Chapter 139: Locust Plague
On the third day of September, the Hope and more than 30 warships returned from Johor. It would take at least another three and a half months to reach Binzhou Port. Because the Hope was loaded with rubber balls, its speed was much slower.
The Hope continued to sail, and Charles took his daughter to find Song Yutang.
"Master Song, isn't this Daqi? Where else are we going?" Charles thought Johor was Daqi and was a little disappointed. Because this place was too desolate and simple, it was very different from the ancient oriental country he imagined.
Song Yutang was amused by him: "Of course not, this is just a small island we temporarily recaptured last year, and it will take several months to reach Daqi."
Charles nodded, and became more curious about Daqi.
As they were about to arrive home, the soldiers lost their previous excitement. Perhaps because they were homesick, most of them felt a little uneasy.
I have been drifting on the sea for the past two years and have not been able to communicate with my family via letters. I don’t know whether the elderly and children at home are in good health.
Especially Ge Zhongshun, he is the youngest in the family with three older brothers. When he left home, his mother was 58 years old. He was afraid to return home and hear the bad news that his mother was no longer there.
Chen Jing saw that he was in a bad mood, so he walked over to him and comforted him, "Don't think too much. With your brothers here, I'm sure I'll be fine."
Ge Zhongshun secretly wiped away his tears: "I'm sorry to make you laugh."
"What are you talking about? How can I laugh at you when we are so close?"
"That's true."
Chen Jing said with emotion: "I really envy you. You still have a mother to think about. Unlike me, I have no parents or children to care about. I have no one to think about."
"Don't you have a sister-in-law?"
"I wonder how Yuxiang is doing." They had been married for only half a year before they left for sea, and it was the time when they were newlyweds. But he was gone for two years, leaving his wife alone. However, he had two younger sisters at home to keep her company, so Yuxiang should not be lonely either.
Ge Zhongshun suddenly lowered his voice and said mysteriously: "I heard from the general that we can both be promoted one level when we go back." The two of them were both sixth-rank Zhaoxin captains, and the next level up would be the fifth-rank Wuyi general.
The colonel only has command power, while the general has his own subordinates.
Although it is only one level, it is a gap that many people cannot cross in their lifetime. Because military officers are not as good as civil officials, it is as difficult to move up in peacetime as to ascend to heaven.
Chen Jing patted his shoulder excitedly, "Good boy, who told you that?!"
"Of course I heard it from the general himself. Don't tell anyone."
"Of course, this trip is worth it!"
*
Song Yuzhu saw everything that happened in Johor.
It was an ordinary morning court session in September, and the Minister of Works was reporting on court affairs. "The artificial canals on both sides of the Yellow River have been built to Jeju, and are expected to be completed next autumn."
"The railway from Shangjing to Dongzhou has been completed and will be open to traffic at the beginning of next month."
After he finished his report, he did not receive any praise from His Majesty, so he looked up at the Emperor in surprise.
Ji Mingli was in a state of confusion. Could it be that the construction of the Yellow River was taking too long and His Majesty was not satisfied, or was it that the railway track was being built too slowly?
He had no choice but to add, "The train from Shangjing to Zhongzhou will be open by the end of the year."
The emperor remained silent.
After the Minister of Works finished his report, he trembled and stepped aside. The Minister of Revenue, Liu Lin, held up his tablet and said, "Xizhou suffered a locust plague this year, and tens of thousands of acres of farmland were completely harvested. Should we consider reducing this year's tax revenue?"
"Bang!" Song Yuzhu suddenly slammed the table and stood up, scaring all the civil and military officials in the court. Everyone knelt on the ground like dumplings.
Liu Lin wiped the sweat off his head and thought, could it be that he was to blame for reporting late? He only received the news of the locust plague in Xizhou yesterday afternoon.
After a while, seeing that the emperor did not speak, Xu Bing called out softly, "Your Majesty, Your Majesty?"
