"The locust plague is a locust plague!"

The screams of exclamation pierced through the wooden baffle of the private room and clearly reached the ears of the three bear children.

More often than not, there is a dense, noisy, incessant hum.

The entire Xingyang City suddenly darkened, and the swarm of brown locusts that covered the sky and the sun swept across the sky, almost connecting into a mighty river.

Millions, tens of millions of locust swarms, those straightpter-wing creatures with flat bodies and a pair of iron pincer-like chelica teeth trembled like crazy demons and scattered their wings in all directions, gathering and scattering, hovering over Xingyang City.

In this year, there was a drought in many places in the Tang Kingdom, and the continuous land did not drop a drop of water, dried up and cracked, and the thorn history of each state ordered the people to go to the wild to destroy the locust eggs, and also vigorously encouraged the people to raise chickens and geese to prevent possible locust plagues.

Unexpectedly, the locusts still arrived, and they were even more ferocious than expected.

It may be difficult for future generations to imagine such a picture, standing on the plain and looking up, the sky is obscured by swarms of insects, and locusts wash over the wheat fields like a torrential rain falling sideways.

At a glance, the small, glazed-eyed insects were already jumping and lying on any visible vegetation and plants, gnawing at each other.

The subtle sound of gnawing was incessant, and no matter how much the farmer swung his hoe, shovel, and torch, he could not cause substantial damage to the locust swarm.

Even though their companions were crushed and crushed, and even pecked by chickens and ducks, and yellow-brown juice splashed from their fat tire-shaped stomachs, the rest of the locusts still ate the roots and stems of plants and trees without hesitation, sluggish and greedy.

After a few hours, the plague was left with nothing but a mess and an empty shell left after molting, and they continued on their way, following the thin wisps of water in the wind to find their next destination.

Everyone was screaming and running on the streets of Xingyang City, and the locusts landed on the thatched roofs, the flags of the wine shops, the manes of pack horses and oxen, and even the sackcloth clothes worn by people.

Crackling, a swarm of locusts flew into the restaurant, crawling on wooden tables and chairs and even dishes and chopsticks with their long barbed feet, trying their best to gnaw at the old trees that had long since faded from moisture.

Roger picked up the porcelain bowl and slapped the locust sticking to the placket of his clothes, splashing Luffy with yellow-green pus, who had no time to worry about it at this time, and was busy fighting for the lotus leaf holding the chicken leg from the locust's mouth.

Zhao Mao picked up a wooden chair and put it against the window, and yelled at Roger Luffy: "What are you doing in a daze, let's go find Mr."

The three of them didn't care about anything else, tore off a small piece of clothing to wrap their mouth and nose, and only a slit on their faces was exposed for eye snooping, and bowed down to touch the downstairs.

The arrival of the locust plague means famine, death, and flight. Zhao Mao clearly knows this.

I am afraid that at this moment, all the grain that has not yet had time to be harvested has suffered, and what will happen to Xingyang City and Shili Village? Will the already decaying widow's village really be forced to relocate, starve elsewhere, and die on the desperate journey?

Zhao Mao didn't even dare to think about the area affected by this locust plague, in the few history books he had read, there were only a few simple words about the locust plague.

Displaced, starved and fed.

Zhao Mao trembled all over, so much so that he didn't bother to play with the insects crawling on his neck.

The three of them ran along the street, and from time to time there were dead locusts falling in the sky, and the soles of the straw shoes on their feet were completely soaked and damp with the juice in their swollen stomachs.

Anduin was walking slowly on the corner wearing a silk face-covering hat that he didn't know where to go, and Zhao Mao saw him and hurriedly shouted, "Sir!"

Zhao Mao ran to Anduin breathlessly, his tongue as if he had knotted it, unable to speak.

"Alas.... The Yellow River was diverted, the wind and rain were not smooth, the drought and flood disasters were staged in turn, and there was such a locust plague that ravaged the Central Plains. ”

Anduin slowly picked up the package, ignored the flying locusts and walked back to the restaurant, pulling the scarred skinny pack horse out of the backyard stable, chasing away the bugs, and covering it with the thick black cloth that had been placed in the package.

"Sir, locust plague, locust plague!"

Zhao Mao danced and jumped up and down to tell Anduin the urgency of the matter, but the latter only lightly removed the hat and put it on Zhao Mao's head.

"What's the panic, it's just a plague of locusts. Anduin grabbed a locust and pinched it in the palm of his hand, and then the faint sunlight carefully studied the struggling insect.

District???

Zhao Mao disrespectfully felt that his division commander was not a show of brains, no matter the dynasties and dynasties, the locust plague was a terrifying existence that made the world hear about it, and even its fierceness was far better than that of the military disaster.

The disaster of the sword soldiers, but the death ended. And a plague of locusts that have taken away the last vests of food and not even the bark of a tree will bring real despair to us.

Desperately hungry crowds will begin to flee, aimlessly, towards places that may not have been affected.

The ragged refugees gathered more and more, and the first to fall were the frail old people - whose bodies would not be wasted by the hungry crowds....

And then the children who died—selling children and daughters with baskets is not a joke that exists in fairy tales.

Thousands of refugees perished on the death march, and no dynasty could have resisted a natural disaster of this magnitude – if the bureaucrats had a lower baseline, they would have consciously steered the refugees away from the affluent areas and left them to fend for themselves in the wilderness where there was no way to find food.

Zhao Mao covered his head and didn't dare to think about it anymore, he just wanted to put on his wings and fly back to Shili Village, put the lid of the rice cylinder at home with wooden planks and nails, and hide in the dark cellar.....

"Locust plagues are, in the final analysis, nothing more than secondary natural disasters that are intensified by drought. Anduin's tone was relaxed and pleasant, and he led the three of them into the back kitchen of the restaurant, adding a few handfuls of wood to the stove to make the flame even stronger.

"Secondary natural disasters?" Zhao Mao reread the word, looking at Roger Luffy with each other, extremely confused.

"Disasters have countermeasures to prevent and even remediate. Anduin lifted the lid of the pot, scooped some oil into the pot with a spoon, and leaned on the stove himself, and said: "Perhaps for the previous rulers, the locust plague was irresistible and indestructible, and they could only rely on superstitious means such as worshipping the heavens to comfort themselves.....

As the oil in the pot grew warmer, Anduin picked up the bamboo basket in the corner of the wall and waved it a few times outside, and the basket was crawling with locusts.

"However, now the situation has changed. As he spoke, he wrapped the locusts in the basket in wet flour and poured them all into the boiling oil, and in an instant the all-consuming, demonic insects danced wildly and struggled to climb up the rim of the pot.

Anduin closed the lid of the pot indifferently, turned to Zhao Mao and the three of them, and said, "In a sense, you also have a senior brother, who is a year older than you and is now studying in the Guozijian in Chang'an. ”

Zhao Mao was puzzled, what does the matter of them having a senior brother have anything to do with the locust plague?

Anduin smiled, lifted the lid of the pot, scooped up one or two locusts that had been blown golden brown with a colander and put them in his mouth, chewed and said, "I think it depends on him to control the locust plague in Zhenguan this time." ”