Chapter 181

Hearing Du Huaibing's trembling voice, the villagers who had temporarily truce immediately lost the guys in their hands and all of them fell face down on the ground.

"What the hell is this?" Du Mei had never seen Du Huaibing panicked like this. She covered her face and peeked out between her fingers.

The huge buzzing cloud was floating overhead, and when she looked closely, she realized that the cloud was blue-gray. As if he had seen the most frightened thing, Du Mei's eyes widened instantly, and where the clouds flew close at hand, it was clearly dense swarms of locusts!

The overwhelming locusts showed no interest in man, and went straight past them, and pounced on the green, which they had only flown all the way from the south, and where they passed, the green was gone in an instant, and the willow and elm trees by the roadside were only bare trunks, and the wild grasses and wild flowers on the ground were gone.

"Damn, it's a locust!" On the other side of the dam, a man stared at the swarm of locusts in the distance and said with a shaky voice. The villagers who had to risk their lives for water before couldn't care about it at this time, so they picked up the guys and ran to their fields.

"There will be locusts after a long drought! Hurry up and go home and prepare bamboo poles and white cloths! Du Huaibing shouted loudly as he walked back quickly.

Everyone in Dujiagou was panicked and ran back one by one. In the bumper rubbing, either the shoes were stepped on, or the sickle and dung spoon were lost. Because they were all lying on the ground just now, everyone's clothes were covered with dust, and they all looked embarrassed.

Du Mei dusted off his clothes outside the courtyard and carried a hoe into the courtyard. Du Tao and Du Gui hurriedly ran back after her.

"Sister, it's not good, there are suddenly a lot of insects in the field, dense!" When Du Tao thought of those dense insects, goosebumps rose on his body.

"I saw them flying from the mouth of the dam, and these locusts are all here to plague the crops." Du Mei said as he stepped into the house.

"Peach, you go find two long bamboo poles." Du Mei did not dare to delay for a moment, and while commanding, he rummaged through the white cloth in the box.

"But you want to fight locusts?" Xu Shi came back from the river with a nervous look on his face while carrying the laundry tub.

The big elm tree outside the yard was already crawling with locusts, and they were gnawing at such speed that in the blink of an eye, only a few leaves remained in the canopy.

"Well, there are all over the place outside, and if we don't kill them sooner, our rice will be completely destroyed!" Du Mei unfolded a roll of white cloth, Xu wiped his hands, and helped sew a set of two ends respectively, just to put the bamboo pole inside.

"Meizi, are you alright?" Fang asked anxiously outside the hospital.

"Here it is." Xu felt sorry for Du Mei, trotted, went to the kitchen and took two steamed buns and stuffed them in Du Mei's pocket.

"Peach, you go to your second sister and ask her to drive the duck back, these days are not peaceful, the duck will be kept at home and fed. In addition, let her go to the town to talk to Niu Er and them, and take off the price reduction sign. I'm afraid I won't be able to go these days, so I'll let them make their own decisions. Du Mei went out, remembered these words, and hurriedly advised.

"Got it." Du Tao agreed again and again.

Gathering in front of the ancestral hall, Du Mei handed over the finished white cloth curtain to Du Zhong and his sons, and took their big broom.

The rice in the field has already tasseled and flowered, if it is plagued by these locusts, the people of Dujiagou will not harvest the grains, not to mention paying taxes, and even the rations for this winter and next spring will become a problem.

With such a consensus, under the leadership of the patriarch, the people in the village responded to the call, and those who have white cloth at home are the people who are stingy on weekdays, and they are also taken out at this time, and those who do not have white cloth consciously produce male labor, and some have neither white cloth nor male labor, and the women have prepared a big broom made of wild bamboo, which sweeps the yard on weekdays, and spreads to dry grain when it is busy, which is available to every family.

According to the patriarch's arrangement, two strong laborers grabbed the bamboo poles at both ends of the white cloth, and the three white cloths were in a group, driving away the locusts with the wind, gathering them in a small place, and then the women rushed up and killed them directly with large brooms.

It was a time-consuming and physically demanding job, and after two or three rounds, the men were exhausted and panting, and the locusts were also proficient, and fewer and fewer were killed, and some even escaped by pretending to be dead.

Du Mei quietly stuffed the steamed buns in his pocket to Du Zhong and his son, and stopped their refusal with his eyes, everyone is tired and hungry at this time, where are these two steamed buns enough!

After noon, the women of the families went to the fields to deliver food, and the men, who had been tired all morning, had to rest. Du Tao and Du Gui came to deliver food, so naturally there were Du Zhong's father and son.

It's just a meal, and the field in front of me has been gnawed by locusts and only a bare rod. The men were anxious, dropped the dishes and chopsticks, and started a new round of round-up. These locusts seem to be inexhaustible, and there is a steady stream of locusts in the sky, flying all over the sky, flying all over the sky, almost reaching out to catch them.

The women brandished brooms and tried to shoot down the locusts flying in the air, but to little avail, killing only three or five at a time, a drop in the bucket compared to the overwhelming intruders.

