"There is an ancient scripture about the flames of fire. If you don't exterminate them at first, you will never catch them again." Locust hunting folk song
Ma Rixi was frustrated by the emperor and did not dare to speak out again; Dong Cheng had no good ideas and sat there pretending to be deep in thought and refused to speak first.
Zhao Wen also seemed to be stumped by this matter for a while. It was just a cliché used by the ancients: "Locusts are not scary at all, but they often gather in groups and change strangely, which makes people afraid."
However, all insects in the world are of the same kind. For example, ants and bees are not afraid of people and are easy to drive away. The same is true for locusts."
Dong Cheng seemed to be very interested and couldn't help but ask, "This is the truth, but what can be done to get rid of it?"
"Every field in the world has its own owner. If the common people are allowed to save their own land, there will be no one who will not do their best. I have heard that moths die in the fire, spiders weave in the light of the lamp, and bonfires can be set up beside the ditch at night.
, the insects are coming, they are burned and buried, and they will all be destroyed." Zhao Wen finished speaking slowly and let out a sigh of relief.
The method of using biological phototaxis to kill insects has been around since ancient times. Although the method mentioned by Zhao Wen is not new, it is durable and can be regarded as a promising strategy.
With Zhao Wen taking the lead, Dong Cheng was unwilling to be second to others. He thought of the most cruel and direct method: "When locusts are born, they fly to the ground. They are small and do little harm. The people are in large numbers and don't care. When they grow up, they don't care."
I have enough power. I have a simple opinion, and I should order the common people everywhere, whether they see a swarm of locusts or not, to report it to the officials and kill them. If the landlord's neighbor dares to hide and say nothing, he will be beaten with a stick. If the people sue the officials, if they accept it and ignore it, or
Those who accept the case but do not come to extinguish it in person, or who falsely claim that they have done so before the extermination is complete, will also be punished in accordance with the law."
Dong Cheng was well aware of the emperor's intention of "governing the people first and governing the officials". He did not talk about how to exterminate the locusts, but only how to supervise those responsible for exterminating the locusts. The emperor nodded repeatedly when he said this.
Wu Shuo, the minister's servant, saw this and immediately agreed, "I was ignorant in the past, but according to your majesty's sage wisdom, I know that insects lay eggs. Now that the locusts are raging, it is inevitable that some will fly down and leave their eggs for the next year. Therefore, we are catching them.
In addition to removing the locusts, the locust envoys should also make more inquiries. Wherever the locusts live, they should send people to dig up the eggs. If they cannot collect all the eggs and cause them to reappear in the next year, they will be punished."
Dong Cheng and Wu Shuo showed their harsh nature and often punished people with sticks, which made Ma Rixi, Yang Qi and other scholars frown greatly. They were very disgusted that the emperor liked such remarks.
Yang Qi knew that the emperor was very pragmatic and did not want to make false claims such as 'the locusts are the fault of nature, and one must cultivate virtue and self-reflection', 'those who eliminate natural disasters should practice virtue', nor did he want to arrest him under the high pressure of Dong Cheng and others.
Locusts made people uneasy and did not dare to serve their orders wholeheartedly. So after thinking about the words, Yang Qi said calmly, "Punishments make people fear their mistakes, rewards make people happy with their lives. Everything the Taiwei said was punishment, and orders were not fulfilled in the place."
I think it is impossible to catch locusts, how to reward them, etc."
The emperor did not want to dampen local enthusiasm. The role of punishment was only to intimidate, and was mainly driven by profit. "Rewards and punishments are indispensable. This time, locust removal will be included in the year-end evaluation of the Ministry of Personnel. In addition, there must also be gold and silk, etc."
Wealth is given.”
After that, he thought for a while and suddenly came up with an idea. "Although it is a good thing to be urged by the government, for Li Shu, it is still an annoyance. How can we induce it for profit? For example, five measures of locusts can be exchanged for one measure of millet. Nowadays,
The common people in Li are suffering from drought, and the court always wants to use wheat and millet to help them, so why not use it to lure locusts? Wouldn't it kill two birds with one stone?"
Dong Cheng's eyes lit up, and he realized that this was a way to have both ends of the world. Moreover, the emperor mentioned it, so why not agree with it?
