The other day, I learned a dish on the Little Red Book - three cups of chicken, cut the chicken legs into small pieces, put them into a casserole, do not put the soup, only use a cup of sweet rice wine, a cup of sesame oil, a cup of soy sauce simmered together, so the name "three cups of chicken". This dish is tender, original, rich and attractive, and has a mellow taste, making it a traditional Jiangxi dish.
At the same time as learning the dish, I also listened to the master tell a legend, it turned out that this three-cup chicken has some origin, probably from the last year of the Southern Song Dynasty, there was an old woman who went to the prison to visit a captured general, but because of the haste, the next day the general was going to be cut off, the old woman did not have time to prepare cooked chicken, only brought a raw chicken and a pot of wine, so she took materials on the spot, found a tile bowl, put the chicken into the bowl, poured rice wine, added some salt, set up a tile bowl with a few bricks, and simmered the chicken with a small fire. After an hour, the lid was peeled off, the chicken was crispy and fragrant, and she gave the prepared chicken to the general to eat, and the general drank wine, ate the meat, sang generously and sadly, and wrote a famous desperate poem "Crossing zero Ding Yang":
After a hard time, the stars fell around. The mountains and rivers are broken and the wind is fluttering, and the life is floating and raining. The panic beachhead said trepidation, zero Ding Yang sighed zero Ding. Life since ancient times who has not died, leave Dan heart to sweat and green.
The next day, the general was heroic. Later, the dish spread in the south, and people also ate this dish to pay tribute to the dead national hero.
This national hero is the famous Wen Tianxiang, the story is always a story, in fact, Wen Tianxiang was not killed in Zero Ding Yang, he was escorted by the Commander of the Yuan Army Zhang Hongfan through Zero Ding Yang, to the cliff mountain to persuade Lu Xiufu, Zhang Shijie and others who were still resisting, Wen Tianxiang sternly rejected Zhang Hongfan, and wrote this poem "Crossing Zero Ding Yang" to show him, to show his heart, the Yuan Army's attempt to rely on Wen Tianxiang to persuade the Small Imperial Court of the Southern Song Dynasty was not achieved. The Yuan army did not embarrass Wen Tianxiang, and later escorted him to Dadu, always hoping to persuade him to surrender, because Wen Tianxiang was the most famous of the captured ministers of the Southern Song Dynasty, and kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, on the one hand, was a pity for talent, on the other hand, he also hoped to surrender him and treat him kindly, and used his reputation to attract the remnants of the Southern Song Dynasty who were thrown in rebellion, when Kublai Khan promised him that as long as he was willing to surrender, he would still be the position of chancellor, which was the highest treatment given to the former dynasty's widows, and there were many precedents in history, like Yu Xin in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Yuwen Xuanzhong, who was at the turn of the two Song Dynasties, was captured by the Northern Dynasty and persuaded to surrender to the position of a chancellor, and it did not affect their reputation in later generations. However, Wen Tianxiang refused to surrender, and finally after five years of captivity, he was righteous in Dadu in 1283.
When Wen Tianxiang was imprisoned in Dadu, he also wrote the famous "Song of Righteous Qi", when I was in high school (around 2000) it was a language selection textbook, and now it seems to be a required reading text, this poem represents the backbone of Chinese, the content of the poem is sonorous and powerful, and it is loud and clear, expressing the majestic righteousness of Chinese regard death as a homecoming, preferring to die unyieldingly, every time it is read, it will be admired, no matter where the Chinese, it will be impressed and moved by such righteousness, which is the common quality of our Chinese. It should be remembered by us from an early age.
However, although Wen Tianxiang repaid the country with his death, he did not kidnap others with morality, and his two younger brothers later surrendered to the Yuan Dynasty. The second brother Wen Bi was awarded an official position after his demotion, and the third brother Wen Zhang lived in seclusion in the mountains and forests after his demotion and refused to be discharged. During the days of captivity, Wen Tianxiang wrote to them, in which he expressed his understanding of their choice, and did not ask his brothers to raise a flag to rebel and oppose the Yuan and Song dynasties, but only asked the second brother to take good care of the clan, and advised the third brother not to leave the army. Wen Tianxiang said in the letter that now is the moment of national peril, and as the representative of the scholar and doctor, he is a symbol of the national spirit, and at the crucial moment, he should sacrifice himself, set an example, show the people of the world the indomitable spirit of struggle of our nation, and stimulate the people's will to never yield, but the reason why the younger brothers surrendered was to protect the clan, continue the bloodline, and pass on the spirit of Chinese unyielding and uncompromising.
In Wen Tianxiang's era, in addition to fighting to the end and helplessly surrendering, there was a third option - to escape, and Chen Yizhong was the representative of this faction. Chen Yizhong and Wen Tianxiang had been officials in the same dynasty, and both had served as ministers of the small court of the Southern Song Dynasty, but the two had different political views, Wen Tianxiang was a resistance faction, and Chen Yizhong was a fleeing faction, in the last days, Chen Yizhong and Lu Xiufu and others escorted the little emperor and members of the royal family to flee to Yashan, on the way Chen Yizhong said that he was going to Champa to borrow troops, and never returned, Champa is a small country in the south of today's Vietnam, historically it was a vassal state of China, and many Chinese settled there during the Southern Song Dynasty. According to Chinese who later returned from Champa City, Chen Yizhong did not borrow soldiers in Champa City, and when he heard that the Yuan army was about to fight, he continued to flee to Siam with his people, and then there was no news.
People like Chen Yizhong did not have the slightest national independence, and were quickly assimilated by the locals in Siam, and the descendants of him and his people were the old Chinese in Thailand. In fact, to be precise, the old Chinese in Thailand are only Thais with Chinese ancestry, not really Chinese, they do not speak Chinese, nor do they identify with their Chinese identity, only Chinese immigrants who live in Chinatown and can speak Chinese and their descendants are real Thai Chinese, the most famous of which is the Xie family of the Chia Tai Group, all the children of the Xie family will be sent to China to study, from the novel Chinese, know that they are the descendants of Chinese. Chia Tai Group once launched a variety show "Chia Tai Variety Show" on China Central Television, and I believe that all post-80s and post-90s have seen it.
Wen Tianxiang is a native of Jishui, Jiangxi, and some say he is a Jiangyou, while others say he is a Hakka. Both of Wen Tianxiang's sons died in the war, and the second brother Wen Bi passed on one of his sons to Wen Tianxiang as his stepson. The Wen clan has always lived in Jiangxi, Hunan and other places, and in modern times, a Wen girl married to ShaoshanChong, Xiangtan, Hunan, and she is Mao Zedong's mother, Wen Qimei. Mao Zedong also inherited the indomitable spirit of struggle of the Wen family and the Chinese nation, and together with the Chinese Communists, led the Chinese people to a great victory in the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle.