Late Ming Dynasty: The Counterattack Begins with Sea Pirates

"Shen Er, take some men and bring me the knives and all the linen we unloaded from the ship."

"Sir, what are you doing?"

"Go first!"

"Yes, sir, I'll go right away!"

Chi Honghai led Shen Er and twenty or thirty people behind him, carrying about ten boxes of hemp cloth, and hurried up the mountain.

To be honest, the stone steps built in front are really useful. Although the ground is colder underfoot, it's not as slippery as a dirt road.

I had to be very careful even walking on the muddy path on flat ground. If I were to climb the muddy steps up the mountain like before, I would fall and get seriously injured if I wasn't careful.

"Sir? What are we doing carrying these boxes of linen up the mountain?"

"What are we doing? Of course, we're saving the crops in this field. In this cold weather, they'll all die if this goes on for too long. What will we eat next year?"

Shen Er slapped his forehead. "Master is right, but what's the use of carrying so much burlap?"

Upon reaching the field, Chi Honghai instructed someone to open the box containing burlap and take out the burlap that had not yet been cut.

The uncut linen is usually tightly wrapped when it is taken out, which makes it easier for Chi Honghai to handle.

He had one person stand at one end of the field, while the other pulled the burlap sack to the opposite end. Once the two were in position, he straightened it with his hands and then cut the burlap sack with a knife. The cut burlap sack was then laid flat in the vegetable garden. Chi Honghai had people gather some sticks from the surrounding area and stick them into the four corners of the burlap sack, and a simple greenhouse was set up.

The prototype of the greenhouse appeared as early as the Western Han Dynasty. The Book of Han, Biography of Zhao Xinchen, records a case of greenhouse cultivation built in the valley of Mount Li during the Western Han Dynasty.

However, these kinds of things were generally used by royalty and nobility in the early days, and ordinary people rarely saw them.

Farmers who can use this technology are usually from the north. It's not very practical in the mild and humid Guangzhou, which naturally arouses the curiosity of the locals.

"Sir, if you cover the vegetable garden with burlap, won't the vegetables suffocate?" the person behind him asked.

"Although this linen is woven tightly, the small holes in the middle are breathable, so it won't suffocate. This way, it can keep the vegetable garden warm. Otherwise, everything in the garden would freeze to death, and everyone's life would be difficult next year." Chi Honghai said, seeing the black smoke rising from the chimneys down the mountain.

"Go and have the brothers down the mountain collect all the burnt charcoal ash and bring it up. Sprinkle some of that charcoal ash on the ground."

"Yes, sir! I'll go and fetch the men right away!"

Chi Honghai stood on the edge of the field, watching as everyone laid pieces of burlap neatly on the vegetable plots. The charcoal ash they brought was then shoveled into the gaps between the burlap and the vegetable plots, and then gently shaken to spread the charcoal ash evenly on the ground.

"Master, there are so many fields on and around this mountain, we don't think we have enough linen," Shen Er said.

Chi Honghai sighed and exhaled a puff of white smoke: "Let's cover everything that can be laid on the mountain first. As for the area below the mountain, we'll have to see if there's any other way. If all else fails, we'll just cover it with dry grass."

Chi Honghai continued to inspect the fields, occasionally bending down to check whether the burlap was laid out smoothly.

The biting wind turned everyone's faces red. He wanted to reach out and touch his icy earlobes, but the moment he touched them, a sharp pain shot through him. He had no choice but to put his hands together in front of his mouth, breathe on them to warm them, and then gently rub his earlobes to warm them up.

A few days later, apart from those on guard duty and a few people who needed to work, everyone on the island huddled together in shacks to keep warm.

The only thing that brought them joy was that, because many sheds had been built before, although there were many people living there, it wasn't too crowded. Everyone used the limited space to do manual labor, trying to make this winter warmer.

In addition, the original houses are being renovated according to the actual situation, and some people have moved back to their original houses, making the space in the shacks gradually more spacious.

However, this also increases the consumption of timber.

Therefore, most able-bodied young men would go to the back mountain every day to collect or chop firewood to start a fire for warmth.

When it comes to starting a fire with wood, villagers will use something to pick out the nearly burnt charcoal and put it in water to extinguish it completely. Finally, they can place it next to the stove to dry it using the heat there. The dried charcoal can be reused, and the effect is even much better than burning firewood directly.

In addition, Chi Honghai also specially sent a blacksmith with a group of people into the mountains to look for any coal seams that could be mined. If they could find any, burning coal would be much easier than burning wood.

Since everyone on Hong Kong Island was initially fleeing for their lives, they were not well prepared for these extreme situations and had to start all over again.

However, even the people of Guangzhou Prefecture struggled to make ends meet in the face of such extreme circumstances, let alone the people of Xin'an County who were suffering from chronic illnesses.

After returning all of Chi Honghai's belongings to their rightful owner, the magistrate of Xin'an County lost a lot of weight.

But if you lose weight, you have to find a way to eat it back up. As the saying goes, you are what you eat. If you lose weight, you have to eat it. But whose weight should you eat?

That would naturally be the flesh of the people of Xin'an County.

Throughout history, there has always been a famous saying in official circles: "Let the common people suffer even more."

The suffering of the common people is not my suffering; if the common people don't suffer, then I will suffer. After weighing the options, I'll just let the common people suffer a little more.

Under this mindset, even in this rare winter, the magistrate of Xin'an County still invents various pretexts to increase taxes on the entire county.

Not only that, all the merchants, big and small, in and around the city and its suburbs, who are doing business, have to pay some emergency money to cope with the cold winter. If they don't have that much money, that's fine too, but they still need to have goods to do business, right?

The county magistrate wasn't picky; he'd buy anything that could fetch a decent price, just like buying new goods.

If these things were actually distributed to the poor, that would be understandable. But the problem is that not only did none of these things reach the people, but most of them were actually taken from them.

Anyone who does business, even if it's just selling two vegetables, is considered a businessman, and business people have to pay money!

What if there's really nothing to sell?

Farmers have their own methods. This kind of land belongs to the imperial court. This winter, the imperial court's land was damaged by frost. It's because you didn't protect it well. If you didn't protect it well, you'll have to pay a fine.

If you don't pay, you'll get a beating.

In the dead of winter, let alone being spanked, even a slap in the face would hurt so much that you'd have to hold it in for ages. Being spanked could actually kill you.

After a series of actions, those in the city with a little savings were alright.

The villagers outside the city were all wiped out by this disaster. They had managed to gather some food to survive the winter after the typhoon, but now it was all gone. Not to mention the food, with only thin clothes and leaky thatched houses, they would either starve or freeze to death in a couple of days.

The magistrate wasn't worried. The south had just been hit by a typhoon and was experiencing a winter that was unusually cold for many years. Natural disasters are the cause of all this! I have already done my best!

If people can't survive here, they'll find their own way to make a living. The news that the county magistrate went south has been widely circulated around Xin'an County, but people only dare to talk about it behind his back and don't dare to speak ill of the official openly.

This incident made many people realize that there might still be a chance to survive in the south, so they dragged their families and desperately fled south.