In 1593, the great thief: he risked his death to bring back a "vine" from abroad and saved hundreds of millions of Chinese
After all, if you can't be an official, you always have to live.
However, at that time, the Ming court was in turmoil, and it was impossible for many scholars to realize their dream of becoming an official through the imperial examination. Chen Zhenlong looked at such a situation, and no longer put his hope of saving Cangsheng on being an official.
We know that there are many foreign merchants trading at the Fujian coastal wharf, but when he saw this hot trade since he was a child: he found that the most foreign imports were our Chinese silk, tea, and porcelain.
Well, the mainland imports pearl gemstones.
The reason why he also embarked on this path under the introduction of a friend
He followed the merchant ship to the Philippines, scavenged everywhere for good and cheap things, and brought them back wholesale to earn a little difference. His business is doing well.
During the sea ban period, some people secretly went to the sea to do business, and many people made their fortunes because of this, so Fuzhou maritime merchants have always been very prosperous, so it was in this context that Chen Zhenlong became a maritime merchant.
After becoming a maritime merchant, Chen Zhenlong's family situation has also improved, not to say that he can't eat enough, but there are still many people, they have a very hard life, and eating enough is a problem.
During his time in the Philippines, he found that the fields were full of vines, and the leaves were green and very luxuriant, and when he saw local farmers digging up, the potatoes were very high. Raw potatoes can be eaten, and the leaves can be stir-fried.
So, after he was invited by the locals to try it, he tasted all the different tastes. Some are steamed, some are stir-fried, and some are stewed. After eating, it is quite hungry.
Whenever the sweet potato is ripe, every household wafts out the sweet taste of the sweet potato, and the people are full. A treasure.
However, unexpectedly, his hometown is suffering from a severe drought, which has reduced grain production, and many ordinary people are so hungry that they can only gnaw the bark of trees.
And he was very sad in his heart for the people in his hometown, when he was abroad and ate this sweet potato with relish: Can you bring this sweet potato back to plant?
It can also solve the problem of famine.
So, he spent money to curry favor with local villagers, helping them dig potatoes, and thus secretly tricked their cultivation techniques.
However, sweet potatoes were cultivated in Luzon by Spanish colonists, and they were so tightly controlled that no one was allowed to take them off the island.
Therefore, the Spaniards regarded it as a treasure at that time, and those found to be smuggled were punishable by death.
However, Chen Zhenlong felt the plight of the displaced people in China, and he couldn't bear it, and he also wanted to bring sweet potatoes back to China.
At first, he secretly put the two sweet potatoes he bought at the bottom of the food box, but before getting on the boat, he was found by the officers and soldiers, and Zhu Zhenlong broke out in a cold sweat.
He could only pretend that he didn't know not to bring it, and he said: I think it's delicious, I want to bring it to my family to taste! Because he was a first-time offender, he was only educated this time and confiscated the sweet potato.
Later, Chen Zhenlong thought left and right, and overheard that the breeding effect of sweet potato vine is better.
For the first time, Chen Zhenlong put the sweet potato vine in a pot, disguised as a potted plant, and blatantly passed through customs.
But the Spaniards didn't want to recognize it, but it was difficult not to be discovered, so they confiscated the sweet potato vine and criticized and educated Chen Zhenlong.
The second time, he prepared potato vines in advance and woven them into a bamboo basket, not only that, but he also pressed a bunch of other fruits and vegetables on it, so he worriedly carried the baggage on board
Inspector: Open the baggage, it needs to be inspected.
He gritted his teeth and forced himself to calmly give the burden to the inspectors
Unexpectedly, the inspectors turned the burden over in three strokes and five by two, and raw sweet potatoes were also discovered: What is this, who let you carry it?
Seeing this, Chen Zhenlong had to pretend to be stupid: Ah, what is this? I was old and dizzy.
However, he was beaten so hard that he almost lost his life, and he lay down for many days before getting out of bed, and later secretly said: Fortunately, he was not in prison.
Seeing that the day of returning to China was coming, Chen Zhenlong knew that there was not much time left for him, so he quietly spent a lot of money to find a sweet potato vine, and in order to attract people's eyes, Chen Zhenlong tied the vine man and the fiber rope of the merchant ship together, and then used mud as a shield.
This confuses Philippine inspectors.
