At this moment, Li Mengyue actually said that the food was ready, how could they not be excited.

They believed that the grains that Li Mengyue mentioned were definitely not the coarse grains they eat now, but real refined grains.

No matter what the weather is like, the price of refined grain will never be double the price per pound.

Not to mention refined grains, even coarse grains cost three cents per pound.

They knew that this was Li Mengyue taking care of them. She usually bought fine grain at 5 kg per catty, but only sold it to seven villages at 2 kg per catty.

What's more, we have just experienced a locust plague, and it is during a famine. Food prices will continue to rise, and even at sky-high prices, there will be many people who cannot buy food with money.

Li Mengyue was not selling food to them, she was giving them life-saving food.

Although the crops in the seven villages were not completely wiped out by the locusts, they were still harvested more than ten days early, resulting in considerable losses.

Besides, the yield per mu of crops they grow is not high. On average, it is only about 300 kilograms per mu. If they harvest early, they will lose dozens of kilograms per mu.

Although this is much better than being destroyed by locusts and having no harvest, the harvested food cannot satisfy the whole family's hunger.

Li Mengyue agreed to sell grain to seven villages at the price of two kilograms per catty. The reason was that a large number of refugees were coming to Wuning County and they were worried that the refugees would come to rob the villages. That's why she proposed to form patrol teams so that each village could prepare in advance in case of emergency.

But they knew that no matter how many refugees there were, the imperial court would take action within three to five months. Not only would they not be able to settle all of them, but they would at least provide a temporary place for the refugees to stay.

In this way, the refugees will no longer have the desire to rob, after all, they are under the pressure of the government. If they want to go to jail or don't want to live anymore, they can rob.

However, during the period before the refugees are settled, they must be prepared and cannot rely entirely on the government.

Even if County Magistrate Yang is a good official, the number of yamen runners in the government office is limited. How could they only be in charge of Qingshan Town? Therefore, they really need to make preparations in advance.

Even if we calculate it based on five months, the patrol team only received 5,000 kilograms of food, and the rest went to the village office.

For example, Xinghua Village and Lianhua Village both bought 20,000 kilograms. After subtracting 5,000 kilograms, there are still 15,000 kilograms. This amount of food can be used as emergency food.

If they feel that there is not enough food, they can also disperse it and replace the refined grains with coarse grains, so that they can get more food.

Anyway, for common people like them, it doesn't matter what the food is, as long as it is edible and can fill their stomachs, they don't care whether it is refined grain or not, or whether it tastes good or not. Therefore, they are really grateful to Li Mengyue from the bottom of their hearts.

Li Mengyue didn't care how excited the seven village heads were. She just came here to convey her message and explain it to them.

There are so many refugees waiting at the city gate, she can't waste her time on these things.

However, she still had to talk to the seven village heads about recruiting refugees so that they would be mentally prepared. Otherwise, if she brought people here and the villagers were unwilling, or if they agreed but had some qualms in their hearts, there would definitely be friction when they were working, which would affect the progress.

As the days passed and the time for the extreme cold mini ice age predicted by the system drew closer, she felt a sense of urgency in her heart.

She wanted to dig the river channel and repair the reservoir as soon as possible. As long as these two things were done well, it would mean that the refugees fleeing Qingshan Prefecture would have the capital to survive and the supplies to fight the extreme cold weather.