I was listening to all kinds of gossip in the city, and I was worried! If the drought, flood and insect pests were really serious, the grain production would definitely decrease this year, and the grain price would definitely increase significantly soon. My family had just harvested rice, and we didn’t sell last year’s and this year’s rice, so we were not short of food, and we would have no problem eating it for a year or two.

There are still too few commonly used emergency medicines at home. I will go to other clinics later and buy more medicine powders and ointments to keep at home. I can also prepare more fine cotton cloth and other things. When a baby is born in the family during the Chinese New Year, I have to buy some. I will buy some and keep them in stock first. I also need to prepare more seasonings such as salt and sugar. I have a strong taste and cannot stand a life without salt and oil.

Yang Dachuan thought about it and decided to prepare all the things he had just thought of. He couldn't buy them all at once and it would be too conspicuous. He would have to come to the city more often recently and prepare enough for three to five years. No one knew how long this ancient disaster would last and how long it would take to recover.

When passing by the silver shop, Yang Dachuan thought of a saying: antiques are more valuable in prosperous times than gold in troubled times. It would be better for him to exchange the silver and banknotes at home for gold and silver. There is still 1,200 taels of money left at home. He will exchange 8 taels of gold first, and then exchange the rest for silver and copper coins after buying things at home.

Well, there are also defensive tools! If this world is really in chaos, defensive weapons are indispensable. Although the blacksmith shop can help forge iron tools as long as it is reported, privately making weapons will be reported to the authorities. Yang Dachuan doesn't expect knives and swords, but he can make a few more farm tools such as hoes and shovels, and let the blacksmith make them thicker, which is not bad. After all, there are no guns and hot weapons in this world. As long as there are not many people, Yang Dachuan thinks he is not afraid.

After thinking it over for a while, he ran to the shop in the city of the construction team that helped build his house last time, ordered two truckloads of lime, and asked them to find time to deliver it to his house.

More and more outsiders passed through or arrived in Anping County, and there were also many people from the village who occasionally went to the city. The news from outside also slowly spread to the small village of Pingshan Village. The villagers gradually felt a sense of urgency. Although the Da'an Dynasty had been peaceful for more than a hundred years and the villagers had not experienced any disasters, they had a clear idea of what to prepare for if a disaster occurred.

The harvest was poor and people were uneasy. The government was now in a state of panic and had to focus on the north. Anping County was originally a small county, but now people were in a state of panic and food prices were soaring.

This year is not a good year, and the situation outside is unknown. Farmers are holding on to the grain tightly and are unwilling to sell it. There is no grain coming into the granaries in the central plains, and the trade routes to overseas are cut off. Now, the price of rice in Anping County has risen to 28 wen per catty, an increase of nearly 10 times.

Yang Dachuan also had a hand in the soaring prices in the county. In the past two or three months, he went to the city every three days, and each time he went in with an empty cart, he returned with a full donkey cart. Yang Dachuan now had only the eight taels of gold and several dozen taels of silver, and the rest had been spent.

It was already November. Normally, although it was not cold at this time, it was not too hot either. One had to wear two layers of clothes in the morning and evening and cover oneself with a thin blanket at night. But now, until the beginning of winter, the temperature did not show any sign of dropping. Instead, it became even hotter. Yang Dachuan estimated that the temperature outside was already over 37 or 38 degrees Celsius.

The second crop of rice was planted late and can only be harvested at this time. When Yang Dachuan was raising rice seedlings earlier, he only raised 5 mu of rice. Who would have thought that the weather would be so strange. After the heavy rain during the summer harvest, there has been no serious rain since then. When it rained occasionally, it couldn't even wet the ground.

The riverbed of Daping River dropped, and the river was slowly drying up. The amount of water was getting less and less every day. The rice in the paddy fields was almost dying of drought, and the farmers had to carry water to irrigate the fields.

Yang Dachuan's family had few people and could not take care of the five mu of paddy fields, so they only kept three mu of paddy fields near the river and pulled up the remaining two mu to plant sweet potatoes. After the rainstorm and the rush to harvest summer grain, many people in the village now believe in Yang Dachuan. Seeing him pulling up the rice seedlings and planting sweet potatoes, their families, who had few people to take care of the paddy fields, gritted their teeth and followed suit, pulling up the rice seedlings in the fields and planting other crops.

Due to drought, the water level in the old well in the village has become very low. Now you have to lower the rope on the bucket to the bottom to get water. However, the villagers of Pingshan Village do not rely on this old well for water. You can see that there is only one well in the whole village. Most of the villagers use mountain spring water that they collect from the mountains. It is sweet, cool and convenient. Find a mountain spring, set up a bamboo pipe and go straight to your home, so you don’t have to go through the trouble of carrying water every day.

The weather was hot and it hadn't rained for a long time. Gradually, some villagers noticed that there was no water coming out of their pipes at home. They went up the mountain to check and found that the spring that collected water had dried up. Originally, one spring could provide water for several households, but now even one household can hardly support it, and the villagers had to look everywhere for new springs.

After Yang Dachuan had gone up the mountain to replace the springs for his family several times, he decided to hire someone to dig a well in his yard. He had thought that it would be unsafe to have a well because he was about to have a child. But then he thought about how things would go in the future and he needed to take care of the family more closely, so having a well would be much more convenient.

"Digging a well?" There was only one old well in the village, and the Daping River. There were springs on the mountain that could be easily found. Not only Pingshan Village, but the entire Anping County was not short of water.

"We still need to dig a well at home. The weather is bad now, and the springs on the mountain are gradually running out of water. If we dig a well ourselves, it will be convenient for watering the fields and cooking. We don't have to go up the mountain to look for water all day." Yang Dachuan saw that the water in the Daping River was about to dry up. If he had a well at home, he would not have to compete with the villagers for water to irrigate the fields, which would save him a lot of trouble.

"Can you find a well digger? It's not customary here?" Yu Ge'er asked. Most of the people here are bricklayers who build houses. You need a professional to dig a well. Otherwise, the well you dig will be unsafe, and you will be worried all day long.

"I went into the city to inquire about it before, and I think there will be good news in the next few days."

Anping County is not short of water. There are many springs in the mountains and sufficient water in the rivers, so there is no need to worry about water supply. Therefore, there are not many masons who can dig wells. Yang Dachuan asked people everywhere to find out, but he only found some information recently.

There is a shortage of water everywhere now, and the work of digging wells has become tight. This well-drilling team was specially invited from the neighboring county by a wealthy family in Anping County to dig wells for their family. After finishing the work for the wealthy family, the well-drilling team is also willing to take on work from other families. They can't just come here and do one job at a time.

It is always expensive to dig a well during a drought. It cost 12 taels of silver, twice the usual price, to dig a deep well in front of his old house. Yang Dachuan thought that the deep well should be used more often, as he did not want to be short of water when there was a slight drought in the future. Yang Dachuan asked the well digging team to convert the well into a pressurized well, which is safe and easy to use.

When the villagers saw that Yang Dachuan had invited a well-drilling team, they discussed it and decided to pool their money to dig the old well in the village several meters deeper and turn it into a deep water well!

As they expected that life would be tough in the future, several well-off families in the village also decided to dig wells. The village chief's family dug a well alone, the three Xu Lin brothers dug a well together, and Yang Dachuan paid some money to help Yang Dashan and Yang Dahe dig a well. Together with other families, there were seven or eight more wells in the village. When the neighboring villages heard that Pingshan Village had a well-drilling team, they all came to dig wells in their own villages.

The village’s water problem has been alleviated, but the crops in the fields are getting worse.