Goose goose goose, song to the sky......

Zhao Jiaren's eldest son, Zhao Qian, watched the big white geese raised in the army take graceful steps, stretching their slender necks to peck at locusts, and couldn't help but understand a little why Wang Xizhi liked geese so much.

According to the education of his father Zhao Jiaren, these beautiful and arrogant guys with a strong sense of territory are all descendants of swans that can fly tens of thousands of miles. As a result of Zhao Qian's own observations, the landlubbers raised in the army ran fast, pecking at locusts with eager pace and quick action, and their efficiency was far less than that of those big white geese with graceful movements.

The tall body and slender neck make the big white goose far more efficient than the duck, but Zhao Qian pretended to communicate with his comrades unconsciously, and the result was that the comrades felt that the panicked duck was more efficient than the big white goose.

Zhao Qian heard his father Zhao Jiaren say that there are only two states in this world, one is fast and good, and the other is slow and bad. Originally, Zhao Qian thought that fast was always better than slow, but as soon as the big white goose shook its head casually, a big locust fell into the belly of the big white goose. In order to compete for a small locust, the ducks have to fight.

Of course, at this time, Sergeant Zhao Qian did not watch the ducks and the big white geese eat locusts, he and his comrades were fighting locusts. During the break, Zhao Qian wrote his thoughts on the blackboard, which was a four-character idiom 'arrows like flying locusts'.

The storyteller who commented often used the phrase 'arrows like flying locusts' to describe the brutal wars of ancient times, for example, Yue told the story of Yang Zaixing, a fierce general under Yue Fei, who mistakenly walked the Xiaoshang River. Yue Fei sent his son Yue Yun to resist the Jin army, and after dozens of rounds of fierce fighting, the Jin army could not support it. Yang Zaixing rode into the Jin army alone, preparing to capture Yan Zongbi alive but did not catch him, killing hundreds of Jin soldiers and returning. Then Yang Zaixing and Li Zhang led 300 cavalry, divided into two teams, and approached Linying. Yang Zaixing encountered the Jin army at Xiaoshang Bridge, and Yang Zaixing fought with the Jin army, killing more than 2,000 Jin soldiers and the Jin army's generals Wanhu Sabajin and 100 Qianhu. But in the end, he was outnumbered and shot countless arrows and died. Later, the Jin army obtained his corpse, and after burning it, a total of two liters of arrows were obtained.

After seeing the power of the queue to be shot, Zhao Qian had already determined that this legend was just a legend. The current Great Song army lined up to be shot, and three shots were enough to be fatal, and two liters of arrows were burned in the corpse, and Yang Zaixing's physical structure must be different from that of normal people.

Zhao Qian felt a locust hit him in the face or fall on him every minute, if an arrow landed on his body at such a frequency, then there was only a dead end. If a bullet landed on his body at such a frequency, Zhao Qian was sure that he would completely lose his combat effectiveness within five seconds, and die within ten seconds.

Locusts don't eat meat, which is the result of Zhao Qian's personal experience. When there was no personal danger, he was ordered by his instructor to check on the situation in a nearby village. When I arrived in the village, I saw the villagers dancing on the ground.

Wearing masks that mimic the heads of locusts, the villagers watched the drums in a setting of arrows and locusts, and watched the great god dancing wizards dance in front of the locust-infested fields.

Religion is the spiritual anesthetic of the people, and Zhao Qian couldn't help but think of the words of his father Zhao Jiaren. It was Zhao Qian who followed his mother to the temple to offer incense at the age of ten, and listened to his father's helpless sigh after coming back. Zhao Qian couldn't help but ask his father what he meant. Daddy Zhao Jiaren said such words with helplessness.

Look at the locusts gnawing on the wheat seedlings, at the wizards dancing in front of the fields, and at the devout villagers with their faces. Zhao Qian couldn't bear it anymore, and he shouted to his comrades: "Let's bring the ducks over." Besides, let's fight the locusts ourselves! ”

The army is atheistically educated, and floods, droughts, and locust plagues are considered natural disasters in the army's education, not the work of gods. However, after hearing this, the comrades-in-arms looked embarrassed, "Squad Leader Zhao, we are here to investigate, can the ten of us keep an acre of land?" ”

After the Zhao official family ascended the throne, or after the recovery of Kaifeng, the prime meridian of the Great Song Dynasty was finally determined. The prime meridian is the meridian that passes through the Guantiantai (ruins, now newly built) of the Great Song Dynasty Kaifeng Guantiantai (ruins, now newly built). Passing through this meridian, one thousandth of the sea level from the North Pole to the South Pole is one meter.

