After the wedding, Ernst still had no shortage of matters to handle. Overall, the progress of railway and factory construction posed no major problems, while Constantin was responsible for supervising the canals and river improvements.
"Your Highness, this is a telegram from Northern Province. According to the local government, a locust disaster has broken out in the neighboring Wasangali Sultanate."
Ernst took the telegram and read it. "This matter? Let me see... Hmm, desert locusts. An old friend."
Calling them old friends was no exaggeration. In his previous life, Ernst had dealt with this kind of desert locust before. Of course, the main reason was the internet's excessive sensationalism, which made these locusts seem like an incurable plague. That had left Ernst, who was working in Tanzania at the time, rather speechless.
One of the most low-grade rumors had emerged in 2020: African desert locusts crossed the Red Sea, invaded India, and might enter the Far East.
Never mind whether desert locusts could adapt to the Far East's environment. The source of that locust plague had actually been the Arabian Peninsula, yet the unscrupulous media had paired their reports entirely with pictures of Kenya and Somalia, misleading people into believing that the plague had crossed the Red Sea from Africa to India.
That plague had indeed crossed the Red Sea, but it had jumped from the Arabian Peninsula to Somalia and Kenya. In truth, the blame should have fallen on the Arab regions. The source lay in the Rub' al Khali Desert, which was divided among Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, and Yemen. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, wealthy powers of the Middle East, had not played any role at all. Coupled with Yemen's internal chaos at the time, pesticides had not been sprayed promptly, allowing the locusts to breed