He sailed back to China with the ship, and as soon as the ship left port, he immediately took out the sweet potato vine and kept it in the shade of the cabin, sprinkling it with water from time to time so that the potato vine would not dry up
After seven days and seven nights of sailing, Chen Zhenlong successfully arrived in Fuzhou. As soon as the boat landed, he didn't care about resting, took the rattan, and went straight to the old house without stopping.
Although he passed the first hurdle and successfully brought the potato vine back to his hometown, whether the potato vine can live is still a big problem, although he learned the local planting methods, but the local soil in Fuzhou and the Philippines still have certain differences, if he cannot live, then his previous efforts will be in vain.
So Chen Zhenlong carefully cared for this potato vine according to the planting method he learned before, and would visit and water regularly every day, and the effort paid off, after several months of careful care, this tenacious potato vine finally took root and germinated, and finally produced the same huge fruit as the Philippines, Chen Zhenlong was very happy.
Chen Zhenlong saw hope, he distributed sweet potatoes and sweet potato seedlings to the villagers, and under his guidance, the sweet potato seedlings planted by the villagers germinated and grew fruit, and the villagers were able to fill their stomachs.
A year later, Chen Zhenlong reported the sweet potatoes to the Fujian governor
It was also this year that Fuzhou encountered an unprecedented drought, the local grain harvest was reduced, and the people of Fuzhou suffered a great famine, at this time, Chen Zhenlong quickly asked his son to write to Jin Xuezeng, the governor of Fujian, telling him that growing sweet potatoes could solve the problem of famine among the local people.
At that time, Jin Xuezeng was troubled by this matter, and heard that sweet potatoes could save people from fire and water, so he immediately agreed to Chen Zhenlong's son's request and asked him to lead the locals to try planting.
Immediately Chen Zhenlong father and son taught the locals how to grow sweet potatoes, and after several months of trial planting, the locals got a bumper harvest, Fujian Governor Jin Xue was overjoyed when he heard the news, and immediately spread the planting method to every local place, thus solving the problem of food shortage for the Fujian people at that time.
From Chen Zhenlong's story, we can see that no matter when, seizing opportunities and following the trend are essential key elements for a successful person.
And as a young person who wants to succeed, you must first endure and withstand the test. If Chen Zhenlong had given up doing business at sea in the first three years before he allowed the sea ban, he would not have waited for the great era to come.
There is also Chen Zhenlong's heart for life, as well as his altruistic spirit. If not, then maybe he is still only at the stage of thinking about transporting sweet potato vines back to China. If it weren't, he wouldn't have promoted the sweet potato technique.
It is precisely because of this that his sweet potato business has become bigger and bigger, thus saving tens of thousands of people, so that it has been celebrated for hundreds of generations.
Looking back at history, Chinese civilization has been living endlessly for thousands of years without interruption. It is because in every age, when suffering is swept in, there are people who do the difficult but right thing, and they gently plant the seeds of civilization regardless of personal safety.
Perhaps everyone will scoff at this sweet potato problem, after all, in the 21st century, sweet potatoes are really not a rare thing, every family can eat sweet potatoes.
However, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, which was full of hunger, sweet potatoes did not know how many lives were saved.
Today, sweet potatoes are our most common crop, but also cheap food, in the famine years, it did not know how many lives were saved, and its contribution was no less than rice, wheat, sorghum, etc.
We often say that eating rice does not forget Yuan Longping, Lan Duo adds another sentence, and eating potatoes does not forget Chen Zhenlong.
If you calculate theoretically: bring back a vine, assuming that it is fifty centimeters long, the sweet potato vine can produce one bud every ten centimeters or so
When you plant it for the first time, you can't cut it, so you can theoretically produce five sweet potatoes. If the soil is fertile and loose per sweet potato, it theoretically produces 10 kilograms of sweet potatoes, and a total of 50 kilograms of sweet potatoes after four months.
In addition, Fujian has a hot climate, and in the third month, five sweet potatoes can theoretically cut a hundred pieces of sweet potato vine to plant cuttings. Then another four months, produce 1,000 catties of sweet potatoes, a total of seven months at this time.
Then, this thousand and 50 kilograms of sweet potatoes, calculated at 1 kilogram each, are all reserved for seed potatoes. Each sweet potato can produce about 20 seedlings, that is, more than 20,000 seedlings. 2,500 trees per acre of land can be planted about 10 acres, and these 10 acres, if you cut rattan cuttings, can be expanded to 400,000 plants.