Seeing that Dujiagou suffered a big locust plague that had not been encountered in 30 years, it was also powerless, struggled twice, and finally sank into the West Mountain.

Dujiagou sank into darkness, and the villagers sitting at home eating did not know whether it was real or hallucinating, they could not hear the cicadas and frogs, but only the rustle of locusts eating their crops.

Several men in charge of the family couldn't sit still, so they all gathered at Du Huaibing's house to think about it. If someone kills during the day, what can I do at night, if I let it go, I'm afraid that tomorrow morning there will not be a single star of green in the whole village.

"I've heard my dad say that the older generation used bonfires to burn locusts, but they didn't take it to heart at that time, and they don't know what to do now." Du Huaibing has been running all day long to command, he is also nearly sixty years old, and he can only rely on smoking to lift his spirit.

"No matter what, you have to try, and it's not difficult to build a campfire on the edge of the field." Du Jiasuo frowned.

"I guess this can work, isn't there a saying that moths fight fires, and I think this locust is the same reason." Aunt Zhang's man said.

"Then let's not talk about it, let's get it first." Dajin clapped his hands and said, he has twelve acres of rice, whether he can have a good year this year, he is all counting on the harvest in the field.

One spread ten, ten spread hundreds, and every household built a fire at the edge of the field. If you look down from Shewu Mountain, the fire is soaring into the sky all the way, winding and circling like an extraordinary fire dragon.

At first, some people watched the fire and stayed up until midnight, but the villagers couldn't stand it after a hard day's work, so they filled the bonfire with enough firewood and went home to sleep.

Du Mei's house also lit a fire, and she and Du Ying stayed together. Du Zhong and his son want to make a fire for Du Shicheng's field. Dumei got bored waiting at the edge of the field, so he lit a small torch and went around the ridge to catch the locusts that were clinging to the rice leaves.

Don't look at these locusts jumping happily during the day, and when they see the fire at night, they are all stunned, and Du Mei catches one accurately. She put all the locusts she caught under her feet and trampled them to death, and she almost caught them around, and Du Mei took a torch to shine a photo, and there were still some in the middle of the field, but the field was full of water, and she couldn't go down, so she had to watch dryly. Fortunately, the locusts had been making a fuss for a day, and now they didn't seem to continue to gnaw on their lives.

"Sister, let's go back." The adults in the field were almost gone, and Du Ying came to look for her from another place.

"Okay." Du Mei added firewood to the campfire, and the two sisters went home.

The ducks are used to being on the river beach, trapped at home for most of the day, the ducks are restless, and they do not stop at night, Du Mei and Du Gui took the lamp and looked at it, and Dabai came to her and pecked her legs.

"Bear with me a few days, for the locusts are being slaughtered everywhere, and if I surprise you, I will not have time to find them." Du Mei muttered, touching the big white little head.

Dabai quieted down, and the ducks stopped shouting, and slept with their little heads under their wings one by one.

"Ducks are accustomed to eating snails, small fish and other living creatures on the river beach, and now they are not used to feeding them food." Du Ying said worriedly.

"Living creatures?" Du Mei's mind turned, and he repeated it unconsciously.

"That's right, our ducks are big and beautiful, don't talk about Dujiagou, it's ten miles and eight townships, I can't find a second one." Du Ying straightened her chest and said proudly.

"Why?" Du Mei asked deliberately.

"It's not that we serve well, besides, they are all in captivity, only we are free-range, and we grew up eating aquatic plants and fish and shrimp, so how can it be the same." Du Ying was a little embarrassed, stocking was obviously the eldest sister's idea, why did she still ask about her at this time.

"Wash and sleep, I'm afraid I'll be busy tomorrow." Du Mei picked up the big broom for a day, and now he only felt that his arm was sore, and he couldn't lift it.

The next day, when the morning light was slightly dew, Du Mei was awakened by a tense sound of gongs.

Du Huaibing shouted in a hoarse voice: "Gather in the ancestral hall and continue to exterminate locusts, no family can be missing." ”

When Du Mei went out, he told Du Ying: "Today, the ducks are only fed in the morning and at noon, and the duck food is halved." ”

"Why is that? Yesterday I was full and made trouble, this is not full......" Du Ying asked suspiciously.

"Just do what I say, and I'll talk about it when I get back in the evening." Du Mei was in a hurry to go to the ancestral hall, and Du Ying had to suppress the question in her heart.

The men, who had slept in the middle of the night last night, got up scolding, cursing on their lips, but they did not dare to slow down, and after breakfast, they took the guys to the ancestral hall.

It was a noisy slaughter for half a day, until the people were tired and tired, but with little effect. The locusts seemed to be provocative, and they were frightened and flew around, and some of them landed on the heads of the villagers to, and they were all young leaves that they had swallowed.

The enraged men launched a more ferocious culling, but these locusts were menacing, and the dead ones were quickly filled by the new ones.

At night, every house lit a bonfire again, because they were tired during the day, and there were not many people guarding it.

Du Mei ate and asked Du Ying to release the duck that had been quacking for a day.

"Sister, it's dark at this time, where are you going to drive the ducks?" Du Ying asked puzzled. 2k reading web