| The plague of locusts is one of the main natural disasters during the period offeudal society in China, has a great threat to agricultural production and socialstability. This paper attempts to study on the plague of locusts and locust control, inthe process of dealing with the plague of locusts, the Ming Dynasty the impacts ofnatural disasters on the economic and cultural politics, then, interaction and contactproblems between the state power, and local society and the folk belief of the three,The wing during the research on historical content, can be very good for thedevelopment of social economy and misfortunes pest-control services.The plague of locusts has different times and size in different historical periods.Hongwu and Tianshun is gentle period of the plague of locusts in Ming Dynasty, intoa stage to Longqing is active, the peak to Chongzhen and wanli. The plague of locustsis mainly distributed in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain Area, the distribution trend isinfluence of multiple factors affected by the heat and water conditions, human factorsand social development. In response to the plague of locusts, Ming dynasty’s rulersare more positive in the early, local to the central reporting the disaster programsmoothly, the central to local disaster relief measures have also been more powerfulexecution. In the late Ming Dynasty, the rulers more politics, locusts in place tocontrol, to Chongzhen have been powerless, leading to occurrence of locusts wasblowout trend, large-scale locust has accelerated the downfall of the Ming dynasty.Often natural disasters are closely combined with the religious belief, the rulersof Ming Dynasty attitude to folk belief can be said to be very firm, this firm isrepresented in the early of Ming Dynasty, has adopted the "suppression" of itsdevelopment policy of folk belief. This directly led to the plague of locusts relatedfolk belief rarely appear in the Ming Dynasty of first one hundred and fifty years.After the Jiajing period, with the plague of locusts destroyed force enhancement, inorder to strengthen the ruling basis and ideological control of the people, the plague oflocusts related belief gradually increased, the ruler of the folk belief that the"suppression" policy began to loosen, the folk belief begins popularity in later ofMing Dynasty, had a tremendous impact on the development of the political,economic, cultural and thought. It is said that the Ming Dynasty locust gods drive notonly to eliminate pests and the emergence of locusts measures, is political rulers’ control tool to strengthen the ideological.Behind the Ming Dynasty locust plague, contains the interaction and contact thekingship, local society and the folk belief, it is a reflection of the internal mechanismof the ancient political evolution, economic development, cultural change, is focus onthe response of different social forces to reply in the plague of locusts, worthy of ourresearch and discovery. |
