"It's just treating the symptoms, not the root cause. I've been taking bitter medicine all year round, and my body is getting worse and worse. Now I feel nauseous just from the smell of medicine." Tie Qingfeng's voice was as soft as a mosquito's buzz.
But Zheng Qingshu heard every single word, and felt increasingly distressed, yet there was nothing she could do to share his burden.
Yu Ri, after hearing Zheng Qingshu's words, the village chief felt displeased again. The grain hadn't even been harvested yet, and the county government was already eyeing it.
The sweet potato seed was so hard to cultivate, and this year, after clearing a few acres of land, they are required to hand over 70% of it. They even want them to plant more in the second half of the year. The village has no land to cultivate, so they are asking the villagers to clear land on the mountain to plant sweet potatoes.
If the sweet potatoes were all grown and kept by them, that would be fine. But having to hand them over to the refugees to grow is something no one would be happy about.
Regardless of his inner complaints, the village chief knew that the sweet potatoes had to be planted. Putting aside whether the imperial court would investigate, if the refugees in the north were pushed to the brink and all flocked to the south, there would be chaos again. So it was better to plant more sweet potatoes to ward off disaster and it would be better for everyone.
Once the sweet potatoes are harvested in the second half of the year, there will be plenty of sweet potato seedlings. You can plant as many as you want, it just depends on whether you have enough land to plant them.
"I understand. I will inform the villagers and encourage them to clear land and plant sweet potatoes. We will definitely be able to grow more sweet potatoes in the second half of the year to help with the earthquake relief." The village chief said calmly, showing no sign of his inner turmoil.
Zheng Qingshu nodded with satisfaction: "The prefect has already made a deal with the foreigners last year. Before long, the foreigners will bring us a kind of corn seed to exchange for porcelain and silk. Corn is said to be a drought-resistant crop. I will bring some corn seeds over then, and you can clear more wasteland to plant them."
"Does this mean that all the people in Nanyang Prefecture have to plant sweet potatoes to deal with the earthquake?" the village chief asked tentatively.
Zheng Qingshu glanced at the village chief and said, "Not only in Nanyang Prefecture, but all the areas in the south that haven't been affected by the disaster should plant sweet potatoes to ward off the earthquake."
Since the entire south was going to be involved in the earthquake disaster, the village chief felt better.
The Zhou family's five sons have already gone to school in town. Xingxing is pestering Zhou the eldest and Zhao Guihua to go up the mountain to dig for medicinal herbs, insisting that she can find the kind of herb that Master Song drew for her.
Before they left the Song residence that day, Master Song had someone draw pictures of the herbs used as medicinal ingredients for them. In fact, Master Song later had many more pictures of those herbs drawn and posted them in the town and the prefectural city, asking people to help find the herbs.
The Song family probably had no other options, so they figured that having more people meant more hope, and decided to pay for the entire county to search for them.
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