What kind of wars are there when insects are used as tools of war (Insects and War)

Bee siege

In the 11th century, when King Richard I of England led an army to attack the ancient city of Jerusalem, Gendak, he encountered desperate resistance from the defenders. Due to the high and steep walls of the city, the defenders were condescending and used muskets, bows and arrows to form a dense firepower network, making it difficult for the British troops to advance under the city, resulting in heavy casualties. Just when Richard I was worried about the long-lasting impregnability of the city, a bee flew onto his hand and stung him hard. As a heartbreaking pain stirred his heart, a mysterious siege plan formed in his mind; he immediately ordered his soldiers to collect beehives. The soldiers put the collected beehives on the stone thrower one by one. With the elasticity of the stone thrower, the boxes of bees crossed the city wall and fell among the soldiers defending the city. Countless soldiers were stung by the irritated bees and suffered painful injuries. It was unbearable, and the rats ran away one after another, and the city suddenly became a mess, making it impossible to throw guns and arrows. The British army took the opportunity to swarm up the ladder and soon occupied the city of Randak.

Zhang Liang’s ant plan

Chu and Han were fighting, and Xiang Yu, the overlord of Chu, and Liu Bang, the king of Han, fought to the death in Gaixia. The Chu army was defeated and retreated to the Wujiang River. Just when Xiang Yu was about to cross the river by boat in order to make a comeback, he suddenly saw six characters "Overlord committed suicide in Wujiang" composed of countless ants on the riverside. Xiang Yu was so shocked that he couldn't help but look up to the sky and sigh: "This is God's will, not the fault of war." So he drew his sword and killed himself. From then on Liu Bang ruled the world. Therefore, there was a saying later that "the Han Dynasty is like a swarm of ants". Can ants really form characters by themselves? The answer is no. This is a trick used by Liu Bang's military advisor Zhang Liang. Zhang Liang predicted that Xiang Yu would retreat to the Wu River after his defeat, so he sent people to write the above six characters with honey on the river bank in advance. When the ants smelled the honey, they gathered from all directions to feed. As a result, the brave and foolhardy Xiang Yu fell into the trap and committed suicide.

Airdropping pests

Turning over the picture of modern wars, the imperialists such as Japan and the United States have perversely and inhumanely created a large number of insects that can carry germs and spread diseases or destructive crop pests, and use them as secret weapons to be released into the invaded countries, causing Diseases and plagues or pests spread in the invaded countries, causing food shortages and famine. During World War II, Japan released bug-carrying and disease-carrying insects into my country, North Korea and other countries, causing a certain range of disease epidemics. In the early 1950s, the United States launched the Korean War in order to achieve its hegemony in Asia and strangle the newly established People's Republic of China in its cradle. In the spring of 1952, the United States dropped a large number of insects carrying pathogenic bacteria on the Korean battlefield and Northeast my country, seriously damaging the lives and property of local residents. The Entomological Society of China actively responded to the national call and promptly mobilized its members to join the fight against bacterial warfare. Dozens of entomologists, including Feng Lanzhou, Liu Chongle, Chen Shijiao, and Liu Zhiying, formed a team and went to the front line together with relevant departments to collect a large number of poisonous insect specimens. , conduct identification and guide prevention and control; the identification of poisonous insect species provides irrefutable evidence for the International Commission of Investigation to investigate the germ warfare launched by the US imperialism, because these insect species are not distributed at all in our country and North Korea and are completely North American species.

The war caused by insects

The "Book of Han" records many wars caused by locust plagues. For example, in the autumn of 130 BC, locust outbreaks caused disasters, and the emperor sent four generals to plunder South Vietnam. Similar records can be said to be "endless" in Chinese historical books, which is shocking. Reading between the lines, we seem to see scenes of tragic scenes: after the locusts cover the sky, the crops are empty; the people are in dire straits, famine is everywhere, the plague is prevalent, and the hungry people are fleeing everywhere; the rulers send troops to invade in order to survive and maintain their rule. They plundered the wealth of other small countries; thus there was a war with "mountains of bones and rivers of blood". Locusts eat grass, grass produces grain, and grain is used as food. People regard food as their top priority, and locusts "eat" people! This disaster caused by migratory locusts did not end until after the founding of the People's Republic of China and after years of rectification.

Everyone seems to know that the cause of the outbreak of the First World War was the intensification of conflicts between imperialist powers, and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary in Serbia on June 28, 1914, was the trigger. But people may not know that this stabbing activity is related to an insect. American entomologist M. T. Smulyan (1920) showed us a rough outline in the insect magazine Psych under the title "An insect and the lack of insect knowledge - a direct cause of the world war" in the language of a litterateur. He wrote: In a village in the interior of Serbia, a young man fell madly in love with a girl from the same village; the girl had a beautiful bird, which she regarded as more precious than life; just as she When she was about to accept the love of the young man, a parasitic insect took away the bird's life; the fragile girl was deeply saddened by this, and soon she also fell ill and died. This incident caused the young man to suffer a great mental setback, and he left the village almost half-crazy; soon he joined an extremely patriotic revolutionary organization in another part of Serbia. Immediately afterwards, he assassinated the Austrian crown prince in Sarajevo, which led to the Austro-Hungarian Empire declaring war on Serbia on July 28, 1914; within a week, Germany, Russia, France, Britain, etc. entered the war one after another; the First World War was like this kicked off.

Insects can affect the outcome of war

Before liberation, Xishuangbanna Prefecture, Yunnan Province, located in the southwest border of my country, was famous as a "land of barbaric smoke" and "an area of ​​miasma." Due to the high temperature and rain there, mosquitoes easily breed and multiply, leading to the prevalence of falciparum malaria (what people at the time called "miasma" in superstition). According to the "Records of the Ming Dynasty", in 1457, the Ming Dynasty troops were transferred to Xishuangbanna, but they did not dare to advance in the "warm spring and high miasma" season. Countless officers and soldiers stationed here died from "miasma". In addition, before the widespread use of chemical pesticides (especially DDT), typhus and trench fever spread by body lice were even one of the important factors that determined the outcome of the war.

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