This distance of one meter is in decimal system, one-tenth of a meter is a decimeter, and at a temperature of 4 degrees Celsius, the weight of one cubic decimeter of water is one kilogram. And one kilogram is equal to two catties. According to the measurement, a very wonderful result was obtained, the traditional one song jin is 600 grams, that is, one catty and two taels. Although the relationship between Shijin and Song Jin is wonderful, in the industrial field, Song Jin is withdrawing from weights and measures. At least in the state-owned sector, new weights and measures based on the dimensions of the earth are gradually replacing traditional weights and measures.

So the newest acre is an acre, and an acre is 100 square meters. On the other hand, one acre is about 666.67 square meters. It is almost impossible for a class of ten people to clear an area of 666.67 square meters. According to the army's summary of the locust plague, at the time of the locust plague, there may be 10,000 locusts in an area of one square meter. 666.67 square meters, that is, 6,666,700 locusts, a class of ten people, one person has to solve 666,700 locusts.

Zhao Qian had such data spinning in his mind, and he only felt a kind of despair. In the face of such terrible data, perhaps praying to the gods and dancing about the 'locust fairy' can make the people feel some kind of psychological comfort.

Just when Sergeant Zhao Qian was faced with a huge number of locusts, Wen Tianxiang and Wen Zhizhou asked, "Is the locust the old road of the Yellow River everywhere it goes?" ”

Zhao Guanjia defeated the Mongol army in the Battle of the Yellow River, from the battle situation, this is a 100,000 Song army against 100,000 Mongol army bloody battle, the Song army to the end with 1,000 casualties, caused tens of thousands of Mongol casualties, and completely defeated the Mongol army.

However, in the Great Song Dynasty, what the people cared about was not this amazing victory. Diverting the Yellow River is a major event that the people of the Great Song Dynasty have been amazed so far. In the eyes of the people of the Great Song Dynasty, the diversion of the Yellow River was already a major event equivalent to the will of heaven. Diverting such a great river means that the will of heaven will return to the Great Song Dynasty from now on. The Zhao official family forced the little emperor Chan Rang and did not cause any backlash among the people, because the people of the Great Song Dynasty felt that Zhao Jiaren, who could make the Yellow River diversion, was fully qualified to become an official.

But Zhao Jiaren and Zhao Guanjia didn't think that this had anything to do with Heaven's will, and Zhao Guanjia thought that it was just a normal thing. In the confession of Zhao Guan's family, there is a problem of 'the old road of the Yellow River'. Locust plagues often go hand in hand with severe droughts, and they move in groups from arid areas to low-lying and flood-prone areas. There is a so-called saying that "locusts will be in extreme drought" and "locusts will be there in a long drought".

Wen Tianxiang originally thought that the Zhao Guanjia didn't know who was bewitched, but after being the prefect of Kaifeng for such a period of time, Wen Tianxiang understood that the natural environment of the Yellow River was really as expected by the Zhao Guanjia.

The Yellow River used to be rich in water, even if the water flow was interrupted, it should also be a land of fish and rice. Wen Tianxiang once thought so. However, the results of the intelligence collected were completely different from what Wen Tianxiang had imagined, and according to the army's measurements, the height of the Yellow River was generally higher than the land on both sides of the river, and after the Yellow River dried up, what was left behind was actually a 'high earthen wall'. Without the infiltration of the Yellow River, the earthen wall soon became dry, dry and withered.

The water of the Yellow River brings not only sediment, but also a large amount of minerals. The overall height of the Yellow River is relatively high, and it is rich in minerals, and after the water is gone, it becomes a large saline-alkali flat. Not only is there not the slightest amount of water, but there is no way for the plant to grow. Wen Tianxiang once rode through the Yellow River, and what he saw was a barren beach as far as the eye could see, and the gray-white sand stretched out of reach. Riding a horse out for hundreds of miles, I saw a beach without plants in addition to the beach where no plants grew.

Even the tenacious weeds could not survive on the old course of the Yellow River, and only a trace of green could be seen next to a puddle of accumulated rainwater. On those barren beaches, the most you see are cracked earth, the hooves of horses stepping on, and the sand and soil crumbling into deep holes.

For a Jiangxi person, Wen Tianxiang felt as if he had arrived in a completely different world. In Jiangxi, such a situation cannot be seen in any case. As long as there is a low-lying place, there will be no shortage of water, and as long as there is water, plants can grow freely. Where plants grow freely, they can be cultivated into farmland.

Jiangxi is mountainous, and the plain area is only around Poyang Lake. It was in this Poyang Lake Plain that large landlords with millions of acres of land appeared, and such large landlords were able to sell millions of stone of rice a year. According to Jiangxi's natural environment, the flat land of Henan should be full of vast plains that can produce millions of stone of grain, not this kind of barren sandy land that has no fertility and cannot even feed wild grasses.

