Crossing the farm gate, the whole family reunites in the disaster year

Lin explained, "I used to live in the county town, so I didn't know much about locusts. A few days ago, while catching locusts, I found one with a different color, so I took it home to study it."

The village head's wife poured a bowl of water for Lin and stood aside, listening attentively.

"...I caught dozens of locusts and placed them with sick insects. I put some food in the cages. The next day, I found that most of the locusts had lost their vitality and stopped eating."

Hearing that Lin was feeding the locusts, the village head looked at her with a distressed look, but he soon understood her intention.

Not eating means that the sick locusts will not eat the crops!

The headman looked at the cage. The locusts that he had originally hated now looked more and more adorable to him.

"Are all the locusts in the cage sick?"

"About nine out of ten."

"Great, great!" the village head laughed. "This is much easier than catching them ourselves. I see there are still quite a few living locusts in the cage. Shouldn't we just let them out?"

Lin shook her head. "These numbers are too few. We'd better catch more. The more infected locusts there are, the more infections there will be."

The village head's wife nodded and said, "What Cheng Liang's wife said makes sense."

"I'll have the villagers go catch them right now. Every household should get a basket full of them, and we'll infect all these damn locusts with disease."

He did what he said and went out with the gong.

It may be because of the sparrow flowers. Although there are more locusts this year, they have not yet reached the level of a disaster.

In addition, the villagers spared no effort in hunting and killing, and only two or three percent of the food in the fields was eaten.

There are still about ten days until the autumn harvest. At this rate, 40% of the food should be left.

But if the locusts become diseased, there will be more food left.

The thing that is most abundant in the village now is locusts. In half a day, the yard of the village headman’s house was filled with bamboo baskets.

The buzzing sound was deafening.

The village head specially called over several capable women from the village, rubbed his hands and asked, "What should we do next?"

The courtyard, which was not big to begin with, became even more cramped. The women stared at each other, but for some reason, they felt at ease when they saw Lin.

"Mother Jingwen, just tell us what you want us to do. If nothing else, we are all good at our jobs."

"Yes, yes, the men in my family can't work as well as me."

Previously, digging the canal was done by men, but this time the village head called them over, and they immediately felt a sense of pride in contributing to the village.

Yu was also among the crowd who were called over, smiling at Lin without saying a word.

Lin smiled and said, "It's not a difficult job, just a little bit tedious. But this is very important. If you do it well, the locusts will stop eating the food."

The yard suddenly became quiet.

"Can this... really stop the locusts from eating the crops?" A woman's voice trembled with excitement.

"Not only will they not eat crops this year, but the diseased insects will lay diseased eggs, and the locusts that break out of the ground next year will be infected from birth. Perhaps in the future, there will be fewer and fewer locusts, until they disappear completely."

In the past, there was indeed such a method of killing locusts, and it was effective. Diseased locusts would indeed lay diseased eggs.

Lin did not tell the village head about this in advance.

The village head followed Lin's description and imagined it for a moment, and he couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"What are you waiting for? Let's get started!"

The women present were efficient and quick-witted, and they understood what Lin said once.

Suddenly the yard was bustling with activity.

The village head called Lin to the main hall.

"I thought about it and wondered if I should tell the county magistrate about this."

Locusts do not stay in one place. After they finish eating a piece of crops, they will fly to other places in swarms.