It was too late yesterday, and Tian An only had the chance to take a good look at the village where they lived in the morning.
The village is approached by a small path and is surrounded by mountains. At this time, the surrounding mountains are green and yellow, and the breeze brings a cool feeling.
Tian An shivered with excitement and rubbed her arms quickly. Dong Ru brought a piece of clothing from inside the house and asked her to put on more clothes. "Sir, the weather has suddenly turned cold. It's time to put on more clothes."
Tian An said as he was getting dressed, "It's not a sudden turn for the cold. Today is the 29th, and temperatures in the north start to drop in September. We ran a long way yesterday and have already left the southern border. The weather will gradually turn cooler."
Tian An looked at the missing half of the people and asked, "Where are the others?"
Dong Ru replied, "Young Master said that in order to prevent the situation like yesterday from happening again, we should prepare dry food for lunch and dinner. Brother Chunchun took people to the mountains to dig wild vegetables."
Zhao Yiming had indeed been thoughtful. They had dry food for lunch yesterday, so they could eat while walking. But they hadn't prepared dinner. After a day of traveling, they were exhausted and hungry, and they still hadn't found a suitable place to camp. Not only the children, but even the adults were nearly crying from hunger.
Tian An had just taken his two younger brothers to wash when everyone came back. Seeing their frowning faces, he knew that they didn't have a good harvest.
Sure enough, Dashu's second aunt, Mrs. Wu, complained, "It's only two days into September! There's almost no wild vegetables left in the mountains."
The village head's wife looked worried. "We've dug so little out of so many people, and there are still a lot of yellow leaves. Sigh!"
Tian An's second aunt Du also said: "Our Shangba Village is still the best. We can dig wild vegetables until October!"
"Of course not. The wild vegetables are tender and plentiful."
“…”
As they talked, everyone's eyes turned red. If it wasn't absolutely necessary, who would be willing to leave their hometown?
After a while, Zhao Yiming also came back. Seeing that he had empty hands, it was clear that he had not gained anything either.
The grass that Liu Da and Wu Zhuang cut to feed the cows and donkeys was half green and half yellow, but at least it could feed them.
Because they were worried about not having time for lunch and dinner, they cooked dry rice for everyone in the morning. Tian An also asked Chun Xi to take out a piece of bacon to make wild vegetable soup for everyone. There was not much bacon left, so they just put a little bit in to enhance the flavor.
After the meal, they cooked two large pots of porridge and put one bottle per person in a bamboo tube so that they could eat it with steamed buns and pancakes at noon.
After putting away their things and putting out the fire, everyone set out again on the road to the capital.
The group was extremely careful along the way. Not only did they disguise their food, but they also took turns keeping watch during lunch. If they noticed anyone paying attention to them, they would quickly remind those eating to hide their food. This was because they realized that many of the refugees they were traveling with had already run out of food.
They started by preparing a full day's worth of dry food, then moved to two days' worth, and finally, due to a lack of water, they prepared three days' worth whenever they found a water source. Fortunately, the weather was getting cooler, so the food didn't spoil easily.
But they had just arrived at the border of Ganzhou. There were few rivers in Ganzhou. It was said that there had only been two rains this year. The rivers were dry and the crops in the fields were barkless. The people in Ganzhou had already started to eat tree bark.
When they arrived, there was no wild vegetables, not even grass roots.
As soon as they entered Ganzhou, Zhao Yiming looked at the withered mountains and fields and realized something was wrong, so he asked everyone to save water and dry food.
At their speed, it would take at least ten days to cross Ganzhou. They had already prepared dry food once before entering Ganzhou, and they had to find a place to prepare dry food at least twice more.
But they didn't have much water left. Now each person could only drink two or three sips of water a day, and there was no extra water to cook. So the original three meals a day of dry food were changed to two meals a day, and they could only eat half full at each meal. In this way, they only needed to find another opportunity to cook to make it out of Ganzhou.
Four days after entering Ganzhou, they had completely run out of water. Tian An, Zhao Yiming, Xiaokang and Xiaoqi were fine. Tian An used the space to fill the bamboo tube with water several times. Every time she drank water, she sipped it gently with her lips, making everyone think that she drank less, so there was the most water left in the bamboo tube.
But it wouldn't last too long. Even if they drank less, the water would eventually run out. Looking at everyone with chapped lips and peeling faces, Zhao Yiming decided to go find some water first.
Where is there water in Ganzhou? Looking at the direction of the refugees, Zhao Yiming guessed that the only place with water should be in Yuncheng, Ganzhou.
It took them a whole day to reach Yuncheng, and they arrived in the evening.
From a distance, one could see a huge crowd of people outside Yuncheng, all of whom were refugees.
Too many people could easily lead to problems, so Tian An and the others stayed on the periphery. Zhao Yiming asked Chen Feng and Deng Yuan to gather information.
After a while, the two men came back with gloomy faces.
Seeing that the two looked unhappy, Tian An hurriedly asked, "What's wrong? What's going on over there?"
The others also gathered around anxiously, "What's going on? You two should tell us!"
Seeing Chen Feng hesitate to speak, Deng Yuan said angrily: "The city gate in front is closed. They want to collect the city fee, and the refugees have no money, so they are all blocked at the city gate."
"Isn't it normal to collect city fees? Everywhere doesn't collect city fees!"
The general entrance fee is only two or three cents, which is affordable for most people. At this time, everyone thought that the refugees must have spent all their money on the way and had no money to enter.
Only Tian An frowned and asked, "How much do they want to charge?"
Hearing this, everyone looked at Tian An, "Isn't the entrance fee a few coins?"
Chen Feng waved his hand, "If it's just a few cents, why would I be so humiliated? They want five taels!"
Deng Yuan added: "It's five taels per person."
Everyone was shocked when they heard the five taels just now. Now when they heard five taels per person, they suddenly felt dizzy.
The village chief walked up to the two men in disbelief and held up five rough fingers. "Are you sure it's five taels, not five coins?"
"We were also shocked. We asked twice in a row and were almost beaten by the gatekeepers!" Deng Yuan confirmed.
The village chief swayed twice and was supported by his wife.
"God damn it! This is profiting from a national disaster! Aren't they afraid of divine retribution?"
Others also expressed their dissatisfaction in anger.
Complaints aside, the problem still needed to be solved. Money could be earned, but if they didn't drink water, they would die.
I originally wanted to take everyone in for a good meal, but now it seems impossible.
Five taels per person, and there are about sixty or seventy people in their group, big and small, so it would cost at least three hundred taels. Tian An didn't think they could give a discount to the child.
She has money, but it's not worth spending it on something like this.
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