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Beginning in April, in order to cope with natural disasters, Hexi began to stockpile supplies on a large scale.

By the middle of July, Hexi had a total of 200,000 stone of sea fish, 50,000 stone of meat and 500,000 stone of grain.

As the saying goes: if you have food in your hands, you don't panic in your heart.

It is precisely with sufficient supplies that Hexi is full of confidence in fighting the locust plague.

In the twentieth year of Taiyuan, since the beginning of winter, the climate in Longyou, Liangzhou has been somewhat dry.

Seeing that spring has passed, and the scorching summer sun is about to begin, not a drop of rain has fallen for months.

In the main rivers in Hexi, the flow of water has been reduced by more than half compared with previous years.

Everyone knows what this means, and most of them, with the exception of a few water-rich counties, are at risk of losing their crops.

By the end of July, the drought broke out as scheduled.

In addition to the Western Regions, Shuofang, and Bingzhou, nearly eight counties in Liangqin Prefecture have been hit by drought one after another.

Where there is a great drought, there will be great locusts, which has been proven for thousands of years.

Although the people in Hexi knew that a locust plague would break out this year, when the locust plague came, everyone was still flustered.

……

In the field, an old farmer with a vicissitudes of life carefully uncovered a piece of cracked land.

Not knowing what he saw, he threw the land in his hand far away and fled back to the village.

"Locusts, locusts, locusts are coming." The old farmer shouted frantically as he ran.

The people, who had been worried about the sudden drought, were shocked when they heard that the locusts were coming.

Everyone hurriedly left what they were doing, followed the voice of the old farmer, and ran out of the yard in a panic.

"Wang Laohan, don't worry, speak slowly, what locusts did you just say? Where are the locusts? ”

In the crowd on the third floor and the outer three floors, the chief calmly asked Wang Laohan about the specific situation.

At this time, Wang Laohan's face was pale, and his whole body trembled up and down, and it was not until a long time later that he gradually calmed down.

He swallowed and spat, gesturing in the direction of the field.

"That'...... There, underground, densely packed with locust eggs, it's really terrible to look at. ”

"Now that I think about it, the old man's scalp is still numb."

As soon as these words came out, everyone was in an uproar, and the whole scene became panicked.

Some said to quickly pack up the food and flee softly; Others looked shocked and overwhelmed; What's more, they directly kneel on the ground and prostrate to plead guilty.

In short, for a while, the scene was noisy.

As a retired veteran of the Xiang Army, the lieutenant has a lot of knowledge and courage, and has always been the backbone of everyone, and he came back to his senses first.

He cleared his throat and shouted, "Ahem, everyone be quiet." ”

When the scene quieted down, the chief said in a deep voice: "Don't panic, don't rush to escape, even if you want to escape, where can you escape?" ”

"You can't stay here and die, can you?" Someone in the crowd muttered.

"Of course you can't wait to die!"

"The government has already prepared for the disaster, and as long as everyone obeys the arrangement, they will definitely survive the disaster safely."

"Now let Wang Laohan lead the way, let's go to the field first."

Wang Laohan didn't say much, and led everyone to the original field.

The lieutenant chief followed, and several bold villagers also followed nervously......

……

In late July, a large number of locusts suddenly appeared in various parts of Qin and Liang, and for a time the counties were in a hurry.

Thanks to the wide publicity in the newspapers, the people have long been mentally prepared for the outbreak of natural disasters.

After the outbreak of the natural disaster, in addition to being a little panicked at first, he quickly actively participated in the disaster relief action.

After receiving the report of the disaster, Wei Shuo immediately began to arrange disaster relief matters, and local governments did not rush to organize the people to exterminate locusts.

In ancient times, the level of productivity was low, and there were almost no effective measures for the prevention and control of locust plagues.

In order to exterminate the locusts, Hexi tried his best to finally put forward two strategies: poultry extermination and manpower killing.

Poultry extermination, as the name suggests, is the use of chickens, ducks and other poultry to deal with locusts.

Thanks to the developed aquaculture industry in Hexi, the farms are all over the country, and there are a number of chickens, ducks and poultry in the farms.

The poultry army, which had been waiting for a long time, quickly rushed to various disaster areas to carry out extermination operations.

These chickens, ducks and geese hurried all the way, especially in the last half of the day, and they didn't eat at all.

As a result, as soon as they arrived at the place and saw countless flying insects, the fowl rushed to the field or the field, and ate the sea without raising their heads.

