In the face of nature, human power is small.
Whenever a natural disaster strikes, human beings can only look up to the sky and sigh, as if they have no power to prevent the arrival of predictable disasters, and in recent days, some northern regions have ushered in major floods after a major drought is an example.
The ability of human beings to create and transform nature is also quite admirable, and no matter what kind of natural disasters they face, they are not willing to sit idly by, and they want to live as best they can.
Therefore, in the face of different disasters, human beings have invented a variety of utensils using high technology, such as the water pump that plays a very large role in drought and flood disasters, which gathers human wisdom.
In times of drought, we can use pumps to pump groundwater, and when there is a waterlog, we can use it to discharge excess water into large rivers that do not interfere with transportation and crop growth.
It's just that sometimes, natural disasters come too fiercely, and the power of high technology doesn't have time to give full play to its advantages, and human beings can only pray for good weather.
Compared with ancient times, modern people have some confidence in the face of natural disasters, while the ancients can only rely on time to heal the pain caused by natural disasters.
Open the history books, almost every dynasty is full of records of how difficult people's livelihood is, and even "cannibalism by hunger" is not uncommon, in order to survive, the ugliness of human nature is also exposed in the disaster.
Of course, no matter when, there is no shortage of people with conscience, such as Zhang Yanghao, who went to the disaster area in spite of his advanced age, and finally died of exhaustion in his official position, and he left behind "Xing, the people are suffering; Death, the people suffer" has become a famous sentence that has made people feel thousands of emotions so far.
When it comes to the starvation caused by natural disasters in ancient times, some people have a doubt, thinking that the ancient ecological environment is much better than now, and the fish and shrimp in the river are naturally very rich.
It's a ridiculous question, but it's anything but simple.
Grass root bark
Basking in the warm sunshine of now, most of us young people have not experienced the difficult days of eating grass roots and gnawing tree bark, but when we ask some of the older grandparents about what life was like decades ago, we see on their faces the pain of famine.
In the memories of the previous generation, eating grass roots and gnawing tree bark was not an incredible thing, but their hope to live, and this naturally also applied to the ancients.
When famine comes, people can reduce their living standards indefinitely in order to survive, and even grassroots bark will become a delicacy on earth.
As for why the ancients were highly receptive to grass-roots bark, it is not because it is the only option, but because grass-roots bark has its advantages.
First, grass bark is a relatively easy source to obtain at any given time, even in times of famine.
Since there are many sources, there is no need to waste too much energy and physical strength to collect in the era of food scarcity, and sometimes the collection is too much, and it can be stored for emergencies.
Secondly, in times of famine, people need to look for foods that provide enough nutrients and energy, and the bark of grass roots, although it tastes bad, is rich in fiber and minerals, which can provide the energy that the body needs.
Think about it, when life is in crisis, taste doesn't matter at all, after all, survival is the first priority, and it doesn't matter what you can eat.
In the age when there was no food, the bark of grass roots would become a "delicacy" in the eyes of people, even if sometimes it was impossible to swallow.
Compared with the bark of grassroots, the fish and shrimp in the river are naturally the best taste of the world in people's minds, but the ancients did not fish and catch shrimp, which is really puzzling.
Fish and shrimp in the river
In fact, compared to the bark of grassroots, fish and shrimp in the river were not the preferred ingredients in the famine years.
In ancient times, there were no modern fishing tools and equipment, the ancients wanted to fish only by the most primitive method to go down the river to catch, when the eyes were hungry to the stars, it was quite a dangerous thing to go down the river to catch fish, there was not enough physical strength to go down the river, and they may not have time to catch the fish, and they became fish food first.
Famine often occurs during the hot season, when the fish and shrimp in the river do not bring food enjoyment to people, but rather serve as a life-threatening charm.
Because when the weather is hot, the fish and shrimp that have been caught with great effort will quickly deteriorate and stink, and if people eat such ingredients, it may definitely kill them.
In addition, in ancient times, the level of medical conditions was quite backward, and if wild fish and shrimp were eaten raw, they often passed on germs to the human body, and once they got sick in the famine years, then there was almost no chance of survival.
However, these cannot be regarded as the fundamental reasons why the ancients did not catch fish and shrimp, the fundamental reason is that in the famine years, there were often no fish and shrimp to catch.
In ancient times, drought was a natural disaster that lasted for a very long time, and during a long period of drought, perhaps in the early stage, there was still water in the river, but in the middle and late stages of the drought, there was no water in the river at all, let alone fish and shrimp.
Although there was no shortage of water in the famine caused by the flood disaster, in the face of the menacing monstrous flood, the ancients simply did not have the ability to catch fish and shrimp in the flood.
The catastrophe and the pandemic
In the famine era, hunger was not the root cause of starvation, and the ensuing epidemic led to the mass death of the ancients.
As the old saying goes: after a great plague there will be a great plague.
In the famine years, some people would starve to death, but in the ancients, they rushed to find food, and they would not bury and burn these people, which created conditions for the outbreak of the epidemic.
When the epidemic comes, people who don't have enough to eat will be infected one after another, which will lead to more deaths, and then form a vicious circle.
The medical level of the ancients was limited, and in the face of the outbreak of the epidemic, there was no emergency response at all, so they could only let the epidemic rage, waiting for God's mercy and using weather changes to eliminate the epidemic by themselves.
Cycle.
Natural disasters go on and on, and the ancients could only fall down one after another, and the fish and shrimp in the river could not solve the fundamental survival problem in the face of natural disasters.
Comparatively speaking, people still rely on grass roots and tree bark to improve the survival rate, and as long as the epidemic cannot afford it, the ancients will still have some opportunities to survive the famine years.
It can be seen that when the ancients faced the famine, they were limited in what they could do, and they could only find ways to keep themselves alive, which was the first priority.
As for what to eat and what not to eat, this is not something that the ancients could decide at all, in order to survive, sometimes even their own children can be abandoned, what else can not be done?
Therefore, at any time, the people living at the bottom of the society are extremely difficult, which corresponds to the poem mentioned above:
Xing, the people suffer; Death, the people suffer.
References: General History of China, etc.
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