Chapter 333: The Sacred Carriage Returns in Triumph, Pacifying the Realm

…

"There is indeed something—if the current Emperor does not know, great disaster may strike."

Zhao Yu had already suspected this old woman was a stooge sent by someone to deceive him: 'This old lady knows too much—she doesn't act like a regular peasant woman.'

Now, with her saying this again, it seemed even more likely someone was using her mouth to convey something to him.

Zhao Yu asked calmly: "What matter must the current Emperor know? And what great disaster will occur if he does not?"

To Zhao Yu's surprise, the old woman played the classic game of feigning indifference—she replied: "Sir, you are not the current Emperor; knowing this will do you no good."

Upon hearing these words, those around her—especially Zhao Yu's group of women—covered their mouths and stifled laughter.

Humans all have one flaw: the more secretive and half-spoken a matter is, the more it stirs an irresistible curiosity deep within.

Zhao Yu, though Emperor, was no exception.

So Zhao Yu smiled and said: "I am an old acquaintance of the current Emperor; upon returning to the capital, I shall most likely meet him."

The old woman glanced at Zhao Yu, saw his commanding presence, noted the stunning beauty of the women beside him, and observed the fierce, imposing guards outside the courtyard—she grew even more convinced of his distinction, thinking perhaps he truly could meet the current Emperor.

With this thought, the old woman told Zhao Yu: "Here in Weishan Lake, the stench of rotting aquatic weeds mixed with insect feces is so choking it blinds the eyes—there will surely be a locust plague."

Zhao Yu had never expected the old woman's concern was about locust control.

This was no trivial matter—it could easily become a major catastrophe.

More than ten years ago, flying locusts emerged from Honghu in Jiangsu; when they flew, they darkened the sky, when they landed, they covered the earth without gaps, when they gathered, they bent branches under their weight, when they ate, they made a rustling sound, and they could form rolling balls to cross rivers—their ferocity was rare. For six days and six nights, they devoured crops, leaves, and wild grasses, leaving Honghu and its surroundings a barren wasteland.

Locusts have been China's greatest agricultural pest for two millennia, severely damaging crop production; even more dangerous is that locust plagues often follow severe droughts—just as people barely survive one drought and replant emergency crops, locusts arrive in succession, crushing the fragile hope of survival once again.

This endless accumulation of suffering and disaster, when finally recorded in history, shrinks to six blood-drenched characters: "That year, famine; people ate each other."

Faced with the surging locust armies, many chose submission—they summoned the Locust Queen and General Liu Meng, believing that if they devoutly worshipped these clay-and-gold idols, heaven's wrath would be appeased and the locusts scattered.

Yet, there have always been those who chose to fight the locusts.

The Book of Han, Annals of Emperor Ping, records that as early as Yuan Shi Year Two of the Western Han, people had already begun fighting locusts.

That year, a locust plague erupted in Qingzhou, Shandong; the court allocated vast funds to reward farmers who captured and killed locusts.

This was the earliest recorded locust-control decree in history.

By the Tang Dynasty, Chancellor Yao Chong placed great emphasis on locust control—he invented the fire-burning method. Because locusts are attracted to light, burning bonfires in fields at night could kill vast numbers of them.

Until this era, the Chinese had accumulated vast, invaluable experience in locust control.

Yet these methods were clearly insufficient to confront massive locust armies.

Fortunately, this era had Zhao Yu and other time-travelers—and even more fortunately, among them was Yuan Qing Cheng, a top graduate of the Agricultural University who had studied locust control.

Originally, it seemed to be the third year of Zhao Yu's reign when a massive locust plague erupted in Jiangsu.

Zhao Yu immediately ordered all transport bureaus and the Office of Permanent Equilibrium to come under direct imperial command (in reality, under Yuan Qing Cheng's command), becoming specialized locust-control departments to wage a war against locusts.

—The Great Song had no dedicated locust-control agency; locust management relied on coordination among multiple departments, most notably the Transport Bureau and the Office of Permanent Equilibrium. The Transport Bureau originally handled military grain supplies, but its authority expanded over time to include finance, inspection, and more. During locust control, it participated in organizing relief efforts—for example, in the fourth year of Emperor Shenzong's Yuanfeng era, the court ordered the Kaifeng Prefecture Office and the Transport Bureaus of Jingdong and Jingxi to dispatch officials to supervise locust capture. The Office of Permanent Equilibrium was established during Wang Anshi's reforms, overseeing the Ever-Normal Granary, market regulation, public markets, ferry systems, and water conservancy. During famines, it managed granary storage and relief operations, coordinating resources and organizing civilians to capture locusts.

