Tang Dynasty 30 miles set up a post station, Luquan County away from Zhending more than 100 miles with two post stations, a group of people after a day of rushing in the distance from Zhending less than 30 miles of the post stopped, usually the government directly requisitioned the local rich to act as the person in charge of the post station, called the "catch post" system.

Under the post system, the person in charge of the post station is called the post general, which sounds quite majestic, but in fact it is the lowest-level officer, also known as the post officer, which is naturally not a establishment, and belongs to a kind of conscription, and the people are afraid to avoid it.

The main function of the establishment of the post station is to transmit the documents and military reports of the imperial court, and the merchants who come and go also like to stay here, which is to make a safe.

After all, not many businessmen are willing to open inns in remote places, which is completely different from the concept of opening shops on the main roads in later generations, even if the passenger flow on the official roads is usually very scarce, most of them are businessmen who shuttle back and forth, and it is almost impossible to travel and visit relatives and friends in the Tang Dynasty.

Seeing Zhen Qian's carriage and horses parked at the door of the post station, he straightened up tremblingly and wanted to lean forward to beg for a bite to eat, but was immediately stopped by the guards.

"Zhen Lang, why are there more and more homeless people along the way?"

Fujiwara Shuxiong kindly scattered a handful of copper coins, which caused the homeless people to rob, and for a time the chickens and dogs at the door of the post station were not lively.

"There was a great drought in Guanzhong in the ninth year of Tianbao, a locust plague in Henan the following year, and today the heavy snow in the north came early, and the grain harvest in the north failed, but the imperial court did not reduce or reduce taxes, what can these people do if they don't flee!"

Historically, the climate was warm and humid during the Kaiyuan and Tianbao years, and the average temperature was more than one degree higher than that of the same period.

Locusts are pests in the eyes of later generations, and they lay eggs very strongly, especially in an arid environment, locusts reproduce, grow and develop more beneficial, in the drier season, the soil is solid and has less water content, which is most suitable for them to lay eggs, and drought makes locusts multiply and grow rapidly, and the number of locusts gathers to a certain extent and becomes a locust plague.

The ancients believed in the theory of "heaven and man induction" and the "disaster damnation theory" derived from it, believing that the occurrence of natural disasters is related to the mistakes of realpolitik, and it is a warning from God to the rulers, "The country will be defeated by the way, and the heavens will be the first to come out of the disaster to condemn it." This became the basic political ethics that was consistent among Chinese scholars and doctors in later generations.

During the Kaiyuan period, before and after Zhang Jiuling became prime minister, disasters such as floods, droughts, and earthquakes continued. Before he could take the initiative to resign, a small official named Wang Lengran couldn't help but write angrily, asking the prime minister to resign: "This year's great drought, the Li people are preventing hunger, why don't the public insist on resigning gold and silver, please give relief to the warehouse." Huaibao clothes brocade, Yu Xiang'an? In the end, he asked vigorously: "The people are starving to death, why don't the public raise their own merits and give way and ask for their return?" ”

Although the "doctrine of natural disaster retribution" is false, when a natural disaster occurs, the government is unable to deal with it, causing famine, displaced people, thieves and other disasters and failing to treat them, and people should be held responsible. Moreover, as a political ethics with strong moral overtones and a sense of awe among officials, it still has positive significance that cannot be ignored.

From this point of view, in the absence of modern institutional constraints, the doctrine of disaster and natural punishment can also make many officials restrain their own behavior.

In the third year of Kaiyuan, the locusts in Shandong rose in a big way, at that time, the locusts were similar to the word "emperor", the locusts rose to the emperor, the people at that time did not dare to hunt and kill, and even burned incense and prayed for blessings in the hope that the locusts would soar after they were full. Prime Minister Lu Huaishen and the emperor both believed in this, or Yao Chongli overrode public opinion, and he must insist on killing locusts to exterminate them.

