Although the drought is severe, in autumn, everyone still planted the seeds with hope.

Hope is good, but reality is cruel. By October, the crops in the fields are basically dead, and only a few survive by watering are left.

Not all land can be watered. Many small rivers have dried up long ago and lakes have dried up. The water irrigated land on the edge is also cracks that can penetrate water. Many wells dug in the ground have also dried up. Nowadays, most of the places where water is originally low, and some water can be used to make water.

No matter how drought-resistant crops are, they cannot be without water.

I was very nervous when I watched the crops withering little by little, from the emperor to the people. The harvest was already bad this autumn, and the harvest was no longer next summer. There was no harvest for two consecutive seasons. How could I survive this day?

Winter has just arrived, but everyone has already felt that this winter is particularly cold and cold.

Li Shimin held a rain prayer ceremony again, but after seven days of hard work, he sat on the rain prayer platform every day, and sat all day, but in the end he didn't pray for the second half of the rain.

The people were even more frightened and all kinds of rumors were circulating everywhere.

Li Shimin lost a lot of weight and, with great helplessness, issued an edict to the subjects all over the world.

The rain has asked for it, and the crime has been issued, but these are just for the people of the world to see, and they are still useless. The weather continues to drought.

The most terrifying thing is that it is cold and the locusts are gone.

The loss of locusts was originally good news, but now it is not good news for the court. In this autumn, locusts were caught everywhere in the south of Shannan, Guanzhong, Central Plains. In some states, hundreds of thousands or millions of stones of locusts were caught in the autumn. These locusts were ground into powder and became important materials for relief food.

Locusts account for a large part of the tens of millions of stones of relief food produced by the imperial court this year. This terrible thing has become a life-saving thing.

But now, it’s colder and fewer locusts, and in some places there are no more locusts.

Have the locusts eaten up?

Li Shimin specially invited Li Chao, a locust expert, to ask.

"Where did the locusts go?" Li Shimin asked. He was frightened when he heard about locusts, but now he, the emperor, is looking for locusts.

"Did the locusts really be eaten up?"

Of course, locusts will not be eaten up so easily, but their lifespan is not long.

"Your Majesty, there are three insect states in the life of locusts, namely eggs, nymphs and adults. Eggs live in the soil and cannot move. And nymphs are divided into five instar periods, which means they have to peel off five times. They generally do not feed or eat very little before and after peeling. Nymphs can walk, jump but cannot fly, and cannot mate and reproduce."

"After taking off five skins, they became adults."

"It only takes about one month in total from the birth of eggs to the mating and reproduction of locusts. A mature locust can lay more than 200 eggs in one lifetime, and can reach up to one thousand eggs."

This is the first time that Li Shimin has heard of such specific information about locusts.

"How long does that locust live?"

"The lifespan of locusts is generally about two to three months, and no more than six months at most. In our Central Plains, locusts are generally two generations a year, but if they are in Lingnan and other places, they can be three generations a year. In Hainan Island and other places further south, they can even be four generations a year."

"So locusts are also commonly known as 100-day insects!"

Li Shimin calculated the time himself, and the locust plagues around this year seem to be almost 100 days old.

Locusts are breeding seasons every summer and autumn. After mating, they insert the female locusts into three inches of soil. As long as the climate is suitable, the eggs can hatch in about half a month to twenty days. After one month, they become adults after five molts. Adults can live for about a hundred days.

There are two generations a year.

The weather is cold now, and locust eggs will not hatch. They will be the same as silkworm eggs and will not hatch after the weather is warm next year.

Autumn has passed, and the autumn locust has almost a hundred days of life. Even if it is not caught, its lifespan will end and it will die.

This is also the reason why locusts have decreased a lot now. This autumn, locust plagues in various places are local in shape, and there is no large-scale locust migration sweeping everywhere. It is related to the climate, and it is also beneficial to the large-scale locust catch operations carried out by the imperial court this year.

Li Shimin had already adapted to the fact that the locusts turned into food, but now the locusts suddenly said they were gone, and he was a little sad.

"Without the locusts, our relief food gap will be even bigger. Wen Yuan, what do you think will replace the gap after the locusts are gone?"

Locusts are really good for food. At least they were caught by locusts before, and they didn’t have to raise them themselves. They just ignite the fire in the fields every day and then try their best to catch them.

The number is large and nutritious. It is much easier than raising pigs, chickens, fishing and hunting. There is drought in various places, and there is no pig grass or vegetables to eat. It is winter soon, and raising chickens and ducks will be much more difficult.

"Your Majesty, at this time, we can only allow the undisastered Jiangnan, Lingnan, Bashu and other places to speed up the transfer of grain to the Central Plains disaster areas. Secondly, the disaster areas must also strengthen self-reliance."

"How can I rely on myself? The disaster area is now thousands of miles away, and I can't see the grass, and all the wild vegetables are dug up. Now there are even locusts, so how can I rely on myself?" Li Shimin sighed.

There are too many places that have been affected this year, forming huge disaster areas. There is too much food required, and it is difficult for various places to raise food, and secondly, transportation is even more difficult.

