Kai Fu Han

Chapter 540 Locust plague
Locust eggs in the soil can be killed with water, but long-term drought certainly does not provide this condition, so it cannot be used.

For the larvae, Liu Xinqi suggested that people can cook, grill, and eat them after high-temperature sterilization and disinfection, which is rich in nutrients.

As for the adult insects, they can only be handed over to the government and exchanged for food.If you raise poultry and livestock at home, you can steam the adult worms at high temperature for more than a quarter of an hour, then dry them in the sun, grind them into powder, and feed them to the poultry and livestock.

The third article is to warn officials that if the organization fails to respond to disasters, the Xinghan League will hold them responsible after the disaster. If they seriously neglect their duties, they will not rule out changing the commander on the spot.

In this article, the standard limits the extent to which officials should perform, and stipulates that serious civil unrest must never occur.

There are more than a dozen strategies for directly targeting the locust plague, and the articles and explanations take up two pages.

Next comes the strategy of indirect disaster relief.

Xinghan League recruited a large number of laborers to do part-time labor, regardless of gender.

After being recruited, these people will be assigned jobs nearby, most of them doing road construction and water conservancy work.There are no restrictions on male or female workers. As long as they can contribute, they will be treated accordingly, and at least they won't go hungry.

In addition to this kind of short-term recruitment, there are also long-term recruitments. Employment agreements will be signed to protect the rights and interests of workers and also impose certain restrictions on workers.

Part-time workers can leave if they want after a day, but long-term workers must inform them in advance if they want to terminate the contract, etc.

All the long-term workers recruited will go to build the railway on the planned railway line between Penglai and Damingfu.

Before the sleepers and rails are in place, these long-time workers will build roadbeds, dig gravel up the mountain, build railway protective forests, etc.

In the afternoon, Liu Xinqi had nothing to do, so he wandered outside Penglai City. After leaving the residential area outside the city wall, he came to the suburbs where grain was grown.

There are many children in the field catching locusts.

These children carefully divided the locusts into adults and larvae, presumably intending to eat the larvae themselves and sell the adults to grain stores.

The wheat seedlings in the field are dying and only reach calf height. It is estimated that even if there is rain later, the harvest will not be much.

On dry land, there are not many locust larvae and even fewer adults.

Continue walking forward and come to a construction site.

This is a construction site for railway construction. The workers on the construction site are working in full swing and are not affected by the drought at all.

"Blessings come from disasters, misfortunes come from blessings." Liu Xinqi murmured that this drought is not necessarily all bad. If there was no drought, Xinghan League would not be able to hire so many workers.

While watching the excitement, a fast horse came running from the direction of Penglai City.

"Alliance!"

The knight on the horse quickly dismounted when he was more than 50 steps away from Liu Xinqi. Without stopping, he stumbled quickly to Liu Xinqi.

Liu Xinqi's guard stepped forward to support the knight.

"Leader, the Daming Mansion reports that the plague of locusts is coming."

"Where did it come from?" Liu Xinqi asked.

Xu Zhong reported before that the locust plague on the east and west roads of Beijing was just a sign, how could it have formed so quickly.

"Coming from the west," the knight replied.

It seems that the west side of Daming Mansion is also dry.

"Go, go back."

He quickly returned to Penglai, went home and had a few words with Zhou Yue, and then immediately came to the alliance headquarters.

The horses were ready outside the alliance gate, and Luo Cheng and some officials were standing outside waiting.

"You take care of your home, and I'll go to the front line to direct the disaster response." "Leader, let me go." Luo Cheng requested.

Liu Xinqi was away from home all year round, and Luo Cheng couldn't bear it when he had to go out again within a few days of his return.

"No, we are not going to fight this time. There is no danger. It will be easier for me to command." Liu Xinqi waved his hand and rejected Luo Cheng's suggestion.

After all, Luo Cheng was only the minister of the Government Affairs Council. It was difficult to command the officials of the other two councils, and the army was even more incapable of command.

In fighting this disaster, the role of the military and the Ministry of Public Security will be very important.

The horses work harder and faster, changing horses without changing people, and basically no rest.Liu Xin spent two days and traveled more than 1000 and [-] miles to Daming Mansion.

“The locusts cover the sky and the sun is colorless, and the wild fields shed tears and blood.

You can't catch it by pulling your clothes, the big leaves are empty and the small branches are broken.

The men and women who were in arrears last year, who can I tell you this year?

The official Cao Cao was drunk and could not hear anything. He sighed and turned around to look at the capital. "

When Liu Xinqi saw the tragic scenes in the fields on the roadside, he couldn't help but recited this Ming Dynasty song "Locust"

"Leader, it's not that bad. As soon as the locust plague started, I carried out disaster relief according to the alliance's arrangements." Wu Nan was sweating next to him.

If there was a tragic scene of selling children and daughters in the Daming Mansion under his rule, the Ministry of Supervision and the Ministry of Military Justice would probably be able to skin him without Liu Xinqi.

Moreover, the "Baixin Xunbao" has already announced that if a locust plague really occurs, the Xinghan League will exempt the people in the affected areas from the summer tax.

"I saw these fields that had been eaten away by locusts, and thought of the people outside the Xinghan League. I felt this way. You don't have to worry about it." Liu Xinqi was very embarrassed. Although he was good at thinking, he couldn't write poetry properly. What matters is inspiration, and he has no talent in this area.

I recited a song called "Locust". Except for part of the first two sentences, the rest of it was out of place.

In front of them, except for the fields that have been eaten away, the people are not "crying and bleeding in the fields", but are using various tools to catch locusts.

Adults and children all join in, creating a lively scene.

A child lit a fire at the edge of the field and was roasting larvae. After roasting a bunch of larvae, he gave them to his brothers and sisters next to him.

"The leader is so talented. This poem is really similar to the scene on Hebei West Road. Recently, half of the soldiers of the [-]th Brigade have been sent to the border to collect refugees." Wu Nan replied.

"There are already refugees?" Liu Xinqi couldn't believe it.

When the locust plague just started, people always have some food stored in their homes, so there should not be refugees so soon.

"I came here with the locust plague. I don't know why, but I didn't have any food at home. Seeing that this year's summer harvest was hopeless, I just abandoned my home and came to us." Wu Nan introduced.

The Xinghan League was already very experienced in recruiting refugees and had a mature process. Liu Xinqi was not worried that something might go wrong in this matter and did not continue to ask any more questions.

"It is probably because of the previous war with the Jin Kingdom and the raids by the Jin Kingdom and the Puppet Qi." Liu Xinqi guessed.

"The General Staff also thinks so. The people on our newly recovered Hebei East Road and Damingfu Road basically have no food stored in their homes. If it weren't for our Xinghan League to provide work-for-relief and harvest locusts for food, it is estimated that these people would have become refugees. .” Wu Nan said.

"Hey, these are troubled times!" Liu Xinqi sighed.

"I heard that this locust plague is very large." Wu Nan asked.

"It is indeed very big. The Yellow River Basin, Huainan roads, and Hebei roads have basically been affected." Liu Xinqi replied.

"Is it possible that the Jin Kingdom will come to Qiugu again because they have no food to eat?" Wu Nan guessed.

(End of this chapter)