The Sannong locusts would inevitably affect Bingzhou as well.

The regions of Jingzhao, Fengyi, and Fufeng, which were already struggling to recover from previous poor harvests, would suffer from the ravenous locusts.

The infestation, unsatisfied with local vegetation, would soon spread to nearby provinces such as Sizhou.

During Liu Hong’s reign, the worst locust plague spread across seven provinces.

While the sprawling Taihang Mountains might deter invading armies, they couldn’t stop these voracious locusts.

The insects would feed on mountain vegetation, sustaining themselves before descending upon wheat fields beyond the hills, ensuring their spread throughout Bingzhou.

Moreover, it was still summer.

Though Bingzhou was north of Sizhou, it hadn’t yet frozen enough to kill flying locusts.

Even in the northernmost reaches around Yunzhong’s Yanmen, the climate remained mild and conducive.

Flying locusts…

Capable of covering three hundred miles in a day!

By the time this message reached the desks of Bingzhou’s senior officials, the first wave of locusts from Sannong might have already entered Bingzhou.

When Inslector Zhang Yi received this news, he was taken aback, and Qiao Yan was equally alarmed.

Despite foreseeing the inevitability of the locust plague from various signs, receiving confirmation of the Sannong locusts brought not just a resigned acknowledgment but an urgent sense of crisis.

In terms of preparedness against locusts, Leping County far surpassed any other place in Bingzhou.

Even ducks raised in the rice fields were prepared for such disasters.

Yet Leping was where Qiao Yan had settled refugees and established her career’s foundation.

She had invested too much effort in industry and agriculture over the past year to allow any setbacks.

Moreover, this was her first encounter with a locust plague.

Facing the unknown, it was natural for her to feel anxious.

Clutching the letter in her hand, she immediately stepped out of the room.

In this report, there was an especially absurd and laughable matter.

Traditionally, natural disasters often required a scapegoat, especially those in high positions in the court.

Typically, someone would be dismissed to show that the disaster occurred because someone unsuitable held their position.

However, perhaps because the positions of the Three Excellencies in the court had rotated countless times, and also because Liu Hong was not inclined to maintain astrological explanations related to the court, at this moment, his choice was—

He transferred Huangfu Song, to another position using the excuse of his failure to conquer Beigong Boyu and Appointed a New General of Chariots and Cavalry. in Zhang Wen to suppress a rebellion.

Alongside the army was an acquaintance of Qiao Yan.

It was Bao Hong.

Bao Hong had delivered some good fortune to Qiao Yan by escorting Qiao Xuan’s body to Leping and delivering her memorial to the capital.

Due to these actions, he had gained some favor and ended up with the role of deputy commander in the expedition to Liangzhou.

Although he was still just a Captain, a Captain who could accompany the army on an expedition certainly held more authority than an ordinary Northern Army Captain.

Because of this, Bao Hong felt that he owed Qiao Yan a favor.

Therefore, when the locust plague appeared in the capital and Zhang Wen replaced Huangfu Song to confront the rebellion in Liangzhou, he promptly sent a diligent messenger to Leping with the news.

The messenger arrived swiftly, so Qiao Yan and Zhang Yi received news of the locust plague almost simultaneously. If they had waited for Zhang Yi to notify the various counties…

It might have been too late!

Qiao Yan had just rewarded the messenger when a report arrived from Chu Yan, patrolling in the mountains, announcing an unexpected sighting of locust traces in the southern hills.

The flying capability of mature locusts was undeniable.

If they had already reached the mountains, it was likely that they would arrive in Yueping within a day or two.

Upon hearing this, Qiao Yan immediately summoned her subordinates.

The terrain model of Leping was brought out again, which she had previously used to great effect.

At this moment, the model no longer displayed the original marked areas for mountain reclamation and the available resources in the mountains.

Instead, it showed the crisscrossing trenches in the county’s farmland and the locations of the dragon bone waterwheels.

This was a method once recorded in “Exterminating Locusts” – a seemingly foolish method, but thanks to the existence of the dragon bone waterwheels, it became relatively feasible.

“Mr. Zhongde, please open the granaries in the county and scatter the grains into the previously dug trenches at intervals. Although it is not yet harvest season, mature millet can attract locusts more than crops can.

The long trenches are under the waterwheels.

Once the locusts gather in large numbers, immediately open the waterwheels’ sluices to flood the trenches and bury them alive.”

The words “bury them alive” shocked everyone present.

People knew very little about locusts at that time.

At least before the Tang Dynasty, when locust plagues occurred, the first thought was divine punishment rather than a pest problem.

“In Shandong, when locusts appeared, people worshipped and prayed, watching them eat the crops without daring to catch them.”

This was the common attitude of the time.

In some places, people even revered locusts as gods.

It wasn’t until Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, led by example and ate locusts despite his ministers’ warnings of potential illness, that people started considering catching locusts.

At most, people like Qiao Yan, who previously wrote to Zhang Yi, suggested ways to reduce the impact of locust plagues, not to capture them when they passed through.

However, Qiao Yan’s management in Le Ping over the past year had been very effective, establishing considerable authority.

Especially those who had been following her for a long time, they had complete confidence in her decisions.

As for Cheng Li, the first person she instructed, he was not one to have many reservations.

Or rather, if anyone might consider locusts as divine, Cheng Li certainly would not.

He nodded and replied, “I will immediately take people to do this. There aren’t many locusts in the area right now, so the ones we can attract will be fewer.

If flooding the trenches is wasteful, I’ll have people partially flood and bury them directly.”

With him taking the lead, the other tasks were easier to arrange.

Qiao Yan then turned to another person, “Yuan Zhi ( Xu Fu’s Nickname ), have people distribute the duck flocks from the mountain fields around the county, but make sure they do not disturb the crops.”

