On June 25, the team entered Zhending Prefecture, and the center of this major earthquake was also the most serious place!

Looking around, the thatched huts, tiled houses, manors...even the walls of the mansion collapsed, leaving only one piece of broken bricks and tiles. It was really ruined by the countryside and devastated!

Looking at the wilderness, there are new piles of graves everywhere, one by one, and there is no limit to the sight. Some graves are particularly large, and they are either buried in the same clan or family.

There is no way, there are too many people who die, and they cannot be buried one by one with coffins. It would be great if you can bury the corpse with loess!

Some corpses were pressed deep in the ruins and could not be buried. In addition, the weather was hot and it soon rotted. The stinking smell made people almost unable to breathe. There were also countless maggots crawling around in the ruins, which was disgusting!

According to regulations, when the immigration team passes through the city along the way, they can receive some food rations. However, Zhang Xiaoqi and others walked around the ruins for several times, but they did not find the yamen at the entrance, and they didn't even see a single figure!

There is no way, the disaster is too serious, all the remaining people in Zhending Mansion fled, or joined the immigration team and went to Shaanxi thousands of miles away!

Or they fled into the adjacent Hejian, Guangping, Daming and other places, and some even fled to Shandong or Henan!

The people in the hardest-hit areas fleeing to the less-hit areas, which is ridiculous and even more sad!

There is no food to replenish, so the team can only reduce the food rations. The adults change to half a pound a day, while the elderly and children only have four taels a day. Because of the serious shortage of food, people are so hungry that they are weak and their travel speed is greatly reduced.

I used to travel more than 40 miles a day, but now it is good to walk twenty miles now. Many of them showed signs of edema due to malnutrition. The arms and legs were thick and swollen. When I pressed a deep pit, people's hearts became impetuous. Theft and robbery of food often happened!

"Boss, the food we brought is almost eaten up. The brothers are so hungry that they walk swaying, especially the young ones, their arms and calves are swollen. If this continues, people will die!"

"Mush, monkey, cook all the remaining grain into porridge and give it to the younger friends to drink. Let them put a cube first. Baihua Snake, Dahei summoned other friends to get some food with me!"

"Ah, there is not even a figure around, so go get food?"

"Don't worry, I said that if you have food, you must have food. Maybe there is meat to eat!"

In the afternoon, the team could not walk anymore and had to rest next to an abandoned village. People dig around, hoping to find some food. They dare not expect serious food. They could dig up a dead dog that was not rotten or a dead cat, Amitabha!

Xue Yu also wandered around, found a trick from the ruins, and a few iron shovels, and then led a dozen older children to the wilderness outside the village, and carefully looked for it.

There are large fields outside the village. Due to the drought, the crops have dried up before they grow up. The poles and leaves have been eaten by cattle and sheep, leaving only the yellow-brown land, with large cracks all over the top and no moisture inside!

Besides, there are some big pits in the fields, and I don’t know who has dug them.

Chinese people have a tradition of returning pellets to warehouses. After each harvest, they must carefully pick up the leftover ears several times, and rarely lose food!

Even if there are occasional leaks, they have been picked up by the hungry people in front of them or eaten by birds and animals in the wild. Even if they have their eyes wide open, they may not see a grain of food.

But Xue Yu was not too slow and was looking for it seriously in the field. The other children were not sure, so they could only follow closely and have food to eat with the boss. This is their never-changing creed!

"Haha, found it!"

At the edge of a field, Xue Yu suddenly squatted down and showed joy on his face, but there was no food in front of him, only a large pile of loess, with very uniform particles. There were a black hole the size of a teacup in the middle, and there were slight traces around it, like a small animal left behind!

It turned out that Xue Yu came to the wilderness not to look for the remaining food, but to look for the nest of field rats!

Animals like voles like to dig holes in the fields to make it easier to eat food and have the habit of storing grain. As long as you find a voles nest, you can dig out a lot of food!

The big pits before were left behind by the hungry people digging rat holes, but there were many underground rat holes and their locations were quite hidden. It was impossible for the hungry people to dig them all, so there must be some left behind.

Xue Yu's grandmother's home is in the countryside. When she was a child, she played with the older children in the village and often went to the wild to dig a mud nest. However, in that era, people had already had no worries about food and clothing. The purpose of the children digging a mud nest was not to find food, but to be too energetic and had nothing to do, just have fun!

Unexpectedly, the ability to dig a field mouse nest was used again today, so it is considered that it is more skillful than you can suppress yourself!

As for the other victims, they only thought about finding treasures in the village, but ignored the ground outside and buried the real "treasure!"

"Boss, what should I do?"

"Look for some dead grass and go nearby to see if there are any similar mounds!"

"yes!"

Voles are very cunning. Their nests usually have two or three holes. One of them is more obvious and is used for entering and exiting normally, while the other holes are very hidden and are used for escape when there is danger.

If you start digging now, the voles inside will escape from other holes, so you can only get an empty nest. What Xue Yu wants is to eat the nest, food, and the voles too. This way, you will have meat to eat after a while!

