The young eunuch of Qin Tianjian is not a dry meal, the calendar of the Great Song Dynasty is extremely advanced, only in the period of more than 160 years of the Northern Song Dynasty, it has been revised eight times!

Such frequent modifications of the calendar are for the accuracy of the calendar, which has a lot to do with the agricultural mulberry of the Great Song Dynasty, the Great Song Dynasty has a lot of people, hundreds of millions of people, and needs a lot of food to raise, but the territory of the Great Song Dynasty is the smallest dynasty in the entire feudal dynasty.

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

The young eunuch of Qin Tianjian in front of him, named Yao Shunfu, was a famous astronomer in the Great Song Dynasty, who had been engaged in star observation for a long time, and served as the chief editor of the Great Song Dynasty calendar twice.

Zhao Huan looked at Yao Shunfu, who was already old, and asked suspiciously: "If there is a big drought this winter, why do you need Young Eunuch Yao to come in person?" ”

Yao Shunfu is nearly seventy years old, the same age as Zong Ze, if it is not a top priority, he will not come to the temple easily, although he has the name of a young eunuch, but he is no longer in charge of specific affairs.

Is his visit right now just to illustrate the drought?

"When there is a great drought and little snow, and the land is dry, there will be a plague of locusts. Official. Yao Shunfu said with a sigh.

Zhao Huan stood up instantly, the locust plague was a big event in ancient times! It's not a problem that can be solved by raising two chickens and raising some geese in Zhuangzi.

If the locust plague rises slightly, it is a thousand plans!

Hundreds of millions of locusts are coming everywhere, how many chickens do you have to raise to prevent locust plagues?

Fooling people to eat locusts can not solve the problem, this arthropod eats, all need a lot of cooking oil to cook, the most terrible thing about locust plague is its terrifying amount of food!

The locust plague will cover the sky and the sun, and in an instant, all the green on the ground will disappear without a trace! How do you cook without vegetable oil?

Do you want to eat locusts raw?

Of course, it is not for nothing, the people spontaneously organized the catching of locusts, not nothing, and not far away, in the Tang Dezong period.

[In the first year of Zhenyuan, summer locusts, east from the sea, west of the river, covering the sky, ten days endlessly. The grass and trees and animals are left behind, and they are hungry and die. 】

[In autumn, the locusts in Guanfu are exhausted, the fields are exhausted, the people are hungry, and the locusts are hunted for food. 】

But the locusts are still raging, and famine is everywhere, and it is easy to eat.

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

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

At that point in time, Li Shimin scolded the locusts: "The people take the grain as their life and you eat it, and they would rather eat my lungs and intestines!" ”

Of course, the left and right attendants 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 locust into his stomach.

Whether it was to pretend to win people's hearts, or because he really cared about the dawn of the world, Li Shimin ate the locusts and urged the state officials to rectify the locust plague, so that it did not cause a tragedy in the end.

If the locust plague is so easy to deal with, does Li Shimin still need to eat insects raw?

Zhao Huan felt a chill at the thought of eating locusts, could he eat that thing raw?

Evil things become diseased!

"Don't panic." Yao Shunfu looked at the appearance of the official family, and knew that the official family did not eat minced meat and did not know the importance of the locust plague.

Yao Shunfu's face showed relief, the locust plague in the Great Song Dynasty is more or less, every year, there will be a big locust plague every three or five years, and careful precautions may not cause a catastrophe.

"Since the Tang Dynasty, the official family has a fixed charter for the prevention of locust plagues, and the ministers came to the Wende Hall to remind the official family to prevent the harm of Ezhou." Yao Shunfu has gone through three emperors, and the Emperor Taishang is the most incompetent, with locust plagues every year, and he can't be rectified every year.

Yao Shunfu took out a birdcage and said: "There is one more thing, please look at the official family, this is a kind of bird from the Western Regions, called Cangluan, which can eat more than 100 locusts every day. ”

"More than 100 eclipses?" Zhao Huan stared at the bird whose head and back were pitch black, but his body was pink, how did he look like a starling, how did he become a cangluan?

Isn't Cangluan a legendary mythical beast? Zhao Huan tasted it carefully for a long time, and finally understood what Yao Shunfu meant, this is ...... Auspicious sign!

[Pink starling: The flight feathers and tail feathers are bright black, and the back and abdomen are pink, so it is called the pink starling. The iris is black, the mouth is pinkish-brown, and the feet are pinkish-brown. Feed on locusts, prey on 120-180 locusts every day, eat a lot of food, and the main force of biological locust extermination. 】

"It can really eclipse 100 birds a day, so it is naturally worth wantonly stocking! I wrote a letter to Zhao Ding and asked him to search for this bird in the Western Regions. Zhao Huan looked at the information provided by the system, and his heart was settled.

This thing is reliable!

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

"The minister also wrote a letter "Controlling Locusts", summarizing some means and methods of controlling locusts, mainly from the prevention and how to deal with locust plagues after they occur, and asked the officials to look at them." Yao Shunfu took out a notebook.

Zhao Huan watched it for a long time, and then he understood why Yao Shunfu had to take out the divine beast and offer auspiciousness before taking out the notebook.

This notebook costs a lot of money.

The first means of prevention is to build water conservancy, the survival of locust eggs should be drought rather than wet, as long as there are more canals, the local ecology can be improved. There wouldn't be so many locust eggs in the fields that would survive.

This is a big expense, and it will not be smaller than the cost of Zhao Huan's road repair.

And it is also necessary to raise this Cangluan bird named after Yao Shunfu, which is also a lot of expenses.

Fortunately, Zhao Huan hit the board of the clan relatives and cut more than half of the clan relatives' provisions, otherwise it would be difficult for the state treasury to say that there is such an expense.

Zhao Huan approved this preventive measure, building water conservancy, preventing problems before they happen, and being able to be used by future generations, why not do it?

This second strategy is to spend money.

According to the information obtained by Qin Tianjian on the origin and field investigation of locust plagues in previous dynasties, several locust laying places were found.

For example, the south of Youzhuo, the north of Changhuai, the west of Qingyan, the east of the Liang and Song dynasties, and the two sets of the Yellow River are all places where locust eggs are concentrated.

When Zhao Huan saw this, he couldn't help but smile bitterly, as long as it involves the environment, no matter how much work he does, in fact, he goes around and around, and he is spared afforestation.

The same is true for the Yellow River, the same is true for windbreak and sand, and the same is true for locusts.

"That's right." Zhao Huan agreed to this way, the merit is in the present generation, and the benefit is in the future.