Instead of being trapped in the city, the three counties should take the initiative to find a place where water and grass are abundant, rob the cattle and sheep of Beihu, and then graze their own herd.

It is true that the quality of the fields in the three counties of Yanmen, Yunzhong and Jiuyuan is not good, but when used as pastures, the quality is definitely better than the pastures further north.

If there is not enough food, grazing. The city on the grassland can really be changed to eating meat if there is not enough food.

Zhu Xiang not only knows how to farm, but also has some of the most basic breeding experience. These breeding experiences are enough for the people of the three northern counties to enclose and breed their own land.

The three northern counties were a little worried, they had just surrendered to Qin, and the Qin State would not provide them with weapons and initial military rations.

And they were also worried that if they suddenly sent troops, the King of Qin would be afraid of them.

Zhu Xiang promised: "With me and Li Mu guaranteeing, you can rest assured." This is also your chance to show what you are capable of. ”

With Zhu Xiang's assurance, the Qin prince Chu gritted his teeth and provided a batch of grain and grass for the three northern counties, and personally mobilized before the war, encouraging them to go out of the Great Wall and plunder the supplies of Beihu to survive the famine year.

Zhu Xiang stayed in the three northern counties and taught them to raise and process plundered cattle and sheep.

Leather weaving, wool processing and weaving, meat processing...... The three northern counties have more and more respect for Changping Jun.

They had heard the rumors and already knew that Changpingjun was a very capable person. When I saw it with my own eyes and got along with it in person, I realized that the rumors were far worse than the facts.

Zhu Xiang encouraged the three northern counties to plunder Beihu, which made the Qin court sigh.

They didn't say that Zhu Xiang was fake benevolence and false righteousness, but that they forced Changping Jun to this, and this disaster year was really sad.

Hopefully it will get better next year.

No matter how thick Qin's blood is, it can't withstand such a toss.

Unfortunately, the heavens still did not fulfill people's wishes.

In 243 BC, the eighth year of the prince of Qin, Chu. Springs are warmer in the north and spring droughts are more severe.

Zhu Xiang, who stayed in Jiuyuan, was plowing the ground when he was horrified to find locust eggs in the soil.

Great droughts are often followed by locust plagues.

After three years of warm winters, the locust eggs were not frozen to death for three consecutive years, and finally accumulated into a locust plague.

Looking at the locust eggs in the land of Jiuyuan County, Zhu Xiang knew that this year's locust plague could not be avoided.

Zhu Xiang immediately informed Prince Chu of the locust plague that would occur this year.

When Prince Chu of Qin heard the news, his cough was not good.

He got Zhu Xiang's letter, his chest was cold, as if something had exploded in his chest, and he covered his mouth and coughed many times in a row.

When he lowered his hand, he found himself coughing up blood.

Prince Qin Chu smiled bitterly: "Three years in a row, three years in a row." ”

He wiped the blood off his robe and held a court meeting to deal with the plague of locusts.

He doesn't know what next year will be, so he can only make one move from God, and he will deal with it. I've been dealing with it like this.

Or else? Is it a compromise to God?

No way!

After the news of the locust plague was told to the court, the court showed a look of despair.

In this era, there is no understanding of locusts, some people say that locusts are ghosts, and some people say that locusts are the god of calamity sent by heaven to harvest.

Some people even say that locusts should not be harmed, otherwise more disasters will be sent from heaven.

Zhu Xiang had long known that the understanding of locusts in this era was not deep, so he wrote down the ins and outs of locusts and what could be done with current technology in the textbooks to the school palace more than ten years earlier.

When the teachers in the school palace dug out the textbooks written by Zhu Xiang and tried to discuss how to deal with them in the Xianyang Palace with the doctors of the court, Zhu Xiang had already sent someone to turn over the ground and kill the locust eggs.

He raised chickens and ducks to eat locust eggs, reducing the number of locust eggs and providing more food.

This has not had much effect.

Because there are locust eggs in Jiuyuan County, then there must be locust eggs in the grasslands further north; There must be other places in the Central Plains.

Zhu Xiang was able to reduce the locust eggs in the land of Qin as much as possible, but he could not control the grassland, let alone the Central Plains.

The locust swarms travel from place to place, eating up all the leaves they can see in turn.

Even if the locusts of the Qin State were prevented in advance, the locusts from other places would fly over.

But even if it doesn't have much effect, it's better than nothing.

That's all they can do.

If the locusts become plagued, there is no way but to kill them.

Whoever eats locusts and livestock eats locusts is just a drop in the bucket.

In particular, locusts will become poisonous when they gather to a certain extent, and people will not be able to eat locusts at that time. Even cattle and sheep may have stomach problems after eating poisonous locusts.

Locusts are such a fucking thing.

Even in modern society, locust plagues are unpleasant.

If it is a modern country, it can also send planes to spray pesticides in advance. But this thing will also evolve drug resistance, and spraying too many pesticides will also affect the living conditions of military and civilians along the way.

Therefore, modern countries can only use physical methods such as netting to reduce the landing of locusts as much as possible.

In this era, there were no airplanes, and there were not so many convenient insect trapping machines.

After the locusts came, people could only hunt and burn the locusts in the most primitive way to snatch food from the locusts' mouths.

Zhu Xiang left Jiuyuan County and taught them how to reduce locust eggs in the soil throughout the Qin Kingdom.

Knowing that there would be a plague of locusts, the peasants cried and grabbed the land, and fell into complete despair.

