The worst time travel, surviving seven years of famine

The market was full of excitement.

The town of Lotus was bustling with activity. This market was several times bigger than the last time when Gu Liang sold Ganoderma lucidum. Even Gu Liang was attracted by the excitement.

"Come, come, freshly fried fried cakes, fragrant and crispy"

"Sir, big meat buns fresh out of the oven, come and have a look."

"Tanghulu~"

"Come and have a taste, sister Mei's favorite jujube paste yam cake, sister Mei's jujube paste yam cake, I guarantee you will never forget it after eating it."

"Take a look, take a look, don't miss it if you pass by, if you have money, you can support it, if you don't have money, you can support it yourself, there are monkeys riding sheep, pythons entangled, bears appearing... ...Sir, come and have a look"

…………

Sure enough, the market during the festival is lively, there are all kinds of things for sale, there are food that you can't see at other times, and there are also jugglers.

After the Gu family went to the market and walked around, they split into two groups, one for men and one for women.

Gu Liang also followed the old man Gu and his family all the way, mainly because he had no money in his pocket and couldn't buy anything, so he could only wander around with the adults. As Gu Laohan and his group walked, they left the market and went to the back of the town. Gu Liang asked and found out that Gu Laohan and his group were going to watch the Dragon Boat Festival competition here.

Gu Liang asked and found out that the activity that must be held here every year during the Dragon Boat Festival is actually "tug of war". In Gu Liang's cognition, the custom of the Dragon Boat Festival should not be rowing dragon boats, so how come it has become "tug of war" here.

As soon as he left the town, Gu Liang saw a vast lake. A large group of people gathered on the shore of the lake, and there were several vendors setting up stalls next to it.

Gu Liang didn't quite understand why the tug of war competition was held by the lake. Wouldn't it be better to hold it in the town?

When he really reached the shore, Gu Liang realized that this "tug of war" didn't seem to be the tug of war in his mind. In his eyes, tug of war is two teams pulling ropes to see who pulls the other team over and wins. But here, their tug of war is actually carried out on the water. The sterns of the two boats were tied together by a red rope, and there were five or six strong men on each boat, holding oars in their hands, ready to start rowing at any time.

Gu Liang was very surprised. After all, he had never seen this kind of tug-of-war before. It looked more interesting than tug-of-war on the ground, so Gu Liang asked: "Grandpa, why is this tug-of-war being carried out on a boat?"

At this time, the old man Gu also stared at the boats on the lake. Although he had seen tug-of-war since he was a child, it only happened once a year. As he got older, he liked to watch the excitement more. Hearing his grandson's question, Old Man Gu replied without turning his head: "Tug of war, tug of war, it's not called tug of war on the river. Tug of war was originally played on boats, and later on, some places had no rivers, so they played tug of war on the ground. I heard from the old people that the navy in ancient times was trained, and later it became tug of war."

Gu Liang suddenly realized and said with emotion: "Yes, no wonder why sports on flat ground are related to rivers, that's it."

Just thinking about it, a clear and loud gong sound pierced through the crowd, and the crowd suddenly quieted down. With the sound of three gongs, the sound of drums also sounded, and at this time, the men on the two boats on the lake immediately followed and rowed. Two boats that looked about the same size were rowing in two opposite directions.

The men on the boats were all young and vigorous, and it can be seen that they also farmed on weekdays. The faces tanned by the sun, and the thick, dark and powerful arms, were neatly swinging the oars, rowing forward quickly, and shouting "hey xiu hey xiu" while rowing.

If it was normal rowing, this small boat could be rowed far away by these strong young men, but unfortunately there was a rope tied to the stern, and the other end was also a dark-skinned man like them, and they were not inferior to each other at all.

The lake was rowing magnificently, and the people on the shore were naturally not idle. They were infected by the scene and the sound of gongs and drums, and they were all shouting to cheer for the rhythm.

Finally, after a few minutes, the people on one boat rowed slower and the shouts were not as loud as at the beginning, obviously they were gradually running out of physical strength. In the end, the boat was slowly towed away by another boat, and the game was over. The people on the shore burst into loud congratulations, and even a few villagers went directly into the water to swim to the winning side to celebrate.

Some people win and some lose. A group of people on the shore were obviously depressed after the game ended. They sat on the ground and sighed. What's more, several old people started crying because of this, and the people on the losing boat slapped themselves a few times after getting off the boat.

, and kept apologizing to the people around him.

Gu Liang was frightened by the scene. It was just an activity for the Dragon Boat Festival. It shouldn't be that serious. He cried and deleted his own posts.

Gu Liang was really curious. It was just a small competition. Isn't this activity for everyone to have fun? Gu Liang couldn't help but grab the corner of Gu Lao's clothes and asked: "Grandpa, why are these people crying after losing the game? Isn't it just because you didn't win? Wouldn't it be better if you win again next time?"

Gu Lao touched Gu Liang's head, sighed, and said in a somewhat sad tone: "Kid, you are still young, so naturally you don't understand these rules. You will understand them in the future."

"Oh! Dad, just tell Liangzi directly. How old is the kid? Some things have already been understood." Gu Changping, Gu Liang's father, said this. He felt that his father treated Gu Liang as a child. His son was already ten years old. He didn't understand anything. Maybe he would find a wife in two years. How could he still be young? How could he be afraid that he didn't understand. So Gu Changping turned to Gu Liang and asked, "Son, do you think they are just playing tug-of-war?"

Gu Liang nodded to show that he thought so.

Later, Gu Changping told him the origin of the tug-of-war rules, and Gu Liang knew why these people were so sad when they lost.

It turned out that the tug-of-war players here were generally in units of one village at a time, and they picked out the good young men in their respective villages to play tug-of-war. It was not simply to show the strength of the young men in their own villages, but to compete for water resources.

The rice needs a lot of water during its growth period, and in some years with little rainfall, it is necessary to divert water from the streams and rivers for irrigation, but there is less water and more fields, and if you use it, I will have less or even no water here. Some upstream villages will even build weirs in the streams and rivers to intercept the water flow so that there is no water for irrigation downstream.

Therefore, the downstream villages often cause trouble to the upstream people, but the issue of food livelihood cannot wait, and basically the villages will not give in, and conflicts often arise between the two villages. Some villages stopped interacting with each other after a fight, and resentment accumulated between them. In the end, the resentment accumulated more and more, leading to a fight between the two villages, and even death.

Later, a good official came to the county and felt that fighting was not a solution, so he decided to use tug-of-war to decide that the winning village would use more water this year, and the losing village would use less. Although this solution is only a temporary solution and cannot solve the problem of insufficient water resources, at least the fight between the two villages has become a civil fight, which is good.

After listening to it, Gu Liang thought that it was no wonder that the group of people were so sad after losing. It turned out that if there was a water shortage this year, the water in the river would be used by the other village first.

In this regard, Gu Liang could only silently hope that this year would be a good day and the rice fields would not be short of water.