Mr. Wu Ying photography

In ancient times, Henan Province also became "Yuzhou".

According to the text, "Yu" is an elephant, which can be understood as a big elephant. According to Mr. Xu Zhongshu's explanation, the word "Yu" can be divided into "Yi" and "Xiang", and the combination of these two words means "land of elephants". From this, we can draw a conclusion that there was a close relationship between ancient Henan Province and elephants.

0 1 Elephants were everywhere in ancient Henan.

In fact, three thousand years ago, there were elephants everywhere in Henan, which was called "Yuzhou" in ancient times. If you go out for a few steps, you may see one or two elephants playing somewhere.

Ivory products unearthed from Shang tombs

Archaeologists found many elephant teeth and bones in some unearthed cultural relics of the Yin and Shang Dynasties.

For example, elephants were found in Shang tombs unearthed in Henan.

This ancient tomb is the tomb of the queen who was killed or injured in Wuding, and it is called Muhao Tomb. The excavation time of this tomb is 1976. Although it has been more than 3000 years, this tomb is well preserved. The tomb was the only well-preserved noble tomb at that time.

In this tomb, experts cleaned up many cultural relics. In addition to the more common bronzes and jades, there are also some beautifully shaped ivory vessels. This discovery further confirmed that elephants did exist in Henan 3000 years ago.

According to the range of human activities at that time, those unearthed elephant cultural relics should be native elephants. Because of the limitation of natural conditions, it is also difficult for elephants to migrate.

Temperature is an important factor limiting the range of activities of elephants.

Because elephants have high requirements for the quality of their living environment. This is mainly reflected in the temperature.

Elephants are hot animals, so cold places are not their paradise.

Let's take a look at the main activity areas of elephants now, which are also concentrated in tropical areas, and only a few subtropical areas also have elephants.

So limited by the living environment, I can only live in a place with higher temperature.

So, here's the problem.

Today, most of Henan is located in the warm temperate zone. According to the climate conditions in warm temperate zone, the temperature in winter is relatively low. Moreover, this temperature condition is not suitable for elephants to survive at all. So, why did elephants appear more than 3000 years ago?

The main reason is that the ancient temperature is somewhat different from our present temperature. During the Yin and Shang Dynasties three thousand years ago, the temperature in the Central Plains was generally high. Because the temperature is suitable for elephants to survive, there are traces of elephants living in the local area.

As the temperature drops, elephants gradually move south.

However, with the passage of time, the temperature gradually changed. China was in the "Little Ice Age" for a long time in ancient times, which brought about a huge temperature drop. This temperature environment not only makes it difficult for farmers to harvest, but also causes some social contradictions.

Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty were all in the Little Ice Age. Among them, the Ming Dynasty was the worst. For details, see The Death of the Ming Dynasty.

Because of the change of temperature, elephants gradually moved south, and they left Henan. During the Three Kingdoms period, elephants were rarely seen in Jiangdong area. Those who were praised as elephants with Cao Cong in those days would not make such low-level mistakes.

Later, elephants gradually moved to Yunnan and other places, where they survived.

However, after liberation, because of the destruction of forests, the living environment of elephants has been greatly damaged, so now it is difficult to see elephants everywhere in Henan, or even disappear without a trace.

There are only two reasons, one is the change of temperature, and the other is the destruction of the environment by human beings.