Cultivation of chastity

Chapter 12 Fighting the Locust Plague
"King Yue, I'm coming... I'm coming..." Zhao Yuankai got the news of the locusts' appearance in Sinong Temple, and almost immediately, he took his horse to Li Tai's duck farm, entered the door in a panic, panting heavily gas.

"Zhao Shaoqing, please slow down." Qin Zhong, who was in charge of managing the duck farm, came out to greet Zhao Yuankai and said, "What's the matter? It's so urgent!"

"Where is King Yue?" Zhao Yuankai asked.

"Inside!" Qin Zhong quickly replied, "Mr. Yan is teaching!"

Zhao Yuankai took a few deep breaths, calmed down, and said, "I'll report the emergency!"

He didn't say much, so he strode to the door, but saw Baihe and Lu Anshou blocking the door as usual, went forward and crossed his hands to salute, bent slightly, and said, "Locusts have appeared in the field, I need to ask the king of Yue to recruit ducks." Poultry, let’s get rid of locusts!”

Hearing this, Bai He nodded and said: "The King of Yue has already ordered that if you need to dispatch ducks and poultry to exterminate the locusts, just go to the main room to find Mr. Ma Zhou. The King of Yue has entrusted all this matter to Mr. Ma Zhou. He is most familiar with those duck shepherds!"

"Thank you, Mrs. Baihe!" Zhao Yuankai was taken aback when he heard Baihe's words, and asked again, "Won't King Yue go in person?"

"The king of Yue is still in class. For the king of Yue, this is the most important thing!" Bai He replied.

Hearing this, Zhao Yuankai didn't say anything more, but bent over and hurriedly walked towards the main room.

As Zhao Yuankai left, Yan Qinli held the book in his hand and looked at Li Tai slightly puzzled:

"Your Majesty has been busy with locust resistance for so long, and now that it's finally here, do you still have the patience to follow me to study historical records?"

"Mr. Yan, if you say you're not worried, it's a lie." Li Tai said calmly, "But you also know that I've been busy for so long, and I should have done everything. The students of the imperial examinations have already studied what they should learn seriously, and they still need the last night, do they have to endorse all night long, just treat them as usual!"

"Even though that's the case, won't your majesty personally preside over the locust resistance?" Yan Qinli said seriously with a book in his hand.

"Ma Zhou is comprehensive and capable, and Zhao Yuankai is exquisite in all aspects. When it comes to implementing specific things, they are much better than me.

Really let me get started, I'm afraid it will only be a disservice, so let the two of them do it.

Of course, if you take [-] steps back, if you really fail, then it is naturally a problem that I did not go to the front line in person, and I will bear the responsibility. "

Yan Qinli's hand holding the book couldn't help but feel a little heavier, and looked at Li Tai with a little stare.

Seeing that Li Tai was right, he calmly opened the book in his hand and said, "Let's continue talking about the Liuhou family!"

While speaking, he continued to take lessons.

When Ma Zhou saw Zhao Yuankai coming to ask him to dispatch the duck, he couldn't help but glance in Li Tai's direction.

Although Li Tai had told him about this matter, when it really happened to him, Ma Zhou was still very grateful for Li Tai's decentralization.

So Ma Zhou bowed in Li Tai's direction, followed Zhao Yuankai decisively, and devoted himself to the cause of fighting locusts.

"What should we do now?" Zhao Yuankai looked at Ma Zhou in a daze.

Although it has always been said that ducks are used to control locusts, in fact these locusts appeared all over the mountains and plains, and Zhao Yuankai was a little panicked.

After all, Sinong Temple couldn't stand another failure, and he didn't want to fail.

"Baiqu!" Ma Zhou calmly said to Sinong Temple, "Our goal is here!"

Zhao Yuankai didn't react when he heard Ma Zhou's words. After thinking for a while, he said:

"Where is the Baiqu? It has been abandoned for many years, and the weeds that grew upside down have been eaten several times."

Ma Zhou said: "For the fields near the Baiqu, no one was organized to clear the canal, so the river course was silted up, and the original fertile land was naturally barren.

But the vegetation here is lush, and Sinong Temple did not organize corvees to plow the fields here, so I and the king of Yue both inferred that there will be a large number of locusts hatching and inhabiting in the large area where Zhengguoqu and Baiqu are located! "

Perhaps it was because Li Shimin took care of the other princes too smoothly, so all the other princes were killed before the Guanzhong area was fully developed. This made the area where Zhengguoqu and Baiqu are located not fully developed.

