Chapter 67 2. Locust plague, man-made disaster

In a farmyard dam surrounded by fences, the towering locust tree, which is as thick as three people hugging each other, looks a bit strange: Although it is in July, when thousands of trees are flourishing, its branches are bare like a seven-month-old tree. There was not a single green leaf hanging on Old Xun's skinny fingers. On a rotten straw mat in the middle of the courtyard dam, sat a white-haired old man, wearing a Ge shirt that had been patched many times, his dark and thin face was covered with wrinkles like walnut skin, and he was crooked. Looking at the high sky with his neck, the corners of his brows are full of anxiety and melancholy.

"Mr. Sima, please look: the leaves on this old locust tree were also eaten up by that damn locust." A voice came from outside the fence of the courtyard dam.The old man turned his head and looked: I saw four or five middle-aged people dressed as school teachers coming from a distance on the official road over there.Walking in the front was a tall, fat man with a black face, two thick black broom eyebrows, and a dignified expression on his face—he was slightly bowing his waist and whispering to a middle-aged Confucian scholar behind him: "Oh! You haven’t seen the scene of those locusts flying all over the sky—groups of dark clouds rolling in, like black clouds in mid-air, and like clouds of sand and fog in Mobei, covering the sun and the moon, and the sky is dark! Good! Guy! It's even worse when they are swept away. All you can hear inside and outside your ears is the sound of "rustling". They gnawed clean rice and wheat seedlings into hectares, without even a single grain stalk left..."

"Then you 'Jia Dapao' just stare at them and watch them eat food indiscriminately?" A bookish white-robed scribe on the left of the middle-aged Confucian scholar clapped his folding fan together and squeezed it tightly. In the palm of his hand, the expression of anxiety was palpable, "I should send someone to beat me quickly!" "Swapped! Of course Jia sent people to swat! Wang Jun, you don't know, Jia sent all the three thousand garrison brothers in Hedong County to kill those locusts. They burned them with big fire, splashed them with boiling water, He beat them with a broom, covered them with iron nets, and tried everything! Hey! He even shot arrows at them." The black-faced man raised his eyebrows and replied in a high voice, "But there are too many of these locusts. It's... it's simply endless!"

"Ah! These locusts are really hateful!" The white-robed scribe cursed bitterly. "Hold on!" The middle-aged Confucian scholar heard this, the muscles on his face twitched faintly, he looked around for a while, raised his right hand slightly, and stopped the conversation between the black-faced man and the white-robed scholar.He lowered his head and walked a few steps forward, frowning deeply. Scenes flashed in his mind like flashes of lightning, making him very worried: groups of people seemed to be walking in the sky at low altitude. Locusts like sand mist swept across the land, all over the mountains and plains, it was more terrifying than being a soldier (xian)—all the forests, valleys, locusts, willows, mulberry, peaches, plums, apricots, and oranges were all swept away into nothingness. Tree branches moaned and howled in the dark mid-air; all the fields were almost eaten white, and there were shiny and sticky locust saliva and black mud-like feces everywhere, and the rivers and lakes were stained with filth!These countless locusts flew over the sky and covered the sky from Yanzhou, and rolled all the way westward, eating the mountains without an inch of green, the fields without crops, eating the dark sky, the sun and the moon without light, and eating the farmers' chests. The land and mourning are everywhere.Eat, eat, eat... Eating until the second year of Huang Chu Wei's state of Henan was miserable!

I don't know how long it took, the middle-aged Confucian scholar finally calmed down. When he raised his head suddenly, he saw the farmyard and the old man under the big locust tree in front of him. The black-faced man and the white-robed scribes said, "That's it - let's go there and have a rest." "Old man, what is your surname?" The middle-aged Confucian scholar shouted to the old man in Geshan who was sitting in the courtyard dam from outside the fence, "We are traveling scholars passing by here, can we rest in your dam?" Take a break?" The old man had been watching them getting closer and closer in a daze, and when he heard them calling again, he suddenly reacted, propped up his upper body from the rotten straw mat, and squeezed out a dry smile on his face: "Everyone ... Gentlemen, please be polite. The old man does not need your surname Yu, and the people in the village call me Old Yutou—Why can’t you come and rest your feet when you are tired from walking? It’s okay! It’s okay! The old man will bring some straw mats... "

