Hua Fei, who was still discussing the matter of catching locusts with everyone in detail, immediately set up dozens of large iron pots in the most central area of Chang'an City. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Later, under the instruction of Hua Fei, Xu Shu ordered people to tell the people of Chang'an: "Locusts are delicious and contain extremely high nutritional value. In order to let everyone dare to eat locusts with confidence in the future, today's Chang'an City is led by hundreds of officials to eat locusts, everyone is welcome to watch, and everyone is welcome to taste together. ”

So the center of Chang'an City sounded gongs and drums, and the scene was lively. With the flick of Hua Fei's right hand, countless skewered locusts were put into the iron pot with boiling oil one after another, and the sound of "zizi" was loud in an instant, and the smell of meat was overflowing.

After a while, countless locusts fried golden and fragrant were freshly put into the prepared plates.

In the crowd, the old master Bing Yuan stared at the plate of steaming "food" on the table, opened his mouth to "grunt", and swallowed a mouthful of saliva with difficulty.

But with a generous attitude of death, he first closed his eyes and sniffed the aroma of meat with a deep smell of "well...... and then praised loudly: "Fragrant!" ”

He took it out first, picked up a locust in his hand, stretched out his arm, and put it in front of him for a while, and then suddenly closed his eyes and opened his mouth to stuff the locust into his mouth.

In the crowd of people who watched for a moment, there was a chaotic sound of "cooing" swallowing saliva, and at the same time, the sound of discussion also arose.

"Eat, eat...... The old master, who had the most fierce opposition yesterday, really ate a locust......"

"Oh God! If he really dares to eat it, he is not afraid of being poisoned by insects? ”

"Ninety-four drops said, can the locusts also eat drops? Don't look at his current ball potential, he will have a stomachache after a while......"

"Hammer! You're just going to bluff people and get them out to the side and play in the mud. Yesterday, our general Zhenxi didn't eat it, and he ate dozens of them in one go, I saw that people had stomach aches......"

"That's right! You see the general, he's not standing there well, huh? General, why did he eat again, oh? Or sticky sauce to eat drips! 'Goo' doesn't know what it tastes like? ”

"You hammer, you melon? The general ate it yesterday and eaten it again today, and this performance shows the taste of this locust -- that quasi-performance is a delicious and delicious drip, do you know it? ”

"Huh? Look at your kid to the ball can drop, if you have the ability, you can also go up and eat one. ”

"Tsk...... Why don't you believe it? Oh, I'm going to eat and I'll show you a ......."

So Bing Yuan ate Ren An, Ren An ate Zhang Lu, and even hundreds of officials stepped forward to eat locusts, and there were countless people in the discussion among the people, who couldn't hold back their curiosity and were stimulated to go forward and try it.

This era is an era when meat is very scarce, and on weekdays, ordinary people can mix a mouthful of thin to fill their stomachs, which is considered a good mix. How can there be such a delicious taste?

When those who came forward to try it first, as soon as they tasted it, they immediately immersed themselves in it and ate it vigorously, and even called their friends to eat it together.

In an instant, people opened their mouths one after another to try, and they swept away all the locusts that had been blown up, and they were still waiting there to see if there were any more?

Hua Fei, who had achieved his goal, took the opportunity to announce loudly: "Since all the officials under my command love to eat locusts, then from now on, the Chang'an government will buy a large number of locusts, and the price will be the same as the price of rice, that is, one stone of locusts can be exchanged for one stone of rice." And there is no limit to what you can collect, and I will collect as much as you have. ”

"What? Can a stone locust be exchanged for a stone of rice? Oh God! Outside the city, in the ground, there are many such things......"

"Ninety-four said, isn't there food everywhere! Alas, oh, where are you going......"

"Hammer! You can go there and fight for food, and then we should let everyone else rob them in a while, and more......"

Hua Fei's order, the entire Chang'an City was boiling!

As the saying goes, "Do you make money?" That's a fool! So he called out, countless families in Chang'an City, all men, women and children went into battle together, and the whole family went out to hunt locusts.

Seeing that the situation was very good, Hua Fei immediately took advantage of the hot iron to issue one order after another, so that the great cause of locust hunting in Guanzhong and Yizhou was immediately vigorously spread out under his order.

