Under Zhao Bing's supervision, the court was also trying every means to seek strategies to eliminate locusts, and the court and the country wrote letters to offer suggestions. After reviewing these memorials by the Secretariat, they were transferred to his desk. Zhao Bing read them carefully and was roughly divided into three categories:

First, he thought that the Song Dynasty had fought for years and killed too much. This disaster was a warning from God, asking him to sacrifice to heaven and apologize for guilt and issued an edict to himself; second, the imperial court issued an order to urge local officials to do their best to eliminate locusts, and the measures taken were nothing more than the methods mentioned, and there was no new idea. In addition, there was a measure that used by the Mongolian Yuan to prevent locusts and control locusts.

Zhao Bing hates the most about pretending to be a ghost. Although the memorials say it was so scattered that it could not touch him at all, it would be rejected and scolded. The second type of Zhao Bing felt that it was just a matter of rules and could not be said wrong, but it was still very difficult to operate; but the articles using the "Hu method" were written in detail and operational, which made him a little moved.

In fact, Zhao Bing traveled all over the Huai River after the Northern Expedition, which made him question what the historical books said. In fact, he found that the Mongolian and Yuan dynasties still attached great importance to agriculture, especially Kublai Khan attached great importance to the development of "agriculture and sericulture". At the beginning of his ascension, he "had the world, the country was based on the people, the people were based on food and clothing, and the food and clothing were based on agriculture and sericulture." Therefore, he attached great importance to the construction of water conservancy and the prevention and control of various disasters.

In Zhao Bing's view, although the agricultural development in the Lianghuai region cannot be said to be perfect, it should be said to be better than the Jurchens and the Southern Song Dynasty. Of course, this also has objective factors. After all, the Southern Song Dynasty was ahead of the Jurchens in the Lianghuai region, and then fought with the Mongols for nearly a hundred years. Both sides of the enemy and us tried to destroy the local infrastructure, and they often opened the river embankment to block the enemy's attack.

However, after the Mongolian Yuan occupied the Huai River, through immigration and military garrisons, the agricultural development in some areas was developed through immigration and military garrisons, which Zhao Bing witnessed with his own eyes. It was by no means what history books said that the Mongols only destroyed and did not build, causing the occupied areas to be deserted for thousands of miles and the fields were abandoned. Many places were reclaimed and reclaimed into fertile fields, even more than before.

Through this memorial, Zhao Bing has a new understanding of the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty's locust plague control. They not only formulated detailed reward and punishment measures at the legal level, but also had specific governance plans, and were highly operational.

Specifically, the Mongolian Yuan set up punishment standards for officials who were unfavorable to disaster prevention at the legal level: all departments did not build and prevent the time, and when the rain fell, the water was scattered, drifted people's houses, drowned wives, and harmed the people, the officials of the county were each fined one month's salary, the county officials each had 27, the historians each had 17, and the demerits were recorded, thus ensuring that officials did not dare to slack off.

In terms of controlling locust plagues, many methods have been accumulated in the past dynasties, but most of them were killing measures after the locust plague. However, in the Yuan Dynasty, it combined with daily agricultural activities to eliminate locusts, which set a precedent. That is, when the autumn plowing was plowed out, the locust eggs were burned out and sunlight were sunburned. The time was earlier than that of the Song people, and the effect was better. It was recorded that the "re-shen autumn plowing order... The benefits of autumn plowing concealed the yang energy in the soil, and the remaining locust species were exposed to death on the day, and the planting of the next year must be even worse than that of Changhe.

Every October, a member of the county and county official inspected the territory and tried to eliminate the locusts in various ways." "Re-recommended" this order shows the importance of the treatment of locusts in the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. In addition, there are measures to prevent locust plagues such as burning wasteland in spring and catching and removing locusts without grass. These locust control methods are now considered relatively advanced.

There were full-time officials in the control of locusts in the past dynasties, and the same was true in the Yuan Dynasty, and officials were selected to urge the capture of locusts. In addition, in the Yuan Dynasty's official book "About Agriculture and Smuggling Collection", it also proposed "horse bones" and "snow water" to suck grain seeds, so that "grain crops are not locusts, insects". It is pointed out that "whether locusts come, all plants and leaves are left without food, but they do not eat taro mulberry and water, and it is best to plant them widely." These all played a positive guiding role in preventing locust plagues in the Mongolian Yuan.

If you work hard to plow the mature land; if you are on a large desert slope, you will first cultivate and encircle the land, and you will not allow people to burn the weeds in order to prevent the spring insects from growing. If the official in this place monitors the grass and burn it. If the wasteland is narrow and there is no place to burn it, you will also follow the long plan and eliminate it in the spring. You will still pay more attention to the attention of many parties and make sure to eliminate it. If there are any insects and insects in the alkali and salt grass, Shenmen will decide to take it."

In addition, the Yuan Dynasty not only actively prevented the occurrence of locust plagues, but also did very well after the occurrence of locust plagues. In the fifth year of Zhiyuan, it was stipulated that "locusts grow and fly, and do not immediately hit or report, and there are disaster injuries in the ministry. The inspection and reiterate this regulation: "If a locust plague occurs, the lawsuit will be filed immediately, and those who fail to apply for disaster inspections will be checked."