The middle-aged Confucian scholar thanked him immediately, and gently pushed open the fence door with his companions and walked in.It turned out that the middle-aged Confucian scholar was Sima Yi, the servant of the Minister of the State of Wei, the white-robed scribe was Wang Su, the servant of the Huangmen, the black-faced man was Jia Kui, the governor of Yuzhou, and the middle-aged man who walked at the end was Hedong County. He Zeng, the prefect.They came here today to inspect Muyang County in disguise.Before coming here, both Jia Kui and He Zeng proposed to send bodyguards in disguise to protect them all the way, but Sima Yi flatly refused. His reason was simple: instead of sending out bodyguards to protect them personally, it would be better to send them as well. Go to neighboring counties to investigate simultaneously.This is how Sima Yi does things: he always likes to be careful and budgetary, and never wastes a single bit of manpower and material resources.

At this time, Lao Yutou had already brought four or five rotten straw mats out from the main room, and asked Sima Yi and others to sit down in the middle of the courtyard dam.Then, he brought up another ladle of cold water, and smiled, "Aren't you thirsty after walking? Well, the old man only has cold water to drink right now. If you came seven or eight days ago, the old man can give you a bowl or two Porridge to drink. But now that the locust plague is causing trouble, even the old man himself will have a hard time wanting to drink a few bowls of porridge in the future..." "Yes! This year's locust plague is so severe. I have never heard of it or seen it!" Sima Yi glanced at the big bare locust tree, sighed heavily, and chanted: "The tree is like this, how can people be so cruel?" ?” Seeing Old Yu’s head looking in surprise, he asked him, “Old man, why do you seem to be the only one guarding the house at home? Where are your wives and children?”

"Hey! There were only four people in the old man's family, but his wife died of illness the year before last! The old man's eldest son is now serving as a soldier under General Cao Ren of Jingzhou!" Old Yutou stared at the yellow muddy ground of the courtyard dam, muttering He murmured, "The second son is still young. He just turned twelve in June. He followed Uncle Xu next door to the back hillside to dig sweet potatoes early in the morning! Hehehe...the sweet potatoes were buried in the ground, and the locusts naturally I can't eat it..." At this point, a rare innocent smile appeared on his old and haggard face, "Oh! After digging the sweet potatoes, let's dig the sweet potatoes. Let's just eat it for a few days. , I endured it day by day... Old man, I got cough and asthma last year, so I couldn't do any heavy work, and I couldn't help them much, only one person stayed at home and guarded the house..."

When Sima Yi heard this, his nose felt sour, and a ray of pity dripped out immediately.He was controlling his emotions, but at this moment Wang Su spoke with tears in his eyes: "Old man, anyway, now is the era of peace that Dawei Yingtian Chandai and Yuyu clarified—your family's surplus food should still be enough I'm afraid it's much better than the days when you were wandering around and living in nowhere in the past few years?" "Cough, cough, cough! This gentleman, you don't know something—where is there any surplus food in the old man's house? The old man is a local farmer who was born and raised in Yujiazhuang, and his family also has fields and land. Since the past two years, five or six cents of the grain harvest in the fields have been paid to the government as a tax...the remaining four or five cents of grain is only enough for a family to barely feed their stomachs! Alas! I’m afraid I’ve eaten my last meal and never finished my next meal..."

"The government has to pay so much tax? Five or six cents of the grain harvest? This is the situation that only customers in Mintun will face..." Wang Su was taken aback, "You are still a local self-cultivating farmer!" "Mintun customers? Oh! Fortunately, the old man is not a Mintun customer—the people on the other side of the back mountain are! They pay more taxes to the government than us! Seven or eight cents of the annual grain harvest must be handed over to the government. The government!" "This... He Jun, Wang heard that the tax collection regulations issued by the imperial court are: self-cultivating farmers pay 20% to 30% of the grain, and farmers who farm the land pay 40% to 50% of the grain... How come you are in Muyang County? So many confiscated? And it’s amazingly many!” Wang Su was not afraid of offending anyone, so he asked the governor of Hedong directly.