But what about despair? They can only do their best, do their best to exterminate the locusts and survive.

God has to trap them, can't they just obey God's orders to die?

It is the instinct of living beings to survive, and it is the instinct of human beings to live.

When the plague of locusts comes, then compete with the locusts for food.

Even if the ghosts and gods come, in order to survive, they have to raise the farm tools in their hands to the ghosts and gods.

"Locusts lay their eggs in arid-hardened land, as well as low-lying ponds that are drought. Drown the locusts by flooding them as much as possible. ”

"If there is no flooding in the field, the locust eggs can only be turned out, crushed or burned. Raising chickens and ducks can eat some locust eggs and reduce the amount of labor required to exterminate the eggs. ”

"The water and heat conditions in the south are good, and locust eggs are basically not hatched. But the locusts will go south, and the south must be prepared to exterminate the locusts. ”

"Locusts are just insect plagues, natural disasters, and they have nothing to do with heavenly ghosts and gods. Whoever deceives the crowd with gossip, behead! ”

While guiding the prevention of locust plagues, Zhu Xiang asked Qin Prince Chu for a troop. As long as you encounter people who bewitch the people along the way, no matter your identity, you will be killed!

In successive famine years, there was another locust plague, and many monks who pretended to be gods and ghosts came out to bewitch the people. There are still many villagers who maintain them.

Zhu Xiang once again led his troops to break down the temple, burn the statues, and kill the demons.

On the way, many villages took up arms to confront Zhu Xiang, and Zhu Xiang showed no mercy to his subordinates.

At this time, the world remembered the prestige of Changping Jun who had broken the temple in the Southern Qin Dynasty, and also remembered that Changping Jun was a fierce and famous general who became famous in Guangling City.

Chapter 234: Harmless to my Tian Zhi

Spring ploughing is the time of the official war against the locusts.

There are only a few fields with good water conservancy conditions, but fortunately, locust eggs are easier to eradicate in other fields.

As the saying goes, "if you plough an inch deep in spring, there is nowhere for pests", as long as you plough down an inch, you can turn up the locust eggs.

The peasants picked up locust eggs the size of the little knuckles and crushed them, leaving the smaller locust eggs to be smashed directly with a hoe, and then the ground was flattened with rolling stones, and then a deep plough could kill all the locust eggs in the field.

Although the steps of exterminating insect eggs are simple, the amount of labor is very large and very tiring.

The peasants gritted their teeth and worked, not daring to relax at all.

Fortunately, the Qin prince Chu asked the Qin soldiers who attacked other countries to disarm and return to the fields, otherwise the labor in the fields would not be enough to complete the work of killing insect eggs during the spring ploughing.

Locusts don't just lay eggs in the fields. There are more locust eggs in the wild.

Young farmers have exhausted all their energy and time to kill locust eggs in fields and villages, and it is difficult to take care of locust eggs in the wild.

The elderly, the weak, women and children were organized by the officials to go to the tidal flats and wastelands in search of locust eggs.

The tidal flats, which have been exposed by continuous drought, are full of dense spawning holes.

There are so many locust eggs that they are stacked on the ground and on the stones, and people's scalps are numb to watch.

Fortunately, there is no need to worry about damaging the soil when processing locust eggs in the wasteland, and the amount of labor is slightly smaller.

Where there is lime water, use lime water to scald and suffocate locust eggs; Near the water's edge, boiling water can also scald locust eggs; In the relatively low-lying flat land, the people first filled the locust eggs with soil, and then burned firewood on the soil to simmer the locust eggs......

After several months of extermination of locust eggs, by the end of May, the locust nymphs crawled out.

The second and most important stage of the locust war is coming.

Later studies proved that if the density of locusts reached 10 locusts per square meter, the locusts would mutate and become more suitable for long-distance flights, evolving into a locust plague.

Once the locusts fly, with the current level of science and technology, what can be done is a drop in the bucket. So most of the locusts must be dealt with before they fly.

The Qin prince Chu issued an edict, and the Qin army and a large number of prisoners from all over the country gathered on standby, and some of the doctors and generals in the court led the troops, some returned to the fiefdom, and some returned to their hometowns, and each was ordered to be responsible for a region.

There are basically no locust spawning grounds south of Huaishui, but north of Huaishui, especially on the tidal flats of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, are the main spawning grounds of locusts.

Ying Xiaozheng does not expect the five congresses to deal with the locust plague. He had the Qin army assemble on the south bank of the middle and lower reaches of the Huai River, ready to light bonfires at any time to exterminate as many locusts as possible as they could across the Huai River.

Overall, the south of Huaishui faces the least threat of locust plagues. And Ying Xiaozheng was worried that when the five eastern countries were hit by a locust plague, the displaced people and the army would storm the border of Qin.

After thinking about it, Ying Xiaozheng ordered Li Mu and Wang Jian to each take 20,000 Qin troops to the north and stationed in Taiyuan and Changping counties to help the two counties exterminate locusts while blocking the locusts from the east as much as possible.

Li Mu and Wang Jian took the prince's order and first returned to Xianyang to meet the prince Chu of Qin.

Prince Chu of Qin joked to Li Mu and Wang Qian: "Why did Zheng'er send you back?" Is he trying to take the throne? ”

Cai Ze scolded: "You don't say a few words." ”

Lin Zhen also said: "Do you think everyone knows you like me and Cai Ze?" Aren't you afraid that Li Mu and Wang Jian will take it seriously and be scared out of trouble? ”

Wang Jian was already so frightened that his heart was beating fast.