Chapter 2193

The city of Chengshui held a city-wide mobilization meeting for flood control and emergency rescue overnight. Su Xinghui rushed to the city overnight to attend the meeting. After it concluded, he did not take any rest in the city but instead rushed back to the county overnight to convene the Chongjin County flood control and emergency rescue meeting. He summoned the leaders and persons in charge from the county government and relevant units, analyzed the current flood situation, and deployed the main tasks for flood control and emergency rescue.

After the meeting, the participants did not stay in the county but headed directly to the various embankment sections on the front line of flood control to direct local efforts.

From the moment this flood peak arrived, the Changjiang River officially entered its main flood season, and Jiangyou Province also announced that it had entered a state of emergency for flood prevention.

After this flood peak arrived, Su Xinghui did not leave the embankment for several consecutive days, eating and sleeping in a tent. He remained at the forefront, taking the lead in carrying sandbags. The water level of this flood peak was too high, and sandbags had to be piled up to prevent the flood from overflowing the embankment; therefore, a large number of sandbags were needed.

It was also from this day that the Changjiang River announced a shipping blockade, which further intensified the tense atmosphere.

As the two provinces with the longest stretches along the middle reaches of the Changjiang, Hudong and Jiangyou naturally bore the greatest pressure. During this flood prevention period, Vice Premier Guo of the State Council traveled to Hudong and Jiangyou provinces for the third time to inspect the disaster situation and comfort the affected people. However, he did not go to Chongjin County this time because the flood control situation in Chongjin County was far from severe; naturally, he had to go to the places where the situation was most critical.

Chongjin County successfully weathered this wave of the flood peak. After the peak passed, the county launched a vigorous movement for production and self-rescue. First, taking advantage of the sun after the heavy rains stopped, farmers brought out the rice they had rushed to harvest in the previous days for threshing and drying.

This rice had been harvested in a rush and piled up at home. The accumulated water brought by the heavy rains over the past few days had caused some of the rice to soak. If it were not dried, it would likely mold and sprout, ruining everything. Fortunately, the heavy rain only lasted for a few days; if it had continued for a few more, there would have been no room for salvation.

After such drying, this rice could still be saved.

In addition, the farmers had already sown and raised seedlings for the late rice a few days ago, and now it was time for transplanting. If this batch of late rice was planted well, the farmers' harvest this year would still be quite good. After all, there was no need to pay agricultural taxes or levies this year. Calculating it, if things went smoothly, even with the disaster, the farmers' lives would still be easier than before.

Of course, those farmers whose houses had collapsed would suffer a bit. They would have to wait until the flood season ended to rebuild their homes; before that, they could not live in their own houses.

These days, the farmers were busy from dawn till dusk. They dried the rice on the threshing grounds and went to the fields to transplant seedlings, busy without stopping all day long. Yet, their faces were full of happy and hopeful smiles, completely different from the numb expressions they wore during their hard labor in the past.

Yes, their lives were now full of hope. Agricultural taxes and levies had been abolished. Although the early rice had suffered a serious disaster and reduced production, wasn't there still the late rice?

Coupled with the fact that there had been no major dangers despite such a large flood this year, this was enough to make them happy. One had to know that during the great flood of '54, many of them had the experience of leaving home to flee from famine.

Su Xinghui also went to various villages these days to inspect the situation of rice transplanting. He specifically organized a batch of chemical fertilizer from outside to distribute to the affected people as disaster relief supplies and had agricultural technicians go to each township to provide guidance on agricultural techniques to the farmers.

Farmers in Chongjin County rarely used chemical fertilizer in the past. In fact, in this era, the usage of chemical fertilizer in rural areas across China was not high, which was one of the reasons why the yield of grain crops was not high at present.

With low usage of chemical fertilizer, they were naturally unfamiliar with the techniques for using it. Therefore, it was very necessary to have agricultural technicians provide guidance to the farmers. When to apply fertilizer, how to spread it, and how much to apply per mu—these were all very important.

If too little fertilizer was used, the grain yield would naturally not increase much, but if too much was used, one might accidentally burn the seedlings to death.

The batch of chemical fertilizer organized by Su Xinghui was the most practical disaster relief material at the moment. As long as it was used properly, the yield of late rice this year would definitely increase significantly. It might even turn out that the total rice production this year would not be worse than in previous years.

On this day, Su Xinghui came to Gangdong Village. The land here was very fertile, and the terrain was not so low-lying; it had always been the main rice-producing area of Chongjin County. This year, the disaster situation of their rice compared to those lands reclaimed from the lake was the lightest, and the harvest was the best. Therefore, now that it was time for transplanting, Su Xinghui naturally had to come and see the situation here.

As soon as he arrived at Gangdong Village, Su Xinghui saw that the rice fields here were full of people. They were all bending over, transplanting rice seedlings into the fields.

Since the recent weather forecast indicated that there would be no heavy rain in the near future, Su Xinghui did not have the strong laborers who were fighting the flood on the embankment return this time, because there was no need to rush the time too much. Moreover, the work of transplanting seedlings did not require great strength; it only required meticulousness, patience, and proficiency, which the elderly and women in the village were capable of handling.

The fields were packed with elderly people and women, as well as children over ten years old. It was currently the summer vacation period, so they also came to the fields to help their families with farm work.