The Silent Reforms of Eldridge Chapter 3

Jarvis Zhao also threatened Chen Fuqing, who had acted as a colleague before Xiangshan took office, and asked him to also give out two thousand taels. He also threatened him and said: "You have been acting in this position for half a year and cannot find out the matter. You will be compensated if you fail to do so." "Chen Fuqing had no choice but to obey. Jarvis Zhao sent a special letter to Beijing, asking Xiangzhang to withdraw from the three thousand taels. All the money was handed over to Jarvis Zhao, who sent someone to deliver it to the treasury, and asked me to withdraw the details of the incident.

I saw that the gap had been closed, so I stopped delving into the matter. After all, I would still be hanging around here in the future, and there was no need to offend my immediate boss over this matter.

[1] "Manyingbing", that is, banner soldiers, commonly known as "Eight Banners", was a form of military-civilian management of the Manchu people in the Qing Dynasty.

1837, the seventeenth year of Daoguang's reign

In January, Lin Zexu became governor of Huguang.

In March, Yang Yuchun, a famous general and governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, died of illness.

In June, the Yi people in Mabianting, Sichuan, attacked and invaded, and Governor Eshan pacified them.

In September, Guangdong reported on the expulsion of British barges and the ban on opium kilns.

In those years, we killed locusts like this

It’s hard to raise money for disaster relief

Your current officials talk about political performance, and we also talked about political performance back then, but we didn’t value GDP as much as we do now. Ensuring that the people have enough food and clothing to live and work in peace and contentment is of course the best political achievement---it is difficult to achieve in ordinary places. The shortcomings are to basically solve the problem of food and clothing and ensure local stability, which is the so-called "maintenance of stability."

In order to provide disaster relief, I made a special trip to the provincial capital just after the New Year. When Governor Shen Qixian asked about the situation in Guanbei, my answer was eight words: "The people's livelihood is in decline, and the people are in exile."

I asked Governor Shen if he could allocate some money to help the people who were waiting for food, but he wanted me to encourage the wealthy people in Shuoping Prefecture to donate money for disaster relief.

"Governor Shen, Governor Shen, do you know that there are no wealthy people north of Yanmen Pass? Who do you want me to ask for donations from?" I tried to talk it out, but Governor Shen agreed to allocate five hundred taels from the vassal treasury. The money will be handed over to the state and county for disaster relief. A mere five hundred taels is just a drop in the bucket and will not help.

I asked Fantai Jarvis Zhao to provide a little more assistance, but he said: "Taiyuan also needs relief now. I can't ignore the things under my nose. As for things far away, I can't care."

Is this like what a dignified vassal would say?

I asked for instructions to borrow grain and sell it at a fair price. In this time of drought, only in this way can ordinary people survive. Fortunately, my men took good care of the provincial scribes, and the governor approved this method. I thought it was hard for a clever woman to make a living without rice, so I took the lead in donating 300 taels of honest and honest silver as an example to the elders of the Jin gentry. Unfortunately, no one responded.

The disaster was very serious, and people could be seen dying of starvation everywhere on the road. The landowners did not report the matter to the officials for inspection, and often just covered the matter with a straw mat. The wind was blowing and the sun was blowing, and the stench was rising. As a result, many people were infected with diseases such as plague. I took out the money and ordered the county to send people to bury the body and then report it. The government would send people to check from time to time.

Locusts coming

Last year, migratory locusts covered the sky in Shuoping Prefecture, leaving behind many insect eggs. Governor Shen was very worried about this and ordered people from various places to dig up eggs and kill larvae.

In our time, locusts are like savage beasts that make people laugh. Locusts have very powerful teeth, and they like to eat the thick leaves of plants --- of course, they rarely let go of the branches of plants. Therefore, wherever large swarms of locusts go, they are literally thousands of miles away. Floods, droughts and locust plagues are the "three pests" that people are most worried about in our time.

After mating, the female locust inserts its ovipositor into the soil about ten centimeters deep and lays about 50 eggs. When laying eggs, the female secretes a white substance to form a cylindrical plug, like a silkworm cocoon, and then lays the eggs inside. Locust eggs hatch in about 21 days. The hatched larvae crawl out of the soil and look similar to the adults, except that they have no wings and are lighter in color. The key to eradicating locusts is to destroy the eggs before they hatch, or kill the larvae before they grow wings.

When we hunted locusts, our formation was similar to that of marching and fighting. Team up with ten people, two people holding shovels, dig a ditch more than one foot long and three or four feet deep, with floating soil piled on the opposite side; four people behind, two people next to the ditch, use long brooms to blast the locusts into the ditch. In the middle, two people behind the six people holding long brooms used their long-handled leather palms to beat the locusts that were not clean to death. An official leads two hundred people, divided into twenty teams, and can capture dozens of loads of locusts every day. After the locusts enter the ditch, they push the floating soil on the edge of the ditch into the ditch and then pound it firmly with a hammer. The locusts hidden in the straw were driven out by women and children. After being caught, they could be sold or taken to the government in exchange for food, which was up to the people.

For those hiding in the rocks by the river, sprinkle lime on the rocks and then pour water to boil the locusts to death; for those on the cliffs where a long broom cannot reach, use a spray gun to spray upwards. In fields where there are locusts, the larvae jumping around are beaten to death with leather palms, and then the fields are plowed with cattle to pick out the eggs. The eggs look about the same shape as peanuts. After picking up all the insect eggs, use a stone roller to flatten the ground, and finally use iron palladium to plan it again. "Book of Saving Famines and Reviving the People" written by Dong Xu of the Southern Song Dynasty said that if the flat land is plowed by cattle and trampled by sheep, the insect eggs will turn into mud in an instant. We tried it and it worked really well.

I think the biggest problem in Shuozhou Prefecture is not the locusts, but the people's hearts. So I took the opportunity of exterminating the locusts to inform the people of Shuozhou:

Locusts are a disaster and cause great harm. However, in the farmland they pass through, some crops are eaten up, while others are growing well. Even two fields next to each other will have completely different experiences. This is probably because God is directing it. God has come to protect this place under God's command, so God will definitely control whether this place is good or bad. The people here are filial and kind and should not suffer disasters. God will definitely bless them; otherwise, locusts will wreak havoc. The social atmosphere is different, and people's good and evil are different, so God will reward or punish them respectively. There are laws of nature, and you can't take chances.

Although this is the case, people are still allowed to change their ways, not to mention the mercy of God. Can he bear to see the small people being harmed by locusts and not allow people to change their ways? Therefore, secular prayers, arranging three animals and wine, and praying to heaven, mean to change one's past. Cleanse your mind and worry, have a loving father and a filial son, as evidenced by the gods. In this way, if you use the trapping method to deal with the locusts, it will not be difficult to eliminate the locust plague.