Chapter 6552 Response

Chen Xi was somewhat surprised when he heard this. After constantly burning money, had the Wang family in Kuaiji finally come up with something outrageous?

The electric magnetic field sounds very cool. I hope I can defeat Locust Sky. Anyway, Chen Xi himself is lying flat. Now whoever can defeat Locust Sky will go forward. Chen Xi is only providing food and grass support now. ???? ?9??????x.??? ????

"Speaking of which, what's the situation in Rome now?" Chen Xi asked curiously. At most, the losses on the Han Dynasty's side would be bigger, and there would be no real famine. After all, Chen Xi had not worked in vain for so many years, and he was also prepared. After the entire army of millions was repaired at the Southwest Passage, they killed Guishuang with one hammer, so there was no problem with food reserves.

Besides, Jian Yong has been engaged in logistics over the years. Not only to ensure that materials are efficiently delivered to villages, but at least to counties, it should not be a big problem. Therefore, Chen Xi's attitude towards the locust plague is very clear. If he can't defeat it, he will surrender. , anyway, by November, no matter how many trillions of locusts there are, they will all be extinct.

"The locust extermination is in full swing. Although we have notified Rome in advance and asked Rome to carry out prevention and control, the situation is not very good." Guo Jia handed the information related to Rome to Chen Xi. Rome has not broadcast any locust attacks recently. Ding or something like that, broadcasting the whole process of fighting locusts.

But how can I put it, in the battle reports of Odin, it is basically win, win, win, win all the way, and rarely lose, but in the battle report of Locust Sky, there is basically no word win, it is all lose, lose, lose. I was losing all the way, and I felt like I was almost losing.

"This is really miserable." Chen Xi looked at the description of the locust plague in Rome and felt a little sad. When his own family was miserable, he saw that other families were even worse, and his mentality improved significantly.

Because of the evolution of locusts, the Locust Sky that attacked Rome was more outrageous than the situation predicted by the Senate. At least in the early days, Rome believed that the Locust Sky could kill Egypt, North Africa, and the lower reaches of the Mesopotamia, at least to Rome. The European area can still have a few mouthfuls of food to eat, so that the citizens will not starve to death.

However, the real situation now is this. After the locust plague broke out in East Africa, they took the North African route, marched westward to the Atlantic Ocean, then crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and landed on the Iberian Peninsula.

In other words, because of their better quality, larger size, and stronger combat effectiveness, Locust Sky successfully arrived in Europe, and then showed off in Spain.

It doesn't matter what Tacito thinks now. The tens of billions of brothers from the Locust Sky Team have already eaten up all of Spain. No matter whether it is the cash crop saffron or the local rice, they have all been shown off. In short, they have suffered heavy losses.

Of course, for Rome, after North Africa, Egypt, and the lower reaches of the Mesopotamia were all destroyed, there was nothing unacceptable for them to destroy Spain, which was not very important. After all, they had already lost so much, and they didn't care about multiple losses. Save money.

What's more, Tacito is in charge of the Spanish province, which is very unpopular in itself. Now that he has been eaten up, it can reduce the conflicts in the Senate. Besides, now that the matter has come to this, we can do whatever we have to do.

The problem is that the second round of locust plague can move west along North Africa, reach the Atlantic Ocean, go north through the Strait of Gibraltar, enter the European region of Rome, and gnaw out the Spanish provinces. Then when the third wave of real super locust plague breaks out, Will that bite directly into Italy?

Just thinking about this possibility made the heads of the Roman Senate boil. There was nothing they could do about it. The Romans had not suffered such humiliation since they killed the Celts! Being beaten to Italy? How could it be possible for the mighty Roman Empire to become like this?

"Ah, we have already reached the European area ruled by Rome. Then it is over. The Roman Empire will definitely be at war this year." Chen Xi said helplessly, "This is really tragic. Is this wave of locusts so outrageous? Speaking of which, I have been I want to ask one thing, how do locusts break through the boundary within a few months of their life cycle? This is completely unreasonable."

"What's unreasonable?" Fazheng sneered at the words, "Don't you know that the generals who command the army can borrow the power of the army?"

"You mean the same thing happens to locusts?" Chen Xi thought about it and it seemed to make sense.

