Chen's civil strife and locust plague again.

To the west of Chen, locust plagues have broken out in most of the areas since early spring today, and the crops in the fields have been eaten up before they have budded or grown.

Blackstone Town has also suffered a locust plague this year, and the trouble is very fierce, not to mention the sprouts in the field, half of the mountain has been gnawed bare.

Crops are cultivated every year, and they accumulate in abundant years, but they owe food in every year. Therefore, every family has a little bit of food accumulation, and those who support it for a year and a half will not starve to death. However, natural disasters still have a glimmer of life for people to survive, but most of the time that people are forced to live are man-made disasters.

Li Laohan is an old farmer, a short, swarthy lame man, who has only dealt with dirt all his life. At this moment, he wrinkled his brows and clicked on the old smoking pot, and what was burning in the old smoking pot was the old tobacco leaves he planted in the corner of the courtyard, which was strong and burned his lungs.

In this year, the old croppers are worried!

Since the beginning of the disaster, Li Laohan has to go to the field every day to watch.

Today, he went to the ground again early in the morning.

In the empty field, where there are no roots left, there are still many locusts fluttering their wings.

"Drink...... Too! ”

Spit out a mouthful of old phlegm and step on a few locusts, Li Laohan cursed fiercely, "Donkey Day, I can't live!" ”

When Li Laohan passed by Tian Ridge, he met a thin young man who was catching locusts in his back cage.

"Xiao Lu, let's catch this thing again."

The thin young man's name is Liu Lu, and in the past two years, his family has either died of illness, or he has been conscripted to fight and has not returned, and now he is left alone.

Liu Lu smiled shyly at Li Laohan.

"Eating too much of this thing is not ......good for your health," Li Laohan, who said this, only sighed.

"Alas!"

If you don't have to eat, who wants to eat such a thing. A person like him, who has been farming all his life, has not saved a few bags of grain in the end, let alone a young man in his early twelves in front of him.

Li Laohan squatted down, and the cigarette did not leave his mouth.

"Xiao Lu, let me tell you, I have experienced a lot of this kind of thing, uncle, and next year will definitely be a good situation."

"Next year, you will plant with your uncle, keep your family's land and have a good harvest, and you will never starve your son in the future, and you will be able to ask for a daughter-in-law in a few years."

"Hahaha......"

Liu Lu didn't say much, and smiled: "Thank you, Uncle Li!" ”

Li Laohan squatted on the ridge of the field and talked with Liu Lu, but Liu Lu was a stuffy gourd, and most of the time Li Laohan talked to himself.

An hour later, Liu Lu had already loaded the locusts in the half-back cage, and they were densely packed together, and Li Laohan's stomach was churning.

Li Laohan got up and habitually patted his buttocks.

"These are all good catches by your kid today, they are fat and juicy, they are very suitable for wine, give Uncle a plate to taste."

Liu Lu simply nodded.

"Uncle still has some oil at home, and he has been reluctant to eat it, so he just used it to stir-fry this thing. After a while, I will go directly to my uncle's house, and you will come to the knife and taste your boy's craftsmanship......"

On the way back, Li Laohan limped, walked in front with his back to Liu Lu, and smoked the old cigarette pot, but he didn't say anything.

Blackstone Town is not big, and there are less than 100 households at the end of the day, and now there are natural disasters in troubled times, and those who die die, those who flee, and there are not many people left.

Li Laohan is the only one in his family, he has been a bachelor all his life, and his life is naturally rougher, and he has not accumulated many belongings for so many years of farming, and the entire small earthen yard is only two earthen houses that have been in half a lifetime, and they are still tinkering, smoky and smoky for decades, and black and dilapidated earthen houses.

According to Li Laohan's statement, there are many fried fat locusts and people who are easy to eat are tired in their hearts, so they have to be paired with other coarse grains.

After Liu Lu tinkered for a while, he cleaned up a table, a large plate of fat locusts that were fried until they were browned, a small clay pot of potato roots, and a few black-faced nests.

For Liu Lu and Li Laohan, this is definitely a sumptuous table, and it is better to put aside the usual, but now in this situation, it is not easy to eat this meal. If Li Laohan hadn't seen Liu Lu's face turn sallow and black when he ate locusts every day, he couldn't bear it, otherwise he would really be reluctant to take out so much grain at once.

"This table is good, you kid can do it!"

Although Li Laohan, who had eaten locusts recently, wanted to vomit when he saw this thing, the table in front of him still made him greedy.

And for Liu Lu, the table made of saliva also made him full of joy, and he looked forward to it with a smile on his face.

"Sit, Sit, ......"

Li Laohan put a burnt yellow locust in his mouth.

Crunchy, chicken flavor!

Li Laohan nodded, it was indeed better than what he made, and glanced at Liu Lu with appreciation.

"Eat, eat...... Don't look at me! ”

They are all familiar and close elders, and Liu Lu will naturally not be timid and polite.

"Oh, wait......"

Liu Lu gnawed on the potato roots, the crispy locusts, and watched curiously as Li Laohan suddenly got up and began to rummage through the cabinets mysteriously.

After a while, Li Laohan turned out a small jar out of nowhere, and slowly put it on the table like holding a treasure.

"Xiao Lu, guess what's in here?" Li Laohan looked at Liu Lu and asked.

Liu Lu chewed something in his mouth and shook his head.