After assuming command, Yuan Qing Cheng immediately identified the Achilles' heel of locusts, discovered by Ma Shijun, China's first locust-control expert, through countless observations and studies: alternating drought and flood. That is, the rise and fall of water levels in wetlands determined the survival of locust egg-laying sites; by controlling water levels to stabilize the ecosystem, the drought-flood alternation could be eliminated.

Through Zhao Yu, Yuan Qing Cheng first had the Transport Bureau lead efforts, collaborating with local water conservancy officials to dredge old canals and construct new dikes. Previously, wetland water levels fluctuated wildly with the seasons—dry periods exposed mud as ideal locust egg beds, while floods destroyed crops. After emergency repairs, the dikes locked water levels steadily at about three feet, sealing the gap of drought-flood alternation; locust eggs in the wetlands lost their suitable hatching environment and gradually disappeared.

Next, Yuan Qing Cheng ordered the Office of Permanent Equilibrium to distribute seedlings and promote cotton planting in locust-affected areas. Fields once stripped bare by locusts, reduced to stubble, were replanted with cotton plants possessing thick leaves and dense fuzz—locusts disliked the taste, and their feeding dropped sharply.

Simultaneously, Yuan Qing Cheng had the Office of Permanent Equilibrium establish "Locust-Knowing Households" in every village, assigning knowledgeable farmers to regularly patrol cotton fields and immediately report any isolated locusts.

Then, the Great Song's locust-control system became even more refined.

Zhao Yu specially established the "Locust Office," headed by the Director of the Three Bureaus, with officials from the Transport Bureau and the Office of Permanent Equilibrium stationed there to centrally compile locust reports and allocate resources.

Locally, each prefecture established a "Locust Prevention Office," led by the Deputy Prefect, with "Locust Patrol Officers" responsible for inspecting water infrastructure and crop planting; each county established a "Locust Eradication Unit," composed of conscripted militia and farmers armed with sickles and bamboo baskets, ready to respond to sudden outbreaks.

In key locust zones, "Water Level Offices" were set up to record wetland water levels daily and maintain correspondence with the Locust Office, ensuring water-level control remained flawless.

Initially, due to poor transportation and communication, messages often went awry. Sometimes, when a Locust Prevention Office spotted locust nymphs, a fast horse delivered the report to the Locust Office three days later—by the time Yuan Qing Cheng's response arrived, the nymphs had grown into flying adults.

Yuan Qing Cheng, working within existing conditions, improved the postal relay system by adding "Flying Servant Stations" along locust-prone routes; critical messages were carried by flying servants, while routine matters still used regular postal horses.

This made the flow of imperial orders speed up by more than half.

Thus, over ten years passed. The Locust Office's archives, once thick with locust records, shrank to a few sparse entries, and eventually, even isolated locust incidents became rare. The prefectures and counties once plagued by locusts now boasted vast cotton fields and sturdy dikes.

Yuan Qing Cheng's current fame, which made her the foremost of the five women, led ignorant commoners to believe she was Zhao Yu's lawful Empress—thinking she alone was Zhao Yu's Empress (the people knew only Yuan Niangniang, Ma Xiao Jiao, and Ye Shi Yun, unaware of Empress Zheng); some even deified her as a living immortal, erecting shrines to worship her. This was not only because she had multiplied the Great Song's grain output several times over, but also because she had finally freed Great Song lands from the terrifying, sky-darkening dread of locust plagues—and this was one reason why the Great Song's grain output had multiplied so dramatically.

Today, the Great Song possessed a highly mature locust-control system with strict accountability: whoever's jurisdiction suffered a locust plague would be killed by Zhao Yu without mercy, regardless of who they were.

In the Great Song bureaucracy, a saying always circulated: "Corruption still offers a chance of survival; locust plague means certain death."

Zhao Yu believed the court must already know of the locust situation in Weishan Lake and had already begun managing it—if not, then it was a direct challenge to the sharpness of his blade.

As for whether the old woman was truly arranged by someone, since she had revealed nothing of great consequence, Zhao Yu decided to pretend ignorance.