"Locusts are often counted in billions. The leader draws a little bit of power from other locusts, and when they are integrated, they all have to be piled up until the inner energy is separated from the body or even breaks through the boundary. Locusts don't have as many ideas as humans. They accumulate and grow and that's it. "Fazheng said very calmly, "Actually, compared to things like world-breaking locusts, what I'm more curious about is, don't locusts have a collective will?"

"How could it be possible?" Chen Xi curled his lips and said, "Without this thing, how could the locusts move out together and fly thousands of miles across the ocean to attack Kushan and us?"

"That's quite strange. Since there is a collective consciousness, why don't tens of billions of locusts form a collective will? Even if the consciousness of the locusts is very small, tens of billions piled up should have the size of the will of the empire." Guo Jia expressed his doubts on behalf of Fazheng. Chen Xi fell into silence upon hearing this, while everyone else in the Political Yuan looked at Guo Jia, "You think the matter is not big enough, right?"

"I'm just asking, it's a bit strange. You see, such a large number of locusts is equivalent to the size of millions of human beings. It is normal to have a collective will. Besides, the locusts themselves are collective enough." Guo Jia struggled to explain.

"If the locust plague really creates a will of locust sky, we will beat you up first." Chen Xi said with dissatisfaction, and then looked at Guo Jia seriously, "Let's not discuss other things, just talk about the scale and size of locusts. It is actually reasonable to have a collective will."

"If such a thing really comes out, it will be more difficult to deal with it next. Pray that the Roman Empire's mentality does not collapse." Li You sneered and said. Others don't know what the mentality of the Roman Empire is, but Li You knows it very well. If he were in that position, he would have the same mentality. I can't live anymore, so why should I care about other things?

"Speaking of which, Xianhe and Zizhong were asked to mobilize war supplies from the south to Chang'an. Where are they now?" Chen Xi didn't want to discuss what would happen if such an outrageous thing as locust sky really came out. He felt that it was better to be down-to-earth at this time.

"It has been transported to Chang'an by water. It will be delivered in about half a month. By the way, Zichuan, how did you hoard so much rock sugar?" Zhuge Liang looked at Chen Xi with some strangeness. Although he knew that Chen Xi liked to hoard supplies, this was too much.

"Since Zi Zhong made white sugar, I asked Zi Zhong to separate some raw materials to make rock sugar. After all, the shelf life of rock sugar can reach ten years under suitable conditions. Isn't it a matter of course to store it for war preparation?" Chen Xi said with a pout.

Having said that, the reason why so much rock sugar can be stored is more because Chen Xi ordered Mi Zhu to use one-fifth of the annual sugarcane plantation as a strategic reserve. In addition, the transportation problem in the south has not been completely solved so far. If it is not transported out, it will be stored there.

After the innovation of agricultural tools in recent years, the area of ​​sugarcane plantations has increased on a large scale, and the stockpiled war reserve rock sugar has naturally increased significantly. Originally, Chen Xi planned to release part of the reserves in two years to suppress the price of white sugar on the market. As a result, the locust plague has not been promoted before this matter has been promoted.

Compared with transporting grain to Central Asia, Chen Xi still prefers to transport sugar. Chen Xi thinks that there is no problem with the idea of ​​the three Persian Gulf companies. Sugar water plus salt, soaking some dry buns, and preparing some wild vegetables can maintain life.

More importantly, the weight and volume of sugar are much smaller than grain. Without adding oil, salt and other things, the calories of 20 grams of sugar can basically reach 100 calories, which is basically equivalent to a bowl of white rice. To be honest, in this year's Central Asian situation, white rice is not bad, and bran is good to eat, so it is better to prepare some rock sugar and let these people carry it first.

At least, sending thousands of tons of rock sugar is equivalent to tens of thousands of tons of grain in terms of survival. In terms of the difficulty and efficiency of transportation, there is no doubt that thousands of tons of rock sugar are much better than tens of thousands of tons of grain, so it is self-evident what to do at this time.

"Speaking of which, these rock sugars were originally used to open a new factory. Now the new factory doesn't need to be opened. Let's save some and see if we can build a new factory before destroying Kushan." Chen Xi said with some regret.

Chen Xi has his own plan on how to destroy Kushan. Once he is sure to destroy Kushan and two million troops are deployed, it is impossible to stop. The logistics problem will become the biggest problem in destroying Kushan. Moreover, considering that it is necessary to fight in one go in the field, once the blockade of Kushan is broken, it is impossible to stop and it is necessary to keep pushing forward.

