Why did a possible locust plague make the ministers give up the Northern Expedition? Zhao Bing can only say that people in ancient times were very fragile to disasters. When he was in the past, especially young people like him, had more of a legend about locust plagues. In the modern society with technological development, there is a complete monitoring system and advanced killing methods, and they are often extinguished before the disaster can be achieved.

However, after coming to this world, Zhao Bing also gained a new understanding of locust plagues. In ancient times, there was a saying: "There are three causes of famine: water, drought, and locusts. The land has high and low levels, and the rain and marsh are partially covered; floods and droughts are disasters, and there are still many places to avoid them. However, when the drought is extreme, the locusts are exhausted, and the plants and trees are exhausted for thousands of miles, or the cattle, horses, and flags are exhausted. The harm is particularly bad than that of water and drought.

It can be seen that locust plague is the first of the disasters and its destructive power is amazing. Because locusts like to live in a warm and dry climate, this makes the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River under the influence of the East Asian monsoon, the Jianghuai River Basin north of the Yangtze River have become a high incidence area for locust plagues in China in history, especially the Yellow River Basin.

Because floods often break out in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, the Huanghuai Plain area in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River belongs to the impact plain. The soil is mainly alluvial loam and fine sand soil. Water is not easy to accumulate after floods. In addition, droughts often occur after floods, with suitable temperature and humidity, which is conducive to the growth of locusts. The locusts have the characteristics of migrating. The entire Huanghuai Plain has the flat terrain and less mountain blocking, making locusts more likely to migrate after locust plague and the affected areas are more likely to expand.

In addition, as the earliest region to develop agriculture in China, the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River have developed agriculture since ancient times. The crops planted are mainly wheat, and the river beaches are suitable for plants such as reeds. These are plants that locusts love. The combination of various conditions makes the Huanghuai Plain and other plains in northern China eventually become the high incidence areas of locust plagues. Among them, the most common locust plagues are in Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Shanxi and Shaanxi.

The harm of locust plague is also extremely great, and no grass is left where the locust swarm passes. This is not only a fatal blow to ancient society dominated by agriculture. If it is a drought or flood, it will cause food production to be reduced or even lose harvests, but the people can still fill their stomachs with grass roots and tree bark. However, after the locust plague, the people can only become refugees and survive everywhere.

If the court fails to provide disaster relief in time, local officials will be unfavorable, and natural disasters and man-made disasters will cause serious social problems. Often, people will be in chaos, which will lead to peasant uprisings and even subvert the regime. The locust plague is undoubtedly destructive to nomadic peoples. If they cannot survive, they will go south to the border and trigger a war. Therefore, many regimes in history disappeared under such internal and external troubles.

Some people may ask, ancient people are afraid of locust plagues like tigers. Will Zhao Bing, a modern time traveler, still care? The senior "time travelers" have already figured out a solution for you, eat it! Eat it while roasting, fried, fried, made into sauce, dried, and even people can't finish it. You can raise chickens and ducks and let them help you eat it. I don't believe that under China's profound and profound food culture, there are still little locusts that can't finish it!

In response, Zhao Bing could only smile bitterly. He also participated in the hot discussion of "Chinese foodies to save biological disasters" in his previous life. Crayfish are foreign pests, but invasive creatures in China are eaten by breeding to satisfy the foodies' desires; there are also the so-called "super-made by Chinese people" but are flooded in the United States; not to mention that netizens have enthusiastically responded that "the Danish Embassy invites Chinese foodies to solve the problem of oyster flooding."

Every similar news that Zhao Bing recorded would push netizens' pride higher, as if Chinese foodies have become the "secret weapon" recognized by the world to solve the problem of biological proliferation. With more similar rumors, there have always been people in China who are blindly confident in the tongues of Chinese people, believing that as long as they are granted permission, even the locusts that cause the food crisis in Africa can be eaten up.

At that time, Zhao Bing discovered that when the so-called "playing with memes" gradually evolved into a blind confidence of the whole nation in the online carnival, it would even cause a more ridiculous situation. Some netizens even said that it is possible to ignore prevention and control, so that the locusts can grow naturally, and to hold a "grasshopper festival" at the right time. On the one hand, it can solve the locust plague, and on the other hand, it also drives the local tourism development.

When the entire public opinion gradually begins to believe in "foodie disaster management", it is easy to have a cognitive bias: when something is rampant, the first thing people think of is "can you eat it", and the urgency and seriousness of biological disaster management itself is left behind. The Asian carp that makes Americans "can't eat" trouble is not the delicious braised fish on their own New Year's table that many people imagine.

