Do you know the inside story about the cricket business?

Recently, the news that a cricket with a sky-high price of 110,000 yuan was discovered in Shandong has attracted attention. But this kind of price is obviously not in line with market rules. What's the inside story? A tiny cricket was sold at a high price? ?

Crickets are invertebrates, class Insecta, order Orthoptera, superfamily Cricket. Also known as the cricket, the common name is cricket, nocturnal bug (because it chirps at night), general bug, autumn insect, fighting cock, spur weaver, trend weaver, ground trumpet, stove chicken, Sunwang, soil sting, "monk" is the cricket. It's called before it sprouts wings. According to research, crickets are an ancient insect with a history of at least 140 million years.

Cricket fighting, also known as "Qiu Xing" and "Dou Xi Zhi", is an entertainment activity in which crickets fight with each other for fun. It has a history of eight to nine hundred years among the people. As early as the Tang and Song Dynasties, there are documented records of cricket fighting. Gu Wenjian's "Negative Exposure Miscellaneous Records" said: During the Tianbao period of the Tang Dynasty, cricket fighting became a common practice among the people of Chang'an. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the "Promoting Weaving Classic" compiled by Jia Sidao, the "Cricket Prime Minister", was the world's first work on cricket research. Later, the cricket fighting culture spread to modern society. In the 1950s and 1960s, cricket fighting was labeled as an "old culture". After the reform and opening up, with the development of social economy, cricket fighting was revived and became popular in some places.

Crickets are widely distributed and can be found almost all over the country, so there is also the custom of fighting crickets in many places. Sidian Town, Ningyang County, Tai'an, Shandong Province is a well-known main producing area for cricket fighting in the country. The local crickets are characterized by their size, big teeth, and ferocious and aggressive personalities. In the eyes of people who love this activity, the crickets here have always been the most popular. Their favorite, a high-grade cricket, is in high demand and can even be sold for hundreds of thousands of yuan, which is as expensive as gold. A merchant from Tianjin bought a cricket in Ningyang, Shandong, for 110,000 yuan. But this price is obviously not in line with market rules. So can we guess that a cricket that originally had no cost and no collection value, commonly known as a "whooping insect", would be considered a profit if it could survive until winter. If it was suddenly fired to such an extent, what would happen behind the scenes? What stories might be hidden that outsiders don’t know?

The "life or death" outcome of cricket fighting makes this activity often associated with gambling. Behind the sky-high price of crickets is often the speculative mentality of gamblers. None of the buyers who spent a lot of money just wanted to listen to the crickets chirping quietly, or even just play for their own entertainment. No one spends a lot of money just to lose money. Everyone who spends money wants to make money. More and more people buy and sell crickets with a gambler's mentality, just like gambling on jade. No one knows whether the crickets bought for tens of millions will be killed by other crickets in one bite. The only way is to "win". The value of cricket’s existence.

People in the cricket economy are divided into four categories: the first category is cricket catchers, most of whom are local farmers, who catch crickets in the fields and then sell them; the second category is businessmen who buy and sell crickets. , they have a deeper understanding of crickets. They can buy a cricket for one or two hundred and sell it at a high price; the third category is cricket breeders, they can train crickets very well and are usually invited to raise crickets. People respect people; the fourth category is people who fight crickets. Some are for leisure entertainment, while others have a gambler's mentality and can spend a lot of money. And every year when the "insect season" comes, men, women and children in the main cricket-producing areas will put down their work and go to the fields to catch crickets. For them, if they seize these two months, they can earn 40,000 to 50,000 yuan, which may be more substantial than the reward for a year of hard work. The author believes that the reason why the cricket business is so prosperous and the profits are so high, a cricket that costs more than ten yuan can be sold for hundreds of thousands, is because of cricket fighting gambling.