But with this thought in his mind, Liu Wei still shook his head and quickly said to Zhao Feng.
"But sir, it's almost the autumn harvest season, and things like taxes..."
Zhao Feng waved his hand and looked at Liu Wei with a smile.
"Do I still need to worry about taxes?"
"Don't forget, just my own industries can raise the royal court's taxes, and the income from the cement factory can also provide all the reasonable expenses of this city."
"This year, the people don't even need to hand over their own food. Do you think there is anything else I need to do?"
Liu Wei looked at Zhao Feng in disbelief. It turned out that Zhao Feng had already thought of these things, so he was doing nothing here.
The key point is that Zhao Feng is right. Everything in Huaigu Fucheng is now in order, and there is nothing that requires Zhao Feng to intervene.
Even the taxation issue that troubled those officials the most had been solved by Zhao Feng long ago, and even the taxation here was higher than that in other cities.
Zhao Feng himself owns shares in the bookstore run by Chen Rou, the restaurant run by Chen Man, and the cement factory.
In the entire Huaigu Fucheng, the Li family's snowflake salt business has grown bigger and bigger, and the tax paid every year is a huge amount, and Zhao Feng doesn't even need to push it.
Taking all these circumstances into account, Zhao Feng's current position as an official is extremely leisurely. Even the people in Huaigu Fucheng live and work in peace and contentment, and the folk customs have become very simple. They don't pick up things on the road and don't close their homes at night.
Thinking about it this way, Zhao Feng is really a very comfortable official!
While Liu Wei was thinking this, Zhao Feng looked at the birdcage he had made before. This birdcage was made by himself. The reason why he locked up an old hen was because he couldn't find the bird.
But Liu Wei had just pulled it, and the birdcage was already a little deformed. This really made Zhao Feng feel a little dissatisfied. He quickly opened the door and let the old hen out, wanting to see how to repair the birdcage.
After the old hen was released, she didn't even run away, but kept lowering her head to catch something.
Zhao Feng looked at the bird cage in his hand, and then noticed the old hen's movements. He leaned over to take a look at it strangely, and then his expression suddenly changed.
"broken!"
"Look what this is?"
Zhao Feng grabbed the old hen's neck and pulled out the remaining half of the thing from the chicken's mouth, which made the old hen flutter in dissatisfaction.
Liu Wei came over and took a look with some confusion, but after seeing what Zhao Feng had in his hand, Liu Wei's expression became very frightened.
"Is this a locust?"
Zhao Feng frowned. Since the old hen had already eaten half of it, and the remaining half was just the upper body of a bug, he couldn't tell whether it was a locust or a grasshopper.
But no matter what it is, Zhao Feng must be vigilant, because the crops in the fields are about to mature now, and the autumn harvest season is coming soon.
If a locust plague breaks out at this time, the consequences will be simply unimaginable!
Thinking of this, Zhao Feng didn't care about the birdcage he had just made. He quickly went back to the house and put on his coat, and called Liu Wei to go outside the city to see the situation.
As soon as they arrived on the road outside the city, Zhao Feng's heart had already sunk.
There were still just some woods here, but the leaves were already full of small holes. Liu Wei ran out of the car and caught a few, and gave them to Zhao Feng for careful inspection.
Zhao Feng sighed. His guess was true. They were actually locusts!
For a country that mainly relies on agriculture, the most feared thing is actually the locust plague, because once the locusts appear, they will form an overwhelming force and no grass will grow wherever they pass.
Although this locust looks similar to a grasshopper, its destructive power is much more powerful than a grasshopper.
Liu Wei saw Zhao Feng's face darken and knew that these things were locusts. He angrily crushed these locusts under his feet and said with great worry.
"Sir, what should we do now?"
"Looking at these locusts, they should have just hatched. They will grow into adults in a few days, and then there will be a locust plague!"
"According to historical records, once a locust plague occurs, it will eat a large number of crops. We must find a way quickly!"
Zhao Feng nodded. There was no need to go to the fields to check now. He just asked the driver to turn the car around and prepare to go back to discuss the situation.
Back at the government office, Zhao Feng summoned all his colleagues and judges. When they all arrived, Zhao Feng put the locusts he had caught on the table.
"Look, there are already a lot of locusts here."
"It's probably because of the severe drought last year that the eggs of these locusts matured this year. It's really raining when the house leaks!"
After hearing Zhao Feng's words, Tongzhi and Tongpan also looked at the locusts crawling on the table in disbelief.
"Sir, these locusts have obviously just hatched. If they are allowed to form a locust plague, they will definitely eat all the food that the people have worked so hard to grow."
"How about we immediately organize people to catch these locusts?"
Zhao Feng shook his head. From what he saw on the road, he could tell that there were hundreds of millions of locusts, and it would be impossible to catch them all by human hands alone.
If this were left to future generations, it would only need to be sprayed with pesticides before these locusts have grown into adults.
But now they have no pesticides at all.
The judge sighed and said to Zhao Feng.
"Sir, this matter cannot be delayed, or we should give the order immediately and let the common people seize the time to harvest food!"
"Although this will cause some grains to be immature and the yield not to be that high, this is also the last resort. It is better to not have enough to eat than to have nothing to eat at all!"
Zhao Feng frowned and said nothing with a gloomy expression.
In fact, Zhao Feng had already started thinking in his mind. He should have seen the prevention and control of locusts in his previous life, but what exactly is this method?
When the others saw that Zhao Feng didn't speak, they felt that Zhao Feng had suddenly lost his mind, so they all couldn't help but sigh.
At this moment, Yu Ruhai sent someone an urgent letter.
"Master Zhao, this is a letter from Master Zhou Mu!"
Zhao Feng quickly took the letter and opened it, feeling that his heart suddenly sank to the bottom.
It turned out that traces of locusts were found not only in their nostalgic city, but also in several cities in Qingzhou.
After all, during the severe drought last year, the entire Qingzhou was hit the hardest, and after the severe drought, locusts would appear in swarms.
Originally, Zhao Feng and the others should have taken the time to prevent and control the situation in the first half of the year, but they were busy with suppressing bandits in the first half of the year, and Zhao Feng also ignored this matter.