Those chickens, ducks and geese, with their legs open, lowered their necks, flapped their wings, and ran fast.

All the locusts that appeared in front of them were one at a time, and their small mouths moved, and their necks were stretched, and one locust fell into their stomachs.

There were even some unlucky locusts that flew to the front of the poultry procession and were directly knocked down from the air by the fowl raising their heads.

And humans or some animals need to rely on stomach acid to digest food after eating, but poultry uses a whine to grind.

There is sand in the stomach that is usually eaten, and it is digested much faster than a person, and even pulled while eating.

In the previous hurry, these poultry were all in a state of semi-starvation, and they lost a lot of weight.

At this time, I saw that there was so much delicious food, and I was all trying to eat it.

Like free-range poultry, the demand for food has reached an almost perverted level, and it can eat two-thirds of its body weight or the same amount of food in a day.

For such a large chicken, the number of grasshoppers that need to be eaten can be imagined, and the amount of food eaten by ducks and geese is even more amazing.

As a result, when a flock of chickens, ducks and geese passed, most of the locusts entered the belly of the poultry in the fields they passed, except for a few fish that slipped through the net.

Although the crops were also partially damaged, the poultry did not do much damage to the crops due to the attraction of locusts.

The officials, as well as the people who came to see the excitement, were shocked by the scene in front of them.

So many poultry, all over the place, and in the blink of an eye, they disappeared again.

Not only did the poultry eat the locusts, but they also left a lot of droppings along the way.

The common people were overjoyed to see this, this is a high-quality fertilizer, and the coming year will be a bumper harvest.

In addition to poultry extermination, local governments also organized people to catch locusts.

According to the phototaxis of locusts, every night, the people would light a pile of firewood in the wild, which instantly attracted a large number of locusts.

At this time, some people took out the net bags they had prepared earlier and stepped forward to hunt and kill.

In order to eradicate the locust plague as soon as possible, Wei Shuo ordered the local government soldiers to form a team to hunt and kill locusts and devote themselves to fighting the disaster.

Suddenly, the entire Longyou and Hexi set off a hot anti-disaster and locust control action.

Although the people in Hexi were well prepared, when the overwhelming locusts came, they found that they had underestimated the severity of the locust plague.

There are eight counties in Qinliang and Liangzhou, and disasters occurred almost at the same time.

Locusts swarm from the waterfront, the old river, and the barren beach of the reed land, and swarm themselves into swarms, and instantly pounce on the fields.

The entire land of Longyou was full of yellow clouds and mist moving rapidly, and millions of locusts with their fingers stretched out their wings and danced quickly in the air, converging into a huge roar similar to that of an airplane taking off, covering the sky like an overwhelming one.

In Fanhe County, Zhangye County, which was severely affected, in order to prevent the locusts from spreading to other prefectures and counties, the local government had to endure the pain and burn the locusts that could not be killed in the future along with the crops in the county.

The disaster ahead is serious, which makes Wei Shuo, who is sitting in Guzang, like a pins and needles.

The disaster situation has reached this point, and it is inevitable that there will be a large-scale harvest failure in Hexi this year, which will greatly affect the reunification plan of Hexi.

"My lord, according to preliminary statistics, eight counties in Qinliang Prefecture have suffered locust plagues, and the number of affected people will be as high as nearly 600,000."

After listening to Song Xuan's report, Wei Shuo sat there weakly, as if he had been drained of his strength by a huge locust plague.

After a long while, he stabilized his mind and instructed everyone: "Ladies and gentlemen, despite the scale of the locust plague, Hexi has made countless preparations before. ”

"I believe that as long as everyone works together, they will eventually be able to overcome natural disasters."

"In addition, after the great plague there will be a great plague, and the work of preventing the plague must be carried out."

"The weather is hot right now, and it's the perfect time for the epidemic to spread."

"Once it is not controlled well, it will be a catastrophe for the plague to spread, and I will never allow this to happen!"

"In order to guide the following to fight the disaster and control the locusts, I intend to send several important ministers to the counties to supervise the disaster relief."

Speaking of this, Wei Shuo thought for a while and said: "It's very hard to go to the local area to supervise disaster relief, I don't think it's better not to bother elderly people like Xuan Bogong." ”

"In this way, Bo Yuan and Zhong Xuan, you two will work hard and go to the place."

"No!" Cui Hao and Zhang Zhan should have given up. 21010