Chapter 192 - 184: Disaster and Famine
It’s already July.
Five days without rain brings a minor drought, ten days brings a major one, and a month dries the earth to dust.
After the torrential rain, it has been one month without a drop.
The whole earth, a picture of desolation, with many former fields now lined with gullies.
Within the base, thanks to earlier water storage in Mountain Pond, the water level was raised to its maximum.
Now, a month of continuous drought is causing the water in Mountain Pond to gradually decrease daily.
At this point, the water in Mountain Pond has diminished by one-third.
Inside this base, everyone has already been conserving water, but the greatest consumption remains in the fields, which at this stage, is a necessary compromise.
Li Yu clearly understood the pros and cons of drip irrigation; on the plus side: theoretically speaking, drip irrigation indeed saves water and fertilizer while reducing labor and effort.
However, in practice, it has many issues. The first being that drip emitters are easily clogged, and the water used for drip irrigation must meet certain standards—minimum of which is to be clean and free of debris.
Growing field crops with two harvests a year and with complicated planting methods makes the constant assembling and disassembling of drip irrigation equipment a hassle.
Crops installed with drip irrigation cannot be mechanized for planting and harvesting; otherwise, it’s too much trouble to dismantle and reassemble, and dragging the equipment through the soil can easily clog the drip holes.
Just like with large field crops like corn, wheat, peanuts, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and beans, you need to plow, turn the soil, and relevel before reshaping the beds for planting; installing drip tubes is more laborious, not less.
In summary, whether a crop is suitable for drip irrigation depends on many aspects—it’s not something you can judge on paper, one must adapt to local conditions.
Considerations must include whether planting and harvesting are convenient, if external conditions are favorable, whether it is cost-effective, and so on.
In this post-apocalyptic world, the most important thing is to survive. The main staples needed are rice, corn, wheat, sweet potatoes, and potatoes.
Rice cannot use drip irrigation, as it needs to be grown in water; simple drip irrigation cannot meet the plants’ growth requirements.
Potatoes and corn also require plowing and leveling the soil, which makes installing drip irrigation a labor and time-intensive endeavor.
Moreover, droughts like this one do occur, though Li Yu’s region experiences a subtropical monsoon climate, with generally abundant precipitation throughout the year.
Therefore, Li Yu never planned to use drip irrigation from the start. The reason for building the base here was because of the presence of a large Mountain Pond, which could satisfy the water supply needs.
Now, all that was left was to wait for the drought season to pass and for the rainy season to arrive.
In the fields, under the glaring sun, water quickly evaporated; about every three to five days, water had to be released from Mountain Pond.
Fortunately, the entire Mountain Pond was no longer irrigating each family’s individual fields but was focusing on just a few acres within this base, so the consumption wasn’t as extreme.
The high temperatures continue, and droughts are occurring everywhere.
Due to water issues, scenes of Survivors relocating are constantly unfolding.
In the process of relocation, some died on the way due to sheer exhaustion; others died from heatstroke without effective aid; and still others were literally starved to death.
Inside the base, preparations were busily underway for a resilience competition.
In Li Yu’s plans, there were two paths for future development of the base: one is to continuously expand its sphere of influence. The advantage is having more people to get things done and more strength for self-preservation. The downside is that the core problem of food cannot be avoided—in this post-apocalyptic world, without sufficient food, more people only add to the burden.
The other path is to focus on elite troops, to arm every citizen, staying strong with limited personnel. The advantage here is fewer people to manage and less pressure on food supplies. The disadvantage is that the overall strength definitely cannot compete with larger groups.
Li Yu was currently taking the second path, improving the overall quality of personnel. At the same time, at the beginning, he had acquired a relatively large amount of firearm firepower.
But bullets would eventually run out, and in this apocalyptic world, frequent natural disasters could easily cause some groups to collapse.
Years after the apocalypse, torrential rain, drought, blizzards, and cold continued to destroy the world. They destroyed many industrial facilities.
And led humanity gradually into the era of cold weapons.
The civilization of humanity was gradually being destroyed.
In the face of the most critical aspect of survival, food is the fundamental element to reaching the end.
Maintaining a sufficient food supply is the only way to truly survive.
Reborn Li Yu was very clear about one thing.
This world had no supernatural abilities, nor a child of the era to lead humanity to rebuild civilization.
What existed was only endless despair, endless desolation.
Humanity could only struggle to survive in this apocalyptic environment.
Another evening came, and Li Yu went to the fields to observe the rice and corn planting situation.
Before he even got close, he saw Grandpa rolling up his trouser legs, going down to the field to block off the ridges, and repairing some small gaps at the edge of the nearby fields.
Hearing the footsteps, Grandpa straightened up, looked up to see Li Yu, and said, "Li Yu, why are you here?"
"Grandpa, it’s so hot, you should come out less and avoid heat stroke. I’m here to check on the crops," Li Yu replied.
Grandpa wiped the sweat from his forehead with a towel on his shoulder, his eyes filled with anxiety: "The water in Mountain Pond is getting less and less. We still don’t know when this drought season will end, sigh. Your Second Uncle said that the well we drilled before has a lot less water in it. This is not a good sign."
Hearing Grandpa’s worried words, Li Yu also felt anxious. According to his reborn memories, this drought lasted two months. Now, relying only on the water in Mountain Pond, it should last until the end of the drought.
"Grandpa, let me help you." Li Yu also rolled up his trouser legs, went down to the field, and repaired some of the small gaps along the edges. To prevent water from leaking out, because water was precious now, all of it needed to be used for planting crops, and allowing water to leak out through these gaps was undoubtedly a waste.
Just like today, many plants and flowers in the garden had already withered and died.
Except for those few big osmanthus trees that were occasionally watered, other plants and flowers could only be left to wither and die.
....
In this world, every time there was war or drought, a food crisis would inevitably lead to the migration of people.
Even in the apocalypse, this was no exception.
In a place far from the base, a large group was migrating to the Southern regions.
They didn’t know where to go, but staying put would only mean death.
The supplies in their original location had been completely looted, and many people had to move to other places.
Some groups also tried to plant crops, but they could not withstand the prolonged drought.
Eventually, the crops withered and died, and they fell into despair. While they still had some food left, they needed to prepare in advance.
In the end, they were forced to go elsewhere in search of food.