CHAPTER 795: FAMINE ERA 1 (1 UPDATE)_2

However, as for helping under the greater circumstances, she knew she was powerless. Could she have stopped the Famine of 1942, or the locust plague before it?

She had awakened right after the Spring Festival of 1940. Although there was still a year or two before the disaster, due to continuous war efforts, Henan constantly had to provide military provisions. Even without the famine, the local commoners lived a very grim life. The situation just hadn’t deteriorated to the desperate eating of bark and earth yet.

Generation after generation, Ye Huan’s family had been farmers, with no particularly capable ancestors to speak of. Eight brothers were sent off to the military one by one, but when the news of the eldest and second brother’s sacrifice reached home last year, Uncle and Aunt aged a great deal overnight.

Every year, bad news would arrive in the village because every household sent sons to the army. In times of war, common people offered food, and then their sons—because that was the only thing they thought they could do.

The common folk during the war era were so simple it could break your heart.

At the time of Ye Huan’s reincarnation, she had just recovered from a serious chill. Being newly recovered from a big sickness, everyone at home doted on her, not letting her do any work, and even fed her red date Millet Porridge for two days. This level of care was considered top-tier in that era.

It was precisely because of such caring family members that she was greatly troubled over how to ensure the remaining relatives could safely weather the year 1943.

Ye Huan lived west of Luoyang, not yet occupied by the R army. The dike at Huayuan Port broke the previous year, causing severe disaster in Henan—one of the causes of the 1942 famine. Of course, she had no time to consider the political reasons, only knowing for sure that her hometown was safe. When R army occupied the area, it coincidentally surrendered. As things stood, staying in her hometown during the famine was an option.

Furthermore, there was the option of leaving Henan beforehand.

Though this era was not as strict about household registration as later times would be, one couldn’t simply go wherever they wished. It required going through proper reporting channels. Moreover, enemy-occupied areas were everywhere. If one wasn’t careful, they could be bombed to pieces. Leaving local areas for other lands was a viable path, but only if she had a clear understanding of the current war situation.

For the moment, the commoners used National Currency. Not to mention that her family was in no position for everyone to leave, even if they were, she would have to invent one lie after another as a reason. And adults are not children; how could they possibly be deceived so easily?

Therefore, she only had two choices: one, regardless of what happened in the future, to stay put and not flee; or two, to flee and try to make a living on the road. After all, she had a space, at least that could maintain her family’s lives.

Ye Huan’s area was on the plains, without mountains or even hills. At a glance, it was flat as far as the eye could see, entirely covered by ground.

Their village was also rather small, a typical Northern rural village. Including everyone together, there were merely two or three hundred people. At its most populous, there had been over five hundred, but with years of military conscription, only the elderly, women, and children remained.

In their region, they primarily planted corn and wheat, a season of corn and a season of wheat each year. The land had been bought by their ancestors and belonged to their own family. Those without their own land had to work for the landlord. However, certain J Committee members, in order to collect military provisions, had no regard for the commoners’ lives. Regardless of whether the land was their own or belonged to the landlord, most of it had to be turned over. Even during the years of famine, it was not spared, which was one of the reasons why three million people died.

Ye Huan was already ten years old. During the day when the family members went out to work the fields, she looked after her younger siblings at home and also cooked for the family.

Since it was just after the New Year, the ground was frozen hard and there wasn’t much work in the fields. The women would sit together to weave shoe soles, make textiles, and spin yarn. These would be exchanged for various items in the town—utensils or everyday necessities such as oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar.

Since awakening, Ye Huan had started planting in the space. The System had initially gifted her three radish seeds. Time in the space was in a ratio of one to two; the radishes ripened in eight hours. In the space of forty-eight hours, she could plant six times if she timed it correctly.

Of course, initially, due to the low level, only low-level seeds could be planted. To plant higher-level seeds, she would have to sell the fruits she had harvested, earn Gold Coins, and then purchase them in the store.

Life for the Ye Family was average, not enough to make you full, but enough to keep you from starving.

Every morning started with sweet potato porridge, so thin one could see the bottom of the pot splattered with a few pieces of sweet potato. Sweet potato could stave off hunger, but eating too much caused acidity, eating too little left one hungry. Each child got a piece of sweet potato and a bowl of soup, while the adults, having work to do, men received three pieces, and women two.

At noon, they would steam some sweet potatoes, and in the evening, just like in the morning, they had watery soup with sweet potato. In winter, there were no fresh vegetables, only preserved ones. A bit of pickled vegetable was enough to add some flavor.

Corn and wheat had to be turned over, so what the commoners could eat were the potatoes, sweet potatoes, sorghum, and millets that they grew themselves. Thus, everyone relied on sweet potatoes to get through the whole winter, eating them three times a day in various forms—boiled, steamed. Don’t eat them? Fed up with them? Well, then wait to starve.

In the village, only those households where a wife needed milk to feed children could afford to keep chickens. There were hardly any who could afford pigs.

Because they themselves didn’t have enough to eat, what could they use to feed pigs? Raising pigs with great effort often ended up benefitting someone else; hence, everyone thought it a most thankless task. They’d rather weave shoe soles at home than engage in such a loss-making business.

——Note: The background of this short story, including details related to the era, is purely fictional.