Xu Fu acknowledged the order with a bow.

The fact that ducks eat locusts is not a secret.

If you think about it, other animals like frogs also eat locusts, but raising frogs is not as easy as raising ducks.

This is different from catching locusts by hand.

Qiao Yan wasn’t sure how people of this time explained this phenomenon. Maybe they thought it was some kind of offering from the locust god to the duck god, but that didn’t seem quite right.

In any case, as long as people accepted that ducks eat locusts and humans eat ducks, the food chain was complete.

In the past few months, the production of duck eggs had become a source of income for the Black Mountain Army.

It was only around this time that Xu Fu realized Qiao Yan had raised these ducks not just for their manure as fertilizer for the yam fields, but also to be useful in dealing with the locusts.

After Xu Fu accepted the task and left, Qiao Yan called out another name: “Chu Yan, the fish nets I had the women and children of the Black Mountain Army make earlier, you are to collect them and give them to Zhang Niujiao for protecting the yam fields. Any extras can be sold cheaply to the county residents.”

Fish nets, recorded in ancient texts about catching locusts, were often used to catch swarms of locusts in the air.

However, the curved nets were not as practical in the mountains, so Qiao Yan had them make fish nets instead.

Even if not used for catching locusts, fish nets could still be very useful for protection.

Moreover, if the locusts didn’t come, the old fish nets could be used to make paper. So, even if Qiao Yan miscalculated, they wouldn’t go to waste.

Chu Yan immediately replied, “Understood.”

“Additionally—”

Qiao Yan paused before continuing, “I plan to exchange the county’s stored grain for locust eggs. There is still over a month until the autumn harvest, and the county will not run out of grain. But if the locusts lay eggs in the farmland, the hatchlings could cause problems next year.”

This was a backup plan to use incentives.

Issuing these orders calmed Qiao Yan’s mind considerably.

She had prepared many things in advance, so she wasn’t caught off guard by this unexpected event.

Besides, after these arrangements, there was still one last trump card, apart from the intercropped beans already growing.

Earlier, she had bought a few small plots of land from the county farmers and allowed those who lost farmland to cultivate equivalent areas in the mountains.

On these scattered farmlands outside the county, she had not planted crops but had built grass huts months ago.

Because it hadn’t rained recently, the ground remained dry.

Before nightfall, Qiao Yan carefully inspected the ten or so grass huts, ensuring all surrounding weeds were cleared to prevent any potential fires from spreading to nearby farmland.

Once she was sure everything was safe, she stepped back.

After nightfall, Qiao Yan found a stone to sit on by the fields and rested her chin in her hand, watching the distant grass huts.

The news of the approaching locusts had caused panic among the county residents, but the high price of candles and lamp oil meant that people were not staying up all night in fear.

From the county town to the nearby villages, everything was in darkness, especially since there was no moonlight tonight, making it even darker.

The only bright spots were the scattered campfires in the fields.

These campfires were lit inside the grass huts.

“Lord Qiao knows a lot about people’s livelihood issues and can put that knowledge to practical use. It’s truly a blessing for Le Ping,” Xi Zhicai said, casually sitting on the ground.

Qiao Yan looked at the source of the sound and saw that even in the darkness, Xi Zhicai had leisurely fetched a jug of wine.

Since he had the leisure to drink wine, it seemed he believed the situation was still under control.

If not for the prevailing belief that eating locusts would anger the gods and cause illness, Qiao Yan would have suggested pairing the wine with roasted locusts, thinking it might taste quite good.

Unfortunately, even catching and killing locusts was already seen as a bold action.

Suggesting eating them, especially when there wasn’t a severe famine, would face significant resistance and wouldn’t be worth the effort, so she abandoned the idea.

“Before my grandfather passed away, he asked me how to be a good county marquis,” Qiao Yan said, looking at the distant flickering firelight. “This is my answer to him.”

This method of catching and killing locusts was also extremely effective.

Xi Zhicai was also quite optimistic about this method because anyone who understood locust behavior knew one important fact:

Locusts are strongly attracted to light.

This is somewhat similar to moths.

So, the grass huts lit with campfires at night were like “bug traps.”

Even though there weren’t many locusts in Le Ping yet, some of them would still be drawn to the only sources of light at night and would come to these huts.

When fewer locusts were attracted to a hut, the guards could easily block the hut’s doors and windows with fish nets and catch the locusts with small nets.

But in huts that attracted many locusts, like the one near the mountains—

In just an hour, this hut had gathered the majority of the first locusts arriving in Le Ping, drawn by the small amount of millet stored inside, temporarily resting there.

When Qiao Yan arrived, the person in charge of this location was already struggling to count the number of locusts.

But Qiao Yan didn’t insist on an accurate count.

She looked at the firelight shining through the window and ordered, “Light the fire.”

The next moment, someone threw a lit torch onto the hut.

The flames from the torch quickly spread, turning the dry grass into a raging fire.

As the hut burned, it quickly collapsed, leaving the locusts inside no chance to escape.

They burned along with the hut.

Qiao Yan found it hard to imagine the resistance Prime Minister Yao Chong of the Tang Dynasty faced when he advocated burning locusts.

But in Le Ping County, thanks to her position as the Marquis of Le Ping appointed by the Han court and the preparations made for winter, she didn’t have to go through the same struggles.

It was much easier for her.

The resistance wasn’t entirely the fault of the ignorant people who saw locusts as “kings of insects.”

In such difficult times, no one told them they could fight back against natural disasters.

Qiao Yan’s eyes reflected the bright red flames until the grass and wood were completely consumed, then the fiery glow gradually faded.