Asian carp in the United States was first introduced to deal with water pollution, so heavy metal residues were mostly deposited in the body. Some fishing manuals in the United States indicate that carp in certain waters "can only be eaten once a week." Not only do Americans not eat this carp, but also does not like it. Some people once tried to describe: The meat of adult Asian carp is not only difficult to chew, but also the fishy smell is difficult to cover with heavy oil and heavy sauce.

As for the serious "oyster help letter" of the Danish Embassy was a successful national tourism marketing. I didn't see how much damage the oyster flood caused to Denmark, but it seemed to have another travel card after Andersen. After a wave of marketing, more and more Chinese tour groups went to Denmark under the banner of "eating oysters".

The reason why crayfish need to be cultivated is not because the invading has been "extinct", but because wild crayfish have difficulty catching and parasites. Only artificial and large-scale breeding methods can obtain better quality and safer consumption of crayfish. Because of this, most crayfish with different methods on the table are artificially cultivated, while wild Crayfish, which harms the environment, still grow freely in the fields.

Regarding the statement about locust-eating disaster relief, Zhao Bing also saw experts' interpretations and clarifications from rationalists on the Internet. The locusts that form locust plagues all have a common characteristic: once they gather in large quantities, they will become irritable "zombie state".

When there are small numbers, locusts have scattered characteristics, gentle personality, small appetite, and short flight distance. However, the solitary locusts not only have a larger appetite, but can also fly long distances. When a large number of locusts move in the same direction and eat wildly along the way, a locust plague will gradually form. The essence of this morphological change is to defend against natural enemies.

The sowed locusts also have another big weapon. They will synthesize phenylacetonitrile in large quantities. This substance has a smell that birds don’t like. If birds still insist on attacking, the locusts will further convert phenylacetonitrile into toxic hydrocyanic acid. In other words, the locusts after the disaster not only smell bad, but are also poisonous.

Although there are no reports of human edible locust poisoning, it is certain that locusts that can form locust plagues are definitely not a safe ingredient, and they are probably not that delicious. Most of the locusts served on the table are actually farmed. As for using chickens, ducks and birds to eliminate locusts, Zhao Bing admitted that they have certain effects, but they are also limited. After he came to this world, he also realized that there are only three types of birds that eat locusts in the record - wuqi, osprey and called flocks of birds.

The "chicken and duck treatment method" mentioned in online articles actually combines the local vegetation and the specific situation of locusts to carry out scientific "biological control" in modern times. It is by no means the simple and comedic "ducks chase the locust swarms" that are as simple as imagined. Therefore, Zhao Bing concluded that the grass on the graves of the predecessors who used these methods to treat locusts should be eight feet high.

Therefore, Zhao Bing thought that in the final analysis, locust plagues were not problems that could be solved by "eating". To solve these problems, we must ultimately rely on strict prevention and control and continuous scientific progress. Calling "foodies to cure disasters" can only be "the descendants are endless". Using the inappropriate cleverness of "eating locusts until they are extinct", can not eliminate the seriousness and cruelty of the disaster itself.

In the past thousand years since the record, human beings were able to truly prevent and control locust plagues, which was actually achieved in modern times with the development of medicine and equipment. Even so, locust plagues still broke out. So when the scientific and technological level in ancient times was very backward, locust plagues occurred frequently. As far as Zhao Bing knew, in the Yuan Dynasty, which was called "short-lived" in Chinese historical dynasties, there were locust plagues in 68 years, and a total of 175 incidents occurred, winning the championship in one fell swoop.

Poor he happened to be in the high incidence of locust plague. Although the current historical process has changed, this fact may not have changed. Zhao Bing thought that in the war that ended last year, the most intense battle was carried out in the Huanghuaihai region where locust plagues occurred frequently in history, resulting in the displacement of the people, the land was abandoned, and the water conservancy facilities were destroyed, which to a certain extent exacerbated the damage to the environment, but created conditions for the growth of locusts.

Zhao Bing and all the ministers knew that once the locusts became plagued, it would not only cause a devastating blow to agricultural production in Huainan and Huainbei, but it would also affect the immigration and new crop promotion policies implemented by the court. The locust plague will also affect the main grain-producing areas in Jiangnan, causing large-scale grain production reductions. What is more serious is that it will cause turmoil to the hearts of the people who have just stabilized.
Chapter completed!