Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 108 The Plague of Locusts

The candle shadows flickered in the study, Xiao Yufang sat upright, holding an ancient book and reading it engrossed.Yang Menglong was also holding a copy of "The Anthology of Yuefu Poems", looking at it seemingly solemnly, but the five fingers of his left hand were dancing quickly on the table, and quickly crawled towards the white as suet and as moist as jade that Xiao Yufang placed on the table. His hand covered the back of her hand, stroking gently, it felt like touching a fine jadeite.Xiao Yufang's cheeks were flushed, she quickly pulled out her hand, and slapped again, covering the mischievous claw with a hot pot.

Holding the beaten paw, Yang Menglong grinned and grinned strangely, writing the three words "I'm in pain" all over his face.Xiao Yufang smiled, closed the scroll, rolled his eyes at him, and said, "Don't pretend, there are only two of us here, who are you pretending to be pitiful for?"

Yang Menglong said aggrievedly: "I just want to hold your hand, why do you want to hit me..."

Xiao Yufang said: "Who told you to make trouble while I was reading!" She suddenly thought of what happened today, frowned and asked, "Is it really all right if you fried the locusts and ate them?"

Yang Menglong said: "Of course it's fine, if something will happen if you eat it, do you think I will eat it?"

A trace of worry flashed between Xiao Yufang's eyebrows: "But I heard people say that the locusts are sent by the heavens to punish the world. If they hurt the locusts, they will anger the heavens and bring about disaster..."

Yang Menglong said carelessly: "Damn it, I will kill the locusts first before I am destroyed! Not only do I want to eat the larvae of the locusts, but I also want to catch the adult locusts, cook them, dry them, and grind them." Feed it into powder and feed it to chickens, I'll see what it can do to me!"

This attitude made Xiao Yufang very dissatisfied, and she yelled: "Stop acting so indifferent, okay? This is not a trivial matter. I am so scared. You are still like this, you are so heartless!"

Yang Menglong smiled and said, "Well, it will be fine! Let me tell you, locusts are just a very common pest. Bugs eat crops, and chickens and ducks eat bugs. We eat everything. This is just a food chain. It has nothing to do with God! Don’t worry about it, I will get rid of those annoying bedbugs, you, just stay in the thousand-household house to teach the children, and take care of Xiaojun and An Ning That's fine! Of course, it would be even better if you could give me a white and fat doll!"

Xiao Yufang's face turned red up to her ears, she threw down the book in shame and annoyance, and scolded: "You...you are so open-mouthed!" and ran out as if fleeing.Yang Menglong laughed heartily, blew out the candles and went back to bed.Xiao Yufang is good at everything, but she doesn't want to be teased. A little ambiguous words can make her dare not step out of the room for a whole day. Her fighting power is scumbag compared to women in the 21st century. However, he likes !
The next day, more locusts emerged from the ground.But at this time, the military households completely lost the panic and helplessness of yesterday, and were a little happy instead.The old man drove the chickens and ducks, sweeping away the locusts in the military fields, while the young and women with flexible hands and feet bent over the fields to search for them. When they saw fat locusts, they grabbed them and put them into the baskets. Ready to take home to fry and eat.Yesterday's locust meal made everyone addicted to it. This is free meat. Catch more. It would be a pity if the chickens and ducks were eaten up.

Breakfast naturally included a dish of fragrant fried locusts, which everyone enjoyed very much.However, the fried locusts are so fragrant that military households don’t have that much oil to squander. They can only eat them a few times, so they have to say goodbye to this delicacy in advance.Fortunately, there is more than one way to eat locusts. Fried ones are not enough, but roasted ones can also be used. A living person can still be choked to death by urinating!
The gentry and common people in Wuyang County were frightened. These soldiers are crazy. It’s okay to let the chickens and ducks eat locusts without fear of God’s punishment, but they still eat locusts as food. What audacity!For a time, Wuquan Town became very lively, and people from all over the neighboring villages came to watch the excitement.The military households of the Wuyang Thousand Households Office were really appreciative. They snatched locusts from chickens and ducks in front of the common people in the county. Once the branches are pierced and grilled, it is eaten raw and cold.Everyone's scalp was numb after seeing this, and they all said that these poor soldiers were crazy and would definitely be punished by God.

