Whether or not there is a drought is the primary basis for judging locust outbreaks.

Especially in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, Guanzhong and Hebei, Shandong, and Henan provinces, these densely populated and drought-prone areas are often breeding grounds for locust breeding.

Xiao Ruxun handed over the leadership of the locust control team to Chen Longzheng, who had excess energy, and asked him to lead the locust control team to start going out to work and investigate everywhere.

For most of the first year of Longwu, Chen Longzheng took the locust control team to conduct research in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, and returned to Beijing in December of the first year of Longwu and told Xiao Ruxun what he had seen and heard and what he had obtained.

Chen Longzheng reported that the situation in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River is quite bad, and unlike the Jiangnan region, which itself has very few locust plagues, after the land reform, the control of local officials has been greatly increased, and it is very convenient to organize village manpower to build water conservancy.

They have complete materials and manpower, and they can often repair some water conservancy projects that need to be repaired, and they can also build water conservancy in places where water conservancy needs to be built, and the possibility of drought in places where water conservancy is perfect is naturally small, and if there is less drought, locust plagues will not naturally form.

Therefore, there is no need to worry too much about the Jiangnan region, the possibility of locust plague is extremely low, it is precisely the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in the north, the lack of manpower and material resources, and the official organization is not as complete and mature as that of Jiangnan, especially in the southeast.

In the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth years of Wanli in the former Ming Dynasty, after war, the northern captives invaded and the south invaded and killed wantonly, and the army fought fiercely with it, and Datong, Shanxi, was almost in ruins, and the big clans were killed and wounded, not to mention the common people.

Later, Xiao Ruxun's Northern Expedition, hundreds of thousands of troops in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River transit control, also caused a certain impact on the local area, so the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River are still in the recovery period, the construction in various places is dilapidated, and there is no way to talk about water conservancy.

Now I have to thank God for not raining heavily, otherwise once it rains heavily, the flooding of the Yellow River will cause floods, and the embankments in various places will be in disrepair for many years, and the floods will be ruined once they come out of the north.

Although Xiao Ruxun worked very hard to send batch after batch of officials to Shanxi and Datong to take the lead in starting land reform, to control it, and to take out a large amount of food for local officials to repair Datong in Shanxi Province in exchange for work, but the time was still short, the results were not obvious, and their energy was insufficient.

In other words, if there is a drought in the north, there will be a locust plague, and if a locust plague occurs, the central government will be overstretched and unable to cope with it.

Therefore, it is necessary to carry out locust plague prevention and control before then, and the central government should come forward and organize manpower and material resources to prevent locust plague in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.

Chen Longzheng advocated cutting down the aquatic weeds in the low-lying stagnant water areas to clear the locust spawning grounds, and when the eggs formed in spring and summer, once rows of loose soil were found, it must be caused by the eggs developing into larvae, and the government organized manpower to deal with them.

After the eggs become larvae, they should dig a ditch and pounce, and more importantly, in the larval stage, that is, when the locusts are still in the state of locusts, a large number of ducks should be stocked in the area, ducks go to the ground, like to eat flies, they can eat several catties of flies a day, not only do not need to feed, but also eat the larvae of locusts, killing two birds with one stone.

Then there is a way not to do it.

It is to sieve plant ash and lime into fine powder and sprinkle them on crops such as taro, mulberry, peas, mung beans, hemp, and sesame that locusts do not eat, or when the locusts have no choice but to do anything in the future, and sprinkle them on the crops, so that the locusts will no longer eat these crops.

After receiving this detailed report, Xiao Ruxun instructed the locust control team to condense it into a "locust control order", listing all the methods one by one, and writing them in simple and easy-to-understand words.

Then he ordered the printing office to print a large number of them, and then sent them to the villages in the locust prone areas, so that the township chief could organize the peasant associations to study intensively, and memorize the hard memorization.

This is the first time that Xiao Ruxun has issued a mandatory decree for the whole country, and it is forced to memorize it, requiring at least one person in every household in the farm to be able to recite the full text, which is a matter of their lives, and if they are lazy and troublesome, they will be whipped in public.

This is what happened at the same time as the Battle of Banzhou, Xiao Ruxun instructed the whole country to recite, and then set up the General Administration of Locust Control in the Locust-stricken Area, with Xu Guangqi concurrently leading the General Administration, Chen Longzheng as his deputy, and the main task of the Ministry of Military Industry was handed over to Zhao Shizhen, the left waiter of the Ministry of Military Industry.

In Xiao Ruxun's view, although Xu Guangqi is good at studying Western studies of learning from things, he is better at handling practical things, and he is Wang Zuozhi's talent.

Compared with him, his deputy Zhao Shizhen is a real firearms maniac and military industry maniac, specializing in the way of firearms, he wants to train Xu Guangqi in the direction of the first assistant of the cabinet, and Zhao Shizhen is his successor in the Ministry of Military Industry.

So this time, the General Administration of Locust Control was established, and he named Xu Guangqi to take the lead, providing him with enough opportunities to earn qualifications, political achievements and fame, so that he could become famous faster and lay the foundation for him to succeed the aging Wang Xijue in the future.

At the same time, he arranged for more than 130 young officials whom he was very optimistic about to be assigned to the General Administration for the Control of Locusts, and asked them to go down to the localities and travel all over the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River to see the various conditions of life, feel the people's sufferings little by little with their own feet, and prepare for their entry into important posts in the central government in the future.

When the war was in full swing, the control of locusts was also in full swing, and countless shrewd and capable officials were transferred to the General Administration of Locust Control to work and follow Xu Guangqi to do things.

Xiao Ruxun sent elite troops to escort them all the way to Xi'an, inspecting the localities along the way, liaising with local policies one by one, and in-depth investigation of various places in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River while controlling the locust plague.

Xiao Ruxun also gave Xu Guangqi a secret task, which was to learn about the living conditions of the people in various places during this period, and to see which places life was too difficult and difficult, and he was not very resistant to moving to other places.

The idea that the homeland is difficult to leave the fallen leaves and return to the roots is something that the Chinese cannot erase no matter what, but life is forced to leave if you have to leave, you must also go, Xiao Ruxun does not want to force people to leave the homeland, so now we must understand how various places think about leaving the homeland.

Those who are willing to leave are of course the best, and those who are not willing but do not resist are also necessary, and the north cannot leave too many people, and move as much as possible to the south, this is already a policy that must be implemented.

Xu Guangqi was surprised by this, he didn't expect the emperor to still think about such a thing, there were already a lot of things, and when he couldn't see An Sheng at all, the emperor actually had to find something to do.

Now, Xu Guangqi probably understands the significance of the emperor letting him be the director of the General Administration of Locust Control.

It is rumored outside that Xu Guangqi is the successor of the future empire's first assistant, which does not seem to be a lie.

Xu Guangqi pinched a cold sweat for himself.