In fact, Hua Fei knew in his heart that although he had read a lot of books, he really didn't know how to catch locusts, but he had a good brain and perseverance and determination.

So after thinking about it for a long time, he gathered the strengths of everyone and issued a series of orders based on the characteristics of locusts that he knew.

First of all, he made a breakthrough with the crowd about the phrase "locusts in drought", and thought that the lack of water was the main cause of the locust plague. Therefore, he started with drought and turned drought into non-drought.

He also gathered the wisdom of the people, and thought that although the locusts could fly, they must also live on the earth.

Because not to mention the little locusts, even those birds that fly in the sky all day long, they cannot lay their eggs in the sky, but they have to build nests and lay eggs on the trees that grow on the earth.

So the first person to receive the order was Gan Ning's 10,000 sailors.

They were ordered to carry a large number of tools in boats to the downstream of Chang'an's Bashui. Began to look for shallow terrain to cut off the eastward flow of the river, so that a large amount of water could be stored in Guanzhong.

Subsequently, more than 100,000 troops in Guanzhong moved according to the order, each taking tools, opening canals in the distance, and pouring cool river water near the land in Guanzhong.

As for Hongnong Zhang Ji and others, who are in the downstream of the water stream, will they suffer because there is no water?

Because it is now the time for the father to marry the dead mother - everyone takes care of each other, Hua Fei, Xu Shu, Fa Zheng and others did not think about Zhang Ji's life or death at all.

Wouldn't it be better if they didn't have any water? The people don't have anything to eat? There is grain and meat in the pass, and a lot of delicious locust meat is waiting for them to eat; The people can't survive? Welcome to Guanzhong; Zhang Ji can't live either? He is also welcome to come to Guanzhong, but he must come to surrender his weapon and surrender to Cheng.

At the same time, Hua Fei also ordered: "No one in the land under his jurisdiction is allowed to kill or catch birds, and if anyone violates the order, he will be severely punished!" ”

Because he started with the word locust, he thought of what animal can destroy insects? Undoubtedly, the first thing that came to his mind was birds.

So the birds became his allies in the battle against the locust plague, which is why he gave this strange order.

Not only that, in order to make the birds come to Guanzhong, he also ordered Liu Min to lead the crowd to build bird nests on various trees and scatter grain rice to implement various measures that are beneficial to attracting birds to Guanzhong.

Then he remembered that there was also a flightless bird on the ground, and that was the chicken. So at the same time, he ordered people to raise a large number of chickens, and they tried to raise them as much as possible.

So since chickens can eat insects, ducks that are inseparable from chickens are of course also a kind of insect eaters, and it is said that ducks will not harm crops, so they should be stocked in large quantities.

Later, Hua Fei thought of frogs, as well as frogs' close relatives, the toad, that is, the kind of animals that lie on your feet and do not bite you, but respond to you, they are also famous insectivores in the world.

Moreover, according to Bing Yuan and others, locust plagues have rarely occurred in the Yizhou area. Therefore, Hua Fei ordered the flying pigeon to send a message to Chengdu, so that Lu Su led the army and civilians to capture a large number of frogs, toads and other things alive, and sent them to Guanzhong as soon as possible.

Later, Pu Yuan and Ma Jun, who were ordered to observe the habits of locusts, reported that locusts have the characteristics of loving light and heat, and will die like moths.

So Hua Fei immediately ordered: "All counties and counties are required to pull out special personnel to light fires at intervals at night to attract locusts to jump over the fire and spontaneously combust them." ”

At the same time, Xu Shu was ordered to send envoys again, and quickly went to all forces to report: "Hua Fei, all the officials and the people ate locusts, but they were not punished by heaven, which is enough to prove that locusts are not sent by heaven, and the so-called locusts are really sent by heaven. ”

In order to promote the whole people in Dahan to resist locusts, so as to reduce the possibility of locust plagues to a minimum.

However, although Hua Fei succeeded in turning everyone's minds around by example, and also carried out a lot of advantageous plans to catch the locusts.

But this year, the weather has been dry for a long time, and when Huafei's orders are issued, it is too late. A large-scale locust plague broke out quickly on the sixth day of September. (To be continued.) )