Locusts can be eaten, which Pei should naturally know, and in his previous life, he has seen many restaurants provide various insect foods, which are said to be pollution-free and high-protein, which is definitely beneficial to health...... Of course, he never dared to try. With-Dream- . In order to dispel the concerns of the people during the day today, lā gritted his teeth and chewed a locust, and he felt full of earthy smell and dregs, what is so delicious about this thing?

But in the darkness of the night, he found a half-grown child patrolling the ridges of the field, picking up charred locusts to eat, and he could not help but be amazed.

This child is from Yishan, surnamed Zeng, fifteen years old, no tuba, and his nickname is Ah Niu. According to him, he was seduced by the scorching smell of the burnt locusts, and he thought that Pei Yuanjun had eaten a worm during the day, so he tried to pick it up to fill his stomach......

Zeng Aniu is the time to grow the body, for the food requirements are very large, there is a folk saying, "half a child, eat poor Lao Tzu", is referring to his age. However, it is a luxury for children from poor families to be barely half-full, how can they be blessed to take in enough nutrients? Especially in the cantonment land, where the Ministry of War was detained, and all the food rations of each family were rationed—not on demand—and Zeng Aniu was classified as a child, and could only receive the equivalent of half an adult male every day, so he was always in a state of semi-starvation day and night.

In these days, the poor people are generally short in stature, and many of them are unable to reach even 1.5 meters, precisely because they do not get enough food and nutrition when they are growing up. This also makes the people look at the children of those rich and noble families who are tall and tall, seven feet or even eight feet (one meter seven or even more) at every turn, and they will feel that they are really not the same species as themselves......

They don't understand that the truth is reversed: people are poor because they are short, not short because they are poor.

Pull back and say that Zeng Aniu, because the rations are insufficient, but the amount of exercise is not small--he also has to help his family with farming-he is really hungry, so he will try to pick up locust corpses to eat-since Pei Yuanjun has eaten during the day, it must be able to be used to fill his stomach.

Pei Gai listened to Zeng Aniu's story, and couldn't help but ask him with a smile: "How does it taste?" ”

Zeng Aniu had to wait until he finished saying that long paragraph before he finally swallowed all the locusts chewing in his mouth, but he still couldn't help but stick out his tongue to lick his lips, and stammered and replied, "Crispy...... Fragrant...... It's just scum. At first, he picked up insect corpses casually to eat, although it felt fishy, it was not completely unpalatable, but occasionally he picked up the ones that were thoroughly roasted and almost burnt, and he couldn't stop eating them.

When Pei Gai heard this, he couldn't help but be slightly stunned, and then said, "Pick one up and I'll taste it." Zeng Aniu hurriedly picked up on the ridges of the field by the light of the fire - after all, it is the locust god, so that the king can not be afraid, and the people can not be disrespectful, so he didn't dare to let the elders know before, so he could only grope in the dark with his hands - he picked a big and familiar one, pinched it with his fingers, and it seemed to be quite brittle, so he knelt on the ground, raised his hands high, and presented it to Pei Yuanjun.

Pei Gai took it, wiped it with his sleeve, pulled off his head, wings, and limbs, and tried to put it in his mouth and chew it a few times—well, it's still scum, but it's not that fishy, and this thing can really be eaten...... Although I still don't think there's anything delicious for me, the people should be able to accept it.

If you have eaten my food, then you will pay it back with your own food.

In fact, it is not uncommon for locusts to be eaten in the past dynasties, and it is not a special product of certain ethnic groups in the southwest, nor is it a new food developed in the 21 st century. Often, after the locust swarm, the seedlings are exhausted, and the ground is still full of locust corpses - some have reached the end of their lives, and some have been injured by their companions and fallen to the ground. When the locusts came, the people were ignorant and thought they were gods, and they didn't dare to hunt and kill them, but when the locusts had eaten up the food, the hungry people didn't talk about God, even the Buddha I will eat it raw to show you! After the disaster, the people often use the carcasses of locusts to feed their hunger, but it is a pity that an acre of wheat seedlings may not be able to exchange for half a liter of insects, and eventually they are forced to abandon their ancestral origin and go into exile......

