The galaxy of Chinese civilization is brilliant, the culture is dazzling, the history of pig breeding in the mainland is even more long-standing, pigs are very familiar livestock, folk call it the first of the six animals.
In the last place in the zodiac phase, let the pig be the pressure of the zodiac, but also worthy of the name. The history of pig farming on the mainland has been 7000 to 8000 years. In the tombs of many ancients, as far as the Neolithic period, there is no shortage of pig remains, because they often measure the status and wealth of livestock, so it is very important to bury pigs or use pigs as sacrifices. During the family sacrifice, Chen Feng was in the room and sacrificed together, so "home" is a "feng" character under the treasure cover, which is the origin of the word "home" that we use today.
In the Dawenkou ancient culture site discovered in 1959 (dating back to the Neolithic Age about 5,000 years ago), the most excavated animal bones were pig bones, and in the strata of the Dawenkou culture, a pig-shaped pottery was excavated, and the pig-shaped Wei MiaoWeiXiao was excavated, indicating that people had a deep understanding of the morphological characteristics of pigs at that time. In early 1980, mainland archaeologists found important historical relics dating back about 8,000 years in Ligang Village, Xinzheng County, Henan Province, including a large number of animal bones such as pigs and sheep, as well as primitive works of art such as pig heads and sheep heads, which can prove that the mainland has been raising pigs in the early Neolithic period.
The history of the mainland with written references began with the Shang Dynasty. Judging from the oracle bones excavated from the Yin Ruins, various breeding animals have been recorded. From these oracle bones, it can be seen that animal husbandry at that time occupied an important position, and there were many types of livestock and poultry at that time, of which the number of pigs was considerable, and slave owners used it as a sacrifice in addition to feeding pigs. As a sacrificial pig, dozens, or even hundreds, are slaughtered at a time.
It can be seen that as early as 4,000 years ago, the pigs have been extremely well managed and carefully cared for. Therefore, the size and production performance of pigs have changed greatly compared with wild boars. According to the Yinshang bronze pig statue excavated by the Jiuhua Commune of Xiangtan County, Hunan Provincial Museum, its body part is plump and symmetrical, and its shape is completely like that of a cultivated one.
In the Qin and Han dynasties, especially in the Han Dynasty, the pig breeding industry has developed greatly, and there are more written records. The "Chronicle of History" mentions that "Gongsun Hong's family was poor, and he grazed on the sea". Gongsun Hong served as a minister of the Han Dynasty, and in his early years, his family was poor and he made a living by raising pigs. The "Chronicle of History" also records that "the elders and children were left to establish a name". This shows that at that time, not only was pig raising quite common, but also attention was paid to the selection and breeding of good breeds, and its pig raising technology had also made great progress.
In the Tang Dynasty, pig raising was even more prevalent, and the common people raised them, and the government also raised them. The Xinong Temple in Chang'an raised a lot of pigs (Tang Supplement Five Elements). In the fourteenth year of Emperor Dezong's reign, the government allocated three thousand pigs from Shayuan at one time to feed the peasants (Book of Tang, Dezong Benji) Yin Jingzhou had thousands of official pigs" ("Tang Guo History Supplement"). There are also people who get rich by raising pigs, such as "Tang Hongzhou has livestock pigs to get rich, because the pigs are Ugin" ("Chaoye Jinzai"). At that time, pig breeding had spread all over the country, from Guangdong in the south, to Liaodong in the north, to the coast in the east, and to the Hexi Corridor in the west. Due to the different geographical conditions in various places, after careful cultivation by the working people everywhere, many pig breeds with different characteristics have been bred, and the pottery pigs unearthed in the Tang Dynasty fully support this view.
During the Song and Yuan dynasties, the pig industry still developed. Printing was already available during the Song Dynasty, and many of the documents circulated were recorded. According to the "Tokyo Dream": rural pig farmers entered the capital city of Kaifeng to sell pigs, "every day to night, each group of 10,000 heads", which can be seen in the grand situation of operating the pig industry and developing urban and rural trade at that time. After the Yuan Dynasty unified China, it also attached importance to the development of agriculture and animal husbandry. The three agricultural books "Nongsang Jijiao", Wang Zhen's "Nongshu" and "Nongsang Clothing and Food Essentials" all contain content of pig breeding experience. For pig feed, Wang Zhen's "Agricultural Book" said: "There are many lakes in the water land of Jiangnan, and it can be fed by taking algae and near the water." Purslane can be planted on the northern land, as well as potatoes, taro, vegetable leaves and other feeding pigs, advocating adapting to local conditions and broadening feed sources.