This will put a lot of pressure on logistics. To put it bluntly, it is highly likely that the logistics support will not be done well. Therefore, Chen Xi, who is hoarding rock sugar, is thinking about how to make compressed biscuits.

Cream, rock sugar, food, salt, and oil are not a problem. The rest is to make this thing. As long as this thing is made, when the two million troops attack Kushan, even if Kushan desperately makes a strong wall and clears the fields, the Han Dynasty can directly rush to Kushan's hometown under the pressure of logistics.

As long as the Kushan's nest is blown up, the army of more than two million is enough to complete a large-scale military control, and then the officers at all levels will be enfeoffed on the spot to maintain the stability of the occupied areas, which can almost solve the problem.

So from a practical point of view, compressed biscuits are actually quite important to the Han Dynasty, but the formula that can be preserved for a long time has not been developed, and the important ingredient, white sugar, has also been taken away to save lives. Chen Xi is now somewhat helpless.

"But now we can open a small one to verify it. If I had known that I would encounter this situation, I should have opened a verification factory early." Chen Xi said helplessly.

The formula of super compressed biscuits is indeed a problem, but the Han Dynasty can actually make it at the expense of a certain taste. After all, Chen Xi's family also has a cook with a spiritual talent. Taking raw materials and repeatedly experimenting, after making the finished product, and then opening the mold, it is actually not very difficult, just like making cakes with Liu Tong every year.

"I always feel that Zichuan is doing all kinds of strange things, but it doesn't matter. I don't do logistics. As long as the front line is satisfied, it's fine." Fa Zheng said indifferently.

Chen Xi didn't say anything after hearing this. If he had known about such a serious locust plague, he would have started to verify it two years ago. Unfortunately, knowing it earlier is priceless.

"Let's do this for now. If there is any news about locusts, remember to notify me. I'll leave first. If there is nothing important, don't look for me." Chen Xi thought about it and felt that there was nothing to do. He didn't want to waste time in the government office, so he slipped away in advance.

After Chen Xi left, a swift eagle swooped down from the sky towards Chen Xi, which scared Chen Xi. Fortunately, Han Qiong protected him and caught the swift eagle. Then he found a bamboo tube tied to the swift eagle's feet, which made him stunned.

This was the swift eagle that Chen Zhe had released at that time. However, Chen Zhe and his group went abroad too early, and the Chen family had never had any major events. After the swift eagle sent by Chen Xi a few years ago flew back to the Central Plains, it didn't recognize Chang'an City.

In addition, the geomagnetic field has slightly shifted because of the explosion of the Roman Blazing Ring in South America last year. The Weiyang Palace has a gravitational distortion zone created by the first level of the Nine-Layered Palace, which has caused the geomagnetic field to be a bit outrageous here. This swift eagle, which has not returned for many years, can neither determine its position by geomagnetism nor the Chang'an City in its memory, so it can only fly around in this area.

It was thanks to the eagle's amazing eyesight and the good luck of seeing Chen Xi today, otherwise the swift eagle would have to fly in this area for at least a few more months.

But the benefit of using a swift eagle as a messenger is that even if it flies for a few more months, the swift eagle will not starve to death. After all, it is a bird of prey. If the exact location cannot be found, the geomagnetic field and memory both indicate that it is roughly in this area, then the swift eagle will keep wandering in this area. As for food, for a bird of prey, food is never a problem.

"I'm scared to death. Why is there an eagle suddenly targeting me? What's going on?" Chen Xi asked curiously, looking at the eagle that was caught by Han Qiong but did not flutter.

"It's a swift eagle." Han Qiong untied the bamboo tube and handed it to Chen Xi.

"Ah, the swift eagle pounced on me directly. Whose swift eagle is this? It's so excessive." Chen Xi took the bamboo tube and said very dissatisfiedly, but shut up after opening it. Oh, my swift eagle, even the one I raised before, that's fine, I won't say anything.

"Ah, there are demon crystals in the locusts' bodies, what's going on?" Chen Xi looked at Chen Zhe's secret report with surprise. What was going on? Also, he hadn't seen any of the noble families in Central Asia mention this matter. It was impossible that no one would mention such a big thing. Even if they were all blinded by money, it was impossible for them not to tell him.