Pei Gai originally planned to follow Yao Chong's example, dig a ditch at the edge of the field, and fill all the locusts he had killed into the ditch and bury them, but now that he knew that this thing could also be eaten, he simply ordered the people to collect all the insect corpses and roast them for food—this can also eliminate the people's superstitious fear of the "locust god" to a certain extent.

Before leaving the next morning, Pei Gai took special care of Fei Sheng and asked him to increase the food ration quota for children over the age of thirteen: 30% more for those between the ages of 13 and 15, and adults over the age of 15. Immediately hurried back to Huaiyin County, and when he found Bian Yan, he asked, fortunately, Bian Wangzhi was an understanding person after all.

Even if they are superstitious, most of them believe in those elusive natural phenomena such as wind, rain, thunder and lightning, and think that they are a warning from God. Of course, Lu Huaishen and his ilk have in their heads.

Therefore, after receiving an urgent letter from Pei Bing, Bian Yan was also anxious, and immediately sent officials to various townships to urge the people to hunt and kill locusts. He also deliberately sent people to spread the information that Pei Bing said about Pei Lingjun eating locusts in the county to dispel the concerns of the homesteaders.

After Pei Gai returned, he came up with another plan and ordered the people of the village to exchange the carcasses of locusts for food in the county town - one bucket of locusts for one liter of brown wheat. China is certainly a big food country, but only on the premise of ensuring food and clothing, it is possible to pursue appetite, ordinary people will not care about any high-protein health food, want them to quickly dispel their concerns, locusts for food, the possibility is quite low. It's better to save it all up first.

Although there is not much food that can be exchanged, it is an extra wealth for the poor people, especially in this period of green and yellow, often a liter of rough grain can allow the family to save a little more energy, and can devote themselves to the autumn harvest work. It is believed that with this policy, the people will have some motivation to hunt down locusts - not just to obey the orders of the county office and to be intimidated by the supervision of the officials.

As for Pei Gai, there is still a lot of food in stock anyway, so I don't care about scattering more. If you can reduce the loss of new grain, even if you pay twice as much as the old grain, it will be worth it! Because a harvest is not only to provide food, but also to a certain extent to calm people's hearts and stabilize the rule of the government. If the land is thousands of miles away, even if there is enough food at home, people will inevitably be panicked, and they will feel that they cannot see the future and hope......

Fortunately, locust plagues occur mainly in the arid areas of the Yellow River Basin, with few occurring in the southern part of the Yangtze River and only affected in the Huainan region. The same is true of the locust plague that originated in Qingzhou, and the locusts that actually crossed the Huai River were not very large - it is estimated that it was ten times more than the population of Huaiyin County - because the damage was not too serious if they were killed in time. According to later statistics, the output of the reclaimed land was only reduced by about 20 percent, and the output of the fields of the self-cultivated farmers in the townships was reduced by no more than 40 percent. As for the counties south of Huaiyin, they were basically not affected.

What was originally a good harvest year is estimated to turn into a normal year...... But fortunately, as long as the harvest period is smooth, it will not suffer from a bad year, and it is not like many counties in Qingzhou where there is almost no harvest, and Pei should be very satisfied with this.

With nearly 300 locusts harvested, Pei Gai originally planned to launch a county-wide healthy food campaign, but in the end it ended in complete failure. When the common people see that there is still a harvest in the field, who will eat the insects? As for the rich and noble...... To be honest, bugs aren't really delicious.

Bian Yan saw Tian'er running to ask, saying that those insects were all roasted, but they wouldn't be ** for a while, but what is the use of keeping them? There is no one to eat, so it is better to bury it as soon as possible. Pei Cai thought about it carefully, and suddenly came up with a plan, and ordered all the ripe locusts to be crushed with a large mill and mixed with old wheat - 300 dregs of insects, mixed with 5,000 wheat - and then sent Gao Le to escort him to Yuzhou.