This regulation seems to be aimed at the time of locust plague, but in Zhao Bing's view, in fact, this edict also forces officials to prevent and control pre-disasters. In order to achieve good political achievements in locust control, officials of course hope to eliminate the locust plague before it occurs, but they are afraid that after the locust plague occurs, they will be charged with ineffective control.

The main purpose of the fight against locust plague was to capture and attack. The local officials were generally responsible for summoning local farmers to catch locusts. Sometimes the court also sent officials to supervise the arrest. In the middle age of the Central Government, the locusts were in Zhending, and Kublai Khan sent envoys to supervise the arrest, and he thought it was insufficient, so he wanted to send a neighbor to help him. (King) Pan said: "There are so many 40,000 people, why bother with other counties!" The envoy was angry and blamed Pan for all the locusts. He refused to move. He personally led the envoys to go to the fields and set up methods to supervise them. After three days, the locusts were completely destroyed. The envoys were shocked and thought they were gods.

In addition, locust plagues occurred during the maturity of crops, which could not harm the crops, and they did not catch them. "In the second year of Zhiyuan, Chen You changed the treatment of Nanjing Road. It was particularly difficult to catch them. The big locusts in the east were even more serious, and they were even more responsible for the capture. Tens of thousands of people from the You tribe came to their land and said, "Catching locusts and thinking about their damage to their crops. Now all people have land, and said, "Catching locusts and thinking about their damage to their nuclei. Although locusts are abundant and the grain is ripe, it is better to cut them early, so as to save them and gain them." Some people are not allowed to do anything, and You said, "It is also willing to save the people and save them." He immediately ordered them to disperse, and the people of the two states depend on them."

From this passage, Zhao Bing can see that ordinary local officials at that time were very knowledgeable about locust hunting and adaptable to obtain the greatest benefit. In addition, because drought is the main reason for the outbreak of locust plague, the ecological concept of the people has gradually sprouted. Some intercrossing techniques and advocating the planting of crops that pests do not eat and seed treatment methods to prevent pests. Although some are not used for locusts, these methods also have practical significance at the moment.

However, the memorial also pointed out that the biggest problem for human power is the lack of motivation. Although locusts can be eaten, their cost-effectiveness is too low after such trouble. Therefore, all dynasties have paid to buy locusts. Use food to exchange locust eggs, which can effectively suppress the outbreak of locusts. This method can be used to effectively stimulate the enthusiasm of people to hunt locusts.

It also mentioned many measures issued by this dynasty to encourage the people to eliminate locusts, such as the precedent of "using locusts to make food easier" and "using locusts to make money easier". The "Locusts to be eliminated" issued by the court has the difficulty of catching locusts at different times, and the different locusts caught can be exchanged for food or money. On the one hand, this is a guarantee for the people who are harmed by crops and seedlings, and on the other hand, it also increases the enthusiasm of the people to catch locusts. They will take advantage of the winter opportunity to search for the breeding grounds for locust eggs and find ways to kill them in one pot. It can be said that they kill two birds with one stone.

In addition, the article also lists the advantages and disadvantages of various locust-killing measures.

Manual slapping is the oldest method of locusts to be eliminated. The main thing is that villagers use bamboo poles to support an eight-foot-long white cloth, chase it in three directions, drive the locusts to one place, and then concentrate their strength to slap them. This method is simple, and the tools required are very common, suitable for collective combat in rural areas, so it is widely circulated. However, the disadvantage is that this method is more physically exhausting, and there is no specific and unified treatment method after catching the locusts, so it is easy to have fish that miss the net.

The method of trench burial is to first dig a large pit two feet deep and wide in the area where the locusts are going to pass. Then, after the locusts arrive, they will use slap methods and other methods to introduce the locusts into the pit, and then concentrate their efforts to fill them. There are many locusts caught using this method, which is more efficient in comparison. However, the disadvantage is that if the pit is dug too shallow and the locusts die without suffocation, it will be easy to drill out and eat the crops and seedlings again.

The method of burning fire requires ignition of a bonfire when it is dark. In addition to the bonfire, lights should be set up in areas with dense locusts. The closely coordinated lights should be used to attract a large number of locusts to come and burn them. The corpses of locusts after the fire can be dug holes and buried. However, they are not suitable for when the crops are ripe, otherwise it will easily lead to the spread of the fire and affect the grain fields.

It is also said that although this method is very effective, locusts have amazing reproductive ability. If you are not careful, you will make a comeback the next year. Even if you clean it up this time, you cannot avoid the possibility of another locust plague. Therefore, in the frequent areas, locusts do not like to eat taro, mulberry, rock starch, peas, mung beans, marijuana, sesame and other crops to reduce disasters.

It is also pointed out that drought is the main cause of the outbreak of locust plague. Only by building water conservancy facilities and transforming dry fields into paddy fields can the breeding of locusts be stopped and the root cause can be cured. Therefore, to avoid "the extreme drought and locusts", it is necessary to change the dry fields into paddy fields. If the number of paddy fields increases, the reproduction of locusts will be suppressed. At the same time, it means that more aquatic plants have locust eggs generally gather, so "weed removal and prevention of locusts" is very necessary. It is recommended to remove more aquatic plants to reduce the reproduction of locusts...
Chapter completed!