It may be that this group of soldiers is so brave, and God has nothing to do with them. A few days later, they have eaten a lot of locusts, but there is no disaster or disease. On the contrary, they are getting more and more vigorous.Also, the nutritional value of locusts is higher than that of beef, and eating too much is naturally good for the body.Even those chickens and ducks are as vigorous as before, not only safe and healthy, but also very good at laying eggs. Every day, military households can pick up hundreds of catties of eggs in chicken pens and duck houses. Just drool!On the contrary, Mr. Tian, ​​who piously asked Taoist priests to drive away the locusts, was in bad luck. Clusters of locusts lined up every straw, and gnawed the poorly growing crops to pieces, mercilessly. Devouring the last trace of vitality in the field, the contrast is so strong that it is shocking.More and more common people have come to their senses, praying to God is useless, facing the plague of locusts, only they can save them!They threw themselves into the campaign of killing locusts without hesitation, and chickens and ducks suddenly became very popular because they could eat locusts!Every household's chickens and ducks were driven to the fields, and they ate locusts under the coercion and temptation of their masters.However, no matter how edible chickens and ducks are, no one can eat them. Not everyone has the foresight to keep a large group of chickens and ducks waiting for the locusts to come out. There are not so many chickens and ducks, and people will become the main force to kill locusts. Men, women and children will go to battle together , Desperately catching locusts, I can catch a big basket every day, and then take them home and eat them as vegetables in different ways.If you can't afford the deep-fried ones, you can fry them, burn them, and eat them in different ways.Even the stubborn landlords have become enlightened, and they will no longer do the stupid thing of treating locusts as grandpas. In order to encourage the tenant farmers to catch more locusts, they have spent a lot of money: the captured locusts will be used for firewood and oil, and fried for the tenant farmers to eat!Everyone also found that locusts have no sense of territoriality. They have caught almost all the locusts in their own fields, but another batch came from other people's fields, and they did it for nothing. There is no way. Landlords and gentry had no choice but to bleed again to get everyone to act to catch locusts, and every ten catties of locusts was exchanged for one catty of grain.Now everyone's enthusiasm was fully mobilized, and Wuyang County set off a vigorous frenzy of catching locusts.

Other places are not as lucky as Wuyang County. Facing the plague of locusts, their first reaction was to invite Taoist priests to open an altar to perform rituals. During their worship and begging, the army of locusts snowballed. Fangcheng County, Sheqi County, Bi Yang County, Tongbai County... There are overwhelming locust swarms everywhere, and there are crops that have been eaten to pieces everywhere.In fact, the Ming Dynasty has always had a complete and effective mechanism for dealing with locust plagues, such as cutting off aquatic plants to reduce the living space of locusts, prohibiting the hunting of wild birds such as wild ducks that like to eat locusts, and encouraging localities to change dry fields into paddy fields to reduce locust plagues. Encourage farmers to plant red beans, black beans, soybeans, mung beans and other crops that locusts do not like to eat while planting wheat; when locust plagues occur, local officials must report them immediately, and those who conceal or make false reports will not be punished severely. The common people hunted and killed locusts in exchange for food, and even opened warehouses to release food to the hungry people to tide over their difficulties. They even led the government officials to cull the locusts themselves.These measures are all effective. From Hongwu to Wanli, Henan, which is a high-incidence area of ​​locust plagues, has not had any major disturbances due to locust plagues.However, after the Wanli Dynasty, wars broke out frequently, and the national power of the Ming Dynasty declined greatly, and it was no longer able to deal with large-scale natural disasters. People in the Central Plains live in dire straits.Compared with the large-scale locust plague that occurred in the next few years, the locust plague that occurred in Nanyang Prefecture this year can only be regarded as trivial, and the more terrible locust plague is yet to come.

Fang Yizhi's reaction was relatively quick. After the locust plague occurred, he decisively borrowed a batch of grain from the local gentry, and issued official documents to the counties, asking the people in Nanyang to actively cull the locusts, and exchange a bucket of locusts for a bucket of rice.Under the temptation of food, the people of Nanyang took active actions and went all out to cull the locusts, and then took them to Nanyang City to exchange for food. The locusts in Nanyang City piled up into hills.Local officials, officers and soldiers of the guards, and even Jin Yiwei also participated in the campaign to cull the locusts. Thanks to the culling of the people in Nanyang, the disaster was finally brought under control, but a lot of crops were also destroyed, and a large reduction in food production has become inevitable. .At the same time, Fang Yizhi owed Fang Yizhi a whole lot of debt for this locust culling campaign, and he didn't know when the household department would allocate the relief money and food to fill up the hole.

After saving part of the crops in a hurry, Fang Yizhi was shocked and asked the counties and health offices to report the losses.All kinds of complaining official documents flew in like a snowflake, almost burying him alive. The county magistrates and all the guards were full of tears and snot.It's a pity that Fang Yizhi couldn't hide this trick. His old man started as a county magistrate, and he was very clear about the tricks used by the guys below, and he discounted their losses by [-]% in his heart.

To his surprise, the Wuyang Thousand Households Office did not join in their complaints. Yang Menglong's report was very brief: Because the guards' military households responded effectively, the military fields suffered little loss.Um?Interesting, Fang Yizhi is interested, it seems that it's time to go to Wuyang to see that monkey, to see if he is bragging...

(End of this chapter)