"Eating melon masses" was once a very popular Internet word, basically everyone is on various forums, different degrees of "eating melon", the "melon" here originally referred to melon seeds, and later gradually evolved into refers to watermelon, which is mainly because watermelon in people's daily life, appears more common.
Many people think that this is a fruit that has been passed down from the West of Europe because of the name of "watermelon", but in fact, according to the legend of Shennong tasting hundred grasses, watermelon is a fruit found when Shennong was tasting hundreds of grasses and using his stomach to test many plants in the world, the earliest was named "thin melon", that is, the meaning of water succulents, and later slowly spread to watermelon.
Of course, this legend can not be verified, another more widely circulated version of the origin of watermelon, that is, Xu Guangqi's "Complete Book of Agricultural Politics" recorded, "watermelon, planted out of the western region, so the name", that is to say, zhang Qian in the western region after the original mission, connected the road to the western region, the melon seed was brought back to the central plains, because it is from the western region, so it was named watermelon.
In a Han tomb excavated in Yangzhou in 1980, the seeds of watermelons were indeed excavated, which shows that watermelons were indeed planted as early as the Han Dynasty. Since then, successive dynasties have never stopped, not only ordinary people love to eat watermelon, those high-powered imperial ministers, for the tender and delicious watermelon that is also extremely enthusiastic, and even derived a lot of stories, such as Qianlong under the Jiangnan period there was a mysterious melon farmer had a confrontation.
It was in the sixteenth year of Qianlong (1751), the 40-year-old Ai Xin Jueluo Hongli had been emperor for sixteen years, during which he worked very diligently, and after a long and sustained effort, the Qianlong Emperor found that the country had gradually become prosperous, he was extremely satisfied with his achievements, and began to have the idea of enjoyment, while at the same time thinking that he needed to enhance his understanding of the place.
Under the combined effect of these two factors, the Qianlong Emperor led his trusted ministers out of the capital in the first month of the month and began a mighty southern tour, which is known in history as "Qianlong's first descent into jiangnan". Usually, these emperors, who were "born in the deep palace and grew up in the hands of women," could not fully follow their own will and leave the palace whenever they wanted, but the authority of the Qianlong Emperor allowed him to ignore those dogmas.
When the Qianlong Emperor first left the palace, he was still full of excitement, and he was happy to go all the way upstream, but as time passed, by April, he already felt unbearable. On this day, he abandoned the civil and military officials, but only took a few close attendants to "micro-service private visits", accidentally went to the wild, walked dry mouth, but suffered from not finding a cool place to rest.
At this time, Qianlong suddenly saw a melon farmer in front of him, who was selling melons on the spot on the road next to the melon field, and rushed up to buy several melons, and while eating, he praised the melon farmers, saying that this melon was indeed very sweet. Who knows the melon farmer said to him: "Officer, you are not right to eat this way, the watermelon must be eaten from the inside to the outside, so that every bite is the sweetest..."
After qianlong listened, he appreciated the wisdom of the melon farmer even more, and even said: "The old man can really be described as a sage!" The two chatted happily, but after eating the melon, just out of 800 meters, Qianlong immediately gave an order to the guards: "What about the melon farmer just now?" Go and cut him off! ”
Originally, Qianlong remembered the ancient adage that "the saint is on the throne, and there is no relic in the wilderness", and now that "there is a relict sage in the wild", it is a bit obvious that he is not a saint, so he ordered the guards to kill the melon farmer.