Chapter 1914 Locust Plague Outbreak, Chicken Rumors
Fei Qian didn''t know that there was a hairy boy in Dunhuang who was going to challenge Lu Bu''s authority, and he didn''t even pay much attention to the final outcome of the Jiangxia battle, because there was a more difficult problem in front of him.
Locusts.
The last large-scale locust plague was in the first year of Yanping.
Fei Qian was a little depressed.
Why don’t I have a long memory?
In the first year of Yanping, the cold spring came, which disrupted the whole climate. In autumn, there was no rain for a long time, which caused drought and brought locusts.
And this year, it''s also a cold spring, but it seems that because Fei Qian has Zaoyi under his command, and the agriculture that Zaoyi is in charge of has already had some experience in dealing with the cold spring, so Fei Qian has not received any disaster reports in this regard, so he somehow When I felt it, I ignored it.
Chang''an, that is, the Guanzhong area, because the restoration work of the water conservancy project is in progress, the vegetation is not bad, and the deep plowing effect of Huang''s plow is also relatively good, so even if there are some locust eggs, there is not much chance to grow. However, in the Heluo area, due to the long-term sufficient manpower to take care of the fields, under the influence of the drought this autumn, swarms of locusts crawled out of the ground, forming an overwhelming locust plague.
Locusts are also a living thing, so follow the biological instinct and eat.
Normally, locusts will fly east and south, because there is more vegetation there, which means more food. Why not go north and west?
Because when locusts flood, most of them are in autumn, and in autumn in the northwest, many places have already begun to shed leaves. In addition, the climate is northwest wind blowing to the southeast, so it is more labor-saving to follow the airflow, and there are more Withered vegetation.
But this time, it''s different, because Chang''an Sanfu and Hedongbei are thriving under the governance of Feiqian, and the area around Yanzhou and Yuzhou has just been destroyed by Feiqian once, causing Yanzhou and some areas near Heluo in Yuzhou to also appear. locusts...
The locusts in Heluo are all eaten up from the east to the south, so they still starve to death? So these locusts naturally began to spread to Hedong and Sansuke.
Locusts are infested. Many people have not seen it directly, so they may not have a very direct concept. The locust plague is terrible because within a square meter, the density of locusts can reach thousands to tens of thousands!
Such dense locusts fly past, covering the sky and darkening the sky, and the crops will be destroyed in an instant, and there will be no harvest. An ordinary-sized locust swarm has 40 million members, and these guys can fly 150 kilometers a day and eat food that can supply about 30,000 to 40,000 people.
China has been based on farming since ancient times, so it is naturally a delicious food hall for locusts.
What''s more frightening is that locust plagues often mean that misfortunes never come singly.
Before the locust plague, it was generally a drought, but after the locust plague, there were also man-made disasters. Because the crops that have been planted with hard work are "empty of seedlings", "no ears left in the field", and "empty of grain and wheat" in an instant. After this toss, there will be no harvest in the field for at least two years, so many Relying on the sky for food, ordinary farmers without any savings immediately became full-time refugees, fled from their hometowns, and even rose up with a little agitation.
Chen Sheng Wu Guang Uprising, Huang Chao Uprising, Li Zicheng Uprising, Bailian Sect Uprising, etc., can see the shadow of locust plague behind them.
So locust plagues, or various natural disasters, are a very headache for the top rulers.
Note that it is the top layer.
Not all the interests of the rulers are the same. The top rulers and the middle rulers have different interests. For example, Liu Xie''s wish is to rejuvenate the world, and most of the local gentry are "no matter what." Hit, don’t come here to hit me.”…
As long as the rulers at the top are not fools, they will generally stand on the side of the most basic people, because any emperor who harms the people generally does not last long. Therefore, imperial power is inherently inclined to civil rights, while Xiangquan is a two-faced chicken thief, benefiting both.
Of course, there are not a few emperors who have been limped by Xiangquan.
For example, locusts are gods and cannot be easily killed.