Later, as the population of Chang'an gradually increased, this area was developed to such an extent that the Weihe River stopped flowing, making it impossible for Guanzhong to support a city with a population of one million. Even if it wanted to develop it, it would not be able to develop it.

Of course, you don't need to worry about this when you are in Zhenguan. If you really want to worry about it, you have to wait until the end of Zhenguan.

Hearing Ma Zhou's analysis, Zhao Yuankai nodded, and said slightly, "Do you only need to take care of this place? What about other places?"

Ma Zhou said, "At the temple fair, we recruited people from various villages, so we allocated ducks ranging from [-] to [-] to the small villages around Chang'an early on.

At the same time, we released news in Chang'an to let people raise ducklings, but there should be one or two in the house of a good family in Arita.

This will ensure that Chang'an and the small villages around Chang'an can deal with scattered locusts in a timely manner.

But now we have to carry such a large number of ducks to sweep in the relatively flat field.

Completely prevent the locusts from forming a flying momentum, so at least there will be no more migratory locusts in Guanzhong this year! "

Zhao Yuankai breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Ma Zhou's words. In any case, everyone had prepared too much for this day.

Soon, led by Ma Zhou, the duck shepherd drove the ducks towards Baiqu.

Only then did Zhao Yuankai realize that the location where Li Tai and the others were actually not far from Baiqu.

Zhao Yuankai didn't know whether this place was chosen intentionally or not by Ma Zhou and others, but at least the road was quite smooth.

Arriving at Baiqu, Ma Zhou waved his hand and gave the duck herds an order to herd, "Let the ducks go!"

The duck herders began to drive the ducks to the deserted Baiqu land with their whips. These ducks kept screaming "quack quack quack" and were quite impatient to humans, but they were quite impatient to locusts. To us it is the clarion call of slaughter.

The ducks rushed to the fields in an endless stream, and I don't know how many locusts were startled.

The locusts just appeared, and in the next second, several duckbills swallowed the locusts, opening their bloody mouths one by one, as ferocious as a penguin urging to charge money.

Seeing the locusts jumping and dodging in the field, and then being swallowed by the ducks, Zhao Yuankai couldn't help clenching his fists.

To be honest, the locusts, which were originally terrifying, looked so fragile in front of the mouths of the ducks, it was hard to imagine that they were the plague of locusts that made the people of Guanzhong despair.

"This counts as killing the locusts?!" Zhao Yuankai asked Ma Zhou expectantly.

"This is just today's journey!" Ma Zhou said calmly, "We need to clean up the whole area of ​​Zhengbaiqu.

Clean up the locusts here, and the locust plague in the whole Guanzhong should not be as powerful as the migratory locusts.

As for the sporadic locusts, they were handed over to the duck shepherds of each village and the ducks cultivated by each family.

There may still be sporadic locusts at that time, but it should not be a plague of locusts! "

"Ma Lang-jun, you are really stable in command and dispatch, and you really have the style of a general!" Zhao Yuankai stretched out his hand and praised very flatteringly.

"The capital of the King of Yue has already been arranged in sevens and eighties. I'm just doing some hard work, so it's nothing!"

Ma Zhou shook his head, watched the locusts on the land being pushed horizontally by the ducks, and ordered loudly:

"Starting from No. A, stay in the duck pen here, and leave two duck shepherds and five hundred ducks to prevent locusts from escaping from other places.

Rest for one night, and continue to hunt ducks tomorrow! "

"We'll have to work hard in the future, are you sure Zhao Shaoqing will follow?!" Ma Zhou looked at Zhao Yuankai and asked involuntarily.

"Follow!" Zhao Yuankai gritted his teeth fiercely, but still chose to follow.

Because Zhao Yuankai felt that it would be too difficult for him to regain his position in Si Nong Si by his own ability.

Now by chance, he hugged King Yue's thigh, maybe King Yue could become His Majesty in the future!

After all, with the sage's Xuanwumen change ahead, no one can guarantee that Li Tai will not be able to become the Ninth Five-Year Master.

The King of Yue has this ability at the age of eight now, and he will be an adult when he becomes an adult!
No matter what I say, I can't let go of this thigh!
Of course, Ma Zhou is responsible for grazing ducks in the field and cleaning up the locusts in the field as much as possible, while Dou Jing organizes members of Sinong Temple and local good families to deal with the locusts in the crop fields.

It would be easy if the crops were not sown. Once the ducks are released, the ducks will naturally eat happily in this buffet.

But for the crops that have been sown, it is much more careful to deal with the locusts in the field.

After all, if you accidentally get Miao pregnant, you will suffer a lot.

