A Brief History of Locusts | a history of the struggle between the ancients and the locusts
Text: Dead wood
Recently, the media reported that the huge locusts have attacked Pakistan and India. The locust plague originated in East Africa, and according to a report in January, the desert locust swarm in northeast Kenya, 60 kilometers long and 40 kilometers wide, is the largest locust swarm in 25 years, the desert locust has the ability to migrate long distances, and the reproductive capacity is strong, expanding, they cross the Red Sea from East Africa into Asia, along the way invincible, causing great losses to crops in many countries along the way.
We feel the same way we see disasters in neighbouring countries, but at the same time we also arouse people's discussions, will locusts enter our country? Relevant experts believe that no, because the common locust plagues in China's history are east Asian locusts, Asian locusts and Tibetan locusts, while this time they are desert locusts and have an alpine climate as a natural barrier, so they will not pose a threat to our country.
However, as the "killer" who competes with human beings for food, one of the three major natural disasters of mankind, locust plague, flood and drought, is the "small strong" who cannot be driven away and cannot die, and in the history of mankind for thousands of years, locusts have always accompanied us, and from time to time they come out to "harass" and harm one party, so we cannot take it lightly.
Locusts are orthopteran insects that are much older than humans, born in the Carboniferous fern forest 300 million years ago, while mammals began to be born in the Jurassic period 100 million years later. The locusts have experienced many geological disasters, climate change, not only did not become extinct, but tenaciously survived and multiplied to this day.
Grasshopper (Grasshopper)
China's ancient people have a very early understanding of locusts, there are many names, pre-Qin ancient texts include mantis ((zhōng)), ant, si mantis, mantis (yuán), mantis (téng), metamorphosis (zhōngxū) and so on. Among them, the ant is a collective term for locusts, and the mantis is the nymph of the locust (the wingless locust). For example, "Shijing Guofeng, Zhou Nan, Andthir": "螽思羽, 诜诜兮, Yi'er descendants, Zhen Zhenxi." "Poetry Classic, Guofeng, Fengfeng, July": "May Singing Stock, June Shaji Zhenyu." The Spring and Autumn Chronicle records the fifteenth year of Lu Xuangong (594 BC): "The first tax acre, winter, and birth." etc.
However, in traditional culture, the ant is mostly positive, which means that the descendants reproduce and the people prosper. People separate the grasshopper from the locust, and the ant is also called the grub, "the worm, the grub." ", Mao Biography": "Ant, Spiderfly also." ", "Sparse": "The grub is long and indigo, the long horn is long, and the strand is also." Or it is like a locust and small, black spots. Its strands are like tortoiseshells, and in mid-May, the two strands are cut together, and those who smell several steps are also. ”。 Later, the ant refers to the so-called "grasshopper" in the north, and many antique artifacts today have many carvings of the ant, and there are also many paintings about the ant.
For locusts that are very harmful to crops, the pre-Qin people called them "flies" and "locusts". For example, "Shijing Xiaoya Datian": "Go to its borers, and its cockroaches, and harmless to my Tian Zhi." ", "Mao Biography": "Eating heart borer, eating leaf borer." ”。 And "locust", in the end, the meaning of its creation, the author speculates that "emperor" in the golden text by "day" and "earth", locusts come, cover the sky and the sun; in addition, China in ancient times believed that all things have animism, and agriculture to establish a country, crop harvest affects people's survival, and locust plague is considered to be a natural disaster, so locusts are called "the emperor of insects".
Records of locusts are often described in the pre-Qin scriptures. For example, the "Book of Rites and Moon Orders" and the "Lü's Spring and Autumn Mengxia Ji" have the same record: "(Mengxia) performs the Spring Order, then the locusts are defeated, the storm comes to the grid, and the grass is untrue." In addition, the "Lü Shi Chunqiu Trial" has: "... The hemp of the time will be long, the knots will be thick and the yang, the small and the stems will be strong, the thick and the tangery will be even, and the later ripening will be prosperous, and the day and night will be reborn. So there are no locusts. This shows that the pre-Qin ancients accumulated a lot of experience in order to avoid locusts, and believed that they should be cultivated on time, so that crops were not afraid of locusts.
According to incomplete statistics, from the thirteenth year of Lu Huan Gong (707 BC) to the thirty-third year of Qing Guangxu (1907), a total of 538 locust plagues occurred. Therefore, the locust plague in our country basically averages once every five years. At the peak of the locust plague, Xu Guangqi's "Agricultural Administration Encyclopedia : Eliminating Locusts" of the Ming Dynasty counted the number of months of locust plagues in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), and found that the most rampant between April and September of the lunar calendar, Xu Guangqi said: "The most prosperous between summer and autumn, and when the hundred grains are mature, the positive phase value is also the same, so the harm is the most extensive." This is very consistent with modern research.
As for the cause of the occurrence of locusts, due to the lack of scientific research, the ancients mostly believed that it was a "disaster from heaven", which was the punishment of the heavens to people, and they often used sacrifices and prayers to suppress the disaster, and the emperors and others also practiced moral governance, hoping to avoid disasters.
For example, in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the "Twelve Songs of Wei Drum Blowing Music" has: "In the first year of The First Year of Taihe, the Emperor practiced qi. Holy and benevolent, Deze is a wanderer, and the plague locust is a temporary extinct. The Tang Dynasty's "Zhenguan Politicians" records that in June of the second year of Zhenguan (628), there was a drought of locusts in Gyeonggi, and Tang Taizong threw locusts in the imperial garden: "People take the valley as their life, the people have had it, and they are giving one person." Erqi has a spirit, but when it erodes my heart, it is harmless to the people", so swallow it, it is the locusts that do not plague.
