In ancient times, people believed in the theory of ghosts and gods, and even animals were often given various attributes. For example, the legendary dragon symbolizes imperial power, the tiger represents kingship, and the lion is a beast, the crow is considered a symbol of bad luck, and the magpie represents blessing. And among the various animals, there is also a bird that symbolizes the most terrifying thing: death.
The name of this bird is called the duck. In fact, the dove is not a dove, the former is a poisonous bird that the ancients smelled, and the latter is an ordinary bird. The duck is a legendary poisonous bird with black bodies and red eyes and purple-green feathers. The Classic of Mountains and Seas says: "The duck is as big as an eagle, purple-green, with a long neck and a red beak, the head of a viper snake, the male name Luck Day, and the female name Yin Harmonious Also." "The feathers of the duck are highly poisonous, and they can poison people when put into wine, which is the origin of words such as "drinking to quench thirst" and "drinking ducks to die". It can be seen that people have a long history of using dove poison, and countless people have died of dove poison.
To be sure, the ducks were real in ancient times. The production of duck wine is extremely simple, only need to touch the feathers of the bird with the wine, the wine did not have any abnormality, but people will be poisoned and die in an instant after drinking. The "Dialectic Record and Poisoning Gate" says: "People drink and swallow wine, their eyes are white to the sky, their bodies are shivering, they suddenly do not know as if they are drunk, their hearts understand but they cannot speak, and they die when their eyes are closed." ”
It is the bird that is so poisonous and difficult to detect that it is often used in palace coups, and countless princes and nobles have died under its feathers. The Southern Tang Dynasty Book of Shen Xianggao records a story: The Southern Tang monarch Li Fu was jealous of the powerful minister Zhou Ben, so he prepared to kill him. However, when Zhou Ben saw the strange look in Li Fu's eyes when he handed him wine, he noticed that the wine in his hand was poisonous wine, so he gave the wine to Li Fu in half to show that he and the emperor were in the same heart.
Li Fu knew that it was poisonous wine, but he could not help drinking it, and just when he was in a dilemma, Youren Shen gradually saw that the emperor was bitter, so he pretended to ask the emperor for a reward, drank the wine down, and then walked out of the palace. Li Fu quickly ordered someone to take the antidote to Shen Xianggao, but before the medicine arrived, Shen Xianggao was already brain-splitting and died.
Stories like the above have many records in the historical records, so it can be basically determined that there were indeed ducks in ancient times, and its feathers contained severe poison. But this raises the question, like the bird, a poisonous bird that prefers to feed on venomous snakes should not have any natural enemies, so why can't we see them today?
In fact, the reason why the bird disappeared was related to the emperor of the Jin Dynasty. Wang Rao, the governor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, once caught an ostrich, but he did not think much about it, but only thought that it was a rare animal, so he dedicated it to Emperor Mu of Jin. When Emperor Mu of Jin saw the bird, he was almost scared to death, and the people around him said that Wang Rao wanted to murder Shengshang with the intention of rebellion. Fortunately, Emperor Mu of Jin was not a cruel emperor, and he knew that Wang Rao had no intention of rebellion, and he offered the bird to himself but did not know its true identity, so he pardoned Wang Rao.
However, the ducks did not have such good luck, and Emperor Mu of Jin did not like this poison, which was often used to poison people, so he not only burned the ducks caught by Wang Rao, but also ordered the whole country to hunt the birds and burn them on the spot. Later, under the "persecution" of people, the duck eventually became extinct and disappeared into the long river of history.