High protein, what a pity it is to bury, it is better to use it as the military food of the ancestors, I believe that the ancestors of the army have eaten this kind of healthy food, they must have abundant physical strength, and it is as easy as pinching a few locusts to kill the thieves. Of course, this matter cannot be said explicitly, only claiming that the autumn grain has not been harvested, and the county is short of grain, so a lot of wild vegetables and wild grains are collected and mixed with old wheat. Anyway, in these years, ordinary big-headed soldiers can't eat any good things, basically all of them are grains, and often with grain bran, mixed with barnyard seeds, and even mixed with gravel.

But as soon as the problem of insects was solved, Bian Yan came to him again, and said with an anxious expression: "The spies came to report that nearly 30 counties in five counties in Qingzhou were affected by the disaster, and the harvest was almost wiped out; There are also more than ten counties in Xubei that have been affected by disasters and famine. It is expected that a large number of displaced people will leave their hometowns and go south, and they will soon cross the Huai River to the south and enter the border of Huaiyin County. ”

When Pei Gai heard this, he couldn't help frowning, his mouth pursed, and he snorted lightly. This matter is indeed very troublesome, the homeless people cross the border, wait for locusts, don't think that they will honestly work to earn rations, or beg for a living, those old and weak are just that, young and middle-aged people are hungry, what can't be done? If there are any more people with intentions who instigate them, or if there are people with good prestige who climb up and shout, and turn from a homeless person to a homeless on the spot, it is also a matter that cannot be guaranteed.

Isn't this how Du Tao and Hu Kang in Xiangzhou made trouble? Previously, he recruited thousands of homeless people to go north, and when he passed through Guangling County, didn't Bian Yan also close the city gate, as if he was facing a great enemy?

The only solution is to intercept the displaced people, give them food and clothing, and turn them into people under their own rule, or a people under their own rule, as has been the practice for most of the previous six months. But in the past, except for the group on the mountain, the number of displaced people who fled to Huainan every month was no more than 300, and it was easy to eat; As for the Yishan people, as long as they hold Mrs. Xi's mother and son in the palm of their hands, they are not afraid of them making trouble. But now that the locust plague is raging in the Huaibei region of Qingzhou and Xuzhou, it is not possible to guarantee how many displaced people will enter the country, and once there are thousands or even tens of thousands, it will be quite difficult to manage, and it is easy to deplete the county's grain stocks.

Shall they be allowed to cross the border like locusts? Or send troops to escort them and drive them to Jiangbei? After all, Pei Gai came from two thousand years later, although he was not as benevolent as a woman, and he did not know how to be flexible, but his compassion for the heavens and people was probably better than that of the vast majority of scholars and doctors in these years, and he really couldn't bear it......

hesitated for a long time, and finally had to stomp his foot fiercely: "That's it, that's it, it's God forcing me to explode in advance!" ”

Bian Yan asked in surprise, "What do you mean by what the envoy said?" "There's always something strange in your mouth, but I can barely understand most of them, and that's the only one...... I don't know how awkward.

Pei Gai sighed and replied to Bian Yan: "There is still grain in the warehouse, autumn is coming, but there is no lewd rain during the harvest period, which is more or less a normal year, and it can be helped." For today's plan, I have to take in those displaced people, the old and weak are reclaimed, and the young and strong are expected to be soldiers. In addition to the people's tuns, they should open up military cantonments again to settle them. ”

The young and the young and the old and the weak must be dealt with separately, one is to drive the men who can be full of strength after a few days of eating a full meal to farm, which is really wasteful, and the other is that the old and the weak and the young and strong are mixed together, and it is easy to make trouble. It is necessary to recruit all young and middle-aged people as soldiers, but not like the soldiers recruited in the past, with training as the main thing, and ploughing as a supplement, but must plough as the main thing, and only train when the peasants are slack, and try their best to exhaust their daily strength, and at the same time reduce the pressure on food in the county.

Bian Yan nodded and said, "That's all it takes...... As for the Huaishui in Handong, a large area of fertile land was previously owned by the government and had not yet been cultivated, so they could be driven to go to the military tun. ”

Pei Gai's mind suddenly flashed, and he remembered what Zu Ti had said, and immediately discussed with Bian Yan: "Before Zu Shizhi left, Zeng Yun, if he built a city there, it should be a hundred times better than Huaiyin......"