Northern Song Dynasty Revitalization Strategy

Chapter 767 Fear of Locust Plague!

The young supervisor of Qin Tianjian is not just for nothing. The calendar of the Song Dynasty is extremely advanced. In the Northern Song Dynasty's 160-plus years, it has been revised eight times!

Such frequent revisions of the calendar are all for the accuracy of the calendar. This has a lot to do with the agriculture and mulberry of the Song Dynasty. Territory is also the smallest dynasty in the entire feudal dynasty.

Therefore, in order to accurately calculate the farming time, it is necessary to carefully revise the calendar to make the solar terms accurate.

And the young supervisor of the Qin Tianjian in front of him, named Yao Shunfu, is a famous astronomer in the Song Dynasty. He has been engaged in star observation for a long time, and served as the editor-in-chief of the Song Dynasty calendar twice. The Song Dynasty lasted for 21 years, and the calendar it majored in prevailed.

Zhao Huan looked at the aged Yao Shunfu, and asked suspiciously: "If there is a severe drought this winter, why do you need Shaojian Yao to come in person?"

Yao Shunfu was nearly 70 years old, about the same age as Zong Ze. If it wasn't a top priority, he would not come to the temple easily. Although he was named as a young prisoner, he was no longer in charge of specific affairs.

Is his visit now just to explain the severe drought?
"Severe drought and little snow, the land is dry, there must be a plague of locusts. Officials." Yao Shunfu said with a sigh.

Zhao Huan stood up in an instant, locust plague was a major event in ancient times!It is not a problem that can be solved by raising two chickens and a few geese in Zhuangzi.

Once the locust plague takes off, there will be thousands of plans!
Hundreds of millions of locusts are overwhelming the sky, how many chickens must be raised to prevent locust plagues?

Fooling people to eat locusts can't solve the problem. The arthropods need a lot of cooking oil to cook. The most terrible thing about locust plagues is their horrible food intake!

When the plague of locusts begins to cover the sky and the sun, all the green on the ground will disappear without a trace in an instant!How to cook without vegetable oil?

Is it necessary to eat locusts raw?
Of course, it is not unheard of. It is not uncommon for people to spontaneously organize to catch locusts, and it is not far away, during the Tang Dezong period.

[In the first year of Zhenyuan, summer locusts, from the sea in the east, to the end of the river in the west, covered the sky, and continued for ten days.All the grass, trees and animal hair are left behind, starved to death on the road. 】

【Autumn, Guanfu large locusts, the fields are exhausted, the people are hungry, and the locusts are caught for food. 】

However, locusts are still raging, and famine is everywhere, and they are changing their children to eat.

Not only did the people eat locusts raw, even the emperor was not spared.

At that time, in the second year of Li Shimin's accession to the throne, a large-scale locust plague broke out in Hanzhong and other places, and the old party and Li Yuan's old ministry had not been liquidated by Li Shimin.

At such a point in time, Li Shimin scolded the locusts: "The people live on the grain and you eat it, rather than eat my lungs and intestines!"

Of course the attendants on the left and right wanted to persuade the emperor to do such a thing, and they eagerly stopped him and said: "Evil things may become diseases."

But Li Shimin finally swallowed the locusts into his stomach.

Whether it was a pretentious act to win people's hearts, or because he really cared about the common people in the dawn of the world, Li Shimin ate the locusts and urged the state officials to rectify the locust plague, and finally did not lead to a catastrophe.

If the locust plague was so easy to deal with, would Li Shimin still eat the bugs raw?

When Zhao Huan thought of eating locusts, he felt a chill. Could it be that he wanted to eat that thing raw?
Evil becomes sick!

"Don't panic, officials." Looking at the officials, Yao Shunfu knew why the officials didn't eat minced meat and didn't know the importance of locust plagues.

Yao Shunfu's face showed relief, there were more or less locust plagues in the Song Dynasty, every year, there would be a major locust plague every three to five years, careful precautions, it may not lead to a catastrophe.

"Since the Tang Dynasty, the officials have had fixed regulations on the prevention of locust plagues. The ministers came to Wende Hall to remind the officials to prevent the harm of Ezhou." The plague of locusts cannot be cured every year.

Yao Shunfu took out a birdcage and said, "One more thing, please take a look, this is a bird from the Western Regions, called Cangluan, but there are more than a hundred locusts in the solar eclipse. I went to the Song Dynasty to settle down all year round, and this locust plague will naturally be eliminated."

"More than a hundred solar eclipses?" Zhao Huan stared at the bird whose head and back were black, but whose body was pink. How could it look like a starling? How could it be a Cangluan?
Isn't Cang Luan a legendary beast?Zhao Huan tasted it carefully for a long time, and finally understood what Yao Shunfu meant. This is... auspicious!
[Pink Starling: The flight feathers and tail feathers are bright black, and the back and abdomen are pink, so it is called pink starling.Iris black, mouth pinkish brown, feet pinkish brown.It feeds on locusts and preys on 120-180 locusts every day. It eats a lot and is the main force of biological locust extermination. 】

"It can really eclipse hundreds of birds, so it is naturally worth stocking up! I will write a letter to Zhao Ding, asking him to search for this kind of bird in the Western Regions." Looking at the information provided by the system, Zhao Huan was determined.

This thing is reliable!

Zhao Ding, as the economic envoy of Shangjing Road, the merchants from the Western Regions had to pass through Zhenzhou, and explained to the merchants in the Western Regions that Song Dynasty needed this kind of bird, and they would naturally go to catch it.

"The minister also wrote a book "The Control of Locusts", summarizing some means and methods of controlling locusts, mainly from the perspective of prevention and how to deal with locust disasters after they occur. I also ask the officials to read them." Yao Shunfu took out a booklet.

After watching it for a long time, Zhao Huan finally understood why Yao Shunfu had to take out the divine beast first to offer auspiciousness before taking out the Zhazi.

This book is very expensive.

The first method of prevention is the construction of water conservancy. The survival of locust eggs should be drought rather than humidity. As long as there are more canals, the local ecology can be improved.There would not be as many locust eggs surviving in the fields.

This is a big expense, not less than what Zhao Huan spent on road repairs.

Moreover, it is also a lot of money to raise the Cang Luan named by Yao Shunfu.

Fortunately, Zhao Huan hit the clan's board and cut more than half of the clan's supplies, otherwise it would be hard to say that the state treasury would have such expenditures.

Zhao Huan approved this preventive strategy, building water conservancy, preventing problems before they happen, and benefiting future generations, why not do it?
The second strategy is to spend money.

According to the information obtained from Qin Tianjian's investigations on the origin and on-site inspection of locust plagues in the past dynasties, several locust spawning places were found.

For example, the counties south of Youzhuo, north of Changhuai, west of Qingyan, east of Liang and Song Dynasties, and the Yellow River are all places where locust eggs are concentrated. Focus on remediation of these places, and afforestation can effectively prevent locusts.

Seeing this, Zhao Huan couldn't help but smile wryly. As long as it involves environmental matters, regardless of work, in fact, it's all about afforestation.

The same is true for the regulation of the Yellow River, the same is true for wind and sand control, and the same is true for the control of locusts.

"Sure." Zhao Huan agreed to this proposal, which is good for the present and beneficial for the future.

　Thanks to "another novice" and "Fanxing All the way" for their rewards, thank you for your support.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)