bookrebus Chapter 1215 Midnight Deployment
Chapter 1215 Midnight Deployment
In the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, Shen Zheng walked the entire passageway.
She was very satisfied with this pass.
Jiang Zhiming knew from her expression that things were settled, but he still asked, "Lord Shen, what do you think of this place?"
Shen Zheng raised her hand and gently stroked the cliff face on the right, nodding: "The chosen land."
Jiang Zhiming beamed with delight, "This place seems quite good to me..."
He couldn't explain exactly what was so good about it, but it was just good!
“Indeed, it’s very good.” Shen Zheng said as she walked towards the entrance, “The entrance is narrow, so a dense net can cut off the locusts’ retreat. The steep and towering cliffs further eliminate any possibility of the locusts escaping by flying. In addition, the terrain inside the valley is relatively open, which is more than enough to accommodate the entire locust army…”
"Good, good, good..." Jiang Zhiming finally dared to laugh out loud, and immediately said to Gouwa, "Gouwa, you all go back to the village immediately and tell everyone to bring their hoes if they have them, and their shovels if they don't, and come and work! Oh, and leave a few clever ones in the village, and bring them here as soon as the supply convoy arrives!"
"Yes!" Gouwa's shout echoed through the valley.
In less than half an hour, a fiery dragon stretched from Wangyue Village toward the pass.
Shen Zheng named the pass "Locust Lock Valley".
When the sun rises tomorrow, she will turn this place into a burial ground for locusts.
Half an hour later, the villagers had cleared all the weeds from the valley. Shen Zheng stood in front of the pass, divided the villagers into teams, and began a new round of deployment.
She first explained the core of the locust eradication operation, then said, "Teams one, two, three, and four, clear the roads from the southwestern border to here. Once the supplies arrive, immediately set up 'locust-attracting routes'; teams five, six, and seven, clear the mountain roads and prepare to receive supplies such as lime and dense nets; teams eight and nine, carve grooves in the cliff face to secure bronze mirrors—the more the better. Let's move out!"
"Yes!"
In an instant, everyone sprang into action, the torchlight mingling with the starlight in the sky.
In the dead of night, amidst the clanging and banging of hammers, the first batch of supplies arrived at the pass, consisting of quicklime transported from the prefectural city.
"Five, six, seven!" Gouwa shouted to the figures still clearing the mountain path, "Your team's supplies have arrived, hurry up and carry them up! Don't delay!"
"Hey—!" came a reply from halfway up the mountain: "It'll be open soon, I'm coming!"
Half an hour later, two more convoys arrived at the pass.
This time, it was Gousheng who led them here. Upon learning that one of the carts was carrying high-yield rice, Gousheng couldn't hold back his tears: "I...I'll take you to the locust-attracting route..."
The escorting soldiers looked at Shen Zheng, and seeing that Shen Zheng nodded, the soldiers drove the carriage and followed Gou Sheng southwest.
"These high-yield rice plants must not be touched!" On the way, the soldiers warned Gousheng fiercely, "These are all used to drive away locusts. Not a single grain can be moved, or the locusts will fly into your fields!"
Gou Sheng sniffed hard. "I know! Lord Shen just told us that locusts don't like to eat this..."
That being said, Gou Sheng still couldn't figure out why locusts didn't like to eat high-yield rice.
At midnight, the dense net, reed curtains, wood ash, glutinous rice paste, iron ladder, and other items arrived one after another. Under Shen Zheng's arrangement, everything proceeded in an orderly manner.
Before we knew it, the seasons had changed and the hour of Yin had arrived.
With only two hours left until dawn, Jiang Zhiming counted on his fingers the supplies that had not yet arrived, and he was getting anxious.
Not only did the soybean oil and tung oil not arrive, but most importantly, the bronze mirror and mugwort were nowhere to be found!
It's important to know that bronze mirrors and mugwort are considered key materials for attracting and eliminating locusts...
While anxiously waiting, the hour of Yin arrived, which was almost the coldest time of day, but Jiang Zhiming was sweating profusely.
"Da da da--"
The sound of horses' hooves came from the pass.
"More supplies have arrived!" the people clinging to the cliff shouted down.
Upon hearing the sound, Jiang Zhiming rushed over, only to be disappointed to find that the convoy was carrying soybean oil, tung oil, and torches.
"Where are the convoys transporting the bronze mirrors and the mugwort?" Jiang Zhiming craned his neck to look behind the convoy and asked anxiously, "Did they set off when you did?"
"The caravan carrying the mugwort is behind us and will arrive in a quarter of an hour at most," the soldier replied. "But when I set off, the bronze mirrors... had not yet been collected. However, the magistrate said that he would send over a batch of bronze mirrors first, about six hundred in total."
Six hundred?
Jiang Zhiming felt a chill run down his spine.
Six hundred is not enough...
Lord Shen said that a thousand bronze mirrors was already the minimum requirement.
If things go wrong here, he might as well just kill himself!
"Did they say anything else? Did they say what the latest departure time would be?" Jiang Zhiming pressed.
The guard lowered his head: "Speak plainly, the Prefect didn't say..."
Jiang Zhiming's knees went weak: "I understand, you, you go ahead and unload the goods with the villagers."
Jiang Zhiming didn't know how he got to Shen Zheng. "Lord Shen..."
"But the bronze mirrors haven't been collected yet?" Shen Zheng guessed what Jiang Zhiming wanted to say just by looking at his expression.
Jiang Zhiming nearly buried his head in his chest. "The soldiers said that before they set off, the government office had only gathered six hundred [masks]..."
Six hundred...
Shen Zheng frowned slightly, and after a long silence, said, "Wait a little longer, it should be more than six hundred."
For a prefecture, collecting over a thousand bronze mirrors is no easy feat, but six hundred is definitely not the maximum that can be collected this time.
"But if..." Jiang Zhiming felt a chill run down his spine at the thought of the approaching daytime.
“If that’s not enough, we’ll have to split the existing bronze mirrors in two.” Shen Zheng looked at the firelight in the southwest, her tone containing a hint of comfort: “And the glass mirrors from the various cloth shops can also be split into more. Lord Jiang, everything depends on human effort. With a formidable enemy at hand, do not lose your composure.”
Seeing the flickering firelight in Shen Zheng's eyes, Jiang Zhiming had a sudden realization.
Yes, yes, he can't act recklessly.
So many people are waiting for him to bring them good news; how could he afford to lose his composure first...?
Taking a deep breath, Jiang Zhiming steadied himself and ran towards Wangyue Village: "This humble official will wait at the village entrance!"
Jiang Zhiming didn't return until dawn.
With him came not only six hundred bronze mirrors, but also quicklime delivered from the lime kiln in Liuyang Prefecture.
Now there's plenty of lime.
Five hundred bronze mirrors were carefully unloaded from the cart by the people, while the remaining one hundred were then taken to the locust-attracting route.
As dawn broke, the clanging sounds from the pass continued unabated, and the torch flames gradually dimmed, signaling the arrival of the convoy transporting the glass mirrors.
Despite the straw covering the cart, two of the twenty-odd glass mirrors were broken in half, and one was broken into three pieces.
"Lord Shen..." The escorting soldier stammered, his teeth chattering, "This...this humble servant deserves to die. The journey was bumpy, and I failed to protect the glass mirror..."
Those three mirrors alone could probably buy his life...