In addition to prayer, before the Tang and Song dynasties, people used more to drive and catch, and the poet Bai Juyi's "Xinlefu Locust Catching" recorded that locusts were caught at that time, "It was three hundred yuan for millet, and the price of locusts was the same as that of millet." And does not approve of capture, believing that "a worm cures a hundred insects to come, and it will be a natural disaster for manpower." Instead, it is necessary to practice benevolent government and learn from Tang Taizong.
In the fourth year of Tang Xuanzong's kaiyuan (716), the shandong locusts, the officials and people only knew how to worship, sat and watched the locusts eat seedlings, and did not dare to hunt and kill. Emperor Xuanzong accused himself of not cultivating virtue enough, causing him to be punished by heaven. He asked his courtiers for their opinions, and Yao Chongli, the chancellor, took advantage of the locusts' tendency to "set fires in the night, dig pits by the fire, and burn and burn, and get rid of them." "。
So he sent Yushi to kill locusts in a separate way. However, Ni Ruoshui, the assassin of Bian Prefecture, said: "The locust is a natural disaster, and it is advisable to cultivate virtue...", refusing to carry out the task of Yushi, Yao Chong, furious, reported ruoshui, if he allowed the locusts to eat seedlings, causing the people to starve, he would be responsible for the consequences. Ni Ruoshui passively threw himself into the locust hunting, "Those who get 140,000 stones of locusts and throw them into the canal are invincible." ”。
In response to the locust plague in the Song Dynasty, it also continued the cognition of the Tang Dynasty and rose to the level of moral government from time to time. At that time, the party struggle was serious, and the locust plague was often the best excuse to strike at the other side, so once the locust plague was encountered, there were many arguments. For example, liu Xuan, a historian who worked together with Sima Guang to revise the Zizhi Tongjian, disapproved of Wang Anshi's innovations, and gave Wang Anshi a poem "Sending Jing Gong" to Wang Anshi when the locust plague occurred, "Qingmiao helped the two hinder the peasants, and the world complained about each other." Only the locusts were partial to virtue and followed Taixu through Jiangdong. ”。
Of course, in the face of locust plagues, it is impossible to avoid driving away and burying, but often because of the expulsion, jokes will also occur. The Southern Song Dynasty Zhou Zizhi's "Bamboo Slope Poetry" records a story by the Northern Song Dynasty calligrapher Mi Fu: When Mi Fu was in Zhi County, he encountered a great drought and locust plague, and sent officials to catch locusts very urgently. Suddenly, a lingyi county ordered an official document accusing Mi Fu of driving the locusts away from their county, so Mi Fu wrote a poem replying: "The locusts are natural disasters, and they are not crowded by human beings." If we send it, it will be sent from your county. ", funny humor, see the laughter.
In the Ming Dynasty, the famous scientist Xu Guangqi, through the statistics and analysis of the locust plagues of the previous generation, came up with a correct understanding of the ancient locust plague season and breeding area, and had a preliminary scientific understanding of the locust removal technology. The book points out that the combination of these three methods, such as avoiding breeding through pre-prevention and control, strict decrees on hunting and killing during disasters, and exterminating eggs after disasters, is of great guiding significance even in today's contemporary era of developed agricultural technology.
However, in history, due to the different leniency of the implementation of government decrees in various periods, the difference in weather and climate, and some other factors, even if there are very effective prevention and control measures, the locust plague still occurs every few years, so that later people in areas with frequent locust plagues, especially in North China, often established locust temples to pray for the disaster, so they returned to the old way of prayer.
From Xu Guangqi's research and modern statistics, the distribution of locust plagues in China is the most in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, especially in Hebei, Shandong and Henan provinces, and jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei and other provinces are also distributed, and may spread throughout the entire Loess Plateau when severe. South of central China, the locust plague is gradually decreasing, and on the southeast coast, there is almost none. Modern research shows that locust plagues are mainly caused by global warming and drought, and another factor is the destruction of the natural environment and ecological deterioration, such as in areas with high vegetation coverage, locust plagues rarely occur, because locust eggs are difficult to reproduce, inhibiting population growth.
Therefore, in order to effectively control locust plagues, it is necessary to strengthen the protection of the natural environment, and at the same time carry out scientific control in areas with high locust incidence. Chemical methods can only solve a temporary crisis, but can not be effective for a long time, and for a long time the locusts have resistance, so experts suggest that it is best to ecological protection, expand vegetation coverage, ensure biodiversity, protect the natural enemies of locusts, such as China currently has 68 kinds of natural enemies of locusts, including birds, amphibians, reptiles, etc., they play an important role in controlling the number of locusts.
Finally, back to the problem of locust plague in India and Pakistan that we talked about earlier, we have never experienced the disaster of desert locusts in history, but we can not take it lightly, although there is a natural barrier on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, but if the locusts are from India to the east, through Bangladesh and Myanmar, coinciding with china's monsoon season, then locusts are likely to enter the territory of Yunnan, therefore, we hope that the relevant parties can prepare in advance, pay close attention to the dynamics of locusts, and strictly prevent the migration of desert locusts from abroad.
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At the same time, our country is a country with many locust plagues in history, and it is not only necessary to focus on overseas, but also to do a good job in domestic prevention work and avoid the recurrence of local locust plagues.
2020/2/17 Elm Wood Jai