Song Yuzhu came back to his senses and said with a smile, "All taxes in Xizhou are exempted! The Ministry of Revenue has allocated 300,000 taels of silver to buy grain and send it to Xizhou for disaster relief."
"Your Majesty is wise." The ministers all breathed a sigh of relief.
After the court session, Song Yuzhu strode towards the Yangxin Palace with big strides. As soon as he entered, he asked the eunuch to close the door. He then lay on the couch and opened the map in his mind.
The map of Johor has returned to its original green color. Just now when he was in court, he heard the system prompt. Song Yuzhu thought that Anfeng and his men had arrived in Johor and taken back the occupied islands.
He casually opened the map and took a look, and at a glance he saw the huge Hope docked on the shore of Johor!
The Hope is back, which means Zhao Xiao is back too! Song Yuzhu was so excited that he almost shouted out loud. He hurriedly looked for Zhao Xiao on the ship. After searching for a while, he didn't see Zhao Xiao, but he saw his cousin Song Yutang and other crew members. He thought Zhao Xiao must have gone ashore.
The morning court session had not yet ended, and Song Yuzhu could only suppress the excitement in her heart.
After getting off work, he immediately opened the map and looked for Zhao Xiao's whereabouts on the shore.
He saw the looted tribe on the map, found the surviving indigenous people, and followed the traces of trampling around to track down the Xietu tribe.
When he saw Zhao Xiao in military uniform, Song Yuzhu's nose felt sore and his eyes instantly turned red.
After not seeing him for a long time, his Ah Xiao had become more mature, darker and thinner, but still full of energy. Song Yuzhu stretched out her hand to trace his face, but it was a pity that the two of them seemed to be separated by a dimension and could not touch each other.
After feeling disappointed for a while, Song Yuzhu soon became happy because Zhao Xiao was about to go home, and she didn't know what good things they had brought back from the West!
Song Yuzhu followed Zhao Xiao and his group back to the Hope on the map. Due to system limitations, he was unable to enter the cabin, but he could look around on the deck.
He saw a field of tomatoes and peppers on the deck, as well as lettuce, onions and other vegetables. These vegetable fields were taken care of by special soldiers, and most of the remaining vegetables were used to collect seeds, except for a part of them for food.
There were actually a few white pigs and quite a few sheep on the other side of the deck!
This was a great surprise to Song Yuzhu. He had only mentioned it to Zhao Xiao before leaving. Because it was difficult to transport living things, he had never thought that they would bring them back.
There were much fewer pigs on the boat than when they returned. They had originally bought twenty pigs and twenty sheep.
More than ten pigs fell sick on the road. In order to avoid infection, Zhao Xiao quickly asked the soldiers to separate the sick pigs. In the end, only seven sows were left.
But one of them is pregnant and will give birth in a month, and maybe one of them will be a boar.
The sheep were fine. After six months of breeding, the twenty sheep now had thirty-seven. In the middle of the process, they even killed two sheep to satisfy their hunger.
The sheep that Zhao Xiao brought back are also called fine-wool sheep. They have a high wool production rate and can be bred and sent to the northern grasslands for breeding in the future.
The wool can be used to weave woolen sweaters and woolen blankets. With these sheep, herders can increase their income significantly.
Song Yuzhu also saw a blond foreigner on the boat. For some reason, he covered his face with a silk scarf. His cousin called him Duke Charles. Song Yuzhu thought the name sounded familiar, but couldn't remember it for a moment.
After staying on the ship for two days, Song Yuzhu reluctantly turned off the map only after the Hope crossed the border. He leaned back in his chair with a sense of loss, and when he thought that they would meet again in three months, he felt that the days passed by like years.
But for now, it is more important to focus on the important matters. Yesterday morning, Liu Lin told me that Xizhou suffered a locust plague this year.
Song Yuzhu opened the map of Xizhou and checked the situation of the locust plague.
