MFMH C86

Chapter 86 — Solving the Locust Plague

The prefect of Shangrao Prefecture, Lord Wang, had hardly eaten for days and could not sleep. When he learned that swarms of locusts had appeared in his jurisdiction’s Guanyang County, he immediately dispatched men to catch them—but the locusts flew with terrible speed, were small and nimble, and were not easily trapped.

A few days later the number of locusts steadily increased and the plague spread into nearby villages. In Guanyang County several hundred acres of corn were damaged: more than five hundred acres suffered a thirty percent drop in yield, and over three hundred acres experienced losses of forty percent.

The swarms grew ever larger, pressing forward without pause. By now the infestation had spread to six counties, including Yunlai and Luoshui near Guanyang, and the trend threatened further expansion.

Thoughts of the previous dynasty’s devastation—when locust plagues had triggered widespread famine that helped fuel rebellion and the fall of a kingdom—sat in his chest like a lump of brick. He could not breathe freely under the weight of it.

He wondered what the emperor would decide after reading his memorial. Would reinforcements be sent?

“Sir!” A yamen runner suddenly shouted, his voice so excited and piercing it was almost as irritating as the cicadas in the trees.

In other days Lord Wang would have rebuked the man for his rashness, but now—

He sighed, lifted his eyelids and glanced at the runner in a languid, listless manner. “What’s the rush?”

“Sir! The imperial commissioner dispatched by the court has arrived!” The runner’s face flushed with excitement.

What? Lord Wang started, sprang to his feet and seized the runner, his voice trembling as he asked, “Where are they?”

“Waiting just outside! A young official escorted by the Forbidden Army.” The runner’s joy was plain to see.

At the news, the prefect’s elation dimmed. A young official? How could a young man possibly have experience dealing with locusts?

Despite his doubts, he could not insult an envoy sent by the emperor, so he hurried out to greet the party.

A dust-streaked column of riders and footmen stood before the yamen; among them a youth in bright red official robes caught the eye.

Lord Wang sized the youth up quickly. His doubts deepened—the commissioner was far too young and was an unfamiliar face.

“Greetings, Lord Wang. I am Shen Yan—sent by imperial edict to address the locust plague in Shangrao Prefecture.” Shen Yanbei produced the imperial rescript for inspection.

Lord Wang’s eyes lit. Shen Yan—was this not the newly minted top scholar, the court favorite who had been sent to relieve Liuyang Prefecture’s disaster? Had he come straight from Liuyang? Reassured once the edict was checked and found genuine, the prefect bowed courteously. “Forgive our poor welcome.”

Shen did not waste time on formalities. He cut straight to the point and asked to be taken to the counties and villages affected by the locusts.

Across the boundless cornfields, the leaves had been stripped bare; only barren stalks and immature cobs remained. Shen frowned, questioned the scope of the infestation, and pressed on without delay.

Shangrao was one of the poorer prefectures of Great Qi: scant rainfall and limited surface water made crops hard to grow, so farmers planted drought-tolerant crops and life was harsh. The economic loss inflicted by the locust plague was therefore devastating beyond measure.

Before reaching Donglin County, Shen heard the endless buzzing that seemed to fill the air. Looking up, he saw a vast cloud of locusts beating their wings and on the move, swiftly migrating toward another patch of green.

With locusts approaching, the faces of Donglin’s corn and sorghum growers went pale with despair. The corn and sorghum were only a month or so from harvest; if the locusts arrived their leaves would be devoured and yields would plunge. A year’s hopes were ruined.

Despite the farmers’ anguish, the swarms descended.

Shen arrived in time to witness the migration: countless two-joint-long grasshoppers settling across the fields, an almost tactile tide of insects crowding the plants. The skin prickled; gooseflesh rose in waves. Where the ceaseless tiny chewing had been an almost imperceptible whisper, it became a sibilant roar under the weight of millions of mouths.

Some farmers frantically waved and beat at the horde in their fields, but there were simply too many. The insects dusted their heads and faces; in helpless fury they watched the green vanish and wept.

Lord Wang stared at the desolation with a tightened brow. He and the governor of Binzhou and the magistrate of Guanyang had tried numerous remedies with little effect. He turned to Shen Yanbei and saw the young commissioner calmly holding a single locust up and studying it.

“Do you have a solution, Lord Shen?” he asked, hope mixed with doubt.

Shen asked in return, “Have you arranged for people to monitor the locusts’ movements?”

Lord Wang hurriedly nodded and had his subordinates produce their observation records: precise notes of when the locusts took flight, the directions they traveled, when they landed, and their feeding and resting schedules.

Shen had already considered how to handle the problem while en route. As the sun sank and the light faded, he put forward one tactic—make use of the insects’ phototactic behavior: lure them with light, then burn them.

He ordered torches densely placed along the route like beacons, and a high stack of kindling built on an open stretch of sand. When darkness fell the bonfire was ignited. The flying locusts, attracted to the torchlight, streamed toward the blaze as irresistibly as moths to a flame. Crackling noises filled the air as winged bodies struck the fire; insects singed and lost the ability to fly, tumbling into the pyre with a series of sizzling pops.

The spectacle of locusts burning was spectacular and drew villagers in.

“Good! Burn them all!” voices cried. Watching the pests writhe and turn to ash in the flames gave people a grim satisfaction.

A smell of charred protein drifted on the night air; Shen sniffed and felt a twinge of regret. When he had been in high school he and his mother and grandmother once traveled through a province struck by a locust plague. Dramatically, while crops had been ravaged, the farmers were not sorrowful but delighted—because they sold the captured locusts at thirty-four yuan per jin, earning hundreds in a day, far surpassing corn-growing income. Some even hoped for another locust year.

