Chapter 43: Inside and Outside the Wall

Originally Yang DaChuan thought that after the loss of food in the past one or two years, people who wanted to go to the city would have to exchange food with villagers to make up for the loss. Unexpectedly, those households had enough food. Wow! It seemed that everyone in the village had a lot of surplus food, and everyone hid it very tightly. Only he, like a fool, was exposed to others.

"Dachuan, let's build our own fences for the dozen or so households living at the entrance of the village!" Aunt Lu's son Lu Fangben also wanted to move to the village, but he couldn't find a good place, so he went to Yang Dachuan and suggested, "Let's go around the entrance of the village and fence off the old courtyard together."

"Although it's a bit big, we can still grow some food in the empty space, so we don't have to live in a crowded and uncomfortable place like everyone else in the village. But we don't have many people, so we have to be more vigilant and take better care of it in the future!"

Yang Dachuan was very opposed to moving into the village and living with the eldest and third brothers. This proposal was exactly what he wanted. "Are other families willing?" If everyone else agreed, that would be great.

"Hey, let's go and talk about it together!" After Aunt Lu came to get goat milk last time, Lu Fang and Yang Dachuan started to interact more frequently. Yang Dachuan had a good impression of him, thinking he was a down-to-earth person.

"I was thinking that if everyone agrees, we can start construction right away. We don't need to buy brick walls. We can use the excavated soil to make bricks. It would be best if we could build the wall higher and thicker!" You can't tell that Lu Fang has quite a few ideas. After everyone thought about it, they all thought it could work.

The few households at the entrance of the village originally wanted to squeeze into the village, but after hearing Lu Fang’s proposal, they decided to stay. It doesn’t matter if it’s hard. They are all men who make a living in the fields, and they will do hard work for a long time!

There is not much farm work to do in the fields now, and since it is a matter of life and death, every household can spare some manpower to build the wall. Besides, there are only a dozen or so courtyards at the entrance of the village, so there is no need to worry about it all day long. It is more united than building a wall in the village, and it saves trouble.

When they dug a large section of the wall foundation at the entrance of the village, the village had not yet coordinated. There are many people in the village, and there are always people who want to build the wall farther away from their homes, so that not only the yard is larger, but also the surplus land outside can be used to grow some food. Nowadays, the village is noisy, and when it comes to their own interests, the words of the village chief and several elders are not very effective!

In addition to Yuger who is at home taking care of the children, Grandma Shen has also come out to take charge of the big kitchen. Each household not only needs to provide labor, but also export grain. The elderly aunts and sisters in the village cook big pot meals, and they eat together after work every day.

Meat, chicken and duck, which were usually not eaten by each household, had to be served on the table. They were all doing hard work, and if they didn’t eat some meat, they would not be able to bear it! Working together and eating together, the dozen or so households that had not interacted much in the past quickly became familiar with each other because they lived far away from each other.

They had few people outside, so in order to ensure future safety, they worked hard to dig the foundation of the wall, which was about one and a half meters deep and one meter wide, like a trench. With few people, they were down-to-earth and did not fool around. Finally, before the busy farming season, they dug the foundation of the wall that surrounded more than ten households.

The villagers were all friendly and although they started late and needed to build a longer wall, the villagers had completed the foundation digging before them because everyone was afraid of delaying the farming season for the year.

The news of the plague and the closure of the city was known to more than just Pingshan Village. Several surrounding villages had also heard about the plague. Some people fled to the city, but more people were willing to stay in the village. Pingshan Village was not the only one who came up with the idea of building a wall. Some people with quick minds reopened the village's brick and tile factory and quarry, but now they collected food instead of money!

Pingshan Village originally wanted to make bricks to build the wall, but there was no brick kiln in the village, and making bricks requires a lot of craftsmanship. I heard that a brick factory had opened in Shanglin Village, and that they could exchange the excavated soil for food, so the villagers decided to use the bricks from Shanglin Village. There was no other way, as everyone was worried that if the bricks they used to build the wall were not strong, then the wall would be useless.

While their village was working vigorously to build the wall, the gates of Anping County had been quietly closed, and the people of Nanhai City also brought their families to Guining City or fled to the north.

Without modern machines, relying solely on manpower to build a defensive wall would be too inefficient. Although Pingshan Village is surrounded by mountains, it is not isolated from the outside world, and people have come to their small mountain village from time to time.

Like all the refugees, these people were carrying things on their shoulders and in their hands, and they brought their families with them. Perhaps because Southern Guangxi and Guangdong are neighboring provinces and cities, not too far apart, these refugee elderly and children were still able to keep up.

Pingshan Village built a wall to prevent those people from Nanhai City from coming. Even though they repeatedly said that they were not sick and just wanted to find a place to live, the villagers were unwilling to believe them and were unwilling to take the risk of taking them in. Now the wall has not been built yet, so the strong men in the village can only take turns patrolling and driving them out immediately if they find any refugees entering the village.

Fortunately, there were relatively few refugees coming to their Pingshan Village. Most of them were families who could not move without their children, so it was relatively easy for the village to drive them out.

However, seeing them staggering, with tattered clothes and exhausted faces, especially those with elderly and children, even if they felt sorry for them, they could only ask them to leave in a gentle manner for the sake of their own families.

Qiuli Town has a large population and a large area, so it is not realistic to build a wall. Therefore, most of the families in the town have moved to Anping County. Although they may come back in the future, there are many empty houses in the town now. People from Nanhai City temporarily settle in Qiuli Town.

These people were probably farmers, and they brought their families with them, so they did not cause any trouble. The first thing they did when they arrived here was to reclaim all the arable land around Qiuli Town and plant the crops that would sustain their lives. However, there was not much land that could be reclaimed around Qiuli Town, so the work was finished after a short while.

It was the busy farming season and the time for harvesting crops. After settling down, these people went down to the village to look for work. Although Qiuli Town was a place to stay, it was not well defended. It was okay for singles, but those with families always wanted to live in the village. Now was the time when each village was building walls, so if they went over to help, they might be able to move in.

The villagers are busy now, building walls and harvesting their own grain. This is the first good harvest in two years, and the farmers in the village are anxious to store the grain in their own granaries.

The villagers had mixed feelings about these outsiders who came to look for work. If it weren't for them, they wouldn't have to work so hard to build the wall. But the villagers were not bad people and felt a little sympathy for these refugees who had left their homes. But it was absolutely impossible to let them come into the village to help. If one was allowed in, there would be countless more.

However, seeing that more and more people came from outside, they had to collect food from their families and build the wall. The people who had fled from Nanhai City could not enter the village, so some of them were smart and organized a group of people to start the business of transporting bricks and stones to various villages. If there were other things that needed to be bought or sold, they were also willing to help carry them, but there was only one thing: they only accepted food, not money.

In this way, the time wasted on transporting bricks and stones for the walls in each village was greatly reduced.