breathed a sigh of relief, and he turned to face countless pairs of eager gazes, "Citizens, I am sent by the Navy. Now I will take care of all matters in Caozhou. I hope you will cooperate and spend time together." difficult."

Immediately, voices came out from the crowd one after another, but in fact, they all revolved around one thing—everyone is hungry, and now they expect to be full!

Zhou Changfeng took a trumpet made of aluminum skin and shouted: "It's a mess, how do you send it? Then there must be no chaos? They are all lined up in order!"

However, the overjoyed crowd became even more chaotic, because they all wanted to be the first, so they scrambled to get to the front row.

Shoving, yelling, and even punching and kicking, the scene suddenly became chaotic.

"boom!"

Reluctantly, Zhou Changfeng fired a shot into the sky, and only then did he regain control of the situation.

Then he handed it over to Luo Fu to manage it, and he went straight inside.

The scene of crumbling vertical silos and collapsed room-style warehouses made him worry, "It's all raw grain, no finished grain?"

The household official shook his head and then nodded, "Yes, there are, but they are all under the warehouse. We have been busy for a long time, and only brought out about [-] bags."

The vertical silos store raw grains, and the room-style warehouses store bagged finished grains. However, the collapsed warehouses buried tens of thousands of finished grains.

The two room-style warehouses stocked a total of [-] tons of finished grain, which could feed the entire city's victims for three or four days.

After thinking for a while, Zhou Changfeng ordered: "We need to maintain order. Those who clean up the wreckage depend on the common people. Go and recruit [-] young men and tell them that if they come to help, they will get double the reward."

Someone led the way, and it didn't take long before bursts of shouts came from the crowd outside.

Hundreds of disaster victims who signed up scrambled to grab the ruined walls and waved shovels, trying to dig out the precious grain below as quickly as possible.

In order to appease people's hearts, Luo Fu also asked the victims who were waiting on the periphery a lot of information according to Zhou Changfeng's request, and tried his best to comfort them.

It is not a lie that there are many people and strength. By the time of Shenshi, the wreckage of one of the warehouses had been cleaned up in sevens and eighties, and thousands of bags of [-] catties of rice were rushed out one after another.

Although everyone is exhausted, it can be said that they feel a sense of security after being able to regain a large bag of food after such a natural disaster, and everyone is overjoyed.

At this moment, these foods are no longer just something that can fill the stomach, but also a good medicine for comforting people's hearts.

Zhou Changfeng looked at the victims queuing up to receive the food with a calm expression. He knew that this was only temporary, because the finished grain was only [-] tons. Excluding those soaked by rain and damaged and stained with mud, the food that could be eaten was only [-] tons. Supply the needs of the victims in Caozhou City for three or four days.

The remaining several thousand tons of raw grain still needs to go through the shelling process, which is difficult to solve at present.

The hoarding combination of a small amount of finished grains and a large amount of raw grains cannot be said to be wrong, because the raw grains are not shelled, so they are insect-proof, mildew-proof, and resistant to storage.

Finished grain can only be stored for one year, while raw grain can be stored for four years.

The hoarding combination in the reserve warehouse was originally planned to deal with the famine of poor harvests. The finished grain can be eaten for several days, which is enough time for people to send the raw grain to the workshop for shelling.

Unfortunately, the unexpected earthquake turned most of the houses into rubble.

When Zhou Changfeng returned to the state office, people were building sheds with the materials they could find, and eating and sleeping in the open must be avoided as much as possible.

In the previous few hours, Yu Zhang led some people to patrol the three main roads in the urban area for half a circle. He reported in a deep voice: "The situation in the urban area is very bad. The local ruffians and tyrants have been taken over, and the price starts from the ground, one catty of rice for one yuan, and the price starts at ten catties."

He sighed again, and said angrily: "In addition to this, there are countless violations of the law. Along the way, people have come to ask for help and sue, steal, rob, buy and sell by force, and murder for money. and those who rape women..."

"I see." Zhou Changfeng, who was hungry, put a steamed bun on the bonfire and roasted it. "Next, we will continue to expand the scope and organize the single patrols and other reserve personnel to patrol the city continuously and severely punish the villains. Stabilize law and order as quickly as possible."

If the Xiaoxiao people who took advantage of the fire and looting continued to get away with it, everything would only get worse and worse under the panic of the people.

In fact, only two goals need to be achieved now to allow the victims of Caozhou to persist until the arrival of large forces at the least cost. One is to ensure that the food distribution is in place, and the other is to maintain stability and prevent chaos.

