If you don't consummate the marriage for three years and then marry a successful educated youth

The captain remembered something else and said somewhat urgently, "Director, what about negotiating the cooperation with the chicken and duck farms? They agreed, right? It's actually a mutually beneficial deal."

"They bring their chickens and ducks over, and the chickens and ducks eat insects for free. The meat and eggs are better than when they eat feed, and it also greatly reduces their feed costs. Isn't that great?"

Shen Zhongtian pressed his temples: "It's a good thing, but it will take some time. We also need to take the managers of chicken farms, duck farms, and goose farms to the countryside to see for themselves. Nothing is more convincing than seeing it with your own eyes."

"I've also sent the larvae for testing to confirm they're not poisonous and are good for chickens, ducks, and geese. This will make it easier to convince them. I'm doing these things now, and I'll go talk to them tomorrow."

"Captain Jiang, Captain Liu, why don't you come along too? We can split up and try to talk things out first. If that doesn't work, we'll have to ask the town mayor to step in and help us talk things out."

Liu Hongbing frowned: "The town mayor is incompetent. If we let him come and talk, it's better to avoid trouble. Why would he be willing to take the initiative to come forward?"

Director Shen coughed lightly: "Captain Liu, you should be careful what you say."

"I'm a straightforward person. Why don't you go directly to the county magistrate? By the time the town mayor reports it, locusts will be eating his head."

"Cough cough..."

Some people couldn't help but hold back their laughter.

Director Shen said helplessly, "We've reported it all, and I'm waiting for news. There are no results yet, but we can't just wait around. How are the other teams doing with their investigations?"

Hao Ren said with a smile, "Everything is normal in our brigade. There are few locusts in the rivers, so we can handle it easily."

"If other brigades need assistance, they can hire people from our brigade to do the work. They can pay seven yuan a day, and our brigade happens to have some spare people."

"Well, it's good that your Red Sorghum Brigade doesn't have locusts. If other brigades do have them, we should deal with as many as we can. We can't let them hatch and eat the grass at will."

"Captain Jiang, your brigade has the most larvae, so you need to pay more attention. If you're really too busy, ask for help. This money will be supplemented to you according to the situation once the regulations are issued."

The captain grunted in agreement, but he was not entirely convinced. Hiring people could only deal with the insects on the riverbed; they couldn't handle the insects in the crevices as thoroughly as chickens and ducks.

"Well, Director, why don't you talk to the people at the farm first?"

"Okay, I'll take you there after the meeting."

The whole day was spent working, and by the time the brigade leader got home it was already dark. He went into the yard, scooped up a bowl of water, gulped it down, and slowly exhaled, "I'm finally alive again, I was so thirsty."

"The people at the farm are really hard to talk to. I practically wore myself out before they agreed to send me a thousand to eat the larvae. That's not enough. Ten thousand would be more like it."

Zhang Shuhua handed over a handkerchief: "Wipe your sweat. Have you had lunch yet? Sit down and rest for a bit."

The team leader sat on a small stool, looking worried: "Wife, how is things with our daughter-in-law? Has she found any way? It's been a week already, have the larvae molted yet?"

"Yes, it has molted, but it's not ready to fly yet. In about half an hour, it will be able to fly. The way it finds food when it can fly is different from when it was a larva."

"That's what my daughter-in-law said. Anyway, it's better to wait until the wings grow out before using targeted medication. She tried it on the larvae, and the white leaf had some effect, but not much."

Zhang Shuhua comforted her, "Don't worry too much. If we know about this in advance, we can prepare accordingly. At worst, we can harvest half a month earlier. Even if the yield is reduced, it's better than having our grain eaten."

The captain frowned and said in a deep voice, "Recovering early is the only option. It's best to avoid it if possible. Once it starts, we'll check at least 20%, and production could be reduced by 40%."

"Normally, one mu of land yields 800, but with this reduction in yield, it can only yield 480 to 640. And that's not all the risks. There are more green grains and more flat grains, and they're not easy to dry, so it's a dilemma."

"Don't be fooled by how confident I sound in the meeting. If there really is a locust plague, the worst that can happen is an early harvest, but the losses from an early harvest are too great. Just thinking about it makes my heart ache."

Zhang Shuhua patted him on the shoulder: "We'll get through this. If we don't harvest in advance, we'll be gambling with the locust plague. If it comes, we'll have no harvest at all; if it doesn't, we'll make a profit."

The captain looked towards the horizon and said softly, "Wife, do you think these locusts will really come? If they don't, I'll have the harvested grain early to avoid losses."

"My term as brigade leader is coming to an end. Who will trust me in the future? Who will make up for the lost grain? I don't have the ability to make up for it, so I'm really struggling with what to do."

"Don't overthink it. Just do what you can, take it one step at a time, and do your best to have a clear conscience."

"We don't know what the locust plague was like before it came. We figured out how to prevent it ourselves. We've done our best to get to this point."

Zhang Shuhua brought over a bowl of noodles: "Eat up, your body won't be able to handle it if you don't. The brigade is counting on you as their backbone, you can't fall down."

The captain smirked, "Yeah, you're right, honey. Just do what you can. As for the outcome, I don't know what it will be like. We'll see."

I quickly finished the bowl of noodles and felt much better.

He stood up and said, "I'm going to check on the situation on the other side of the river. The threshing ground also needs to be compacted in advance. There's a lot to do, and I don't have time to waste."

"Okay, go ahead and get busy. If you don't have time to come back, I'll bring you some food."

"Okay, thank you for your hard work, wife."

Ten days or so passed in a flash, and the riverbed was covered with only a thin layer of black larvae. A large flock of ducks quacked, and a man standing on the slope looked down and said with a smile, "I must say, my ducks have really gotten quite fat."

The captain gave a wry smile: "That's for sure. These damned bugs eat so much grass, all the nutrients are in their bodies. If the ducks eat them too, they'll lay eggs even more frequently."

"Haha, that's true. These larvae hatch really fast. If you guys hadn't been so quick to clean them up, my ducks would have been stuffed to death and still wouldn't have been able to eat much."

"Captain Jiang, why are you so concerned about these bugs? They're just some jumping creatures that can eat some grass. Why do you have to kill them all?"

The chicken farm manager came over and looked at him curiously.

"Yes, these dark brown worms don't have much meat on them. They hop around and can't even jump onto the straw to eat the grain. You look like you're facing a major enemy."

The captain looked at them and said, "Have you ever heard of locust plagues? What you see on this riverbed are the hatched ones. Didn't you see the winged locusts after they've hatched several times?"

"If we leave them alone, they won't keep jumping around like this forever. They can fly after molting. How are we supposed to catch them? Catching them while they're flying is no easy task."

"At that time, we can only watch helplessly as they fly away to eat our food. That's our hard-earned money. If they really eat it, what will we eat in winter? Many people will starve to death."