At this time, even the common people were organized by the Sinong Temple to repel the locusts. Those with ducks produced ducks and submerged the locusts in the mountains and seas of ducks. If there were no ducks, they had to work hard at night. Watch the fire and don't burn to the mountains.

The anti-locust operation lasted from mid-July to the end of August. At this time, it was really not easy to find locusts near Chang'an.

The ducks were so chubby that even if there were children chasing them, they flapped their wings and couldn't jump up.

"You did a great job this time, the locust plague!" Li Shimin patted Li Tai on the shoulder and praised.

Li Tai said earnestly: "Qingque just made a plan, and the real hard work is the people below who do things.

During the few days when the locusts were the most rampant, I only studied with Mr. Yan. To be honest, I was the one who had the most leisure! "

"Don't be humble, without your plans and plans, how could they still do things!"

Li Shimin patted Li Tai on the shoulder and said, "This time you helped Aye a lot, I want to thank you very much, tell me what you want, Aye will help you achieve it!"

"Anything is fine?" Li Tai asked with wide eyes when he heard Li Shimin's words.

"You, Aye, are the king of a country, you speak your word!" Li Shimin said confidently.

Why so confident, because before Li Shimin came to announce Li Tai, he already knew what Li Tai wanted in his diary.

That's why Li Shimin is not afraid of Li Tai's unreasonable thoughts. If what Li Tai wants is different from what is in the diary, then there is no need to read Li Tai's diary in the future.

"I want to build an agricultural school to impart knowledge to farmers!" Li Tai said to Li Shimin seriously.

"I want to establish an agricultural school...it's not easy!" Li Shimin said to Li Tai with a slightly gloomy expression.

"Eh?!" Li Tai was a little stunned when he heard Li Shimin's words.

And Li Shimin said with a straight face, "Agricultural colleges are not easy. They need food, teachers, teaching materials, and even land. Do you really have the awareness, Qingque?"

"I just think that the common people should not have a year's supply of food!" Li Taidao, "It's just a locust plague, and there will be a lot of hungry people in the city of Chang'an. I think that as the royal family of the Tang Dynasty, I should find a way to let the people all over the world die." We are all full!"

"Qingque..." Li Shimin looked at Qingque's resolute expression, and saw his shadow on Qingque's body.

It's just that my dream at the beginning was to help the world and the people, while Qingque's dream was to make everyone in the world have enough food and clothing.

"Aye, I know it's not easy, but I just want to try and walk a path that no one else has ever walked!"

Li Tai's serious attitude towards Li Shimin made Li Shimin really speechless.

"If you want to open a school, have you thought about where to get the money and food?" Li Shimin said to Li Taiwen.

"My Yue Palace still has some money and food that I usually save." Li Tai said, "I want to use it first."

"What about Duck Farm and those two small coal mines? What are you going to do about it!" Li Shimin looked at Li Tai and said.

"This..." Li Tai couldn't help becoming nervous when he heard Li Shimin's words, and his face slowly turned red.

Under Li Shimin's gaze, Li Tai said slowly: "I want to secretly use their profits to support agricultural colleges."

"Why do you have to secretly support it!" Hearing Li Tai tell the truth, Li Shimin nodded in satisfaction.

As the diary said, this little guy is planning to use the profit from the duck farm and the two small coal mines to build an agricultural school.

Li Tai couldn't help lowering his head, as if he felt very guilty, "This... this is the court's profit, and I can't arrange it privately.

Although an agricultural school is a dream of a young bird, strictly speaking it is just a private school, and it is not a gentleman's action to harm the public and benefit the private! "

"You gather [-] ducks to the Department of Food and Animal Husbandry, and return the personnel recruited by the Department of Food and Agriculture.

The remaining small coal mines and duck farms should be transferred to your Yue Wangfu's name! "Li Shimin patted Li Tai on the shoulder and said,

"Qingque works hard. It is a good thing that you are determined to work in agriculture, and it is a good thing that you are willing to work hard in agriculture. I will allocate thousands of acres of fertile land for you to support the school to make a living!"

"Thank you!" Li Tai couldn't help expressing his gratitude to Li Shimin after hearing Li Shimin's words.

But Li Tai stretched out his head again and asked Li Shimin, "Aye, can I ask you for some policy?"

"Policy?" Li Shimin said to Li Tai, "What policy?"

"For example, I want to hire refugees to build schools, and select some half-grown children from the refugees to enroll!" Li Tai said.

Hearing this, Li Shimin frowned slightly, and finally said, "You do it first, as long as there are no major changes, everything will be easy to talk about!"

(End of this chapter)