For example, the plague of locusts is a natural disaster. It is the emperor who did something that angered people and caused the punishment from heaven...
From this point of view, the Guanzhong River East encountered a locust plague, so naturally it was that...
Rumors suddenly spread.
Like a locust, it began to point the signs at Fei Qian, but the first person to be affected was not Fei Qian, but Cai Yan.
Han Hussar General''s Mansion, in the conference hall. Pang Tong and Xun You avoided it from a distance, and even Huang Xu stood under the hall in a little embarrassment, because Cai Yan was kneeling in the hall.
Fei Qian looked at Cai Yan and felt a headache.
Cai Yan has already taken off the crown of the head, with black hair hanging down, kneeling down in the hall. Cai Yan came to plead guilty to Fei Qian, and the reason for pleading guilty was that she was a woman. Because she is a woman, she can''t "the rooster sits in the morning", and it is precisely because Fei Qian hired Cai Yan and others that the current plague of locusts appears...
There is also the mess about Wang Ying.
The female chicken turns into a male, the world is in turmoil, it’s not a good thing anyway, look, isn’t it a warning from the sky, the locust army, uh, the locusts are coming...
For Fei Qian, these rumors are really **** good, even more nonsense than Brother Ni, but for the people of the Han Dynasty who have not experienced the edification and teaching of the later generations, these rumors are quite lethal Powerful.
However, it is also understandable. After all, Fei Qian was deceived time and time again by so many brick-and-mortar beasts. From newspapers to radio stations, from news to advertisements, almost everything was turned aside. In the current Han Dynasty, when some people swear by so-called examples to prove it, who can immediately clearly understand the hidden secrets?
Fei Qian frowned slightly, and said, "This matter has nothing to do with you!" 』
『"Spring and Autumn·Fifth Year of Duke Huan", katydid. "Spring and Autumn Fifteen Years of Duke Xi", August, Katydid. "Spring and Autumn · Wengong Three Years", rain katydids in Song Dynasty. In "Spring and Autumn·Eight Years of Duke Wen", I heard about katydids again..." Cai Yan persisted, thinking that it was just Fei Qian''s defense of her, and she didn''t want to make things difficult for Fei Qian. Li, it’s all about the owner’s mistakes, only for the katydids to live...General, the overall situation should be the most important, don’t keep selfish thoughts...』
As early as 707 BC, it was recorded that locusts appeared in the Shandong area, which was the earliest recorded locust plague. In the following dynasties, locust plagues were also attached great importance to, and they were listed as one of the three major disasters. However, it was not until Xu Guangqi in the Ming Dynasty that the emergence and development of locusts were comprehensively and systematically introduced, and the year and month of locust occurrence were counted. Wait, and explain that locusts are just pests that eat crops, not gods, and they are not so-called warnings of heavenly fall...
So it is not surprising that Cai Yan has such a cognition at the moment.
『Hey... you sit first...』 Fei Qian shook his head, sometimes Cai Yan is an advantage in reading, but it’s not good to study hard. Why not? Conspiring to kill patricide? 』
Cai Yan nodded slightly, "During the Spring and Autumn Period, concealing the public without offering sacrifices is a metaphor for not being a minister..."
Lu Yingong, the father of Lu Henggong, died at the hands of Lu Henggong and Yufu.
"Spring and Autumn" does not record how Lu Yingong was buried. According to the style of "Spring and Autumn", the king was killed, and if the person who killed the king was not punished, then the funeral would not be recorded, because this was an act of disobedience, and the monarch had a grievance, so he could not enjoy the sacrifice and funeral.
Father Yu first suggested that Lu Yingong kill his son Yun, who would later become Lu Henggong, but Lu Yingong did not agree. Father Yu was worried that it would be bad for him if the matter was leaked, so he slandered Lu Yingong for wanting to be bad for Young Master Yun, and persuaded Young Master Yun to kill Lu Yingong, and Young Master Yun agreed.
So Yufu sent someone to kill Duke Yin of Lu, and made his son Yun the king of Duke Huan of Lu.
