Through the troubled times and famine, I just want to farm peacefully

Heshanzui Village.

Several villagers hurried to the village chief's house carrying hoes.

"The village chief has cut off the last stream. What shall we do now?"

“Do we really have to carry water from the well to irrigate the fields?”

"There are so many fields and only two wells in the village. When will we be able to pay them back?"

The village chief had to squat on a chair with his brows twisted into a knot. What they were talking about were all minor problems. The most important thing was that after planting the rice seedlings, many young and middle-aged people in the village went to Longtan County to find work. Now, most of the people left in the village are the elderly, women, children, and very few young and middle-aged people.

The village chief was puffing on a pipe, his sad face shrouded in smoke.

This was bought from Longtan as a gift to his youngest son when he was on leave. The taste was incomparable to leaf tobacco. This was the last one he had to use as water for the seedlings in the fields.

Seeing that he didn't say anything, the villagers became anxious.

"Village head, come up with some rules and regulations sooner?"

"Why don't we go find Master Yun and Master Hu? I heard they are in Chi'an."

When the people in the house were at a loss, a villager shouted in the yard.

"Village Chief, the village chief of Wujiawan is here."

Everyone looked up and saw the villagers coming in with a middle-aged man, who was in his forties, about the same age as their village chief.

This person is the village chief of Wujiawan Village.

When the head of Heshanzui Village saw him coming in, he asked, "Is there no water in your village, too?"

"Of course, I'm here to seek a deal with you, brother." The village chief of Wujiawan said with a frown.

The village chief of Heshanzui sighed, "We are worried about this too!"

"What can I do? The only two villages that are close are ours. I have already searched everywhere I can find nearby and have done everything!"

A smart villager immediately said, "There is also a Xinyuan Village. When we went to the fields this morning, we saw from afar that there seemed to be water in their canal."

"Really?"

"Are you seeing right?"

"My eyesight is clear, and although I was far away, I saw with my own eyes that they were digging a hole to allow the canal water to flow into the fields."

The two village chiefs' eyes suddenly lit up.

If there is still water in Xinyuan Village, can we dig a canal to bring the water here for irrigation?

They have been in Longtan for more than two years, and the weather has been good during these two years. No one expected that a drought would occur.

When the fields were originally divided, the canals were simply repaired, and no one thought that they would dry up one day.

Everyone talked at once, and the more they spoke, the more they felt that this was feasible.

So the two village chiefs immediately went to Xinyuan Village to negotiate with the village chief of Xinyuan Village about digging canals and borrowing water.

After hearing their proposal, the head of Xinyuan Village refused without hesitation.

"No, we don't have much water left for irrigation. We only have enough for our own village, so we can't supply it to your two villages."

"Brother, we all fled here from the north, so any help we can give is welcome. If there is no water, the rice in so many fields in our two villages will dry up." The head of Wujiawan Village persuaded him with emotion and reason.

The head of Heshanzui Village also begged, "It hasn't rained for more than three months since the beginning of spring. The rice in the fields cannot live without water. Brother, please help us."

"It's not that our village doesn't want to help you, it's just that there is no water. The weather is bad this year, and there is not much water in the canal. The fields farther away in our village still have to rely on people to carry water for irrigation."

The chief of Xinyuan Village refused to agree no matter what the two men said.

He thought, if the water was diverted by the two villages, who knows when it will rain again that day? If even this only source of water was cut off, the rice in their village would definitely be doomed.

This year we will have to pay grain tax. The income is not as much as in previous years, so who wouldn’t want to stock up more grain these days?

The two men begged the head of Xinyuan Village, "We all came from the north, we should unite as one, please have mercy and save our crops!"

The villagers who were waiting outside heard what the two said, rushed in with hoes in hand, and stared at them with eager eyes.

It seems like we are in a posture of, if you dare to dig a canal, we will fight you to the death.

For fear of causing conflict, the two men had to get up and say goodbye.

Before leaving, the head of Wujiawan Village said earnestly, "Brother, please consider our proposal again. You can't just watch us die, right?"

After leaving Xinyuan Village and walking back, the two of them went to see their irrigation canal.

The stream was gurgling and looked not shallow. The village chief of Heshanzui rolled up his trouser legs and went down to find that the water had already reached above his calves and was about his knees.

The two looked at each other and saw shock in each other's eyes.

Good boy! Is this what the old man, the head of Xinyuan Village, said about himself being barely enough?

"Hey, who are you two? What are you doing there?" A villager who was patrolling the fields in the distance spotted them and shouted at them.

The head of Wujiawan Village bent down and pulled up the head of Heshanzui Village. He smiled at the villager and said, "The field stalks are too slippery. He accidentally fell into the ditch. Let's go now!"

The villager was worried and walked towards them with a hoe on his shoulder. The two men hurried away.

After returning, Heshanzui and Wujiawan each sent one person to Chi'an to ask Yunyu and Hu Shao to come back and give them justice.

There was not a drop of water in the fields of the two villages, and no one dared to slack off. Food was everyone's life, and they got up before dawn every day to fetch well water to irrigate the fields.

With such high-intensity labor every day, everyone's shoulders are red and swollen.

The village chief and villagers of Xinyuan Village saw this but did nothing. Every day, they sent many more villagers to guard the canal with farm tools, for fear that people from other villages would come to dig a canal and divert the water away.

As time went by, the water levels in the two wells in Wujiawan Village dropped faster and faster.

Villagers began to worry that if this continued, they would have no water to use.

After several days of continuous watering, the villagers of Wujiawan and Heshanzui villages have accumulated a lot of resentment.

It’s just a matter of digging a ditch. The people of Xinyuan Village are so unkind.

So, villagers from the two villages carried hoes and tried to dig the canal by force.

"What are you going to do?"

Villagers from Xinyuan Village also carried hoes and shovels to block the crowd.

The villagers of Wujiawan angrily said: "We are here to dig a canal today. You have to dig it even if you don't agree. This water is not from your village, why don't you let us use it?"

Villagers in Xinyuan Village: "This water flows through our village."

The villagers of Xinyuan Village had a very tough attitude and they had already discussed countermeasures two days ago.

If the two villages finally insisted on taking away their water, they could make some concessions.

The village chief's son smiled and said, "You can have water, but you have to exchange it for food. If each household gives 100 kilograms of rice, we will agree to bring the canal to your village!"

As soon as he said this, he caused great anger among the villagers of the two villages.

"You, why don't you go and rob?"

"Wrong! We are doing this so that we can rob!" The people of Xinyuan Village were extremely arrogant.

"Bandits! You are bandits!"