The local government offices had a habit of reporting good news but not bad news. Unless they could no longer conceal the truth, they would not easily report local affairs to the court. Most of them were afraid of being rated low in the evaluation and being demoted the following year.
Like the Xizhou government, September is the season when grain is about to be harvested. The fields that should have been golden are now bare, without even a blade of grass to be seen. The situation is much more serious than reported.
He dragged the map around and looked around until he found the group of locusts in Gaodu County. Looking around, it was like a dark cloud covering the sky. Wherever the locusts went, they would instantly eat up all the plants in the fields.
Since ancient times, drought, flood and locust plagues have been the three major disasters for the people. Once a locust plague occurs, all the grass and trees within thousands of miles will be destroyed, or even all the cattle, horses and flags will be killed. The damage is even more tragic than drought and flood.
Due to geographical reasons, Xizhou has suffered frequent locust plagues in recent years. There was even a locust plague during the Sheng Dynasty, and tens of thousands of acres of farmland in Xizhou were completely barren.
Hundreds of thousands of people starved to death, and eating one's own children became a common occurrence. Some people even exchanged their own mothers for food. It was truly miserable.
In ancient times, there were no pesticides, and the way to deal with locust plagues was mostly to use chickens and ducks to peck at the locusts, but the effect was minimal.
There is also the method of "burning and burying" to control locusts. Taking advantage of the locusts' love of fire, bonfires are built around the fields, and then lit when it gets dark. The locusts will then fly over following the light, and their wings will be burned by the fire, so they can no longer harm the crops.
Most of these methods are only temporary solutions, not fundamental solutions. Locusts have a very strong reproductive capacity. As an ancient poem says: Although you catch a bucket of locusts, they will produce a hundred buckets of new locusts. Therefore, killing the eggs and preventing the locusts from reproducing is the top priority.
Song Yuzhu didn't know much about this. He was just an ordinary surgeon in his previous life. It was okay for him to cure diseases and save lives, but it was really too much to ask him to kill locusts.
Professional matters need to be left to professionals. Liu Lin recommended someone to Song Yuzhu.
This person was a member of the Ministry of Revenue named Xiao Qingchi. He was just an ordinary county magistrate in Shuzhou back then. He was promoted to the capital because of his meritorious service in locust control.
Song Yuzhu sent him to Xizhou to control the locust plague and make sure to minimize the damage.
After Xiao Qingchi received the imperial edict, his colleagues in the Ministry of Revenue all felt a little sympathy for him. Controlling locusts is a tough job. If you can cure them, you will be rewarded, but if you can't, you will definitely be implicated. But how many people can cure a locust plague?
What they never expected was that Xiao Qingchi controlled the locust plague in just half a month and solved the problem of food and clothing for the local people.
After Xiao Qingchi went to Xizhou, the first thing he did was to order people to post notices in various places, stating that anyone who caught a bushel of locusts could exchange them for half a bushel of grain. If they did not want grain, they could exchange them for thirty cents in cash.
When the common people heard this, they were surprised.
Some people began to catch locusts with half belief and half doubt, and then took them to the county government to exchange for food. Unexpectedly, one bucket of locusts could actually be exchanged for half a bucket of rice!
This half bucket of rice is enough for their family to eat for ten days or half a month!
I thought the locusts would eat up all the food this year and everyone would die, but I didn’t expect the government to ignore them!
The people held the rice with mixed emotions in their hearts and cried. They were glad that they were born in such a good era, with the country to take care of them and they no longer had to go through the hardships of the previous dynasty.
People went out to catch locusts. Some used fishing nets, some used wooden barrels, and each used their own unique skills. Young children and the elderly simply took shovels to dig locust eggs in the fields.
At first, everyone exchanged for food, and when the food was enough, they exchanged it for cash. In the end, the 300,000 taels of disaster relief money were all distributed to the victims without a cent less, and the locust plague in Xizhou was solved.
(End of this chapter)
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