The hay was quickly found. After igniting it with a scythe, he began to blow smoke into the hole. At the same time, he paid attention to the surrounding situation and soon found two rays of blue smoke coming out not far away...

A stream of blue smoke is under a dead tree, and it is very hidden!

Another stream of blue smoke rose among a pile of rocks!

And these two places are the escape routes of voles!

"Da Hei, take someone to block the two holes. Don't let the field mouse run out. The Baihua Snake dig the hole with me!"

"Yes, boss!"

The soil is soft in summer and it is not difficult to dig. The children used picks and shovels in their hands. They quickly dug more than two feet deep. They found that the vertical hole had become horizontal. They dug about two feet horizontally. Suddenly, a fork appeared, and one hole turned into two holes!

Blocked one of the holes, Xue Yu directed the children to concentrate their efforts to dig another hole. As a result, they found that the holes were over, and there were a lot of black rat feces inside, some of which were wet. It turned out that this was the bathroom of the field mouse!

Voles are a smart animal. Although its cave entrance is not big, it has many independent spaces, including bathrooms, warehouses, and dormitories. It is simply a miniature world!

Since there is moist rat feces, it means there are living mice in this hole, and there must be food in the places where there are living mice!

Xue Yu and others continued to dig another hole, and entered the ground more than three feet deep. They found that the mouse hole gradually became wider and drier. As they shoveled deep, the golden millet was turned out and finally found the warehouse of the field mouse.

"Oh, the food is dug out, it's all good food!"

"Long live the boss, long live the boss!"

"Haha, stop screaming, collect the food quickly!"

"Yes, boss!"

The food was really dug out from the field mouse cave. The children jumped and jumped happily, and shouted such taboo words as Long Live. Fortunately, there were no other people around, otherwise they would be afraid of causing trouble!

Xue Yu smiled and shook his head, constantly digging out the soil in the hole, while the children gathered around and picked out the food in it. They picked it very carefully and refused to let go of a single one!

The voles have a very clenchy mouth. The food they store is all golden in color and full of grains. They are also well preserved and have no mold at all!

However, since the beginning of spring, the grass and trees in the fields have withered, and it is difficult for the field mice to find food, so they can only eat their old capital. Therefore, there is not much grain stored in this warehouse, but it is all empty husks.

Fortunately, the field mouse is hardworking and cunning, so there must be more than one warehouse. Xue Yu continued to dig deeper and soon found another warehouse, where more grain storage was found!

Logically speaking, it is not easy for a field mouse to get some food. It has to be picked up one by one. It has been repeated tens of thousands of times, but now it has been snatched up, and it is a bit disappointing. However, in the year of a disaster, life is at stake, so people cannot tolerate mercy!

After digging two warehouses in a row, Xue Yu did not stop and continued to dig deeper. Dried leaves and dried thatch soon appeared, which meant that he had dug up near the dormitory of the field mouse!

"Swoosh!Swoosh!"

"It's out, the voles are running out, hurry up and catch it!"

Sure enough, a little yellow-brown guy came out of the cave, and his four short legs were rushing hard, trying to run out with all his life!

How could Xue Yu let it run away? He slapped it hard and immediately slapped it to death at the edge of the pit. It was a big field mouse, at least four or five taels, with a shiny fur all over his body and a bulging belly. I don’t know how much food I ate to raise this body of fat!

In the year of the disaster, the people were so hungry that they were even forced to sell their children. This kind of food thief is fat and fat. He hides in his nest every day and sleeps. While people hate and get angry, they can't help but think of another thing - corrupt officials!

Compared with the big rats, corrupt officials are undoubtedly more hateful. The former only steals some food from the people. In the year of disaster, the latter not only does not help the people, but deducts the relief grain from the court. They also collude with local tyrants and evil gentry to take the opportunity to annex the land, lend usury, buy and sell people, and do everything they do!

"I am a weak person now, so I can only dig out field rats. If one day I have the power of the world, I must take out all these "massive rats" and cut them all, and kill them with the blade!"

Xue Yu is now incapable of dealing with corrupt officials, so he can only vent his anger on the field mice, so he continued to dig. The field mice are weak animals, with at least three or four, and at most seven or eight in a cave. They must be kept in one nest!

"It's out, everyone ran out!"

"Chasing, don't let anyone go, there will be meat tonight!"

Under Xue Yu's relentless pursuit, the voles had nowhere to hide. Seven or eight rushed out together, squeaking and running away!

But the children had already prepared the shovel, stick and soles of the shoes together, but none of them ran away, and they all became trophys!

Next, Xue Yu led the children to dig two more field mouse nests, got a lot of food and field mouse, and even dug out a grass snake, which was more than four feet long and was as thick as a small wine pot!

The grass snake crawled into the rat's hole and was about to find food, but it was not expected to be taken away by a nest. However, through this incident, I realized that "a nest of snakes and rats" is not a false saying!
Chapter completed!