In the end, Lu Heng didn''t get any good results. He married a wife, who turned out to be a German orthopedist... When he found a prairie on his head, Lu Heng naturally couldn''t bear it. He chose to go home and beat his wife, and then he was killed by the German Orthopedics is **** up...
This example was even used to attack Li Shimin during the Tang Dynasty, because Li Shimin actually did this so-called "improper" thing, but Li Shimin was a ruthless person who swallowed locusts in front of the civil and military ministers...
Live.
In the struggle for imperial power, human nature is magnified, and a little bit of evil energy is magnified to a hundred times and a thousand times, and family affection is naturally sidelined. Isn''t there a saying? If it was sold for 550,000, no one would look down on it, and if it was sold for 550,000,000, it would be envied by everyone, and even the official may come On-site maintenance of order...
So the matter of Lu Henggong can be regarded as a big deal?
What''s wrong with Li Shimin''s behavior?
The key is still two words, interest.
『The death of Yingong and Henggong is due to the father of Quan Luoyu, and the blame is also related to treachery...'' Feiqian said in a deep voice, 『The treacherous people play with their lips and tongue to profit from it. This is the case in the Spring and Autumn Period, and it will be the same in the future! Yingong and Henggong are not harmed by murder, but cowardly and incompetent, which makes young master Hui and his ilk take pride in their viciousness! Today''s rumors are also such people, who confuse the public, have ulterior motives, and have other plans! 』
Who else could have made this happen?
Isn’t it just someone who is being compared to a group of women like Cai Yan, and then feels very upset, taking advantage of the opportunity to gossip?
Cai Yan was a little stunned, apparently she hadn''t thought about this before.
Fei Qian stood up and said: "Go and call those women soldiers under you to meet in front of the general''s mansion..."
Cai Yan said a little cutely: "Huh? what to do 』
『Destroy locusts! ’ Fei Qian gritted his teeth viciously and said.
Of course Fei Qian doesn’t want to perform in front of people what it means to swallow locusts alive, well, dead ones don’t work either, so Fei Qian is going to bring creatures more fierce than locusts to exterminate locusts!
It can bleed for a month without dying for a week, and it is still alive and kicking. It has a kind of creature that can change seventy-two when it is born. It can change between Mengmengda and Hedong lion at will in a thought, or it can''t even twist the water bottle. Open and then transform into a strong man carrying a gas tank to the third and fifth floors as smoothly as breathing. Nao San hanged himself, so I asked you, little locust, are you afraid or not? !
Well, the above is a joke though. But since these rumors point to Fei Qian and Cai Yan, they must fight back, and the toughest way is to directly bring such a group of women''s soldiers to exterminate the locusts!
Of course, it is not for Cai Yan and others to go up and kill them in person, they just need to stand and set an example.
Cai Yan had some doubts, but still followed Fei Qian''s request, went to Zhiyin prison, and began to gather his subordinates...
According to the statistics of later generations, during the 2,500 to 600 years from 700 BC to the period of the Republic of China, there were more than 600 insect disasters, and more than 400 were identified as locusts. The name and cognition of locusts are not very clear, so some errors are inevitable, but judging from this value, in fact, in ancient China, locust disasters were very frequent.
The earliest locusts were mainly concentrated in the Shandong Peninsula area. The several large locust plagues before the Spring and Autumn Period all came from the Shandong Peninsula. Fei Qian believes that because the climate in ancient times was relatively mild and humid, only the area in Shandong due to the impact of rivers and the structure of tidal flats caused the water level to drop when encountering drought. Then came the underlying conditions for a locust plague.
Later, due to climate change, the Little Ice Age came again and again, which caused the area that was originally the Daze wetland to gradually dry up. Therefore, during this period, the locusts developed very rapidly, and at the same time, the origin of the locust plague gradually spread to the north and south. It is no longer limited to the Shandong Peninsula.
Fei Qian stood in front of the general''s mansion, looked up at the sky, and sighed slightly.