However, Zhao Wen suddenly said in deep thought, "Although this method is wonderful, there is no guarantee that some treacherous officials will not take advantage of the opportunity to make profits and resell it."
The emperor just thought of this. Nowadays, one stone of wheat millet on the market is worth hundreds of dollars. If locusts are directly linked to wheat millet, it is inevitable that no one will take advantage of it. For example, they will secretly send the collected locusts out and bring them back to exchange for grain.
Wu Shuo knew that it was time to show off, and he immediately said, "As long as the locust corpses collected that day are weighed together, burned in public, and the locust catching envoys, pavilion chiefs and other officials sign the certificates and assign their respective responsibilities, then there will be no danger."
."
In this way, if the cost and difficulty of committing a crime were increased, the emperor gently nodded and agreed to this method.
Yang Qi was striking while the iron was hot, and then said, "Chasing locusts will inevitably damage the seedlings in the fields, which will make the people more tired. Since there is tax exemption this year, the government might as well redeem it at its price to comfort people. Otherwise, who would be willing to hunt locusts?"
Those who trample on their own fields?”
Zhao Wen was very moved. He only knew that Yang Qi had an upright temperament, but he was an out-and-out wealthy scholar. He liked to quote scriptures, and relied on his family background and reputation to give the emperor some color from time to time. But he didn't expect that such a person could actually do this.
Paying attention to such small details, if you don't care about the people, even if you can think of this, you may not take the initiative to find a solution.
Thinking like this, even the emperor couldn't help but take a look at Yang Qigao, and even the Hongnong Yang family seemed to be not useless.
After Yang Qi finished speaking, Ma Rixi, who had been silent for a long time, also gave a few suggestions in order to show his ability. He was proficient in Confucian classics, and his mind was full of the phrase "cultivating virtue and introspection", and even thought that
Killing too many locusts would harm the peace of the world, and he did not agree with the methods of Dong Cheng, Zhao Wen and others. However, the emperor had already spoken in advance, and he would not be so stupid as to deliberately disobey, so he could only reluctantly give out a few dispensable suggestions and deal with them accordingly.
It's over.
Ruling the people was not Xun You's specialty, and he was not one of the Three Officials, so it was nothing if he didn't talk about it. Therefore, Xun You would rather hide his clumsiness than speak for the sake of advancing his opinions.
When the emperor saw that the locust eradication matter had a general strategy, he felt much calmer. He immediately ordered Wu Shuo to compile a charter based on what was discussed today, so that the locust catching envoys and officials from various places could put it into practice. In fact, in addition to these methods,
, the emperor knew that there were still ways to raise chickens and ducks to eat locusts, and for people to eat locusts, but at this time, not only was it too late to raise chickens and ducks, but also how many kilograms of locusts could the chickens and ducks raised by ordinary people in small households eat in a day?
As for the way to eat locusts, the most common way is to fry them, but who in the common people would be willing to waste oil? The emperor already had an idea in his mind. On the one hand, he wanted to improve the method of eating locusts, and on the other hand, he was observing the current situation in the past two days.
, then take it out.
After talking about political affairs here, the emperor suddenly mentioned something else: "Have you all received the punishment for Song Hong, the doctor of Zhongsan?"
Dong Cheng suddenly became excited and replied loudly, "Since I followed the oral instructions, I immediately asked Zhongtai to draft the edict. Now the edict has been issued."
As the emperor's father-in-law, Dong Cheng had always regarded Song Hong, the official of Zhongsan, and Fu Wan, the captain of the city gate, as his rivals. However, Fu Wan had always been law-abiding, and Dong Cheng couldn't find anything wrong for a while. Only Song Hong didn't know how to restrain himself and often favored them.
Dong Cheng had long disliked the fact that he considered himself the father of the concubine. Although he didn't know why today, as soon as he received the oral instructions from Mu Shun, he couldn't wait to let Wu Shuo draft the edict and issued it, without even taking Ma Rixi into account.
, Yang Qi and others had uncertain expressions.
When the emperor mentioned it at this time, even Yang Qi, who had given good advice just now, couldn't help but feel worried.