Locust plagues have appeared countless times in Chinese history, and the people have suffered greatly from them. Whether it is a history book or a literary work, there is no general description of the locust plague, such as the famous Huai opera Zhao Wuniang", which has a description of the locust plague: "The locust swallows that fly out are large, all are red heads and green wings, the young man wears a straw hat on his head, and the big girl chews on her clothes...". Why did locust plagues occur frequently in ancient times? This is also related to the stupidity of the feudal masters, who have a plague of locusts, believing that it is providence and violating heaven, so they send locusts to punish the human world. Because "locust" is homophonous with the emperor, no one dares to propose the extinction of locusts, "extinguishing locusts" and "extinguishing the emperor", is not an offense to the emperor. It wasn't a joke, it was a matter of losing its head, so no one dared to mention it, which led to a more and more serious locust plague and no harvest of crops.
During the reign of Emperor Wen of Han, he encountered another plague of locusts, and Emperor Wen of Han was a rare Ming Emperor, so he could not let the people suffer and could not eat, and immediately sent Jia Yi to take charge of the task of exterminating locusts. Jia Yi lived up to his holy orders and worked with the local people to dig a trench, lay firewood in the ditch, and light it at night. Seeing the fire, the locust swarm desperately pounced on the trench and killed itself.
Tang Taizong Li Shimin not only actively extinguished locusts, but also set a precedent for eating locusts. In those years, when Emperor Taizong inspected the locust plague, there were many locusts flying around the city tower, and some even hit his face. In anger, he grabbed a locust and said, "You ate the crops of my people, and you deceived lian's head, which is tolerable, and it is intolerable, and today I will swallow you alive!" "Really throwing the locust into his mouth and swallowing it raw, the ministers were stunned. When this matter reached the people, the people heard that the emperor dared to eat locusts, and tried to taste the locusts that were almost cooked by the fire, and the taste was good. Everyone will further process, put some salt and eat it, put some oil and fry it. He also offered it to the emperor to taste, and after the emperor tasted it, he laughed and said: "Or the people have ideas, it does taste good, it is much better than raw, not only extinguishing the locust plague, but also eating the stomach, killing two birds with one stone, wonderful, wonderful!" “
Since Emperor Taizong of Tang, no monarch has ever taken the eradication of locusts as a matter of great rebellion, but has paid more and more attention to the eradication of locust plagues, and there have been many stories of locust eradication in history.
After the founding of New China, the party and the government paid more attention to the work of eliminating locusts and set up special research institutes. Famous biologists, academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Qiu Shibang, Ma Shijun and other scientists have devoted their lives to the work of locust eradication and locust control, escorting China's agriculture and animal husbandry, and should be remembered forever! #Headline History # #历史冷知识 #