Introduction
In ancient times, wars continued, the general led the soldiers to fight in the battlefield, a part of the soldiers who undertook to transport grain and grass supplied logistical supplies, in some popular costume TV series today, soldiers camped, when fighting, eat or rice, do not know the real history is not like this, then what do the soldiers eat?
Although the ancient society took agriculture and animal husbandry as the core, but limited by the growth of crops in different regions, we often see tomatoes, bud rice, sweet potatoes and other fruits and vegetables in modern daily life were only transmitted from abroad to China in the Ming and Qing dynasties, so it seems that the food that the ancients could eat seems to be quite small.
As the saying goes: "The soldiers and horses do not move, the grain and grass go first." "If the emperor had not been a dimwitted monarch, he would not have let the soldiers fighting in the battlefield eat badly." Soldiers must eat and drink well in order to have the strength to wear heavy combat equipment to fight and kill the enemy.
What ingredients can be used as military food?
In military strategy, non-professionals look at equipment, and insiders look at logistics! The logistics problems of the troops' grain and grass have always been the top priority, and the key link in Cao Cao's victory in the Battle of Chibi depended on the success of the attack on Wuchao (yuan shao's army's grain and grass strongholds)! So what do most soldiers who usually fight in the field eat?
Food that can be turned into military food must meet three elements: easy to lead storage, high production, and nutrient content. If it is an army that must go out to fight, then the required military food must be dry food in the majority.
When you go out to fight, your tracks must not be exposed, especially these armies that must be attacked. Therefore, there must be very few ways to cook rice by fire. In addition, it was very inconvenient to send grain in ancient times, and the ingredients transported to the battlefield must also be dry food that is convenient for long-term storage.
For the siege army, there is no need to worry about the difficulty of the troop operation. Compared with these army troops who went out of the city, the soldiers who attacked the city could not only eat these fresh fruits and vegetables, but also enjoy a lot of soft food. Nature is all based on an abundant supply of goods.
What did ancient warriors eat
The emperor did not starve the soldiers, the army did not have food, the soldiers and horses did not move the grain and grass first. China has many famous sayings about the importance of military food. No matter what the occasion, soldiers can only have the strength to wear heavy equipment to fight if they eat well and sleep well.
Although China is a big cooking country, these various dishes are all exclusive to the rich and royal families, and the average soldier cannot enjoy it, and the meal in military camp life is two words "simple".
Now let's talk about these boring barracks life diets. The ancestors of the Han Chinese were semi-nomadic and semi-fishing and hunting peoples, but since they entered the interior of the Central Plains from Qinghai, Gansu, the population has slowly increased, and primitive agriculture has gradually developed.
Hunting in Yin Shang Tian was a key source of military food. The scale of the Shang Dynasty field hunting operation was very large, sending thousands of people at a time could get hundreds of beasts and small animals.
The oracle bone text records that 451 deer were obtained in a field hunt. In the Zhou Dynasty, the scale of field hunting operations was even higher, and King Wu of Zhou once hunted and killed tens of thousands of wild animals and plants. Because of this, the Xia, Shang, and Zhou Dynasties were able to continuously expand their territory and slowly expand their land to Shaanxi, Henan, Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Anhui and many other provinces and regions.
After the life of half-farming and half-pastoralism during the Xia, Shang, and Zhou Dynasties, after the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Han people announced that they had become an agricultural Chinese nation, and grains and some fruits and vegetables of good quality had become ordinary people, which was also the key diet of the troops.
Before the Song Dynasty, the Chinese diet ate the largest number of thick vegetable porridges, and the diet of the ancient Chinese army as a whole was simple, rough, and only the level of the stomach.
The original military food method was specifically boiling porridge, before the Song Dynasty, the general kitchen utensils were all ceramics, very rarely woks. Ceramics are the most suitable for boiling porridge, not for cooking. Xia Shang Wednesday generation is all boiled millet porridge, mainly vegetable porridge.
It is necessary to add a variety of wild mountain vegetables, wild fruits, legumes, and even porridge with meat in it. As soon as the troops arrived at the hotel, they set up a wok to boil vegetable porridge and drink it. It's just that the porridge at that time was very thick, called "thick".
Millet as a military food continued from ancient times to the Tang Dynasty. The key reason is that at that time, China's political and national defense management centers were in the northern region, especially in the northwest region.
Secondly, millet is easy to store, and the Tang Dynasty references say that millet can be stored for 9 years, while rice is only 5 years. In fact, millet can be stored longer, and twenty years after the fall of the Sui Dynasty, the stored grain left in Chang'an can still be taken.
epilogue
During the tang wuzong period, the Japanese monk Yuanren entered the Tang Dynasty to seek the Dharma, and previously settled in the Shandong Peninsula for a period of time. In his "Notes on the Etiquette of Entering the Tang Dynasty and Seeking the Law", it is established that the diet of the residents in the Shandong area is recorded: "I have not cooked soup to eat, and I have been staying for a long time to eat cold vegetables." "
Ingredients such as cold dishes are already classified as reception-level diets. So it is obvious that in ordinary times, what do such ordinary people eat?
As for why not to eat soft food, it is clear that the ancients could not get an open fire everywhere, and even if there was an open fire, there was no firewood that could be burned.
Because the households in the big cities at that time also generally lacked firewood that could be burned, coal and the like were only available to high-ranking officials or famous families in the dynasty at that time, and such objects were also strictly controlled by the emperor.
It can be learned that in ancient times, the diet of ordinary people did not have so many styles. Most of them also ask for a "full belly", and it is basically a luxury to be able to eat enough.
If it is a peaceful period, it is okay to go smoothly, at least you can farm in peace and stability, you can still have normal days every day, after getting married and having children, spending your life plainly, you are already very happy.
Reference: Notes on the Entry into the Tang Dynasty
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