This is a problem of locusts, but it is also a problem of the land.
To be more straightforward, this is a question of interests.
There is a joke in later generations that when I was young, I had no money to eat instant noodles, but when I grow up, I still have no money to eat instant noodles.
The Moonlight Clan is not only found in later generations, but has existed since the beginning of China. No matter which dynasty they are in, the people at the bottom are in the state of "moonlight" or "yearlight". It’s not all leaving nothing, leaving a lot of debts...
This "moonlight" class without any savings is very dangerous, without any ability to resist disasters. Once natural disasters and man-made disasters occur, they will immediately fall apart and their wives and children will be separated.
Take the locust plague as an example. Because of the locust plague, Zhuanghe failed to harvest, or even failed to harvest, and then the entire chain that was barely maintained broke down. They had nowhere to go, and because there was no food to eat, the old and the weak died first, whether it was wandering or war. Once the corpses were not disposed of in time, it was very easy to cause a plague, and then they were taken to other areas, and finally swept across the country...
Unlike the emperor who was nervous and anxious when he heard of locust plagues, droughts and floods, the big landlord class generally did not panic when facing these disasters. As long as they were controlled within a certain range, they would not trigger a full-scale uncontrollable war. The big landlord class even wished that there would be a famine every year!
Because these untouchables will sell their land only in disaster years! And every piece of food accumulated by the big landlords can be sold for gold prices in disaster years!
Therefore, a very strange pattern emerged in the feudal dynasties of China. Once such a disaster occurs, the ministers immediately began to criticize the emperor or political opponents, saying that it was the fault of the other party, and then the emperor was asked to pay for the disaster. Local taxes were exempted, while the big landlord class and local officials profited from it, and each of them was full of food.
Fei Qian has reason to believe that spreading rumors and campaigning against Cai Yan and others is only the first step. Immediately afterwards, the children of the gentry who were hit by the disaster began to cry and clamor, bringing the victims together and asking Fei Qian to spend money, people and food to carry out the project. Disaster relief, and then they can take the largest amount of food and grass and make the thinnest porridge. On the one hand, they can maintain the lowest survival line of these victims and prevent them from starving to death on a large scale or gathering to make trouble; Taking this opportunity, Fei Qian was distributed to the fields in the hands of various farmers with great difficulty, and was obtained in various ways!
Over the years, Fei Qian led his soldiers to fight in the north and south, and quite a few soldiers converted their meritorious service into family fields. There are many such households in the north and in Guanzhong, and these military achievements The land can still be bought and sold, even if the sale will make it lose the preferential taxation of the military field, but it will not change the use value of the land...
But a tricky problem is that Fei Qian can''t do everything for these military households, nor can he provide shelter beyond the standard.
Because human nature is often lazy and greedy.
Bear children are not only found in wealthy families.
When the second generation of soldiers and the third generation of soldiers appeared, Feiqian''s shelter and help to Binghu would catalyze resentment and moths, just like Juntian in Tang Dynasty and Binghu in Ming Dynasty.
The land equalization system was restored in the Tang Dynasty, and the land that could not be traded was determined in the name of the country, but in fact it was quickly corroded and riddled with holes. In the later period, it became a disease of the Tang Dynasty. The method can obtain land, and even if ordinary people want to buy and sell land to continue their family life, it is illegal, and they will be arrested and sentenced to hard labor...
Binghu in the Ming Dynasty, when defending against the outside world, the strength of the tenth layer can only be used for three or four points. After becoming a green battalion, they can use the strength of the twelfth layer...
Therefore, it is impossible for Feiqian to engage in the whole people or collective ownership in the era of the feudal dynasty.
Of course, from another perspective, land circulation can also stimulate economic development, and even break the "small peasant economy" to a certain extent, which will inspire more Chinese people to start to go to the broader sky.
Fei Qian slowly exhaled the breath in his chest and abdomen, and then whispered to Pang Tong who was standing aside: "Shi Yuan, I have a few things to arrange..."
(end of this chapter)