But easier said than done?

For decades, there has never been a large-scale war involving a wide range. It can be said that the recent generations of Daming lack awareness of crisis, especially the young people of Daming today. Their understanding of disasters and plagues is very shallow. The upper limit of ugly cognition is also limited to the local ruffians and bullies who are rampant in the local area.

And this is no better than the later generations with advanced information technology, with video, audio, pictures and texts.At present, the channels for ordinary people to obtain external information are basically limited to newspapers, radio and word of mouth. Occasionally, the specific situation of disasters in other places is difficult to impress people.

"Hey! Come here, hand over your bag of rice."

"Where did it come from? Oh? The government released food?"

"Don't be ignorant, put the rice on the ground, get out!"

"Run? Let's see where you are going!"

Although sleepy and exhausted, the young and strong people who received the rice in the reserve warehouse still persisted in carrying the rice bags and hurried on the road, hoping to bring the food to their families who had been waiting for a long time as soon as possible.

However, under these circumstances, wouldn't dangling around with a bag of rice be the same as walking around Gotham City and playing with gold bars in your hands?

Facing the rogue road tyrants with sticks, knives and axes, some were persuaded and left in embarrassment;

And there are hundreds of bullies in these temporary partnerships, because the scramble for territory and supplies will inevitably lead to disputes, and they soon started fighting with each other.

More people are better than few people, guns are better than no guns, and many guns are better than few guns.

In this way, the big fish eat the small fish, and the small fish eat dried shrimps. The huge Caozhou is full of gunshots, fighting, and shouting.

Ordinary citizens huddled under the ruined walls, tremblingly waiting for the rescue who didn't know when it would arrive.

Some courageous young adults had to try to protect the safety of their families, and they organized themselves to collect all available things such as steel bars, wooden sticks, iron pipes, and tongs, and anxiously guarded against possible bandits.

"Okay, then you all set off now, recruit the people if you don't have enough manpower, and restore as many units as you can."

"As for you...Luo Fu, you lead the team and see how many trucks are still available, including those that can be repaired in a short time."

After a half-day of inspections and greetings, several detachments summoned more than 100 policemen, militiamen, and reservists. Zhou Changfeng simply organized them and sent them out to attack the reckless bandits and restore order as soon as possible.

In order to improve efficiency, temporary organizations such as the command office, the medical office, and the material office have been established, and the patchwork team has also been further subdivided. Different functions are decorated with different colors of cloth tied on the right arm Red is responsible for security and stability, green is responsible for medical care, and blue is responsible for material management.

Although most of the people didn't recognize each other and couldn't even pronounce their names, this improvised organization was still functioning stumblingly, and it looked decent.

The first task now is to restore the function of the grain workshop. The consumption of thousands of tons of raw grain cannot keep up with manpower.

In addition, the hospital is also a top priority.As for power plants and water plants, they can't be taken care of, and they can't be repaired simply by the resources that can be collected in the disaster area.

The next day, that is, the morning of August [-], two Air Force Type [-] small liaison planes landed one after another under the guidance of people.

The hatch opened, and Zhou Changfeng and his party were surprised by the figures that jumped out of it—they thought they were here to convey important orders, but they didn't expect it to be a few reporters.

Zhou Changfeng, whose hair was full of black lines, couldn't help complaining in a low voice: "Playing the piano indiscriminately! Doctors, technicians, military officers, who is not good to send in? Why send reporters!"

The four reporters, three men and one woman, looked around as soon as they arrived, and a young man wearing round-frame glasses stepped forward quickly in three steps and two steps, and asked impatiently, "Sir, how is the situation in Caozhou now?"

Just as Zhou Changfeng was about to speak, a series of gunshots sounded like firecrackers from behind, probably the security maintenance team was exchanging fire with the bandit gang.

Now he was scolding his mother in his heart, but he still replied without changing his face: "As you heard, it's not good. It's a mess here, so it's not suitable to join in the fun."

This statement couldn't be more obvious, several reporters were embarrassed, and the round-faced female reporter couldn't help saying angrily: "Sir, what will happen after such a natural disaster, everyone in the Ming Dynasty is concerned, we are not here to play in the mountains and rivers! "

Such words are tantamount to nonsense for Zhou Changfeng. People who lack personal experience in the harsh environment always have good fantasies in their hearts, but they often cannot persist day and night.

"Oh, then I hope you can endure the hardship here, and then don't add oil and vinegar when writing articles."

　Push a book from a book friend group, and those who are interested can go and have a look.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)