It is limited to moving the victims out, and it is impossible to move all the people in the disaster area. This time, the disaster was the most important area in the Tang Dynasty and the area with the largest population density.

"Dig wild vegetables, fish, hunt, and collect everything you can eat."

It is hard for a good cook to cook without rice, and Li Chao has no choice but to do so.

It was winter, and this winter would be very difficult, but Li Chao had thought of all the solutions he could think of. What he could propose now is to organize the people to dig wild vegetables, fish and hunt, and then wait for the relief grain from various places to transport them.

"Is that the only thing that's the case?"

"You can also buy a little more from the landlords with food, but this has to be cautious. Nowadays, many powerful landlords are dissatisfied. Buying food with food may cause greater dissatisfaction. I think we should wait first, at least we must control the situation better before talking about it."

"Now we can only make worse plans, reduce the quantitative standards for the elderly, women and children, and lower the quantitative standards for those young and strong people who participate in labor-for-relief can maintain the original amount first."

"Have you reached this point?" Li Shimin leaned back on the chair helplessly.

"Your Majesty, the weather is getting colder now, fishing and hunting are easier to preserve, which is good news."

The final discussion was the only way. The court held some donation meetings to allow wealthy and wealthy households from all over the country to donate grain. The court could posthumously give their ancestors a title, and even award medals to these wealthy households who donated a lot of grain.

No more forcibly and buy.

As the prime minister, Li Chao expressed his willingness to donate another 10,000 stones of grain to the court.

In places near the sea, such as Hebei, Henan, Huainan and other places near the sea, the government organized more people to go down the mountain to catch fish. The same is true for places near the river and lake. They can catch as much fish as they can.

You can eat water by relying on water, and you can eat by relying on mountains.

In places like Shannan, you can go fishing on the edge of rivers and hunting on the foot of the mountain.

Those women, girls and children also have to get wild vegetables and dig kudzu root, etc. In short, try to find a way.

Driving the mountain is also a way to hunt.

This is a relatively simple but effective way. In the past, the people at the foot of the mountain would often organize the mountain to rush to the mountain in autumn.

Driving the mountain is actually a large-scale hunting.

It requires a lot of manpower, a large number of people, with dogs, surround a mountain, and then keep shouting and knocking, driving out the prey, and then surround and hunting.

This method is mostly hunting wild boars. In autumn, many wild boars are often fat and often harm the crops, so everyone united to hunt the mountains.

It not only removes disasters, but also harvests fat prey.

Now Li Chao has also asked all over the country to hunt and rush to the mountains, and the soldiers of military officials from various places have also been organized to go to the deep mountains to hunt. This is equivalent to changing this year's military training program to hunting. It does not miss training, but can also harvest some prey.

Li Shimin has had a very bad time during this period, so he plans to take the imperial guards to hunt for a battle himself.

"Go to Wudang Mountain to hunt!"

Royal hunting used to be more of an activity, or even a play. However, Li Shimin didn’t have much fun this time. He really planned to go on stage to get some prey and increase some food, and play a leading role.

Li Chengqian is very interested in hunting.

The emperor built an Eastern Palace for him on Yuliangzhou. The palace city is neither big nor luxurious, but it trapped him. He played a smart, wise and steady prince in front of his father, mother and a group of younger brothers and sisters every day, which made him very unhappy. It was still with Li Chao that life was the easiest. He didn't have to wear a mask all the time, and Li Chao wouldn't always stare at his shortcomings.

"Teacher, I used to hear you that the south of Lingnan is an affluent place, with a plump river estuary plain delta, and the rice in the city is ripe three times a year. And south of Annan, it is a place as big as the Central Plains. The climate is humid. The locals can easily sprinkle seeds without any need to cultivate them. They can harvest a lot of food. People there never eat them."

When Li Chengqian said this, his eyes were shining.

"Teacher, why should we go to hunt in the mountains? Let's take the army directly to fight Annan and Linyi. How great is it to rob their food and transport it back."

Li Chao, who was serenely chuckled after hearing this.

The prince's idea was quite unique, and he even said that this kid was very brave to think about it.

He actually wanted to steal others, and he was very pioneering and enterprising.

"Prince, do you know how far Annan is from here? Do you know how difficult it is to transport a ship of grain from Annan? Do you know why Lingnan is called Lingnan? Although the south is large, it has very little development, and the road is long and difficult. It is not as developed as the north!"

"Teacher, go straight to the sea. Isn't Annan right by the sea? How flat the sea is!"

"Hmph, the sea is flat? The sea is the most dangerous. When you walk on the sea, you have to rely on the trade winds, you must have familiar sailors and good sea boats. None of them are missing, and you must have good luck."

Now in the early Tang Dynasty, let alone Lingnan was not developed, even Huguang was still quite wild. Only the area north of the Yangtze River was a water and land transportation network. In the south, especially Lingnan, the road was really difficult, and it was not even easier to walk than Shu Road. As for going to Annan to grab grain, it was not to mention whether it was robbed or not, even if it was robbed, it was difficult to transport it back.

Walking on the sea?
Chapter completed!