When Lu Xun flipped through the history books, he couldn't help but be surprised: "The years are hungry, people sell themselves as meat in the city, and they are endowed with three thousand husbands, and their husbands have broken their arms, and they are hanging in the market..."
This song "The Sorrow of the Vegetable Man" tells the story of a woman who does not want her husband and wife to starve to death together is to sell herself as a vegetable man, at that time, the price of this kind of vegetable man's meat was even cheaper than dog meat, why would a good person be put on the meat board in the vegetable market to sell? And is there really cannibalism in history?
The historical origin of the "vegetable man" phenomenon
In the 30s of the 20th century, a group of mainland archaeologists discovered the tombs of the Shang Kings with a history of more than 3,000 years on the banks of the Huan River, and also found more than 2,500 funerary tombs, with many white bones in the pits, and thought of the fate of slaves with low status at that time.
Next to the tomb of King Shang, there is a human sacrifice ground, if you compare it with the 800-meter playground, the area of this human sacrifice ground is twice as large, which is very spectacular. About 3,500 white bones were unearthed, some of them had their heads separated from their bodies in one place, some pits buried only skulls, some pits buried bodies other than skulls, skulls were women and men, most of them were no more than 20 years old, and young children.
During the sacrifices of the Shang Dynasty, the so-called animal killing ceremony was to worship people to the gods like pigs and dogs, and most of these people who were sacrificed were prisoners of war and slaves.
However, during the Western Zhou Dynasty, there was a situation similar to the "vegetable people", and the Zhou people at that time desperately wanted to erase this history, so it only appeared in the oracle bones. The script used by the Zhou people was created by merchants, and they did not create their own script in their own ethnic group, and the Zhou character in the oracle bone script is a combination of the words "use" and "mouth", in the eyes of merchants, the characteristic of the Zhou people is to pay the common population.
In ancient wars there was a phenomenon of cannibalism, when the war was fought, the army's food and grass would often be plundered, and the military food did not see that the soldiers had no food to eat, they had no strength to go to the battlefield, the late Sui and early Tang dynasties, the warlord Zhu Yu was a man-eating maniac, as a typical rogue-type warlord, his troops often had no fixed place to live, where it was convenient to set up camp, relying on robbing the surrounding villagers' food to fill their hunger, Zhu Yu ordered the soldiers to cook women and children to eat, and said: "The most delicious meat is people, as long as there are people in other countries, Do we still need to go hungry? ”
Of course, not only warlords, but also some officials have this phenomenon, during the Anshi Rebellion, the general Zhang Xun defended the capital city, there was no supply of food and grass, seeing that the soldiers were about to starve to death, in an extremely helpless situation, Zhang Xun killed his concubines to let the soldiers share the food, and there was already a situation in the city where the people "changed their sons and ate, dissected the remains and burned, and the people's hearts were in danger", Zhang Xun ordered that women be arrested first, and then children and old people, and the number of cannibalized people in the city reached 10,000 at that time. This "cannibalism" situation improved during the Wei and Jin dynasties, and whenever there was a famine, the phenomenon of cannibalism would return.
However, during the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a precedent of selling people, and in the Jingkang Rebellion, the price of rice began to rise, rising to tens of dollars of doumi, such a price at that time some rich families also gritted their teeth to buy, let alone the poor. In order to survive, there was a phenomenon of replacing grain with human flesh, and the price of a young and strong man was fifteen thousand dollars, not even as expensive as rice.
From these historical point of view, the phenomenon of vegetable people is not a coincidence, nor is it a whim, but it is only due to the evolution of history.
The emergence of "vegetable markets" during the Ming and Qing dynasties
During the Ming Dynasty, vegetable markets appeared that could openly buy and sell human flesh.
Gu Cheng, a master of Ming food, recorded in "The Peasant War at the End of the Ming Dynasty": "There are even people who have human flesh in the city, and the price per catty is six letters; Those who have marinated human flesh at home in case of emergency; It is mentioned here that human flesh can be bought in the city, and it is also the official appearance of "vegetable people". During this period, not only did the situation of "cannibalism" play out again, and the price of human flesh sold was lower than that of dog meat, but there were also people who took "human heart" and "toddler meat" as delicious in the second half, and people who marinated human flesh and put it at home, and people who put human flesh on charcoal fires to eat as barbecues.