So calculated, he brought back a vine, planted two seasons in the first year, made seeds, and sowed two more seasons in the second year! Theoretically, 400,000 catties of sweet potatoes are produced, don't underestimate the power of a vine.
In this regard, many netizens have heated discussions:
Netizen 1, think about it! Around 1978-82, before and after the reform and opening up, rural land in northern Jiangsu began to be planted in separate households, and the situation of insufficient food every year changed. But only potato has the most. Everyone uses dried potato flour to make cakes and porridge. A table full of potato, potato all table! We children, we have enough to eat. At 5-6 o'clock before dark, Hu friends lead the company, take the mountain dry cake, and go to see Shangganling. I remember that scene now.
Netizen two, don't say that in the past, grain seeds in every country are now forbidden to be brought out, but many Fujianese who work abroad have also taken all kinds of thinning seeds out to plant
Netizen three, take sweet potato Teng seedlings far back, Teng seedlings will wither and die, only bring sweet potatoes back and bury them in the soil to germinate and grow seedlings, and then cut Teng seedlings to plant, I have heard this story, sweet potato seedlings were brought back from foreign countries, it is said like this, at that time foreign countries were not allowed to smuggle out, but Chinese thought of a way, the mainland's taro is very good, foreigners do not, Chinese proposed to exchange taro seedlings and foreigners for sweet potato Teng seedlings back to the mainland for planting.
Netizen four, sweet potatoes are very productive plants, not only with usable cranberry tickets, but also can be used to cut sweet potatoes into multiple pieces to accelerate the speed of planting and reproduction, now sweet potatoes have white potatoes, purple potatoes, black potatoes, flower heart with a variety of varieties, are introduced from Southeast Asian countries 3, but Fujian Mr. Chen Zhenlong is indeed a pioneer recorded in the history of the factory, his deeds spirit will always be worthy of our descendants to remember and learn to inherit, eat potatoes do not forget Chen Zhenlong awesome worthy of praise biography.
Netizen five, he stole back is just a variety, now there are several varieties of sweet potatoes, so where did these different varieties come from?
Netizen 6, it was originally said that when he passed through the customs, he cut his calf belly, put the red moss knot, that is, the germinated part, inside, and bandaged it and passed the security check.
Netizen seven, not only him, but also Chen Yi and Lin Huailan have brought sweet potatoes back to China, but the three are different and bring them back, they can be said to be the father of sweet potatoes, you said above that Chen Zhenlong brought back sweet potatoes in 1593, and Lin Huailan has brought sweet potatoes back from Vietnam in 1582.
Netizen eight, thanks to the seniors, sweet potatoes are indeed easy to grow, and sweet, taste good, and all ages love to eat. When I came home from school as a child, I would take a sweet potato and eat it raw before the food was cooked, which is sweeter than the current potato chips and biscuits.
Netizen nine, the first time I saw the origin of sweet potatoes, I have eaten this since I was a child, sweet potatoes are rubbed into slices, dried in the sun, beaten into flour, and made into nests. Eat steamed buns until after 80 years, sweet potatoes used to be the staple food, eat it all year round, really commemorate the example of sweet potatoes can not be forgotten.
Netizen ten, at the beginning of the year, I bought a pound of purple sweet potatoes online and put it in the kitchen, forgot to cook it, and many shoots grew behind, and my mother saw it and took it back to her hometown. When I returned to my hometown on National Day, I found that my mother had planted sweet potatoes in the open space in front of the house.
Later, I heard her say that it was grown from purple sweet potatoes from my kitchen. To dig it, it is indeed purple sweet potato, and it is very productive. One seedling can dig out three or five kilograms of purple sweet potatoes.
Netizen eleven, a potato tengzhu has three leaves, the survival rate is very high, can be said to be 100%. After the sweet potato is produced, collect it, and when the sweet potato is buried in the ground next year to grow seedlings, a sweet potato can grow many vines, each vine can grow several meters. Then cut into one every three petioles, about ten centimeters. Beat into a field stalk, plant a tree every 30 centimeters or so, leave a leaf on the top to expose the ground, take root the next day, and sprout in a few days, which is very lively.