The worst time travel, surviving seven years of famine

The fire was so big that the fire started.

"There is so much black smoke, it must be a fire. Burning weeds on the grave can't produce such a big smoke," Gu Liang said as he looked at the growing black smoke.

The conversation between Gu Boxi and Gu Liang attracted the attention of the old man Gu, who quickly put down the firewood in his hand and went to the open area to see what was going on.

"It seems that the ancestral grave of the Wang family is on the mountain over there. Did they not pay attention when burning paper money and caused a mountain fire?" The old man Gu squinted his eyes and looked carefully at the direction of the fire.

Gu Boxi thought that the wildfire was probably caused by burning paper money, so he turned to Gu Changping and Changan who were still resting and said, "Brother, second brother, let's go back and help put out the fire. It's been dry recently, and it will be troublesome if the fire starts."

Soon, they arrived at the house at the foot of the mountain. At this time, only Gu Liang's mother and sisters were left at home, and the others went to the mountain to put out the fire.

After asking about the situation, they found out that Li Laitou's family burned the field ridges, but did not remove the weeds in the corners of the field ridges, so the fire burned along the field ridges and burned to the mountain connected to the field corners.

Before Qingming Festival, it was always the time to burn the field ridges, burn the weeds that grew on the field ridges last year, so as not to block the sunlight of the rice in the field, and at the same time, after burning the field ridges, paste a layer of mud to prevent water leakage in the paddy fields.

However, before they burned the field ridges, they not only had to remove the dead grass in the corners of the field, but also had to send people to guard during the burning to prevent burning in other people's fields. But Li Laitou was lazy, and there was no rain this year, so the fire was not under control and it became like this.

Since the mountain on the other side of the fire was the ancestral grave mountain of the Wang family in the village, the people of the Wang family had already gone to the mountain to put out the fire. Others in the village followed, after all, their village was connected to the mountain, and it would be bad if the fire burned to their home.

Since Gu Liang was still young, it was not his turn to put out the fire, so he could only watch from afar with the children in the village.

In fact, the mountain near their village was very clean, and those dead branches and leaves were the best ignition materials. Every autumn, they would be collected and taken home by the villagers, so under normal circumstances, the mountain would not easily burn. It was just that because of the freezing rain after the New Year, there were more broken branches on the mountain, and it was really hard to say.

The mountain was bustling with people, the crackling sound of the fire, and the noise of people gathered into a ball, making people worry whether the mountain fire could be put out.

Just like this, from almost lunch time until the sun began to set, with the joint efforts of one or two hundred people in Lanxi Village, the open fire finally disappeared, and only a little smoke remained on the mountain.

The fire was basically extinguished, and most people went home to eat and take a bath. Only the Wang and Li families were left at the foot of the mountain to clean up the remaining fire.

"The Li family's ancestors did not accumulate virtue, and a person like Li Laitou was born. He burned the Wang family's ancestral grave mountain clean with a fire," said Mrs. Gu to Gu Liang while wiping her face with a wet towel.

Gu Liang was also very curious about how the Wang family should deal with Li Laitou setting fire to the mountain, so he asked Mrs. Gu.

Old Lady Gu washed the towel she had used to wipe the house, hung it on the bamboo pole and said, "I don't know either. They haven't started discussing it yet!"

"What can we do? We are from the same village. Will Wang Lizheng take him to the county and let the yamen runners beat him with dozens of boards?" Old Man Gu walked out of the house and scooped a ladle of water for Old Lady Gu to drink. At the same time, he continued, "It's probably a private settlement. Burning the mountain is not a big deal. Didn't our family burn land before? If someone's ancestral grave mountain is burned, we will definitely have to pay some money, or let Li Laitou repair their Wang family's ancestral grave or something."

Old Lady Gu sighed and said, "It's still too dry today. If it had been drizzling at this time last year, how could the mountain be burned? It seems that this year is not peaceful!"

When Old Lady Gu said this, everyone in the Gu family thought of that incident and felt a little depressed. They went about their own business.

A few days later, the Gu family brought up the follow-up of Li Lai Tou's setting fire to the mountain at the dinner table. According to the Wang family, Li Lai Tou's family finally compensated the Wang family with a thorny fir tree. The fir forest of Li Lai Tou's family was planted by Li Lai Tou's father more than ten years ago. Now it has just matured, and the thickest one is as thick as a bucket.

The thorny fir is a very useful tree. It grows straight, and the wood is light but hard. It can be used to make buckets, furniture, etc. People here will plant a few trees not far from home. However, here, the old people plant thorny fir not to make furniture, but to leave it for themselves.

I made my own coffin.

This is equivalent to Li Lai Tou's father giving his coffin tree to the Wang family for this matter.

After hearing this, Old Man Gu sighed for a long time. After all, people are old and are most sensitive to this matter. In his opinion, an old man who gave his coffin to others must have reached the end of his rope. Even if the coffin tree can grow again after waiting for another ten years, people may not be able to wait that long.

After another half a month, the weather became drier, and according to the farming season, it was time to plant rice in the fields. This is when the fields need water, and the transplanted seedlings must be soaked in water to survive, otherwise they will be killed by the sun all of a sudden.

Because it has not rained for a long time, the water level of the small stream left from the mountains has gradually decreased. From the initial direct water diversion into the fields, it must be intercepted now to allow water to enter the fields.

But once the water in the stream is intercepted, it means that the farmland below cannot get water. If the fields below cannot get water, they will dry up and the seedlings will turn yellow.

In this situation, a silent battle for water in Lanxi Village began.

Years ago, a weir was built on the Lanxi River. The water level of the Lanxi River has not dropped much now, so the amount of water flowing in through the ditch has not changed much.

However, this weir was built by 20 to 30 households in the village, and the water must be used by them first. Others have to wait until these 20 to 30 households have used up the water.

The water in the creek has been used by the people upstream, so the remaining fields have lost their original water source and can only rely on the huge amount of water coming from the weir.

However, the water from the weir alone is not enough to supply the fields of the whole village, because some fields are too high, or some fields are too far away, and the water is used up by the fields in front before it flows.

Distant water cannot quench the thirst of the near, and the seedlings in the fields cannot wait, so some families in the village do not care about the feelings of fellow villagers. As long as the owner of the upper field was not present, he would immediately dig up the field ridge and let the water from other people's fields flow into his field.

At the beginning, the water thieves were relatively cautious in doing this, and they stole not much. When the water in their own fields was enough, they would plug the gap.

However, as sunny days came one after another, there was still no sign of rain in the sky, and the farmers began to become worried, fearing that if it didn't rain again, the water in the fields would dry up sooner or later. Some families simply stopped releasing water to the fields below, unless their own fields could not hold it, they would release the water to the next family.

Doing this kind of thing seemed to be contagious. After the first family did this, other families followed suit, making the already tight water supply even tighter, and the fields at the bottom could no longer get the water released from the fields above.