"You kid has a mouthful, I don't want to drink a few sips of this baby on weekdays."

With Liu Lu's Mu Na being sluggish, he also knew that there was wine in the jar for a while.

Wine is not unusual, it was in the past, but now, it is difficult to eat, let alone wine, no wonder Li Laohan is so precious.

As he spoke, Li Laohan opened the wine jar, took two small pottery bowls, poured half a bowl for him and Liu Lu, and then carefully sealed the rest.

"Incense!" Li Laohan inhaled the wine fiercely, and then picked up the bowl and took a sip.

It was very fragrant, Liu Lu smelled it from the opening of the wine jar.

Liu Lu still remembers that he secretly drank wine when he was a child, and it was the peaceful period at that time, and his family was also there. Now, after all these years, he can't remember what the wine tasted like when he stole it.

Liu Lu picked up the small bowl and took a sip.

A hot breath flowed from my throat to my stomach, burning my heart and burning my whole chest.

"This is an old burning knife, how about it, it's strong enough! You kid haven't drunk it, have you?"

Liu Lu shook his head.

Seeing Liu Lu pour three or four sips in succession, and only a small sip of the bottom of the bowl was left in a small bowl of wine, Li Laohan was startled.

Looking at Liu Lu's black and red face, Li Laohan said: "You kid take it easy, you are weak, you will drink like this." ”

Liu Lu blushed, "I want to drink, I like this taste." ”

Li Laohan's eyes were gloomy, and after a while, he joked with a smile: "Don't be dissatisfied, you kid still want to drink, no, this bowl is just one person, and I have to save the little bit left in the jar and slowly satisfy my hunger later." ”

Liu Lu's body was indeed too empty, and he was a little swaying after a bowl of wine, and then he greeted Li Laohan in a daze and went back.

Watching Liu Lu leave slowly, Li Laohan sighed, and then looked at the rice on the table, except for the bowl of wine that was drunk cleanly, Liu Lu only moved a small piece of potato root, a black noodle nest, and most of the locusts on the plate were still left.

"Alas, what a good boy, it's just a bad life."

A few days later, the plague of locusts did not stop, but the conscripts in the city came again.

The officer at the head, a short man with a sparse mustache, was draped in shabby armor, carried an iron sword, rode an old black horse, and had a cold look in his eyes.

Behind his horse, there were seven small soldiers, each with a black spear in their hands, and their dirty and tattered military clothes were also hanging on their bodies at will, their eyes were not eyes, and their mouths were not mouths to the townspeople of Blackstone Town, if it weren't for the outfits on their bodies, they would be more like bandits than bandits.

Blackstone Town is located in a remote place to the west of Chen, but it is still inevitably affected by Chen's civil unrest.

The officer on horseback raised his eyebrows, pointed to a trembling old man in front of him and said, "You are the mayor of the town?" On the orders of Lord Chengmu, in order to support the army of the front-line counter-insurgency and bandits, Blackstone Town was conscripted with a hundred stone of military rations. ”

When this group of soldiers arrived in Blackstone Town, they drove the remaining people in Blackstone Town together. The town of Nuoda, dead and dead, walked and walked, from hundreds of people at the time of the largest population, to only fifty or sixty old, weak, sick and disabled people remain.

The previous mayor of the town has long since fled, and the current mayor of the town was appointed by the previous grain collector at will.

Perhaps because of his age, or because of his unrestful life, or because of the prestige of the officer, the old mayor trembled and said: "My lord, Blackstone Town has suffered a locust plague this year, and there will be no harvest in the next year. ”

The officer said impatiently: "Don't talk nonsense, who can starve to death to farm." Don't think I don't know, you all pretend to be pitiful, who knows how much food is hidden at home. ”

"You are limited to three days to raise food, and we will come to collect it after three days, if there is no food at that time, don't blame the military master, I will bring you to justice and punish you at that time, kill people and cut off your head."

After a cold snort, the officer turned his horse's head and led the seven soldiers away.

"This ...... This ......" The old mayor wanted to argue a few words, but the other party had already walked away.

The others sighed and dispersed.

Liu Lu followed Li Laohan's side, expressionless and silent.

"Phew, a bunch of dogs, bandits are more humane than you."

Li Laohan cursed, "Levy, levy, levy!" Levy your ancestors' grain, and the official grain will be levied until ten years later, and it will be requisitioned. ”

"A group of brutes, who make trouble and don't provide disaster relief, don't give us tax exemptions, forget it, and come to grab food every day, leaving no one to live at all."

Subsequently, Li Laohan stopped cursing after a long period of silence.

"Alas, there are only a few kinds of lands in heaven and earth that starve to death the most."

Li Laohan said to Liu Lu, "Xiao Lu, you are still young, get out of here." Although the world outside is not peaceful, if you go out, you may still have a way to live. There is no way to survive if you stay here, even if you survive these two years and are not starved to death, but at that time you will be dragged by them to fight, that kind of place, you can only be sent to death with a body like you. ”

Liu Lu didn't speak, he had the idea of leaving before, but he didn't put it into action, the familiarity and closeness here made him not really make up his mind.

And now, suddenly, he made up his mind to leave.

"Uncle Li, are you?"

"Me? Hehe......"

Liu Lu heard Li Laohan's rare laughter.

"Uncle, I have bad legs and feet when I was a child, I'm afraid I won't be able to walk far!"