With such a cognition, Wen Tianxiang Zhizhou already knew what the general answer was, and the cadres of the Agriculture Bureau and the Water Conservancy Bureau replied regretfully: "Now the locust plague is coming from south to north along the old course of the Yellow River. ”

"Alas! It seems that we can only admit it! Wen Tianxiang replied helplessly.

The Yellow River basin (especially in the middle and lower reaches) is often hit by severe droughts after flooding. The alternating occurrence of floods and droughts has led to the emergence of many large areas of barren beaches or abandoned lands in areas along lakes, coastal areas, river floods, and waterlogging, and this has directly formed natural geographical conditions suitable for the occurrence and rampant occurrence of locusts. The locust flooding area of the Yellow River below Kaifeng and the locust area of Bohai Bay are also directly formed by the overflow diversion of the Yellow River over the years, the change of the inlet channel and the sediment accumulation of the estuary. Therefore, from the distribution of East Asian locust occurrence bases in the Huanghuai Plain and the records of the rampant occurrence of locusts in the Northern Song Dynasty in the past 300 years, as well as the data recorded in the county (prefecture and prefecture) chronicles, combined with the analysis of the changes of each river over the years, it can be concluded that the formation of locust occurrence bases and locust areas in this region is closely related to the changes of the Yellow River channel over the years.

This is a question that the Zhao official family talked about as early as after the recovery of Henan. Wen Tianxiang was in Jiangnan, and his feelings about the locust plague were not profound. It was the locust plague in Songjiang Prefecture, and through the efforts of the ducks and the beating of the people, the locusts were annihilated in the territory of Songjiang Prefecture. This made the Wen Governor's Mansion have a kind of contempt for the locust plague.

After hearing Wen Tianxiang's statement, the cadres of the Department of Agriculture were all amnesty, and they hurriedly said: "Prefect, we will definitely not be able to mobilize enough manpower. The plague of locusts can only be recognized. ”

The cadres of the Water Conservancy Bureau hurriedly added: "Now there are only 100,000 people in Kaifeng Prefecture, and there are more than 100,000 people with the troops. We can't wipe out so many locusts. Fortunately, there is not much farmland in the area where the locusts pass, and even the impact of the grain harvest is very small. ”

Wen Tianxiang did not speak immediately, in his experience, Songjiang Mansion was able to save more than sixty percent of the harvest when it was hit by a large-scale locust plague, which was already an extremely astonishing result. Since then, the masses of the people have proved that as long as they properly implement the policies of Zhao Jiaren, Zhao Guan's family, and the government, the flood and drought disasters can be solved by everyone's efforts. Even the locust plague, which used to be helpless except to pray to God and Buddha, can effectively resist terrible disasters. The way people think about agriculture has also changed dramatically.

Originally, many people raised ducks for profit, so many people voluntarily gave up such hard work. Now look at this kind of nesting not only to increase food production, but also to eliminate insects. By the time Wen Tianxiang completed his tenure, a new model had emerged in Songjiang Province, that is, there were specialized duck raising professionals. Others who don't keep ducks will give some money to the gang and get duck eggs and duck meat every year.

As for the results of this kind of operation, Wen Tianxiang didn't have a chance to get in touch with it. So he didn't know if he had finally reached the people's idea.

Wen Zhizhou knew the personality of Zhao Guanjia, who had recently conducted another internal survey of officials, and the survey had many contents, one of which was a very important investigation of the religious beliefs of all officials and cadres. According to Wen Tianxiang's knowledge, the Zhao official family has a different view of officials and cadres with religious beliefs, and those people will be put into a separate register, and their promotion will be greatly affected. Zhao Guanjia himself is a person who is 'silent and strange', and he does not accept that his subordinates have religious beliefs.

Thinking back on his promotion, Wen Tianxiang can understand better. Since the successful fight against the locust plague, there has been more confidence in the agricultural production organizations of the entire Songjiang Province. However, the past only haunted Wen Tianxiang's heart, and he had no way to get any support from his past experience. Henan is not a water town, and it is impossible to raise ducks and geese on a large scale like Jiangnan. In addition, the area in Jiangnan has a large population, and the fields have been developed. It was the Zhao official family who demanded that the land in the south of the Yangtze River be cultivated in rotation, and that every piece of woodland and field could be taken care of by sufficient people.

Now Henan is a barren plain, and there are not enough people, let alone enough poultry to cope. In such a situation, there is probably no other way than to pray to Heaven that the impact of the locust plague will be minimized.

At such a time, Wen Tianxiang's sentence of 'resigned to fate' is a very easy decision to make, but what about afterward? How should he explain to the Zhao Guanjia?!