As long as it is a person, it is possible to sell it in the market. Not all families have enough to eat and drink, and some families struggle to make ends meet, and "vegetable people" may be the best way for them to avoid hunger. On those carts, children tied by ropes lie on top and come to the place where the meat is sold to trade "vegetable people", and although there is all kinds of reluctance in the eyes of the parents, they are also forced to helpless moves. Still others do not want their children to starve to death and come to the market to voluntarily become "vegetable people".
These young girls who have been sold will also experience misery before they are killed, just like pigs, dogs and sheep, these "vegetable people" are no different from livestock, and the meat choppers will not have any pity for them. The young girl was dragged into the backyard slaughterhouse and tied to a bloody stake, and she didn't understand what to go through, and the chopping kitchen knife was pointed straight at her body, and she began to struggle with fear.
The record of "vegetable people" in "Notes on Reading Micro Caotang"
The helpers came up and ripped off the young girl's clothes and controlled her, only to see a click, and her arms fell off, and she screamed. Subsequently, the limbs and internal organs were all cleaned, and the butcher hung the limbs of the young girl on it in two or three strokes, this bloody scene is a picture that will be staged every day behind the market, the scene is unimaginable, and it can also show the horror of the society at that time. This is also the song "The Sorrow of the Vegetable Man": "The two brachials first break off the slaughterhouse, and Xu cuts the strands and holds them as soup." "A true portrayal.
Later, in the southern Anhui region during the Qing Dynasty, there were markets for selling human flesh everywhere, and the price of human flesh also began to rise, selling to the price of 30 wen a catty, and even later it even increased to a high amount of 120 wen 1 catty.
The people who are eaten are also divided into grades, the meat is delicious, the bones rot after stewing, the meat tastes like soup, this is the finest human flesh, generally from young children, this kind of human flesh is sold at a higher price, known as "wrapped". Men's meat needs to be stewed for a long time to bite, and at that time men were basically thin without food, meat was not very tasty but also survived the past, this kind of meat is called "burning fire", if the meat quality is better than lamb, the taste is excellent, this is women's meat, also known as "two-legged sheep".
Of course, in that society, the primary target of "vegetable people" is still women and children, and men rarely appear in the market. The reason for this phenomenon, in addition to the difference in taste, there is also a rumor that "women's meat is more nutritious" spread in society, and "vegetable people" originally referred to women, which can be sold like vegetables, and over time, some stores saw the way to make money, caught many women for cultivation, let them eat well, observed their meat quality after a period of time, and killed them when they were fat, and sold them. Many families lock their daughters in their houses to prevent them from being taken away.
Famine cannibalism continues to occur
Not only were people put in the vegetable market for sale, but there were also quite a lot of cannibalism in the Ming and Qing dynasties, but compared with the cannibalistic counties and districts that appeared in the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty was more than half less than the Ming Dynasty. Of course, the phenomenon of cannibalism is also forced to helplessly in the absence of food, and there are especially many cannibalism in the north in terms of regional distribution, roughly because the north has suffered from famine all year round and is affected by war, and the south and border areas are relatively few.
In the twenty-first year of Wanli, Henan suffered a huge flood, and a large-scale famine appeared, and the first eleven pictures of the starving people: floating all over the road, killing a two-year-old girl, thieves night fire, children and mothers drowning houses, hungry people fleeing the famine, husbands chasing after their wives, selling their children for life, abandoning their sons to escape, people eating grass and trees, hanging their whole families, scraping human flesh. The killing of two-year-old girls and scraping cannibalism are portrayals of the time.
The author feels
The experience of "vegetable people" is a tragic existence in history, what they have experienced we can not imagine, we should cherish today's good life, compared to the experience of "vegetable people", we want to be happy too much, now hunger has left us, but the history of cannibalism we can not ignore, and animals kill each other, human actions are the real horror.