After the Song Dynasty, China's economic center moved to the southeast, because the south has more people and less land, with the reclamation of land, the pastoral land decreased, thus restricting the development of animal husbandry, but the pig industry, which is operated as a side business of peasant families, has grown with the development of agriculture.
The pig breeding industry in the Ming Dynasty was better than that of the Yuan Dynasty, and the official ShanglinYuan had officials who specialized in managing livestock (MingHui Zhi, vol. 39), and the people also generally raised pigs. But in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, there was also a man-made disaster of pig farming. According to the "Usurpation", "In the winter of the fourteenth year of Zhengde, there was a decree forbidding the people not to raise pigs, and those who violated the law were forever charged with the army." It is said that this is because the people have always called feng as a pig, and the royal surname "Zhu" is homophonous, in order to avoid secrecy, so the emperor ordered a ban on pig breeding, this order, so that the mainland pig industry once again suffered a major loss.
Later, thanks to the efforts of the working people, the pig industry was quickly restored, and its experience and technology also developed. In Xu Guangqi's "Complete Book of Agricultural Administration", Kuang Pan's "Convenient People's Usurpation", Chen Jiru's "Group Fragments" and other books, they all talk about pig raising technology, which are written to meet the needs of the development of the pig industry, which directly shows that the pig industry was developing at that time.
Li Shizhen, a famous medical scientist of the Ming Dynasty, also mentioned in his book "Compendium of Materia Medica": "Pigs, the animals of the world", and there are many records of the various parts of the pig body dispensing medicines to cure diseases, which he summed up by collecting the experience of treating diseases in various places from the Han Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty. He also made a more detailed description of the physiological characteristics and posture characteristics of pig breeds in various places in the "Compendium of Materia Medica", which also reflected that the study of pigs at that time was quite meticulous.
As far as the situation of ancient pig breeding in the mainland is concerned, its history is long, its experience is rich, and its contribution to the development of the world pig industry is also enormous.
The history of pig breeding in the mainland is magnificent, but some people may say: 98% of the most commonly eaten pork today comes from foreign pig breeds, and our Chinese native black pigs, like a traveler, slowly disappeared from the public's vision.
Is this the case?
Through historical records and research, in the ancient Roman period, some merchants came to China to trade, took some pig breeds from Guangzhou, and crossed with local pigs to form Roman pigs, which played an important role in the breeding of famous pig breeds in the West. In the 38th year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1699), British merchants came to China, and also took Chinese pigs from Guangzhou to cross with British native pigs, and in the 18th century, they bred famous pigs such as Buckshire, Yorkshire and American Bozhong pigs and Chester White, all of which contain chinese pig blood.
Darwin wrote in On the Origin of Species: "Chinese painstakingly raised and managed pigs, which clearly exhibit the traits of a high degree of breeding, and which are of high value in improving our European pig breeds."
Given that pig farming is an agricultural industry, there is no need to elaborate on various agricultural proverbs about pig farming. To go deeper: for example, the religious meaning and mythological color of pigs in the primitive era, the Classic of Mountains and Seas says that "the east of quicksand, the west of black water... There is a kingdom of si yan". At the same time, zhuan xu's father is also a mythical figure with a mouth like a pig; in the novel, there are the eight precepts of the pig in the Journey to the West that we are most familiar with; in terms of text, there are many idioms about pigs, such as: Liaodong Baifeng, which describes people rarely and strangely. Another example is the pastoral listening to the scriptures, describing people studying hard, reading books while herding pigs. There is also the familiar story of Han Feizi, "Killing the Godson" and so on.
Sources
Baidu Encyclopedia
The journal "Pig Industry Today" 2021.01.15 edition
Journal of Sichuan University, 1978.2 edition
Journal of Hunan Agricultural University, September 1983
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