Locusts were highly nutritious: they could relieve coughs, strengthen the body, and, when fried, were crunchy and savory—an irresistible treat.

Word spread among residents, who hurried to capture locusts. On the first day the sky darkened with insects; on the second day people set nets and sacks; on the third day the locusts still leaped about; by the fourth day they were skewered; by the fifth the plague zone had as many people as insects.

The appetite of a populace is a force to be reckoned with. What had been a feared disaster turned into a farce and then into livelihood. Shen’s grandmother had told him of older, harsher methods used in her youth to combat plague—undeniably, chemicals were the most effective, but without such resources Shen had to rely on physical means.

He sighed—if only his husband were here, he’d prepare a locust feast for him. Such a pity.

Anticipating that supplies would soon arrive, Shen rallied the villagers to seize the opportunity and begin catching locusts in earnest; baskets and buckets filled, and piles were buried in the earth.

Lord Wang’s hands shook with excitement. He had considered burning insects but had thought it ineffective in daylight; it wasn’t the method that failed so much as its improper use.

Shen smiled and directed the villagers to keep the fuel stoked.

Wave after wave of locusts came, and everyone worked feverishly beneath the torchlight. Faces glistened with sweat but no one complained. The bonfire burned into the first watch. Shen calmed the exuberant villagers and told them to rest.

There were too many locusts for a few fires to finish them; the next day new swarms descended on another patch of crops. Villagers, eager for another night of burning, prepared to relight their torches. But Shen had a different plan: he had arranged for dense nets to be strung across the paths the swarms would follow.

On the road to Shangrao, he had written a letter and sent a man via a guard to Qinghe County for help from Su Qingze’s father, the prefect Su Jingheng: he asked the man to procure fishing nets with tightly woven mesh suited to catching locusts. The nets had now arrived—along with Shen’s head chef, Shen Laifu.

Lord Wang eyed the nets with mixed feelings. They had thought of trapping locusts with nets, but ordinary nets had too large a mesh and cost too much labor. Shen’s nets had very fine mesh; locusts could not crawl through them, and when suspended across the air they would intercept flying swarms.

“But the number of locusts is enormous—these nets may not bear the weight,” the prefect cautioned.

“No matter. Have the villagers strip the insects from the nets,” Shen said, introducing Shen Laifu: “This is Shen Laifu, head chef of Tongfu Restaurant in Qingzhou. His employers sent him to buy the locusts.”

Lord Wang stared. After several glances he asked cautiously, “Truly?”

Laifu forced a smile. At Shen’s urging and an ambiguous look, he admitted reluctantly, “It’s true. Our Tongfu Restaurant will purchase locusts by the jin. Bring them and we’ll buy as many as you have.”

Relief and excitement flooded the prefect’s eyes; he sent messengers to bang gongs and spread the news to every village.

“But Shen—” Laifu protested, anxious, “you hauled me out across a thousand li just to buy locusts? What good are these besides chicken and duck feed?”

He winced at the thought of buying poultry feed. Charity did not require such makeshift reasons!

“These are treasures you seldom get,” Shen said, scooping half a basket of locusts.

After starving them for an hour and a half, cleaning them, scalding them briefly, snipping off the wings and draining them, he heated oil. When the oil reached temperature the insects were fried until crisp, drained, and sprinkled with salt and pepper—an irresistible crunchy dish.

Laifu inhaled and eyed the plate of golden, slightly reddened fried locusts, tentative. “You’re sure these are edible?”

Shen answered by eating.

Seeing Shen savor them with squinted eyes, Laifu could not help himself and plucked a pair with his chopsticks. Two chews and his eyes widened.

“Not bad?” Shen arched an eyebrow.

Laifu nodded in a pecking-bird motion.

“So tomorrow?”

“I’ll buy them—any amount!” Laifu scrambled to promise.

“Fresh insects cannot be stored long; have villagers air-dry and cure them for sale,” Shen advised.

“Yes, boss!”

When word spread that someone would pay ten wen per jin for locusts, the entire Shangrao Prefecture stirred. After last night’s bonfires and the villagers’ brief vindication, despair gave way to the prospect of coin—old and young grabbed cloth sacks and headed for the nets.

The swarming locusts were caught by the netting and the villagers beat them down with poles and broom handles, urgently shoveling insects into sacks.

At night, as before, torches lured the swarms, but this time villagers did not seek to burn them; they sought to scoop them up whole.

Watching vast masses of locusts plucked clean in a single night, Lord Wang wiped the sweat from his brow and marveled at the spectacle. “Terrifying—but these people are worse than the locusts,” he thought.

Over the next days, villagers with cloth bags lay in wait and seized every opportunity; the visible size of the swarms declined markedly.

Children wandered the fields, picking off lone stragglers and bringing them home. Shen had Shen Laifu teach the locals how to prepare locusts—fried and crunchy—but farmers, unwilling to waste precious oil, roasted them instead, a treat for children who rarely tasted meat.

The disaster thus passed: insects turned into money, and the villagers’ gloom vanished. Laifu loaded cured locusts and set out for Qingzhou, while Shen Yanbei had already devised dish names and marketing plans for a locust banquet and instructed Laifu on promotion.

Most of the locusts had been eliminated; the remainder posed little threat. But to cut the problem at its root, Shen advised changes in cultivation: reduce acreage planted to crops locusts favor—corn, wheat, sorghum—and increase legumes and fruit trees to provide ecological resistance. He recommended raising more poultry and protecting birds so that natural predators could recover.

Half a month later, amid the grateful gazes of Binzhou’s people, Shen mounted and rode back toward the capital. He cracked his whip and urged the horse forward—his mind urgent.

The barbarians had invaded; his husband had gone to the frontier with men and mounts.