Embarrassment flashed across He Zeng's face quickly, and he showed a dry smile, blinked his eyes, glanced at Jia Kui, lowered his head and said in a low voice: "This... Mr. Wang, you have to ask I asked this Teacher Jia. In fact, Teacher Jia is still very fond of our Muyang County. Take a look at Tunye County and Pingding County, which are adjacent to our Muyang County. Their tax payment ratio is at least higher than ours. It’s 10% more here.” Jia Kui turned to look at Sima Yi with a wry smile: "Si...Mr. Sima, look at this..." Over there, Old Yu listened to their conversation like listening to some charade, completely confused and incomprehensible. Sima Yi gave them a wink, and they immediately shut their mouths obediently.He secretly sighed: He is in the important place of the imperial court - Shangshutai, don't he know why the farmland rent tax is so high?During the Jian'an period of the previous dynasty, in which year did the imperial court not use troops to conquer foreign countries?As long as soldiers are used for conquest, farmers must be prepared to be confiscated for additional military rations at any time!Originally, if there was no conquest by foreign troops, the self-cultivating farmers and the customers in the fields would each pay 30 to 40% of the grain, but there would be some surplus that could be saved to prevent hunger.However, once the army is used for conquest, the imperial court will not care about this much-after all, "starving civilians to death is a small matter, starving soldiers is a big matter"! A few years ago, when the late emperor Cao Cao was still alive, under Sima Yi's suggestion, the imperial court issued an order of "Building military camps to raise troops and stabilize the country", which achieved certain results, and the military warehouses in some places gradually accumulated savings.However, with the exception of Bingzhou, Youzhou, Jizhou, Qingzhou, and Yanzhou, five places with fewer troops, which actually started to implement the order of "army stationing and raising troops", most of Yongzhou, Liangzhou, Jingzhou, Xuzhou, and Yangzhou were originally rich places. The local states and counties didn't pay much attention to this matter.Cao Zhen, the general of Zhenxi who was in Yongzhou and Liangzhou, and Cao Ren, the general who was in Jingzhou, were both admirals of the clan. Relying on their special relationship as relatives of the emperor, they insisted that Shangshutai's "army stationing and raising soldiers" should not be regarded Ling puts it in his eyes, all day long he only thinks of mobilizing the strength of the whole army to conquer the east and west in order to make contributions!Zangba Mu of Xuzhou and Zhang Liao Mu of Yangzhou were the confidantes of the former emperor. Sima Yi, who was in charge of the military and political affairs, asked Wang Chang, the general of Diannong Zhonglang, and Chen Jiao, the minister of Duzhi, to supervise the handling several times. Cao Ren, Cao Zhen, Zhang Liao, Zang Ba and others still ignored him. reason.Sima Yi didn't know what to do with them for a while.It seems that the only way to force them to carry out the matter of "army stationing and raising soldiers" is to wait for the right opportunity to use the means of the emperor's order. After calming down, Sima Yi took a sip of cold water from the wooden ladle, and said with a faint smile to the old man: "Don't worry, old man—although you have been plagued by locusts this year, your life may be a little tighter, but now It is a world where the great Wei Yingtian received Zen, the sun and the moon reappeared, and Yuyu clarified the peaceful world. Today, His Majesty is the first-class hero and benevolent monarch of Yao and Shun. How can we watch you starve for nothing? On the way back from studying in Luoyang, we once heard There are rumors that the imperial court will issue an imperial decree soon—it is said that food will be allocated to you for disaster relief..." "That's good! That's good!" Old Yutou smiled so wrinkled that his face seemed to be squeezed into a flower, "Oh!—Mister, old man, my whole family just entrusts you with auspicious words and waits for the imperial court to grant you Blessed with food. Come, come, come, old man, I don't have anything to give, so you can take a few sweet potatoes and eat on the way to satisfy your hunger!" As he spoke, he brought out a large bag of sweet potatoes from the back room, and tried his best to give them to Sima Yi and the others. "This... how can this work? You are all relying on these sweet potatoes to satisfy your hunger..." Sima Yi waved his hands in panic, "No! No! We can't accept..." But the old Yutou insisted on giving it away, so Sima Yi had no choice but to ask He Zeng to take off his clothes and take them away. Say goodbye and leave.