County Magistrate Shen is the official governing Ping'an Town and its thirty-six villages. He is concerned about the locust plague and its potential impact on tax revenue and his position. He has a prior positive relationship with Zhao Lizheng from their work on water projects. He is impressed by Cheng Zhao's calligraphy and the detailed documentation of locust control methods. He is pragmatic and decisive, immediately ordering all village leaders to be summoned and instructing that the locust control method be spread to all villages. He is also firm in his enforcement, threatening arrest for any village that uses mugwort to drive locusts into neighboring areas. He shows fairness by wanting to record merit for those who contributed to the locust control method.
