| Giorgio_Xo |
05-10-2003 12:31 PM |
During the 'Great Leap Forward', Chairman Mao noticed a bird eating a rice grain from a plant in a paddy one afternoon. It dawned unto him that the birds reduced the crop yield. If bird were killed nationwide, Communist China would finally produce enough rice to feed the country. So Mao in his great wisdom instituted an anti-bird campaign offering a small reward for every bird turned in dead to the local authorities. Now birds are tough little buggers and birdshot is expensive, so the inventive Chinese developed a technique where dozens of farmers would constantly bang pots and pans thereby scaring the birds. Birds never had the opportunity to land and rest because of the vigilant and greedy peasants. Soon millions of small birds dropped from the skies dead of exhaustion which the peasants collected and received their cash reward.
Mao proclaimed victory and announced that crop yields were sure to rise in the coming year!
Harvest season came with huge crop failures all across China. What the glorious, perfect Chairman didn't realize was that the bird he saw wasn't eating the rice grain but an insect off the grain. Without suffcient birds to maintain the insect population, the harvest collapsed.
If I remember my history correctly, some 3 to 5 million people died of famine the next year.
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