After this reminder, the villagers finally came to their senses.

A few brave young men swarmed up, broke the paper-tied locusts that were several meters high, and threw them into the fire on the spot.

Xu Shizhen watched all this coldly, and it wasn't until the locust turned into flying ash that a smile appeared on his cold face.

"That's what it sounds like."

徐世桢 says:

"In the face of disasters, I don't work hard, I only know to turn to ghosts and gods, this is a fart!"

"For so many years, when you encounter locust soldiers in floods and droughts, have there been ghosts and gods to help you?"

The cavalry gave up the siege of the villagers, which made the atmosphere of the scene a little lighter.

At least the villagers have quieted down.

"Village Chief." Xu Shizhen said to the old man who was trembling when he looked at the witch's corpse: "You have been dismissed. ”

Due to the lack of qualified cadres, many villages with mainly immigrants are allowed to elect their own village heads.

This may sound quite democratic and advanced, but in fact, without the interference of the metropolitan government, most of the village chiefs who are "universally elected" are originally "village sages", or families with more males and slightly greater power.

This is the case in this village, the village chief has five sons in his family, and in the village of this era, five strong men are already considered a small force - this is probably the biggest reason why the old man can survive in the troubled times until now.

However, this also caused the old man to be able to control the villagers and disobey the orders of the Metropolitan Governor's Office.

This kind of problem is not easy to deal with, and it is still the same reason - the Metropolitan Governor's Office cannot produce enough qualified cadres to serve as grassroots officials.

If others are forcibly promoted, then it is very likely that the village cadres will not be able to control the village.

It's just that now, just for this village, it is absolutely impossible to continue to let this old man continue to be the village head, and he has to find a way to weaken the power of the former village chief's family in the village.

"Old man, you leave one son, and the others are all incorporated into the militia and go to the front line to exterminate locusts."

"Huh? Master Jun, didn't you say that three dings draw one? ”

When it came to his own son, the old man dared to muster up the courage to question the order.

However, he was coldly glanced at by Xu Shizhen, and he wilted again - after all, this is a master who kills people if he disagrees, and the witch's head is still quite a strong deterrent.

"Your village has re-elected the village chief." Xu Shizhen ordered again.

He planned to force the chief's sons to divide their families, divide a large household with six dingkou into at least three, or even five, and then spread them across several different counties, so that they could not be connected in tandem and take control of a village with the advantage of dingkou.

After dealing with this village, Xu Shizhen walked up to the boy who reported his village, rubbed the child's head, and said in an approving tone:

"How did you come up with the idea of reporting it to us? You're doing the right thing, but I'm afraid the people in the village will hate you. ”

"I've been to school and I've read books." The child replied proudly: "Our teacher taught us: 'Respect ghosts and gods and stay away'." ”

"Really?" Xu Shizhen smiled: "Your teacher is really good." ”

"Well, our teachers are knowledgeable! I've heard that her family is the most learned person! ”

"The most learned? Hehe, there is no first, but someone dares to say that he is the most knowledgeable? Uh......" Xu Shizhen suddenly thought of something, and he asked in a puzzled tone, "Your teacher shouldn't have the surname Kong, right?" ”

"Huh? Big brother, do you know our teachers? ”

Xu Shizhen doesn't know, but in this place of China, if someone dares to claim that he is "the most knowledgeable", that person's surname is Kong.

Only their family dared to speak out so loudly.

Xu Shizhen thought about it for a while, after the third brother of his family copied the house of the Holy Ancestor, the descendants of the saints had indeed all dispersed to the most barren villages in the province to act as Mr. Mengxue.

Moreover, Xu Shiyang played a little trick, all the men of the Kong family were assigned to other mansions, and most of the people who stayed in Yanzhou were young women.

In other words, the child's teacher should be a female teacher.

In this era, even if she is a descendant of the Holy Master, it is quite rare for a woman to have this kind of knowledge, and Xu Shizhen suddenly felt that he might find an opportunity to meet this female teacher.

……

At the same time as the locusts were eradicated at the front, both the Metropolitan Governor's Office and the New Army sent a large number of personnel to carry out anti-superstition work at the same time.

By the end of August, more than 300 witches and gods had been executed, and nearly 1,000 others had been relegated to commoners and exiled to remote areas.

Through this action, the Governor's Government strengthened its management of the grassroots and eliminated most of the witches and gods who used superstitions to win the hearts and minds of the people.

There are also many village-level cadres who collude with witches and gods (although many of them are involuntary collusion) have also been eliminated.

Xu Shizhen's practice of splitting up large rural families was approved by the Governor's Office, which later issued an order that if each family in the village had more than three dingkou, it must be separated, and at least in two different counties.

……

In September, when the autumn harvest began, Qi Province continued to mobilize a large number of manpower to exterminate locusts and grab food from the insects' mouths.

At this time, the manpower mobilized by the whole province to Quancheng and Yanzhou has exceeded 300,000, and the manpower mobilized by the two governments themselves has exceeded 500,000.

This kind of grand occasion of mobilizing more than one-third of the total population to do one thing is rare in the history of mankind, especially when the agricultural peoples have to carry out the autumn harvest work at the same time without affecting production.

On the 10th day of September, more than 10 million catties of locusts and more than 3 million catties of locust eggs were cleared in Qi Province.

At this time, the number of locusts flying from the Central Plains to attack Qi Province finally decreased visibly.

On September 20, the locust swarm became more sparse, and through the efforts of the Governor's Office to mobilize a large number of manpower, most of the farmland in Quancheng and Yanzhou in Qi Province had been harvested ahead of schedule.

At this point, the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion of Qi Province finally won the war against the locusts.

In this campaign, Qi Province directly spent more than 30 million catties (including rewards for exterminating locusts, compensation for farmers, daily consumption of labor, etc.).

A total of 19,000 mu of land in Quancheng and Yanzhou provinces was lost, and 31,000 mu of land was damaged.

This loss is minor, after all, this locust plague is more powerful than ever.

In fact, after the war, the Governorate received news from all over the world, not only the entire East Asian region north of the Qi Gaoguan River, but also the locust plague during this period.

Not only that, but the Governor's Office even took advantage of the locust plague to strengthen the construction of the territory, strengthen its own grassroots construction, increase the population (a large number of displaced people were driven by the locust plague and fled into Qi Province), and strengthened the unity of the people under its jurisdiction.

The people of Qi Province, who survived the locust plague safely, have begun to get used to dealing with various disasters as a whole.

It doesn't matter if it's a natural disaster or an invasion.