The following year, the locusts in Shandong rose again, and Yao Chong again ordered the killing. This time, there was a thorn in the water, Ni Ruoshui, who said that the locust was a natural disaster and could not be solved by man, and refused to obey the orders of the central government. After that, Yao Chong wrote an official letter to Ni Ruoshui and persuaded him to kill the locusts again.

The ancients did not know much about locusts, but there was a saying that the locust god had to worship the locust god in case of locust plague. There is also a saying that locusts are transformed into fish eggs, saying that when the drought dries up, the fish and shrimp turn into locusts, so there are many fish and trillion years. It is also said that locusts fly into the sea and turn into fish and shrimp.

According to official historical records, during the Qin and Han dynasties, locust plagues broke out once every eight or nine years on average. By the time of the Sui and Tang dynasties, it broke out once in about five years, and once in three and a half years in the two Song dynasties, once in one and six years in the Yuan Dynasty, and once in two and eight years in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Locust plagues have occurred one after another, and most of the affected areas are concentrated in the three provinces of Hebei, Henan, and Shandong in the Central Plains. It is also distributed in the Jianghuai and Jianghan regions, and when it is severe, it will also erupt in the Guanzhong area, and even spread throughout the Loess Plateau.

The Yellow River basin, especially in the middle and lower reaches, is the most prone to locust outbreaks, and every time a major flood is followed by a severe drought. The alternating occurrence of floods and droughts will lead to the emergence of many large areas of barren beaches and abandoned lands along lakes, coastal areas, river floods, and waterlogged areas.

And these places often become the conditions for locust plagues to occur and run rampant.

These are all common knowledge that later generations have long been familiar with, but for most of the ancients of this era, they could not understand the cause of locusts.

It's just that they blindly think that locusts have no rules at all, and they are also dressed in superstition, which is God's punishment and warning, and so on.

"Zhen Lang, do you mean that after the flood and drought disaster, there will be a locust plague?"

Zhen Qian is not a biologist, that is, he knows a little fur, but in the eyes of Fujiwara Shuxiong, he has been regarded as a magic stick.

"We must first understand the mechanism and conditions of locust influx, so that we can predict the time and place of the locust plague, and if we deal with it properly, the locust plague will not be impossible to eliminate!"

In order to convince Fujiwara Brusho of his own, Zhen Qian didn't mind giving Fujiwara Brusho a lesson in popularizing scientific knowledge.

"Locusts are sensitive to moisture and prefer dryness, and where there is vegetation, the land is generally relatively wet, which is not conducive to the growth of locust eggs. Therefore, they like to prefer the kind of river flats that are usually covered by water, but when the water recedes in the dry season, they are bare and have no vegetation, and when the sun is shining, they will be very dry. This is the most suitable for locusts to lay eggs, but under normal circumstances, the amount of water in the river beach will rise again in case of rainfall, and the locust eggs will drown before the water overflows the river beach, so the number of locusts will also be greatly reduced, and it will not become a locust plague, so whether it is a flood or drought disaster, the key is to see if there are conditions for locusts to multiply and grow, once the conditions are met, the locust plague will come! ”

The Japanese country also suffered from locust plagues, and each time a locust plague occurred, the emperor would issue an edict to criticize his own immorality during his reign.

Now when I heard Zhen Qian's remarks that "locusts will occur due to extreme drought" and "locusts will come after a long drought," I was shocked all of a sudden, completely subverting my understanding of the locust plague, and I don't know whether what Zhen Qian said is right or not.

If you want to change the views of the ancients, you can't make any achievements, you can't talk in the vernacular, Zhen Qian is also a theory, he has never seen the locust plague with his own eyes in his two lives, and his convincing power is naturally not strong!

Of course, Zhen Qian didn't know that his words had planted seeds in Fujiwara's heart, and soon after, because he successfully extinguished a locust plague, he was worshiped as the "locust god" by the people of the Japanese country! ”

(End of chapter)