The peasant girl who escaped the desert: she cried when she found the cruel prince

Chapter 278
The incident in the court soon reached Jingli's ears, which simply refreshed her outlook on life.

"It's already this time, and they're still arguing like this? Shouldn't we rush to control the locusts, appease the people, and find ways to provide disaster relief and prevent riots?" Jing Li said in disbelief.

Wan Baoquan immediately smiled and said: "This court is already rotten. If one day we talk about the court and all the people in court are people from the theater troupe, I won't be surprised!"

What is strange about this is that some people actually suggested offering sacrifices to the Locust God and using young girls as sacrifices, so that the Locust God could retreat quickly and not cause harm to the world.

You’ve seen so many weird things that you don’t even know which ones are weird.

"How is the locust plague outside?" Jingli continued to ask after a long silence.

Wan Baoquan's expression suddenly sank: "Several major counties in Anxi and Jinzhong have been eaten up. Except for a few counties in the fiefdom of King Changling, which are better, the rest are basically hopeless!"

"Many people have already started going out to beg!"

"Why? Didn't I ask you to send the letter to Uncle Fang more than ten days in advance?" Jing Li asked confused.

Wan Baoquan sighed: "Uncle Fang handed over to several staff members of King Changling. These people have also traveled around, and some have given trouble to the court and King Wei!"

"But they say that Chang'an is the place where the king's aura resides, and the locust god is afraid of the emperor's power and dare not invade easily!"

"Why else would there be no locust plague in Chang'an for so many years? Moreover, since your Majesty's arrival, the weather has been good and there have been no droughts or floods. This must be a sign of the emperor's kindness."

Jingli was so angry that she didn't want to speak: "So what if there is a locust plague now?"

Wan Baoquan looked around, and when he saw no one was around, he whispered: "Now that the Locust God is angry, it has nothing to do with the Emperor, but King Changling who killed too much, hurting Tianhe, and causing disasters one after another!"

Now Jingli was even more angry. Although she had some complaints about Tantai Lin, she could not be said like this.

She didn't know why, but the anger in her heart was rising, and she wished she could send the person who said this directly to the Jie tribe, and let them follow the example of Master Han and teach the barbarians with kindness.

Jing Li took a deep breath: "What about the situation in Prince Changling's fiefdom?"

"After Uncle Fang sent out the news, due to the prestige of King Changling, all the county magistrates below did not dare to follow suit and personally supervised the people's harvesting. At that time, some people who did not know the truth said that this was King Changling's defeat in the war. , forced to collect food in advance.”

"Two county magistrates disobeyed orders and were directly killed by General Geng!"

"By the way, General Geng is the one who was saved by our pills!"

"On the whole, except for a few villages that are reluctant to implement the measures, the losses are not too excessive."

The people in King Wei's fiefdom were in trouble. General Geng reported this to King Wei, but King Wei didn't take it seriously at all.

General Geng personally went to meet with various county magistrates. Many of the magistrates were even sarcastic, saying that the King of Changling was meddling in other people's business.

General Geng was so angry that he didn't bother to care about it anymore. Even if Tantai Lin was here, he probably wouldn't care about it. He cares about Mayi County's affairs because Miss Jing is here.

If it were any other place, it would be nothing to do with him if all the death in the world were to happen!
Jingli was silent for a while after listening to Wan Baoquan's words. The world was already devastated and full of rebels and bandits. Now that there was a locust plague, I was afraid that the final riot would be brought forward.

Xiao Su hurried over and said, "Ah Li, what do you think we should do with these locusts?"

"There are too many deaths. It's so hot today that we need to deal with it quickly!"

Jingli glanced at the layers of locusts piled up on the ground and said, "Tell them to put the living ones in the bamboo strips, and be sure to close the lid, and they can only eat them after they have drained their stomachs." "As for the dead ones, Put it all in a bag, grind it into powder and feed it to pigs or chickens and ducks!"

In the past few days, no one has been rushing to harvest. Even if they want to harvest, they have no choice. There is no green in the ground.

The Jing family had the best harvest of grain, with basically no loss at all. Even a lot of straw and straw were taken back.

But those families in the village who didn't listen were not so lucky. When the heavy rain came, it became more difficult to harvest. The locusts came so fast that they couldn't be snatched away. The most serious loss was to Zhang Siwei's family.

At least Third Aunt Wang had Wang Lizheng's family to help her, and more than an acre was confiscated.

Third Aunt Wang sat holding her child in the drying yard and wiping her tears: "How can we survive today? The Liao people who killed me last year killed both my son and daughter-in-law!"

"The damn locusts are here again this year. Oh my God! Why can't you just watch us and order them?"

Wang Lizheng, who was busy pretending to be locusts, cursed: "I've helped you collect the grain. Didn't you see that everyone is busy fighting locusts?"

"Can you bring the dead back to life just by sitting there crying? Or can you cry and vomit out the food in the locusts' bellies? Hurry up and help with the work!"

There are so many locusts, and each family has to collect them. There is a large public mill in the village. Then we can discuss with the families who have livestock in the village to grind them into flour and feed the livestock for a few days.

Mrs. Zhang Siwei silently took a few children to collect the locusts. Zhang Siwei was no longer lazy at this time.

His family has a bad character in the village. When the locust plague comes, everyone is busy robbing their own property, grabbing food, vegetables and fodder, and finally they have time to help others.

Still Uncle Tiesheng couldn't stand it, so he called the shack refugees to help snatch some away.

If we don't take action, the family will starve to death next year. Anyway, it's okay now. It would be good to collect more locusts and feed them to the chickens.

The refugees in the shacks are also busy catching locusts. One hundred kilograms of locusts are exchanged for one kilogram of coarse grains. This is Jingli's method of mobilizing the refugees to vigorously combat the locusts.

The Jing family was in their new house, spreading out the food on drying mats. The locusts had not been cleaned up at the moment, so they did not dare to dry them out, otherwise they would eat them all.

But the water vapor has not dispersed. If it is not dried quickly, the grain will have to be covered to sprout.

Mr. Jing sighed with a sad face: "Quanzi, can we still buy food from outside?"

"Money is no longer money in your hands. It's only when you exchange it for food that you can feel at ease!"

They are not short of money now. They settled the accounts last month and have almost one hundred thousand silver. In the past, the old man would never have dreamed of such a big sum.

But now looking at those shiny gold ingots, he was happy, but also worried about what he should do if he couldn't sell food even though he had money?
Wan Baoquan shook his head and said: "I can't buy it anymore. All the food shops in the city have been closed in the past two days. The prices are probably going to rise soon!"

Since more than a month ago, it has been impossible to buy food in the city of Chang'an. There is a fierce war outside, and Qingzhou and Jizhou are either suffering from drought or floods. Business people are not fools. Food is expensive, so price increases are inevitable. of.

At that time, it will not be strange for food to have the same price today and the same price tomorrow.

Seeing that he couldn't buy food in the city, he went to many rural areas to buy from small landowners. He also bought some coarse grains and hoarded them. It was estimated that the landlords had no food left at the moment.

Jing Ye hurried back: "Master, sister said that everyone should go to the drying yard for a meeting! She has something to talk about!"

(End of this chapter)